Brother Benignus: The Nature of Knowledge

4. Form and Knower. St. Thomas makes an equation not only between knowability and form but also between the power to know and form. When I know a thing, I have in some manner become that thing; that is, I have received its form. We have already become acquainted in preceding chapters with what it means for matter to receive a form. When some matter receives a substantial form, it becomes physically the substance determined by that form; thus, the food which I eat becomes my flesh. When some matter receives an accidental form, it is physically altered to that accidental determination; for example, it becomes hot or red or square. But my mind does not turn to flesh when I know what flesh is, nor does it become flat I know what a plane is. Therefore, it must be concluded that it is not the matter in me that assumes the forms of the things which I know. In other words, I do not, in knowing things, assume their forms in my capacity of a composite substance; if I did I would literally turn into the things which I know. I receive these forms into my form as such, and consequently the modification wrought in me is not material. (8) From this St. Thomas concludes that only those beings whose forms are to some degree free from their matter are capable of having knowledge. “Free from matter” does not here mean separated from matter; certainly substantial forms (i.e., the souls) of animals are inseparable from matter and yet animals have a certain degree of knowledge. Their soul may be said to be free from matter in the sense that although it can never exist or operate except in and through their body, yet its whole energy is not limited to or used up in forming and animating their own body but reaches also to the reception of the forms of other bodies in an immaterial way. Thus a kitten first possesses in itself cognitively and immaterially the milk which it is about to add to itself materially; the milk is part of the kitten’s life in two distinct way, but one of these ways, the cognitive way, is purely formal. The milk, on the contrary, can never contain the kitten formally but only materially, the form of the milk is to no degree free from matter, and consequently the milk cannot receive any purely formal determination by which it becomes something else while yet remaining itself; therefore it is incapable of knowledge. (9) 

“Knowing beings are distinguished from non-knowing beings,” wrote St. Thomas, (10) “in that the latter possess only their own form, while knowing being is by nature capable of having also the form of another thing.” And by receiving the forms of other things knowing beings become those things without ceasing to be themselves.

“In beings which have knowledge, each is so determined to its own natural being by its own natural form that it is nevertheless capable of receiving of all intelligible things. And so the human soul, in a certain manner, becomes everything through sense and intellect.” (11)

5. Form and Intelligibility. Intelligibility means capacity to be understood or to be an idea. It is St. Thomas’ teaching that forms are themselves intelligible; that is to say, they are ideas, either potential ideas, when they are immersed in matter, or actual ideas, when they are free from matter. The form in anything is its idea, and this form, in the mind, makes the thing known to the mind.

“What is called idea in Greek is called forma in Latin. Whence by ideas we understand the forms of certain things existing apart from the things. Now the form of a thing existing apart from the thing can have a twofold being: it may either be the exemplar of that of which it is called the form, or it may be the principle by which the thing is known, for which reason the forms of things known are said to be in the one knowing.” (12)

When a form is not actually intelligible, this is not due to anything in itself as form, but to its mode of existence in matter. Every form existing free from matter is actually intelligible, that is to say, is an actual idea.

6. Form and Intelligence. St. Thomas goes further than this. He not only equates form with intelligibility, but also with intelligence. Every form subsisting in itself apart from matter is an actual intelligence. How far the Angelic Doctor goes in identifying form with intelligibility and intelligence is made clear by the following passages:

“Just as matter is the principle of particularity, so is intelligibility due to form. For this reason form is the principle of knowledge. Wherefore, it follows necessarily that every forM existing in itself apart from matter is intellectual in nature; and if, indeed, it subsists in itself, it will also be an intelligence. If, on the other hand, it is not subsistent but rather a perfection of some subsistent being, it will not be an intelligence, but a principle of understanding.” (13)

“If there were a box subsisting in itself without matter, it would understand itself; because immunity from matter is the cause of intellectuality, and because of this, the box without matter would not differ from the intelligible box.” (14)

“Every form subsisting in itself without matter is an intellectual substance, for immunity from matter confers intelligibility.” (15)

7. Actuality, Intelligibility, and Intelligence. This teaching of St. Thomas is no special, peculiar doctrine, but is simply a particular application of principles which he constantly employs. Creatures are ordered in a hierarchy of degrees of perfection, and perfection itself is measured by actuality of being. Primary matter is pure potentiality; and consequently the more any form of being involves materiality the more potential and the less actual it is, and the more free the form is from matter the less potential and the more actual it is. Actual intelligibility is a high degree of perfection, attained by form only when it is completely free from matter, as a form is in an intellect. Hence, every form separated from matter and received in an intellect is an actual idea. But actual intelligence, being an operation, can belong only to a substance, since every operation must be attributed to some substance. Therefore, an actually intelligible form, if it is a substance, that is, if it subsists in itself, will also be an actual intelligence; for intelligence is simply subjective intelligibility. An idea which is in a subject, but which is not itself a subject, is understood but does not understand; an idea which is itself a subject understands itself. In the final analysis intelligibility and intelligence are identical, because, as St. Thomas says so often, and as shall be explained below, “the intelligible thing in act is the intellect in act.”

~Brother Benignus, F.S.C., Ph.D.: Nature, Knowledge and God: An Introduction to Thomistic Philosophy, pp. 221-223. Bruce Publishing Co. (1947)
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Notes

8. S. Theol., I, 50, 2, ad 2; Con. Gen., II, 50, fourth arg.
9. S. Theol., I, 84, 1, c.
10. S. Theol., I, 14, 1, c.
11. S. Theol., I, 80, 1, c.
12. S. Theol., I,  15, 1, c. Cf. De Ver., III, 2, c.
13. In I Sent., d. 35, q. 1, 1, c.
14. De Spirit. Creat., I, ad 12.
15. Con. Gen., II, 91.

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