ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

ON READING Dr. Mortimer Adler's assessment of The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes about a year ago, I was excited by Mr. Adler's remark at one point that Peter Geach, in a book entitled Mental Acts,¹ had convincingly shown that " human concept-formation . . . does not consist in a process of abstraction at all."² Like most other philosophers, I had often wrestled with the difficulties and perplexities surrounding the various theories of human understanding, so it will not be difficult to understand my enthusiasm on being alerted to a work which promised to show why Locke was wrong in holding that " he that thinks general names or notions are anything else but abstract and partial ideas of more complex ones, taken at first from particular existences, will ... be at a loss where to find them."³ Accordingly, I picked up a copy of Mr. Geach's book at my first opportunity, disposed to discover therein the long-standing oversight or confusion which had led so many philosophers to look on ideas as the result of some sort of abstractive process.

The following pages, then, may be read either as a critical response to Mr. Geach's presentation, or as an expression of the disappointment I experienced in terms of what Dr. Adler had led me to expect. I also hope, beyond this, that the following pages may be of some interest and illumination to other philosophers in their own assessments of this historically complex and philosophically difficult topic. A Structural Outline is given below.

¹ Peter Geach, Mental Acts. Their Content and their Objects (London:
Routeledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 131 with Bibliography and Index.

² Mortimer J. Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes
(New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967), p. 137, reference to fn. 22 on p. 317.

^s John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book , par. 9.

43

44 JOHN N. DEELY

STRUCTURAL OUTLINE

I. The Logical Structure of an Historical Controversy---p. 44. II. The Construction of Mr. Geach: Aquinas in Caricature--p. 45.

III. The Achievements of Sense and Their Relation to Concept-Formation
in Man According to Aquinas--p. 55.

A. Rational processes and animal intelligence--p. 56.

B. The traditional language of faculties--p. 59.

C. The Notion of vis aestimativa and of experimentum--p. 60.

1. The levels or grades of sensitive life--p. 61.

2. The third or highest level of sensitive awareness--p. 64.

3. Textual difficulties--p. 67.

4. Resolution of difficulties: the synonymy of vis aestimativa
and experimentum--p. 70.

D. The accidental and the essential universal--p. 72.

E. The proper contrast between animal intelligence (vis aestimativa)
and the perceptual roots of concept-formation in man (vis cogita-
tiva)--p. 77.

F. The sphere of animal consciousness and the world of human aware
ness--p. 79.

G. Rational processes and animal intelligence: summary restate
ment--p. 81.

IV. Aquinas and Mr. Geach: A Study in Parody--p. 84.

A. The problem of particular judgments--p. 85.

B. The role of the intellectus agens in concept-formation--p. 86.
V. Conclusion: Toward the Roots of the Caricature--. 88.

I. The Logical Structure of an Historical Controversy.

There are, as everyone knows, a relatively small number of major issues in philosophy which are decisive in that the position one takes with respect to them determines everything else one may consistently contend about man and the world.

One such fundamental issue is the problem of the sense of the distinction between mind and body and the nature of the relations that obtain between the terms of this distinction. According to one school of thought the principles necessary and sufficient for settling this issue are to be found in the writings of Aristotle, particularly as interpreted and developed by Aquinas. Thus, as W. I. Matson points out in a perceptive and scholarly presentation of "Why Isn't the Mind-Body Problem Ancient? ", " from Homer to Aristotle, the line be-

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 45

tween mind and body, when drawn at all, was drawn so as to put the processes of sense perception on the body side." * Within this perspective Aquinas was subsequently able to make clear that there are only two alternatives to the hylomor-phic doctrine on the soul insofar as it relates to any question of mind and body, namely, an idealistic or dualistic doctrine denying any mutual dependence of mind and body, or, on the other hand, a materialistic doctrine asserting that bodily processes can explain equally and fully both intellectual or conceptual acts and sensory or perceptual ones. Either intellect differs from sense in kind but in such wise that the former depends on the latter for the derivation and elaboration of its own proper notions (Aquinas's interpretation of Aristotle) ; or the intellect differs in kind from sense without depending thereon in the derivation--though perhaps in the elaboration--of its proper notions; or the intellect is dependent on sense in such wise that there is not even a fundamental difference in kind between them, and what accounts for sensory perceptions suffices in principle to account for intellectual conceptions.

II. The Construction of Mr. Geach: Aquinas in Caricature.

Now what does Geach tell us in his analysis of Mental Acts that further clarifies and illustrates the consequences of these fundamental options? It is an interesting mixture. He tries to combine the consequences flowing from Aquinas's position with the fundamental tenet that intellect differs in kind from sense without depending thereon in the derivation of its proper notions. One might have thought that this was just Mr. Geach's way of being " ecumenical " and bringing diverse traditions into a mutually stimulating contact (although in the end any such merger of the fundamental dialectical options or " logical possibilities " envisionable in terms of a basic philosophical problem is bound to end in ruin for all concerned).

