The Immateriality of the Intentional as Such
by John N. Deely
Appeared in The New Scholasticism 42 (Spring 1968): 293-306.
Ever since Husserl, the term "intentionality" has taken on the character of an increasingly key focus for contemporary philosophical reflection. It of course has designated from the first a central theme for phenomenological philosophy and existential analysis; but the notion has also been taken over outside that tradition, and employed in thematic contexts by such Anglo-Saxon thinkers as Popper, Price, and Chisholm.
In all these cases, however, the basic sense accorded the term "intentionality" has been that established by Franz Brentano (1838-1917). On this score, the recent appearance of Mortimer J. Adler's extraordinary and masterful study of The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967) provides a striking example of how far historical issues can serve in providing often essential rectifications of perspective in the discussion of philosophical questions. It is in this context that several notations on the contemporary discussion of esse intentionale seem called for on the basis of Adler's book.1
The first point to be made is a historical and terminological one: "It is peculiar to see E. Husserl and many critics who write about the phenomenological movement, paying honor to Brentano for the discovery of intentionality;"2 peculiar, "for I would have supposed that it is a matter of common knowledge that Brentano was reared in the tradition of scholastic philosophy and that his doctrine of the intentionality of mental acts goes back through Aquinas to Aristotle, where it originated."3
The second point to be made is a doctrinal one: Brentano did not grasp either the scope or the underlying sense of the scholastic teaching on esse intentionale, and (what is less excusable), "knowing only Brentano's incorrect statement of the doctrine of intentionality, his contemporary followers repeat his mistake," which lay essentially in failing to distinguish levels or radical grades of intentional existence.4 The net effect of this misunderstanding the proper life of the intellect as such and confusing it with the life of sense has been that the very notion of intentionality, in passing from the hands of the great scholastics via Brentano into the circle of contemporary discussions, has been largely stripped of its effectiveness and value.5 "So far as I can judge from my own fairly extensive reading of the contemporary literature on this subject," Adler summarizes, the argument of Aristotle and Aquinas which enables them to avoid this misunderstanding "is totally unknown."6
Apart from Adler's customarily thorough documentation of this negative point, the extent of contemporary ignorance of the authentic scholastic teaching concerning the order of esse intentionale can be illustrated in a positive way.
The meaning of intentionality in contemporary discussions has so far not at all been the sense given the term in its original signification. What better illustration of this situation could one have than the almost violent rejection of any attempt to interpret his thought on the primary basis of intentionality evinced by that contemporary philosopher who is least understood (though perhaps most commented upon) and has precisely the most direct grasp of that dimension of the given for which the term esse intentionale in its original signification was exactly fashioned to structurally outline -- who, in fact, thematizes nothing besides? I mean of course Martin Heidegger, whose entire philosophy ("Denken des Seins") amounts to the thematization within phenomenological perspectives of the ens of esse intentionale in its original sense. I have undertaken to establish this thesis elsewhere;7 here, I am concerned only with its illustrative value.
Thus the appearance of Adler's study gives occasion for underscoring several remarks which are crucial for the contemporary status quaestionis concerning the sense and explicative value that ought to be accorded to the term "intentionality." On the one hand, we must say that while the proper character of esse intentionale as pure medium quo -- rather than either terminus a quo (subject knowing) or ad quem (subject known) of experiences ("awareness" in the broadest sense) -- has generally remained unthematized even within Thomistic scholasticism, at least it has always been acknowledged there.8 Outside that tradition, on the other hand, either the distinction between the orders of esse intentionale and esse entitativum as mutually irreducible has remained entirely unnoticed, or at best blurred and only feebly seized upon as an explanatory factor.9 Significantly enough, Adler traces a basic distortion in the original sense of esse intentionale to the very source which Husserl commends as a best introduction to Phenomenology, namely, the English philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries;10 and in particular to John Locke!11
For the documentation of all these points we owe Dr. Adler no small debt; and it is probably not far wrong to conjecture that his work in this regard marks a turning point in the contemporary discussions over the proper value for knowledge and truth that may be accorded to the notion of intentionality.
