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The Philosophical Review, XCI, No. 2 (April 1982)
Sheldon M. Cohen
'My translations are from the Blackfriars' edition of the Latin text (New
York: McGraw-Hill): Vol. 9, QQ 50-64, ed. Kenelm Foster (1968); Vol. 10,
QQ 65-74, ed. Wallace A. Wallace (1967); Vol. 11, QQ 75-83, ed. Timothy
Suttor (1968); and Vol. 12, QQ 84-89, ed. Paul T. Durbin (1968). Since all
my references to the Summa theologiae are to Part I a, I omit the " I a" in subsequent
citations.
2 The terminology derives from De Anima, II, 12, where Aristotle says that
the senses receive forms without matter.
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SHELDON M. COHEN
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A QUINAS ON PERCEPTION
that contrary to (a) and (b) Aquinas holds that the reception of
a sensible form, whether natural or spiritual, is always a physical
event, and that contrary to (c) the spiritual reception of a sensible
form results not in a mental image, but in a physical likeness.
If by "a mental event" we mean an awareness,5 then under cer-
tain conditions the spiritual reception of a sensible form is both
a mental event and a physical event, but it is never not a physical
event. (Aquinas allows for acts of awareness that are not physical
events, but only in intellection and volition, not in sensation.)
In Section II, I argue this point on textual and strategic grounds.
In Section III A, I explain how we can account for Aquinas' dis-
tinction within the framework of physical events. In III B, I offer
a tentative account of the conditions under which a spiritual
reception of sensible form would be an act of sensation. In Sec-
tion I, I begin by raising a point that ought to give proponents
of the received interpretation some pause. Hamlyn alludes to
the point in the quotation above when he says that Aquinas
''views sense-perception primarily as a form of change in which
the sense-organ is altered." What is the force of this "primarily"?
St. Thomas lists sensation as a power of the soul, and this may
make him sound as though he holds that the soul sees. But it is
his considered opinion that sensation is not a power of the soul,
but of the body-soul composite:
The subject of an ability to act is that which can act, for every acci-
dent requires a proper subject, and that which can act is the same
as that which does act .... Now it is manifest from what has already
been said that some operations of the soul are exercised without
a corporeal organ, as intellect and will are. Accordingly, the abilities
that are the source (principia) of these acts are in the soul as subject.
Other acts of the soul are exercised through a corporeal organ, as
sight by the eye and hearing by the ear. And similarly for the other
acts of the nutritive and sensitive parts. And the powers that are
the source of these acts are in the conjunction [of soul and body]
as subject, and not in the soul alone (ST, 77, A5).6
'This is not the Aristotelian or the Thomistic usage. The terms we translate
as "mind" are used by them only for intellect.
6 See also Quaestiones de anima, Q 19.
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SHELDON M. COHEN
The thing that sees is the thing that has the ability to see, and the
thing that sees sees with its eyes, so it is the thing that has eyes
that has the ability to see. The act and power of sensation inhere
in the ensouled animal, not in the soul of the ensouled animal.
The soul no more sees than it eats, though Aquinas lists nourish-
ment, too, as a power of the soul.7
But if Aquinas holds that the composite, and not the soul, is
the subject of sensation-that is, that the composite, and not the
soul, is what possesses and exercises the ability to sense-why does
he list sensation as a power of the soul? He explains his usage in
the replies to the first two objections: nourishment and sensa-
tion "are said to be of the soul not as the subject of the powers,
but as their source, because it is because of the soul that the com-
posite can carry out these activities." Aquinas is distinguishing
here between powers that belong to the composite of body and
substantial form (of which the soul is a particular case) because
they belong to the body as such, and powers that belong to the
composite precisely as having that substantial form. In the former
case, but not in the latter, the matter retains the powers even
when the substantial form is lost.8 Aquinas makes the point in
more detail in his treatise on spiritual creatures: it is not as so
much earth, air, fire, and water that a magnet attracts iron, but
because in a magnet the elements are organized in the specific
way that constitutes them into a magnet. As so organized the
thing has properties that do not belong to the sum of its elements
taken in a heap:
For the form of an element does not have any activity but the one
which takes place through active and passive qualities, which are
the dispositions of corporeal matter. But the form "mineral body"
has an activity that goes beyond active and passive qualities, and
is a consequence of its species by reason of the influence of a
heavenly body; for instance, that a magnet attracts iron, and that
a sapphire cures an abscess. And further, the vegetative soul has
7 Aquinas does talk about the soul forming images within itself (see, e.g.,
De veritate, 10, A6), but only when he is talking about the intellectual soul.