'Wallace I. Matson, "Why Isn't the Mind-Body Problem Ancient?" in Mind, Matter and Method, ed. by P. K. Feyerband and G. Maxwell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966), p. 101.

46 JOHN N. DEELY

But Mr. Geach goes out of his way to obviate this courteous interpretation by appending to his book an " Historical Note " on "Aquinas and Abstractionism," ⁵ wherein he assures us that not only does he think that intellect differs irreducibly in kind from sense in such a manner as to be quite independent thereof both for the formation and exercise of concepts, but that " it can be decisively shown that in his maturest work, the Summa Theologica, [the] views [of Aquinas] are opposed to what I have called abstractionism." ⁶ This " decisive historical note " accomplishes its stated aim by reference principally to I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2, and I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3. It is this " historical note " that I want now to examine.

The justice of Geach's interpretation depends on the answer that must be made to the following questions:

1) What is it that Geach calls " abstractionism " ? (p. be
low)

2) Is the thought of St. Thomas as it can be found in his
" maturest work " opposed to what Geach calls abstrac
tionism? (pp. - below) This question is itself a com
plex which I shall break down into three points:

a) Can the Summa be called simply Aquinas's " maturest
work " ? (pp. - below).

b) Does Aquinas express an anti-abstractionist view re
garding the formation of concepts in I, q. 79, a. 3,
ad 2, as Geach alleges? (pp. below)

c) Does Aquinas express an anti-abstractionist view on
the " exercise," i. e., the elaboration and application,
of concepts in I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3, as Geach alleges?
(pp. below)

Let us consider each of these questions in turn.

1) What does Geach mean by abstractionism? He says:

I shall use " abstractionism " as a name for the doctrine that a concept is acquired by a process of singling out in attention some one feature given in direct experience--abstracting it--and ignoring

⁶ Geach, op. dt., "Appendix," pp. 130-131. "Ibid.. d. 130.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 47

the other features simultaneously given--abstracting from them. The abstractionist would wish to maintain that all acts of judgment are to be accounted for as exercises of concepts got by abstraction.⁷ My own view is that abstractionism is wholly mistaken; that no concept at all is acquired by the supposed process of abstraction.⁷". . . I shall try to show that the whole idea of abstraction--of discriminative attention to some feature given in experience--is thoroughly incoherent.⁸

2) The next question is whether the thought of St. Thomas in his maturest work is opposed to abstractionism as just outlined. We proceed by way of three points.

a) What is involved in Geach's singling out of the Summa
as Aquinas's " maturest work " ? If one means by this that the
Summa is the longest of Aquinas's works which does not develop
principally as a Commentarium on someone else's writing and
that it is from the latter period of Aquinas's life (1266-1273),
then no exception can be taken to this reference. On the other
hand, if one intends to use this phrase as a device for sharply
separating the thought of the Summa from the rest of Aquinas's
writings as being what he " really and finally thought "--the
mature as opposed to the other writings--so that only the
expressions of the Summa finally " count," from a genetic point
of view, then the reference is simply a subterfuge for im
poverished interpretation. The period in Aquinas's life from
1266-1273, for example, also dates the composition of In HI
libros de anima, In XII libros metaphysicorum, In II libros
post, anal., among other works, so that, from a chronological
and genetic point of view and for purposes of interpretation,
these works are on an equal footing with the Summa insofar as
" maturity " is at issue.⁹

b) Geach comments on I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2 as follows:

⁷ Ibid., p. is.
^Ibid.

⁸ Ibid., p. 19.

'Cf. E. Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy (New York, 1940), pp. 424-425; M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding St. Thomas (Chicago: Begnery, 1964), passim.

48 JOHN N. DEELY

In accepting the comparison whereby the intellectus agens, the mind's concept-forming power, is likened to a light that enables the mind's eye to see the intelligible features of things, as the bodily eye sees colors, Aquinas is careful to add that this comparison goes on all fours only if we suppose that colours are generated by kindling the light--that the light is not just revealing colours that already existed in the dark.¹⁰

From this it is supposed to be plain that the view of Aquinas on the formation of concepts in the Summa is anti-abstractionist.

In point of fact, the Reply in question has little bearing on the problem of abstraction. Aquinas is discussing in q. 79 the intellectual powers of the soul, after having shown in the previous question that sense and intellect, generically considered, differ in kind as powers. Having shown in art. 1 of q. 79 that the intellect is a power, and in art. 2 that it is in a condition of potentiality with respect to the intelligibility of things, Aquinas proceeds in art. 3 to discuss whether there must be a cause distinct from the things themselves which are understood to explain the passage of our understanding in a given case to a state of actual understanding; and he points out that our answer to this question is principally determined by the position we adopt concerning the forms of natural things. If we say, like Plato, that the forms of themselves subsist apart from matter, it will follow that they are of themselves in a state of actual intelligibility, and in this case there is no need for an active cause for understanding, except perhaps in some secondary way and by reason of a concomitant attribute.¹¹

On the other hand, if we are of like opinion with Aristotle on the question of natural forms and regard them as existing actually only in a sensible way and in strict dependence on matter insofar as they are within the subsistent, the individual that exists as a part of nature, then it will be necessary to posit an active cause of understanding which essentially, and not

¹⁰Geach, op. cit., p. 130.