As the saying goes, however "even Homer nods." When all allowance has been made for the fact that the notion of esse intentionale marks only one of the many insights which are orchestrated by Adler in developing the central theme of his book, one still cannot take quite at face value his formulation of the authentically classical teaching concerning esse intentionale. It must be pointed out that while Adler's presentation of the disitinction basic to the recognition of the proper character of the intentional order, that between quod and quo of knowledge12 or experiences generally, is faithful to the Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrines he is concerned with so far as he is concerned with them, yet from the point of view of terminology his exposition is not altogether felicitous.
It is incorrect to state, as Adler does, that Aristotle and Aquinas "do not try to establish the immateriality of the intentional as such, but only the immateriality of intentionality which is to be found in the mental acts of conception, judgment, and inference."13 To speak exactly on this point, St. Thomas sketches the nature and extent of the intentional order as such precisely on the basis of immateriality -- as the following text manifests:
Living beings have a twofold existence. One obviously which is material, in which they are like other material things; but also another which is immaterial, in which they have a certain sharing with non-material, i.e., spiritual, things. There is a real difference between these two kinds of existence: for by material existence, which is restricted or limited by matter, any given thing is itself alone -- as this rock is nothing other than this rock; whereas by immaterial existence, which is fuller, and in a certain manner infinite (unlimited inasmuch as it is not terminated by matter, a thing is not only that which it is, but other things as well. . . . Among animate beings moreover there are two grades in this immaterial existence. For one level is immaterial simply speaking, as in intellectual experiences; whereas at the sensible level experiences are intermediate between material and intelligible existence (since in sensation a thing has existence without matter, but not without the individuating conditions resulting from matter, nor without the cooperation of a bodily organ). And it is in reference to these two grades of immateriality that Aristotle says that the soul is in a certain way all things.14
Thus Yves Simon is able to say that "there is a radical ontological difference and absolute irreducibility between esse intentionale and esse entitivum," for the simple reason that in every case, whether it be one of intellectual knowledge or one of purely sensual awareness, if it is really knowledge that we would seek to understand in its own inner nature, we must acknowledge that "between becoming other and becoming the other there is the difference between a yes and a no" -- that is, a difference which admits of no intermediates.15
Indeed, on Adler's accounting, it would become entirely impossible to give a coherent sense to the classical theses that "radix cognitionis est immaterialitas"16 and "gradus cognitionis sunt gradus immaterialitatis."17 It would have been considerably more accurate, from a purely textual and historical standpoint (to say nothing for a moment of a philosophical one), had Adler stated that not only are the intentionality of perceptual actuations and the intentionality of conceptual actuations analogical and not univoeal, in the doctrines of Aristotle and Aquinas (as he does point out on p. 216), but also that there is an immateriality which is proper to both these levels precisely as intentional, which immateriality is likewise -- for Aristotle and Aquinas -- analogical and not univocal
The point is neatly clarified by Simon:
When we say that the form of the being [whieh is] known exists immaterially in the one knowing, it is necessary to understand that the former maintains a relation with the latter which is of another kind than the relation the form of a composite maintains with its matter; and sueh a state of affairs would be possible only on the supposition of emancipation from matter purely with respect to the conditions which matter imposes on form when form is educed from matter in order to establish a natural existent. That is what is signified by the term "immaterial existence," and nothing besides. Aecordingly, one must take care lest the term be misunderstood either through excess or defect: through excess, because the objeets of sensorv awareness retain, save in the precise sense just set forth, the formal conditions which result from materiality (although communicable, the sensible form existing in awareness remains the actuality of a material object, individual and space-time determined),18 through defect, because in a world of pure spirits there would still be a place for the distinction between the physical existence of a thing in itself and its existence in knowledge.19 To obviate these misunderstandings it is advisable to employ the term intentional existence, a term fashioned by seholasticism to capture an insight of Aristotle.20
In short, Adler's sense of the term "immaterial" is not that of Aristotle and Aquinas simply, but only in a certain respect, only as they apply it to the second level or mode of immateriality for which Thomas preferred the restrictive term "spiritual," while rendering the sense of his usage of the term "immaterial" non-restrictive in this respect -- and in fact co-extensive with his use of the term "intentional." Thus dealing with this question of terminology in another place, I took care to say: "This altogether and irreducibly unique order of things was called by St. Thomas the intentional order, the sphere of esse intentionale, sometimes esse immateriale or (less properly) esse spirituale."21