8 The third possibility-that the sensitive powers are in the composite because
they are in the soul as such (and hence would remain in the soul even apart from
the body)-was rejected in the body of the article. Were this third possibility
correct, the sensitive soul would be a substance in its own right-a claim
Aquinas rejects (see below, II B (ii) ).
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A QUINAS ON PERCEPTION
II A
(i) In the very article that gives the distinction between the
natural and spiritual reception of sensible forms (ST, 78, A3)
Aquinas does not say that a sensible form spiritually received
is received in the soul. He says: "For the operation of sense re-
quires a spiritual change, by which an intention of a sensible
form comes to exist in a sense organ." Even more explicitly, in
vision the sensible form spiritually received is received in the
pupil of the eye:
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SHELDON M. COHEN
(ii) In ST, 75, A3 Aquinas says that "sensation and the con-
sequent acts of the sensitive soul manifestly take place with some
physical change (cum aliqua corporis immutatione)," and in r2 of
the same article he says that "the sense is affected by the sensed
object with a physical change (sensitivum patitur a sensibili cum
corporis immutatione). "10 If, then, he holds that the spiritual recep-
tion of a sensible form is not a physical event, he must hold that
sensation also requires a natural change. But in fact he denies
this. He holds that vision takes place without any natural change
in the sense or the object of the sense, and he holds that hearing
involves a natural change,11 motion, in the thing sounding, but
not in the sense-organ (ST, 78, A3). If he is being consistent he
must think that the spiritual reception of a sensible form is itself
a physical event.
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A QUINAS ON PERCEPTION
(iv) At 85, A2, r3 Aquinas says that the activity of the senses
is fully effected by the sensible object, and at 84, A4, objection
2 he accepts the claim that "sensible objects, which are actually
outside the soul, are the causes of the sensible species that are in
the sense, and by which we sense." But at 84, A6 he says that
nothing corporeal can make an impression on something that is
incorporeal.
the intellect knows bodies, but not by means of a body, nor through
material and corporeal likenesses, but through immaterial and
intelligible species that can exist in the soul (quae per sui essentiam
in anima esse possunt).
(vii) In the De Anima (II, 12) Aristotle says that the senses re-
ceive forms without matter. Commenting on this passage,
Aquinas asks why this is not true of any alteration, for the stone
receives the warmth of the sun without "receiving the sun." He
answers that while every patient receives a form from the agent
without receiving the agent's matter, the received form need not
have the same mode of existence in the recipient that it has in
the donor. In the normal case the patient's matter, while remain-
ing numerically distinct from the agent's, acquires a material
12 At ST, 85, Al, r3 he says that sense images, because they exist in corpore
organs, "cannot by their own power make an impression on the passive intel-
lect."
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SHELDON M. COHEN
Dicendum quod quidam dixerunt quod lumen in aere non habet esse natural,
sicut color in pariete, sed esse intentional, sicut similitude colors in aere.
'3 Aristotle's De Anima in the Version of William of Morebeke and the Commentary
of St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. Kenelm Foster and Silvester Humphries (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1951), II, XII, 551-53, pp. 339-40.
'4 Com. De Anima, II, VII, 418, p. 267; the italics are, of course, my own.
'5 Here, as when he talks about the spiritual reception of color in the pupil,
Aquinas sometimes says that what is unnaturally received is a color, and some-
times says that it is a similitude or intentio of a color. See, e.g., ST, 78, A3. I assume
that this is because he holds that an intentio or similitude of an x is, in some way,
an x. Aquinas' claim that color in air has esse intentionale is recognized by
Anthony Kenny, Aquinas (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980), p. 79, who gives
another citation for the view (ST, 76, A2, r3).
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A QUINAS ON PERCEPTION
Sed hoc non potest esse propter duo. Primo quidem, quia lumen denominat
arum; fit enim air luminosus in actu. Color vero non denominat ipsum; non
enim dicitur air coloratus. Secundo, quia lumen habet effectum in natura; quia
per radios solis calefiunt corpora. Intentiones autem non causant transmutationes
naturales.
II B
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A QUINA S ON PERCEPTION
(ii) St. Thomas holds that the sensitive soul has no proper act
of its own (has no per se act). The received interpretation takes
him to mean that although the sensitive soul engages in acts that
are not physical, certain bodily events constitute a necessary
condition for the occurrence of these nonphysical events. But
if this were what he meant, he could not conclude that the com-
posite (for example, the dog) has sensation as a per se act, for he
holds that sensation is causally dependent on the object of per-
ception. Perception would not be a per se act of the dog, but of
the dog-bone composite. And why stop there? Why not hold that
only the unmoved mover has a per se act?