¹¹ See Summa Theol, I, 79, a. 4; q. 84, a. 6.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 49

just incidentally, accounts for the actualization of our understanding in any given case. On the Aristotelian view there is no need for a sensus agens because sensible things are found in a state of actuality--not indeed as sensed but as things¹²-- existing independently of the soul; similarly, on the Platonic view, there is no need for an intellectus agens because intelligible things are found actually as such existing independently of the soul. But since in the Aristotelian view intelligible things are found to be such only in a state of potentiality-- not indeed as understood but as things--it is necessary to admit the necessity of an intellectus agens.

The intelligible as such is not something which can be found existing in the physical world. And therefore our understanding of nature could not be accounted for simply by the fact that our intellect is immaterial, were there not also an active aspect of intelligence which caused the non-subsistent sensible forms to exist in knowledge as though they were subsistent, i. e., able to exist as such apart from matter--qui faceret intelligibilia actu per modum abstractionis. ¹³

Now what in Geach's comment bears on any of these points, which cover q. 79, a. 3, objs. 1 and 3, corpus, and ad 1 and 3? Let us now bring into account the reply to obj. 2, on which alone Geach rests his case that Thomas propounds an anti-abstractionist view. The second objection states that, if you are going to argue for the existence of an intellectus agens

¹² " Res faciens passiones in sensu non est ipsemet sensus, quia sensus non est
suimet, sed alterius, quod opportet esse prius sensu naturaliter. . . . Et si contra
hoc dicatur quod sensibile et sensus sunt relativa ad invicem dicta [prout sensibilia
in actu non sunt sine sensibus, i. e., animalibus], et ita simul natura, et interempto
uno interimitur aliud; nihilominus sequitur propositum; quia sensibile in potentia
non dicitur relative ad sensum [sicut e contra intelligibile dicitur relative ad
intellectum] quasi ad ipsum referatur, sed quia sensus refertur ad ipsum." (7n
IV Met., lect. 14, im. 706-707).

¹³ Summa Theol., I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 3: " Intelligible autem in actu non est
aliquid existens in rerum natura, quantum ad naturam rerum sensibilium, quae
non subsistunt praeter materiam. Et ideo ad intelligendum non sufficeret im-
materialitas intellectus possibilis, nisi adesset intellectus agens, qui faceret in
telligibilia in actu per modum abstractionis."

50 JOHN N. DEELY

by analogy to the function light performs in making sight possible, then the conclusion will not hold up. For, in the case of seeing, there is a medium involved, and light functions not to make things potentially colored to be so actually but only to render the medium luminous, whereupon the actually colored things as colored are able of their own nature to cause vision. But since there is no similar medium involved in the case of understanding, there is no gound for postulating an intel-lectus agens which functions in understanding as light functions in seeing.

St. Thomas's reply to this is simply to point out--as indeed is clear in the light of the rest of the article of which Geach omits mention--that no one was trying to argue to the necessity of an intelleetus agens from an analysis of the way that light does or does not function in making colored things visible but from the intrinsic requirements of the structure of understanding and of the passive intellect. For this argument the precise function light plays in seeing is irrelevant, so much so that, even if the particular view stated in the objection should be correct, it would not affect the analogy between the intelleetus agens and light but only the reason for which one might employ this particular metaphor. In Geach's terms, the point of I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2 is that, if we suppose " that colours are generated by kindling the light,"¹⁴ then Aristotle's comparison of the intelleetus agens to light is verified in that the intelleetus agens is required for understanding just as light is required for seeing and in the same way as light is required for seeing; on the other hand, if we suppose " that the light is ... just revealing colours that already existed [actually] in the dark,"¹ then Aristotle's comparison still holds inasmuch as, just as the intelleetus agens is necessary for understanding, so also light is necessary for seeing, although the reason for the necessity is no longer formally the same in the two cases. The only thing which Aquinas " is careful to add " in " accepting the

"Geach, op. cit., p. 180. "Ibid.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 51

comparison whereby the intellectus agens, the mind's concept-forming power, is likened to a light that enables the mind's eye to see the intelligible features of things, as the bodily eye sees colours,"¹⁶ is that the comparison does not depend entirely on a particular theory of the function of light!