Moreover, in using the term "immateriality" to designate both the proper reality, of (conceptual) thought (intentionale) and the kind of actuality proper to the intellect as the faculty or power of conceptual thought (entitativum), Adler runs the risk of confusing not only the sub-distinction which lies at the heart of the intentional order (which order is as such immaterial throughout) between the immateriality of perceptual and that of conceptual awareness, but also the parallel sub-distinction within the entitative order (which order is as such physical [note: physical, not material]22 throughout) between the material and the spiritual -- which last distinetion already suffers sufficiently widespread and diverse wrong-headed interpretations as to justify concern over a least addition to the mountain of misapprehensions! Still, if one keeps these points clear, he will find that Adler has certainly presented, if not a satisfactory exegesis of the traditional sense of esse intentionale, one of the clearest accounts yet of the entitative aspect implicated in all finite awareness.23
What is necessarily implied in this case remains nonetheless subordinate to what is primary and formal: thus the fact that, for example, "the mode of existence of the actual thing that is known is material, whereas the mode of existence whereby it is known in its universal aspects is immaterial"24 (i.e., intentional in St. Thomas' second sense, or entitatively spiritual), which would appear to violate "the principle of similitude between quo and quod,"25 raises a difficulty which "is resolved, so far as it can be resolved," not, as Adler would have it, "by the distinction . . . between the potential and the actual existence of the universal" primarily,26 but rather primarily by the distinction between the thing as it exists in its own right and the kind of existence which supervenes upon the thing in order that it be knowable,27 by the distinction between one and the same thing existing in the first case secundum esse entitativum and in the second case secundum esse intentionale:
Thus the notion of esse intentionale -- and we believe it would be impossible to insist on this point too strongly -- answers in the first place not to a problem of essence or of nature, but to a problem of existence. The thing known exists in the soul of the one who knows it, but it exists there in a manner other than in its metalogical28 reality [and other too than as an accidental modification of the soul of the one knowing]:29 we designate as "intentional" the existential modality which it takes on for awareness. It is only in a secondary manner that one can speak of an "intentional form" (here the adjective "intentional" designates a quod) or of "intentional being" while attributing to the word "being" the signification of an essence. And moreover one must never forget that that which is secondary is intelligible only in function of that which is primary: to treat of intentional forms without bearing constantly in mind the idea of an intentional mode of existence [a function of the immateriality, imperfect for sense, absolute for intellect, of the cognitive faculties], is to attempt to conceive of poteney apart from its relation to act.30
Hence, Adler's observation that "since, unlike concepts, perceptual abstractions do not have an intentionality that is universal in character, immateriality need not be attributed to the power of which they are acts,"31 would be formulated more exactly if the term "spirituality" in its technical, traditional sense were substituted for the term "immateriality," for that is what is meant here. Similarly, the statement, "it is only an intentionality that is universal in character and that is characteristic of conceptual acts, but not of perceptual acts, which warrants attributing immateriality to a cognitive power,"32 would gain in exactness if the same substitution were again made. Otherwise, the distinction between esse intentionale and esse entitativum seu naturae stands in danger of losing its force; and it becomes impossible to understand how the dimension of esse intentionale, "except in the case where the esse naturae is transubjectivity through itself,"33 "constitutes unto itself alone a whole metaphysical order apart, wherein meet in common both the distinction between essential form and existence in the line of being and the distinction between operative form and the operation in the line of action -- now transposed on to one and the same line, the line of knowing."34
Of course, I am quibbling over terms here; but it is no mere quibble which is at stake. Let me add a final point as to why I think this is so. Adler sets his presentation of the traditional (Aristotelian-Thomistic) or "classical" doctrine of intentionality against the backdrop of the problem of the key difference of man relative to all other things on earth, and introduces this doctrine as the framework for direct argumentation that man differs in kind, strictly and radically understood, from all other things.35 He goes on to say that "it is philosophically possible to withhold assent from the conclusion even when the argument is understood in its own terms."36 Moreover, he expects "agreement on this point" from anyone who understands "both sides of the dispute well."37 And he seems to think that those scholastics who would take exception with him on this point show themselves ipso facto to be dogmatic rather than reasonable "in their espousal of" their position.38