The claim that a thing has a per se act is not the claim that the
thing has an act that is not caused by some other act, but is the
claim that the thing has the independence of a substance: at
ST, 75, A2 Aquinas says that nothing has a per se act unless it
subsists, and at 75, A3 he says that since the souls of brutes have
no per se acts, the souls of brutes do not subsist. (And the depen-
dence a dog has on exterior objects of sensation in order to sense
does not show that the dog is not a subsisting thing-ST, 75, A2,
r3.) The sensitive soul has no act of its own apart from the body
in just the way that heat has no act of its own apart from the thing
that is hot: the dog sees and the fire warms, and there is no warm-
ing apart from fires and stones-heat has no per se act (ST, 75, A2).
The claim that the sensitive soul has no act of its own apart
from the body is not the claim that the sensitive soul is a substance
that cannot act apart from the body, but is rather the claim that
the sensitive soul, unlike the intellectual soul, is not a subsistent
form-that is, that the sensitive soul, unlike the intellectual soul,
is not both a substantial form and a substance (a hoc aliquid), but
is merely a substantial form. Thus Aquinas denies that the
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SHELDON M. COHEN
19 At ST, 65, A4 Aquinas says that the forms of corruptible things do not
have existence-the composite has existence through them.
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A QUINAS ON PERCEPTION
III A
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SHELDON M. COHEN
stone, the color in the paint. And these sorts of likenesses are not
caused by the things of which they are likenesses, but by the sculp-
tor or painter. And these sorts of likenesses cannot serve as the
means by which we sense the things we sense (we do not see the
man by means of his portrait-we see the portrait), while Aquinas
says that the phantasm is not what (quod) we see, but that by
which (quo) we see what we see (ST, 85, A2).
The images we are seeking are not pictures or statues, but there
is a reasonable case for saying that another type of image-a re-
flection-meets our requirements. A mirror does not actually
become red when you hold a rose in front of it, and it would be
a perfectly natural Aristotelian usage to put this by saying that
the color is not received into the mirror's matter. And we can
explain this the way Aquinas explains the reception of sensible
forms immaterialiter: in virtue of certain material dispositions
the mirror has (which it has because it is smooth, polished, etc.),
the mirror has the ability to "receive a color" without acquiring
the material dispositions the color normally bestows on the re-
cipient-if you look in the mirror you will see the rose's redness,
but the portion of the mirror in which you see that redness has
not acquired a disposition to reflect the red wavelengths and
absorb the others. The mirror continues to reflect all the wave-
lengths of the visible spectrum.
Second, the thing that causes the reflection in the mirror is the
thing that is reflected in the mirror.
And third, Aquinas is a direct realist on mirrors: sight "is
brought through a likeness received from a mirror directly to a
knowledge of the thing reflected."22 He holds, quite plausibly,
I think, that when you look in a mirror you see yourself, not an
image of yourself.
This interpretation is also suggested by Aquinas' own example:
The pupil is a sort of mirror: the word "pupil" comes from a Latin
word meaning "little doll"-the thing the little girl sees when
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A QUINAS ON PERCEPTION
she looks into her mother's eyes. Why not take Aquinas to mean
just what he seems to be saying: the species sensibilis spiritually
received is the reflection of a color in the pupil of the eye?
There is even a historical precedent. In The Book of Knowledge
Avicenna defended just such a theory of vision.23 And even if
Aquinas did not know The Book of Knowledge, the theory might
have been in the air.
Or the idea could have come directly from Aristotle, who in
the De Sensu, criticizing the atomists, says that Democritus was
wrong "to explain seeing as mere mirroring" (438a5-7). Aristotle
may have meant that seeing is not mirroring at all, but he can
also be taken to mean that seeing is a special case of mirroring.
Aquinas seems to have had a similar account in mind for
hearing, where echoes play the role reflections play in sight, for
as Aristotle says in the De Anima:
It seems that there is always some echo, but not always a clear one.
For the same occurs with sound as with light; which also is always
reflected ....24
III B
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SHELDON M. COHEN
26 See, e.g., Com. De Anima, II, III, 288-90, pp. 200-01; De Anima, 415a1-3,
414a29-41462, and 413 a30-413'3.
27 Quoted by Lindberg, p. 49.
28 I do not claim that they so intended it.
29 Com. De Anima, II, III, 289, p. 201.
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A QUINAS ON PERCEPTION
desire for (or an aversion to) the thing reflected. What distin-
guishes the bald man's head from his eye, then, is that the reflec-
tion of an apple in a hungry bald man's head will not incline
the man to pick the apple, while the reflection in his eye will. 30
University of Tennessee
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