There are two opinions current to explain the function of light with respect to seeing. Some hold that light is essential to sight in the sense of actually making colors to be visible; and if this view is correct, it would follow that the intellectus agens is required for understanding in a manner strictly analogous [similiter re-quiritur, et propter idem] to the manner in which seeing requires light. But others contend that this is not the role which light plays when we see things. Light is not necessary for colors to be actually visible but is required merely in order that the medium might become luminous. Such, for example, is the view expressed by Averroes in par. 67 of his Commentary on the De anima,; and if this is the correct view, then the comparison whereby Aristotle likens the intellectus agens to light would not hold strictly [non propter idem] but only in the respect that, as light is necessary for seeing, so the intellectus agens is necessary for actual understanding.¹⁷

In summary, the text in I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2 has little bearing on the problem of abstraction; and the article as a whole is not directly concerned with how concepts are formed but with whether we must assign on the part of the intellect, in addition to a potentiality with respect to the intelligibility of things, some power to make things actually intelligible. The answer to this is Yes, and Aquinas does add that this intellectus agens operates " per modum abstractionis " ; but

" Ibid.

¹⁷ Summa Theol., I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2: " dicendum quod circa effectum luminis est duplex opinio. Quidam enim dicunt quod lumen requiritur ad visum, ut facial colores actu visibiles. Et secundum hoc, similiter requiritur, et propter idem, intellectus agens ad intelligendum, propter quod lumen ad videndum. Secundum alios vero, lumen requiritur ad videndum, non propter colores, ut fiant actu visibiles; sed ut medium fiat actu lucidum, ut Commentator dicit in II de Anima, Et secundum hoc, similitudo qua Aristoteles assimilât intellectum agentem lumini, attenditur quantum ad hoc, quod sicut hoc est necessarium ad videndum, ita illud ad intelligendum; sed non propter idem."

52 JOHN N. DEELY

the question as to the nature of abstraction is only dealt with as it touches on his major concern, which is not to show in what sense the comparison between the intellectus agens and light " goes on all fours "¹⁸ but rather to show, if anything, that whether the comparison goes on all fours or some other way is strictly irrelevant to the question of " whether there is an intellectus agens."

Actually, the text which Geach cites with regard to the " exercise " of concepts says a good deal more on the question of just how concepts are formed than does I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2, which is the least relevant passage to the subject of Geach's discussion in the entirety of art. 3. Let us therefore turn to this second text and see how it bears on Geach's argument. We will then be in a fair position to pass judgment on the justice of Geach's historical note.

c) Not only does Aquinas say, according to Geach, that, if we wish the likening of the intellectus agens to light to go on all fours, we must adopt the opinion that colors are generated by kindling the light:

Furthermore he says that when we frame a judgment expressed in words, our use of concepts is to be compared, not to seeing" something, but rather to forming a visual image of something we are not now seeing, or even never have seen (la, q. 85, art. 2 ad 3 urn). So he expresses anti-abstractionist views both on the formation and on the exercise of concepts.¹⁹

Geach seems to infer here that, since St. Thomas affirms that a sensory experience does not lie at the base of everything we can put into words, obviously our employment of concepts cannot depend on an abstractive process. Let us situate his commentary in the context of the question with respect to which the objection St. Thomas is answering arises.

Question 85 treats of the manner and order according to which human understanding develops itself. Having treated

¹⁸ Geach, of. cit., p. 130. " Ibid.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 53

in art. 1 the question of whether our intellect understands the world through a process of abstraction from sensory experience, St. Thomas goes on in art. 2 to treat of the problem of whether the intellect is related to its concepts in such wise as to have them for its immediate object or only in such wise as to know existing things directly through the medium of concepts, which are therefore known to exist only reflexively and never as such. The third objection against the thesis that concepts are not as such the objects of understanding states that, since words, as the expression of what we understand, express concepts, it would seem to follow that therefore concepts as such are the objects of our understanding. In reply to this objection Aquinas writes as follows:

There are two aspects to the cognitive operation which goes on in the sensitive part of the soul. One aspect involves a passive undergoing of the actual influence upon the sensory powers of some object or other in the environment: it is under this aspect that the operation of sense is determined by being actually affected by some independent object [sensatio enim est actus sensibilis in sensu]. The other aspect involves an active constituting or formation, according· as the sensory consciousness [vis imaginativa] forms or fashions for itself some image or mental picture of an object not physically present, or even of something never as such seen in the physical environment. Both of these aspects are likewise met with in the operation of the intellect. On the one hand, account must be taken of the influence according to which our understanding is actualized in one or another respect; and, on the other hand, account must be taken of the manner in which the intellect, once informed, is further able to fashion or elaborate for itself concepts, whether by defining, distinguishing, or synthesizing, which secondary concepts are what words signify. Thus spoken words do not signify the primary but rather the secondary aspect of concept formation, i. e., words signify concepts as the intellect has itself elaborated and related them for the purpose of discriminating the reality of things [ad judicandum de rebus exterioribus].²⁰

"" Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3: " dicendum quod in parte sensitive invenitur duplex operatic. Una secundum solam immutationem: et sic perficitur operatic sensus per hoc quod immutatur a sensibili. Alia operatio est formatio,

54 JOHN N. DEELY

Now what about that first or primary formation, the aspect according to which the intellect is not active but passive in order to become active?