From the references Adler makes to Jacques Maritain's writings both in this and in other of his books, it seems unlikely that Adler would be ready to classify Maritain as a dogmatic rather than a reasonable exponent of Thomistic scholasticism (although of course I am here perforce conjecturing). In fact, at one point in The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (fn. 8, p. 320) Adler expressly states that he has adapted the distinction between the quod and quo of knowledge, the key distinction for applying the scholastic concept of esse intentionale to the problem of the nature of the uniqueness of man, on the basis of an exposition of the sense of this distinction made by Maritain (specifically, the exposition found in Appendix I to The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 387-417). Yet it is certainly the position of Maritain that "wherever it is a matter of a knowing being other than God . . . we are forced, if we would conceive of knowledge without absurdity, to introduce the notion . . . which the ancients called esse intentionale"39 and that this notion, far from being "an explanatory factor already known and clarified by some other means," is on the contrary an abutment "upon which an analysis of the given leans for support, the reality of which the mind, by that very analysis, is compelled to recognize -- with certainty, if the analysis itself has proceeded correctly and under the constant pressure of intelligible necessities."40
My point is not that Adler ought on his own accounting to consider Maritain a dogmatic rather than a reasonable philosopher -- for all I know, he may do just that. No more do I intend to try to divide these two thinkers in terms of the knotty problem of certitudes in human thought -- at least not in terms of that problem as such. My point is that in view of the necessary qualifications indicated throughout this essay which must be made on Adler's presentation of the Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrine of intentionality -- all of which, besides being historically and textually demanded, hinge upon the recognition that the intentional as such is immaterial, and all of which can be found at one place or another in Maritain's works as well as in those of Thomas -- there may be a formal connection between Adler's tendency to treat man's "intentional life" in terms of its entitative implications rather than "according to the exigencies of an analysis that respects the proper nature of knowledge"41 and his position that it is philosophically possible to withhold assent from the conclusion which the notion of esse intentionale ineluctably implies relative to the essential uniqueness of man. If that is so, then the difference between Maritain's analysis "by which the mind is compelled to assent with certainty" and Adler's analysis "from which it is possible to withhold assent" may be reflective not so much of an ascendancy of dogmatism over reasonableness as a triumph of philosophical insight over dialectical assessment.42 For my part, I suspect this to be the case.
St. Thomas University,
Fredericton, N. B., Canada.
Notes:
1 Two sections from this book have already appeared as articles in The New Scholasticism, one under the title, "Intentionality and Immateriality," pp. 312-344 of the Summer, 1967 issue of Vol. XLI (corresponding to pp. 198-200 and 203-226 of the book, The Difference of Man); and the second as a discussion paper headed "The Immateriality of Conceptual Thought," pp. 489-497 of the Autumn, 1967 issue of Vol. XLI (corresponding to fn. 41, pp. 340-347 of the book). I will confine my page references to the book itself, although most of the material which focusses the present essay is to be found in these two articles.
2 Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. from the 4th French ed. under the supervision of Gerald Phelan (New York, 1969), p. 103, fn. 1. Hereafter referred to as DK.
3 Adler, p. 215.
4 See Adler, pp. 214-15.
5 Adler, p. 216. Cf. DK, pp. 101-7.
6 Adler, p. 220. The example of Herbert Spiegelberg gives striking testimony in support of this statement, a testimony the more important as it comes from a careful survey of the historical origins and development of phenomenological philosophy. In his study, The Phenomenological Movement, Vol. I, p. 40, fn. 2, Spiegelberg gives a brief presentation of the sense of intentionality according to the usage, supposedly, of St. Thomas Aquinas. It is unfortunate but perhaps inevitable that in such an encompassing work of scholarship occasional caricatures will occur. They cannot for that reason be let pass, the less so the more fundamental they are. It must be said that the presentation of St. Thomas' usage by Spiegelberg bears no readily recognizable relation to St. Thomas' actual usage. Many of the pertinent texts from St. Thomas' works which treat of this matter have been gathered together by Jacques Maritain in the first Appendix to The Degrees of Knowledge, "The Concept," p. 387-417. A careful reading even of these selected texts renders inadmissable Spiegelberg's characterization of the scholastic intentionale as "a kind of distillate from the world outside;" or his statement that secunda intentio refers "to logical categories;" or his claim that, as regards the various kinds of intentio distinguished by Aquinas, "Never is there any suggestion of a reference to an object as the distinguishing characteristic of these 'intentions'" (in fact, within Thomistic scholasticism, esse cognitum seu objectivum is the very name given to esse intentionale insofar as it constitutes an element of explicit consciousness existing by and for thought, or the "existence of the signified reduplicative ut sic;" cf. DK, fn. 1, p. 123); and even his claim that the notion of an "intentional relation" has "no standing among the genuine Scholastics." In short, every point mentioned in his footnote is eccentric -- literally "off center." It is regrettable that Professor Spiegelberg should have chosen, even indeliberately, the easy method of historical distortion in order to bring out Brentano's originality in appropriating the term "intentional;" but in an article seeking to assess some essential clarifications which need to be introduced into the contemporary discussion as to the sense to be accorded "intentionality," and in view of the importance of Professor Spiegelberg's overall contribution to this very dialogue, it is necessary to call attention to the fact that that is exactly what has happened here.