Nam primo quidem consideratur passio intellectus possibilis secundum quod informatur specie intelligibili, qua quidem formatus, format secundo vel definitionem vel divisionem vel compositionem, quae per vocem significatur ... ad judicandum de rebus ex-terioribus.²¹

What about these primary " species intelligibiles " ? Are they abstractions for Aquinas or not? Geach leaves this question entirely out of his reference to the text he cites as exemplifying Aquinas's " anti-abstractionist views," and yet it is the very question which really has a bearing on what Geach alleges to be the case.

As a matter of fact, they are, for Aquinas, abstractions in the precise manner which Geach denies concepts ever can be, of " being able to recognize some feature we have found in direct experience " ;²² and in the precise sense, " thoroughly incoherent " according to Geach, of being possible only on the basis of " discriminative attention to some feature given in experience." ²³

This is the very heart of Aquinas's teaching on the relations that obtain between sense and intellect, rooted in the distinction between the potential and the actual existence of a \vorld of intelligible natures.

secundum quod vis imaginativa format sibi aliquod idolum rei absentis, vel etiam nunquam visae. Et utraque haec operatic coniungitur in intellectu. Nam primo quidem consideratur passio intellectus possibilis secundum quod informatur specie intelligibili. Qua quidem formatus, format secundo vel definitionem vel divisionem vel compositionem, quae per vocem significatur. Unde ratio quam significat nomen, est definitio; et enuntiatio significat compositionem et divisionem intellectus Non ergo voces significant ipsas species intelligibiles; sed ea quae intellectus sibi format ad iudicandum de rebus exterioribus." See Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans, from the 4th Fr. ed. under the general supervision of Gerald B. Phelan (New York: Scribner's, 1959), Appendix I, "The Concept," esp. p. 395.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Geach, op. cit., p. 40.

²³ Ibid., p. 19.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 55

Because our conceptual knowledge is derived from experience [as well as from discourse], Aristotle considered it to be fairly evident that our initial concepts must be formed on inductive grounds.²⁴ Now it is even more evident that properly and essentially speaking sensation is of the singular, but it must nevertheless be admitted upon analysis that there is an improper and incidental fashion according to which the upper levels of sensitive life are contiguous with the rudimentary achievements of properly intellectual life.²⁵ For if it were the case that the achievements of sensory awareness were restricted in every respect to particularities and in no way effected a structure of generalized categories transcending and organizing the individual encounters of day-to-day interaction, it would not be possible that some of our concepts should take their origin, as they do, in the apprehensions of sense.²⁶

III. The Achievements oj Sense and Their Relation to Concept-Formation in Man According to Aquinas.

To understand what is at stake here, it is necessary to put to Aquinas this question: granted that sense and intellect differ fundamentally, so that the achievements of conceptual thinking are never reducible to the achievements of perceptual thinking, what are the highest achievements or organizational levels which sensory life is in principle capable of attaining, and what is the relation of these maximal attainments to the functionings of intellectual life at its own levels?

When one reads the works of Aquinas with this question explicitly in mind, one finds an aspect of his thought which deals comfortably with the question of how can there be an intellectual awareness of singulars, in sharp contrast to the tortured elaborations of this question which one usually asso-

²⁴ In 11 Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 595: " Quia igitur universalium cognitionem accipimus ex singularibus, concluait manifestum esse quod necesse est prima universalia prinicipia cognoscere per inductionem."

^2E Ibid.: " Manifestum est enim quod singulare sentitur prvprie et per se, sed tarnen sensus est quodammodo etiam ipsius universalis."

^se Ibid.: " Si autem ita esset quod sensus apprehenderet solum id quod est particularitatis, et nullo modo cum hoc apprehenderet universalem naturam in particulari, non esset possibile quod ex apprehensione sensus causaretur in nobis cognitio universalis."

56 JOHN N. DEELY

ciates with the scholastic tradition. Traditionally, philosophers speak of the contrast between universals and particulars when drawing the line between intellectual and sensory awareness; and in point of fact, there is a sense in which no one who successfully follows the discussion can deny that intellectual knowledge contrasts with sensory knowledge as a universal principle contrasts with a particular existent. This is the way Aquinas speaks, following a long tradition of Greek philosophy and commentary thereon both Latin and Arabic; and this is the way many philosophers still speak. I have no quarrel with the thought of Aquinas and those who follow him on this point; rather, I want to suggest why contemporary intellectuals, not only scientists but also philosophers, are legitimately confused by this way of expressing the distinction between sensory and intellectual knowledge; and then to suggest an alternate way of speaking which makes the same point while obviating most of the difficulties. In the course of this development I hope that the utter absurdity of Geach's historical claim (that the " mature Aquinas " was not an abstractionist) and also of his personal thesis (that the " whole idea " of abstraction is completely incoherent) will become a matter of common agreement between the reader and me.