7 See John N. Deely, "The Situation of Heidegger in the Tradition of Christian Philosophy," The Thomist, XXI (April, 1967), 119-244. (Hereafter abbreviated to "The Situation of Heidegger . . .").
8 Compare my observations in "The Situation of Heidegger . . ." 204-6, with Adler's observations at the opening and closing of sec. 7 of ch. 12 in his book, pp. 216 and 220, respectively, and in fn. 10, pp. 327-31.
9 Compare especially Maritain's comments from DK, pp. 103-4 (as cited in fn. 80, 191-92 of "The Situation of Heidegger . . .") with my comments on Spiegelberg's fraudulent presentation (in The Phenomenological Movement, Vol. I, p. 40, fn. 2) of the sense of intentionality according to the usage of St. Thomas in "The Situation of Heidegger . . ." 194-95, and with Adler's comments on the distorted sense of intentionality introduced into contemporary thought by Brentano, in sec. 6 of ch. 12 of Adler's book, pp. 210-16, esp., pp. 214-16.
10 Cf. Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, 2nd ed. (The Hague, 1965), Vol. I, pp. 92-3.
11 See Adler, fn. 8, pp. 320-21; pp. 185-86; fn. 10, pp. 327-31; fn. 11, pp. 331-32; and fn. 12, pp. 332-33.
12 See Adler, fn. 8, pp. 320-21; fn. 10, pp. 327-31; fn. 11, pp. 331-32; and esp. fn. 41, pp. 340-47.
13 Adler, pp. 216-17
14 Thomas Aquinas, In II De Anima, 5, nn 282-84. As Maritain has well said, "it is the privilege of the human intelligence to understand other languages than the one it itself uses" (On the Use of Philosophy [New York, 1965]), p. 34. To appreciate the true state of contemporary thought about this problem of esse intentionale as the altogether negative or immaterial dimension constitutive of the prior possibility of all thought and experience at any level, rather than simply judge on the basis of overt discussion around an identified word, such texts as this one from the Aristotelian-Thomistie tradition ought to be read in view of or in tandem with many key passages from Heidegger's writings -- e.g., Sein und Zeit, 8th ed. (Tübingen, 1963), p. 55. See "The Situation of Heidegger . . ." fn. 102, 202-3. Cf. also Yves Simon, Introduction a l'ontologie du connaitre (Paris, 1934), pp. 134-56.
15 Simon, op. cit., pp. 141-42. Cf. DK, "Concerning Knowledge Itself," pp. 111-35 .
16 ". . . sumendo radicem non stricte pro eo, ex quo proprie profluit cognitio, sed pro constitutivo formali cognitionis et gradus cognoscitivi." J. Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae (Freiburg, 1961), Vol. I, p. 384.
17 Ibid., pp. 385-86. For a summary statement of these classical theses, see pp. 383-91. For further references on these, consult Gredt's bibliography on p. 389.
18 Cf. St. Thomas, In II De Anima, 5, n. 284.
19 Simon notes (op. cit., p. 17, fn. 2) that John of St. Thomas (in Cursus Theologicus, disp. 16, a. 1) "signale qu'il y a reception materielle non seulement dans le mode des corps, mais encore chez les esprits 'sicut patet quod substantia animae recipit potentias, et potentiae recipiunt habitus in eodem genere causae materialis et receptivae quo res corporae recipiunt sua accidentia et suas formas. [Summa Theol.,] I, q. 56, a. 2 ad 3, Utrum unus angelus alium cognoscat: Unus angelus cognoscit alium per speciem ejus in intellectu suo existentem, quae differt ab alio angelo, cujus similtudo est, non secundum esse materiale et immateriale, sed secundum esse naturale et intentionale,'" (this time, obviously, in the sense of "spirituale").
20 Yves Simon, Introduction a l'ontologie dx connartre, p. 17.
21 "The Situation of Heidegger . . .," 194.
22 See "The Situation of Heidegger . . ." fn. 104, 204-206, and the references therein. The basic point is that both material and spiritual realities have an entitative dimension, and in that respect possess an individuated or "subjective" existence.
23 Cf. esp. part 1 of fn. 41, pp. 341-3.
24 Adler, p. 347.
25 "If the quod and the quo of knowing are not identical, which means that they are two distinct entities . . . so far as I can see, the only explanation of the efficacy of the quo as somehow a cause of our knowing that which we know, lies in its somehow having a similitude to the quod -- that which is known. This can be tested by a reductio ad absurdum." (Adler, p. 342.)
26 Adler, p. 347. It is strange to hear Adler say in the very chapter in which he raises this distinction that "within the framework of Aristotelian metaphysics and psychology, there can be no mind-body problem" (p. 218; my emphasis), although he is certainly correct in observing with Professor Matson that there is no room within the context of Aristotelian philosophy for a mmd-body problem such as has been formulated in Cartesian and post-Cartesian philosophy down to the present day, since the ancient Greeks in general, and especially Aristotle, drew the line between mind and body (when they drew it in an existential sense at all) "so as to put the processes of sense perception on the body side" (W. I. Matson, "Why: Isn't the Mind-Body Problem Ancient?" in Mind, Matter and Method, ed. by P. K. Feyerabend and G. Maxwell [Minneapolis, 1966], p. 101, as cited by Adler on p. 217). For with equal certainty, there is a mind-body problem that arises at the very heart of Aristotelian psychology and metaphysics, the celebrated problem of the nous poietikos of Aristotle or intellectus agens of Latin Aristotelianism (a problem, in fact, which has been underscored anew by Heidegger's interpretation of Kant; see "The Situation of Heidegger . . ." 194-222, esp. 206-16); and this problem arises at the very time when the distinction between the potential and the actual existence of the universal is recognized. It is not the post-Cartesian formulation of the so-called "mind-body" problem, but it is for all that a formulation sufficiently basic so that it is possible to recognize a threefold split extending across the entire history of ideas and centered on the very distinction in question from which in effect the problem takes rise (cf. J. Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, trans. E. I. Watkin, [New York, 1962], pp. 111 and 119-25). Indeed, if there were "no mind-body problem within the framework of Aristotelian psychology and metaphysies," the entire tradition of the Arab commentators on Aristotle -- to say nothing of the plight of Cajetan in this area (cf. A. Maurer, Medieval Philosophy [New York, 1962], pp. 350-51, and 179-80, 338 ff.) -- would make no sense.
Yet when all this has been said, the basic framework of Adler's dialectical assessment is a sound one: "the comparative question about how man differs from everything else on earth underlies the traditional philosophical and theological forms of the question about man," in the sense that "to know man's quiddity, to define human nature or to understand its essence, and even to speculate about man's identity -- who he is -- presupposes that one knows and understands how man differs from everything else" (p. 12). Accordingly, "even though Aristotle and Aquinas, and everyone else who shares their view, offer a direct argument for a conclusion they regard as demonstrable, not self-evident, they would have no hesitation in employing . . . indirect argument . . . for the purpose of persuading those who might not be persuaded by the argument" (p. 231). For an example of this, structured quite differentlv from Adler's presentation cf. John N. Deely, "The Emergence of Man: An Inquiry into the Operation of Natural Selection in the Making of Man," The New Scholasticism, XL, (April, 1966), 141-76.
27 Cf. Maritain, DK, p. 86; Simon, op. cit., pp. 134-56.
28 For the reasons behind this translation of "extramentale" as "metalogical" rather than simply as "extramental," I refer the reader to my article, " Finitude, Negativity, and Transcendence: The Problematic of Metaphysical Knowledge," Philosophy Today, XI (Fall, 1967), fn. 26, 202-3. The sense of the term "metalogical" is here the one set forth by Maritain in DK, pp. 9l-2.