A. Rational Processes and Animal Intelligence.

H. H. Price has well observed that in modern times " philosophers are not accustomed to considering a level of mental development at which cognition and action are not yet sharply differentiated, and a level, moreover, at which words are not used and even images can be dispensed with." ^2r

Yves Simon, in a remarkable discussion of " freedom of choice as freedom of judgment," suggests a very good reason why this should be so. " If the question of animal intelligence in man is so poorly known, it is probably because it is very difficult to separate, even incompletely, the processes pertaining

²⁷ H. H. Price, Thinking and Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1962), p. 120.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 57

to animal intelligence from the rational processes which penetrate them intimately."^2S

Even allowing this, which is certainly the case, it must still be said that the absence of consideration which Price remarks makes for a rather curious state of affairs. For the literature of ancient and medieval philosophy have many passages treating of just such a level of mental development as that to which Price refers. They even gave a name to the highest level of mental life prior to the possibility of speech and necessary as its precondition, calling it the vis aestvmatwa in animals and the vis cogitativa, sometimes ratio particularis, or even sometimes the experimentum, in man.

It is important for present purposes to note particularly the difficulty remarked by Simon to which these classical expressions bear witness, namely, the difficulty of separating, " even incompletely," the highest attainments of animal intelligence from the primitive attainments of human intelligence.

It must be acknowledged that with respect to the powers of apprehension, even as with respect to the powers of desire, there is something which belongs to animal life as fully consonant with its own ontological level, and something which belongs to it according as it has some measure of participation of rationality, reaching in its own highest attainments the levels which are the foundation of the higher attainments of intelligence at the level of human existence. . . . Just as imaginative capacities [vis imagi-nativa] belong to the animal soul according as it is a part of the order of sense (because in the imagination are preserved the experiences of things as sensed), so, by contrast, estimative capacities, by virtue of which the animal perceives something in terms of features not directly sensible, as when it reacts with friendliness or hostility to diverse objects, belong to the animal soul according as it has a communion with the order of intellect. It is by reason of this estimative capacity that animals are said to have a kind of foresight or prudence, i. e., by reason of the fact that they are able to modify their behavior in the light of past experience.²⁹

²⁸ Yves Simon, Freedom of Choice (New York: Fordham, 1969), pp. 111-112.

^lsDe Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4: " Sciendum est ... quod tarn ex parte

apprehensivarum virium quam ex parte appetitivarum sensitivae partis, aliquid

58 JOHN N. DEELY

From this it is apparent how serious an error it is to translate vis aestimativa as " instinct " and to contrast the vis aestimativa with the vis cogitativa as what is wholly innate and fixed with what is flexible and indetermined in operation by its association with reason, i. e., by existing in a human being.³⁰ This is to mistake the estimative capacities of a particular range of animal forms for the estimative capacity of the animal soul considered in itself. It is to confuse the de facto with the de jure and to substitute the part for the whole. As Professor Price has so well said,

It is a mistake to suppose that there is a level of consciousness in which one is aware only of particulars and not in any sense at all aware of universale. A being whose consciousness was in such a state could never learn anything; and if per impossibile it could, its learning when acquired could never be applied.³¹

It is possible that in some creatures the capacity of recognizing their food or their enemies is unlearned, " instinctive " as we say; and that the function of sense-experience is merely to actualize these already existing recognitional powers. But in most animals, perhaps in all, sensation has another function as well. It enables one to learn from experience, and thereby to respond more effectively to one's environment. To put it rather extravagantly, sense-experience exists for the sake of induction.⁵²

est quod competit sensibili animae secundum propriam naturam; aliquid vero, secundum quod habet aliquam participationem modicam rationis, attingens ad ultimum eius in sui supremo;. . . . Sicut vis imaginativa competit animae sensibili secundum propriam rationem, quia in ea reservantur formae per sensum acceptae; sed vis aestimativa, per quam animal apprehendit intentiones non acceptas per sensum, ut amicitiam vel inimicitiam, inest animae sensitivae secundum quod participât aliquid rationis: unde ratione huius aestimationis dicuntur animalia quamdam prudentiam habere."

³⁰ Even though there is no doubt that such a construction is sometimes suggested by St. Thomas himself, e. g., In III de anima, lect. 13, n. 397; In I Met., lect. 1, n. 11; et alibi.

"Price, op. cit., p. 43.