29 Let us put the matter plainly. The kind of existence which defines not only the possibility of thought and knowledge but their actuality as well, die Sache des Denkens, for St. Thomas, is esse intentionale, that order of reality wherein subject and 'objeet' are united in a single, supra-subjective mode of existing, in an actus perfecti which is precisely other than the actuality either of the subject known or of the subject knowing, or of the accidents of either -- even other than the mind (anima, intellectus, etc. ) of the subject (actually or possibly) knowing. The subject-object dichotomy is transcended precisely in the order of esse intentionale, where it at once disappears in order to become derivatively (analytically) possible. See "The Situation of Heidegger . . ." 194-204. St. Thomas puts the matter more plainly still in Quodl., VII, 4.
30 Simon, Introduction a l'ontologie du connaitre, pp. 19-20.
31 Adler, p. 226; my emphasis.
32 Ibid., my emphasis.
33 &Hormis le cas ou l'exister de nature est transubjectivite par soi." (Simon, op. cit., fn. 1, p. 1-41; Cf. DK, p. 114.)
34 Maritain, DK, p. 117. The same point is made, to mention a few authors, by St. Thomas, In II De Aaima, 5, nn. 282-84; Averroes, In III De Anima) t. 2, 5 (Venice, 1483); Cajetan, In Summa Theol., I, 55, 3, and De Anima, III, 4, 8, 237a; and is the very theme of Simon's classic Introduction a l'ontologie du connaitre.
35 See pp. 216 and 268, inter alia.
36 P. 228; my emphasis.
37 P. 230.
38 P. 250.
39 DK, p. 114; my emphasis.
40 DK, pp 115-16; my emphasis.
41 Cf. DK, p. 120. In fact, just because Adler's analysis is placed throughout in terms of the entitative order, his remark in fn. 33 p. 339 is the more puzzling. Of the three distinct arguments advanced in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition for attributing immateriality (lege: "spirituality") to the intellect, says Adler, "the argument that I regard as fallacious is the one concerning contraries; namely, that contrary qualities are never co-present in sensation or perception, and cannot be, because sensation and perception are bodily acts, and matter does not admit of the simultaneous presence of contraries; whereas contraries are sometimes co-present in our intellectual apprehensions ( see Aquinas, Summa Theol., I, 76, 6). Even if this were true," Adler contends, "it would not establish the immateriality of the intellect; for a number is, as such, an immaterial entity, and it does not admit of simultaneous contraries: an integer cannot be both odd and even."
But, as Adler himself points out (p. 224), an objection "can hardly invalidate an argument that it ignores." Such seems to be the case here. The argument of Aquinas is not that all non-material entities admit simultaneous presence of contraries, nor even that spiritual entities qua spiritual do so, but simply that no material entity does so. The argument does not attempt to conclude that the inadmissibility in a given entity (such as Adler's number) of the simultaneous presence of contraries, proves that entity to be material but simply that if there is any entity which does admit of a co-presence of contraries, that entity in that respect is certainty not material. To show that there are non-material entities which as such do not admit of contraries has no bearing on this conclusion, which modestly asserts that in any case where an entity does admit of the simultaneous presence of contraries, we can conclude to a non-material nature. In brief, Adler's objection would be ad rem only if Aristotle and Aquinas tried to argue that all spiritual realities qua spiritual admitted of the simultaneous presence of contraries, but it does not seem to touch the conclusion actually argued for.
42 Adler presents the whole of his book as "a dialectically objective assessment," by which he means "one that fairly examines a conflict of opinions without taking sides" (p. 47). This is a stand not without connections with the point I am considering. If on the one hand, Adler sets himself up in treating with the problem of esse intentionale as a dialectician and no more, Maritain, on the other hand, professes to deal with the same problem qua philosopher. Concerning the relation between dialectics and philosophy, however, if the account given by Aquinas (In IV Meta., 4, nn. 573-4 and 576-7) is at all correct, one would have to say that the dialectician is more than justified in presenting an "objective assessment" of the state of research on any question; but whether he would also be justified in impugning on that basis a claim to certainty put forward by an analysis whose terms cut deeper -- in the nature of the case -- than those of dialectics is another question again.
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