³² Ibid., p. 42. " Our conclusion so far is that recognition of individuals is derivative. It is recognition of characteristics which is fundamental. There can can be no recognition of individuals (not even mis-recognition of them) unless there is already recognition of characteristics. And there are probably forms of consciousness in which recognition of characteristics occurs but recognition of individuals does not." (Ibid., p. 41). " I am tempted to add that the philosophical

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 59

Just what the contrast is between vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa we shall presently have to see. But it is certainly not the contrast between instinct on the one hand and intelligence on the other. That is why vis aestimativa ought not to be understood exclusively as a name for a psychological faculty, but beyond this as a descriptive term for a condition or state--specifically, the state of animal intelligence at the upper reaches of what it can in principle attain.

B. The Traditional Language of Faculties.

Because of the widespread misunderstanding of this point, it is not unreasonable to abandon the traditional terminology of the " internal senses " entirely, and to substitue for it another expressly designed to obviate the exaggerations to which the language of " faculties " has been mother. This is the course chosen, for example, by Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, who suggests the use of a contemporary, neutral, and dialectically fashioned terminology for those who wish to point out the difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence without having to caricature the attainments open to the latter:

I propose that the non-verbal thought processes of animals-- processes that remove the animal, in one way or another, from the domination of the immediate sensory stimulus-- consists in (a) perceptual traces or residues, and (b) perceptual attainments. By perceptual traces or residues I mean memory-images that function representatively, i. e., in place of sensory stimuli that are no longer themselves operative. By perceptual attainments I mean the products of perceptual generalization and discrimination. I will use the term " perceptual abstraction " to name such products. Since all these elements are perceptual--either the consequences or the products of perceptual activity--it seems fitting to identify the thought processes of animals with perceptual thought.³³

Degrees of animal intelligence are supposedly correlated with the degrees to which they possess the power of perceptual generaliza-

myth of a purely sensitive consciousness, aware only of particulars, is one of the most important reasons for the rise of Behaviourism." (Ibid., pp. 43-44). ⁸³ Adler, The Difference of Man, p. 153.

60 JOHN N. DEELY

tion and discrimination--the power to acquire perceptual abstractions. Degrees of this power, Professor Klüver has shown, can be experimentally measured by what he calls " the method of equivalent and non-equivalent stimuli." ³⁴

That is one way to avoid being misled by the language of faculties. It is not, however, necesary to go to this extreme philosophically, convenient though it might prove dialec-tically. Philosophically, it is possible instead to follow Price's counsel: " The language of faculties is not to be rejected altogether. It is right and proper to use it as a rough and ready ' first aid ' in a preliminary classification of mental processes. But if it is a useful servant, it is also a bad master, and we must not allow it to tyrannize over us."^S5

Adopting this alternative, it can be said that " intelligent behavior, no less than thinking, depends on the awareness of universalia in re. It should follow (though this conclusion was not generally drawn, and was sometimes even denied) that even animals have some awareness of universals, since they are certainly capable of intelligent behaviour; at any rate, they must be capable of recognizing universals ' in their instances/ even if they cannot conceive of universals in abstracto."³⁰

C. The Notion of " Vis Aestimativa " and of " Experimentum."

To understand how this is so, three points of classico-medi-eval Aristotelianism must be rightly and carefully understood, specifically, the concept of experimentum (roughly, " experience "), the distinction between the accidental and essential universal, and the relation of the latter to the former. Only then can the proper contrast be drawn between vis aestimativa (the highest attainments open in principle to the workings of animal intelligence) and vis cogitativa (the perceptual roots without which there could be no conceptual thought, either primo or secundo) .

"'•Ibid., p. 154.

⁸⁵ Price, op. cit., p. 78.

⁸⁶ Ibid., p. 36.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 61

1. The levels or grades of sensitive life.

With respect to the notion of experience, St. Thomas points out that there are in principle three grades or levels of animal awareness and that to each of these levels the notion of experience applies in different ways. " For some forms of animal life," he says, specifically, " for those animals which pass their entire existence fixed in one place, the influence of sensible objects in the surrounding environment gives rise to nothing beyond the collated awareness of immediate sensations; and in these forms there is no such thing as memory." " " This very fact that there can be animals without a capacity for recollection means that only some animals have an internally organized field of apprehensions [sunt prudentia], since this implies provision for the future on the basis of a memory of past happenings." ^3S On the other hand--and this is the third dimension or plane of possible animal existence--among those animals which need a memory by reason of the fact that they depend for survival on being able to orient themselves ana move about, there are some in whom the estimative capacities are rigidly determined and only slightly, if at all, open to modification through experience; while in others the estimative capacities admit of a wide range of behavioral modification through experience, and only these latter kind, for example, can be effectively trained.

⁸⁷ In I Met., lect. 1, n. 10: " In quibusdam vero animalibus ex sensu non fit
phantasia, et sic in eis non potest esse memoria: et huiusmodi sunt animal ia
imperfecta, quae sunt immobilia secundum locum." And he cites good Darwinian
reasons for the structure of sensory consciousness in such forms: " Cum enim
animalibus cognitio sensitiva sit provisiva ad vitae necessitatem et ad propriam
Operationen!, animalia ilia memoriam habere debent, quae moventur ad distans
motu progressive: nisi enim apud ea remaneret per memoriam iutentio prae-
concepta, ex qua ad motum inducuntur, motum continuare non possent quousque
finem intentum consequerentur. Animalibus vero immobilibus sufficit ad proprias
operationes, praesentis sensibilis acceptio, cum ad distans non moveantur; et ideo
sola imaginatione confusa habent aliquem motum, ut dicitur tertio de Anima."

⁸⁸ Ibid., n. 11: "Ex hoc autem, quod quaedam animalia memoriam habent, et
quaedam non habent, sequitur quod quaedam sunt prudentia et quaedam non.
Cum enim prudentia ex praeteritorum memoria de futuris provideat."

62 JOHN N. DEELY

It seems to me quite clear that what Aquinas is getting at here, without having at his disposal adequate field research or laboratory reports, is the distinction between instinct strictly so-called, i. e., between a species dominated by a pattern of behavior which is " species-predictable " or " ' ubiquitous in its distribution ' among all members of a species without exception," ³⁹ and intelligence, i. e., species the behavior of which does not seem to be dominated by a gene-determined pattern as much as it is governed by a " principle of nonrational estimations which bear the mark of individual experience and which are ceaselessly transformed by the acquisitions of experience." ⁴⁰ Thus in discussing the three grades of animal life, St. Thomas uses the phrase " ex quodam naturae instinctu " *' before he draws the distinction between ilia animalia quae sunt prudentia et non disciplinabilia et ea quae sunt et prudentia et disciplinabilia*² It is true that he himself seeks to ground this distinction on the presence or absence of hearing--" inter ea vero, quae memoriam habent, quaedam habent auditum et quaedam non "⁴³--but whatever its fundament (which is

⁸⁸ Adler, op. cit., pp. 115-116. Adler cites this statement as " the minimum meaning [of the words ' innate ' and ' instinct '] that can be agreed to by all parties " (p. 115), in support of which statement he gives the following references (fn. 6, p. 312) : " See Donald Hebb, A Textbook of Psychology (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1958), pp. 123-126, and 129-130, esp. p. 126. With regard to the differentiation between innate and learned behavior, see N. Tinbergen, The Study of Instinct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), Konrad Lorenz, Evolution and Modification of Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), Adolf Portmann, Animals as Social Beings (New York: Viking, 1961), Chapter 5; Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, " Experimental Criteria for Distinguishing Innate from Culturally Conditioned Behavior " in Cross-Cultural understanding (New York: Harper, 1964), ed. by F. S. C. Northrop and H. H. Livingston, pp. 297-307."

⁴⁰ Simon, Freedom, of Choice, p. 40.

⁴¹ In I Met., lect 1, n. 11.

¹² In I Met., lect. 1, n. 12. The Latin here is not a quotation but a condensation in paraphrase of the following remarks: ". . . quaedam [animalia] . . . licet prudentiam habere possint, non tarnen sunt disciplinabilia. . . . [Alia] vero animalia ... et disciplinabilia et prudentia esse possunt." See fn. 43 below for fuller context.

⁴⁸ Ibid. The text continues: " Quaecumque autem auditum non habent, ut apes, vel si quod aliud huiusmodi animal est, licet prudentiam habere possint,

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 63

a question for experimental science, not for philosophy), the distinction between instinct and animal intelligence is a phe-notypically sound one: " Whereas the behavior of insects is mostly instinctive [second grade of cognitio quae est in brutis], that of the higher vertebrates is remarkably capable of adjustment to the circumstances [third grade]." ** That the adaptive flexibility distinguishing the third level or grade from the second should be referred to the vis aestimativa is clear from the sense in which the attainments proper to the vis aestimativa are coincident with the capacity of perceptual abstraction and thought as Adler has explained them (" ratione huius aestima-tionis dicuntur animalia quamdam prudentiam habere "^4B). This is also why the exclusive translation of vis aestimativa as " instinct " and the view of it as innate in the sense of fixed and rigid--" determinata ad unum "--is mistaken, and an implicit denial at the theoretical level of the difference between the second and third levels of animal awareness as it is given at the level of observation. Thus the phrase used to distinguish the second level of animal life from the first--ratione prae-

non tarnen sunt disciplinabilia, ut scilicet per alterius instructionem possint as-suescere ad aliquid faciendum vel vitandum: huiusmodi enim instructio praecipue recipitur per auditum: unde dicitur in libro de Sensu et sensato, quod auditus est sensus disciplinae. . . . Dia vero animalia, quae memoriam et auditum habent, et disciplinabilia et prudentia esse possunt.

⁴⁴ Simon, op. cit., p. 111.

⁴⁵ De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par 4. In The Difference of Man, pp. 153-154, Adler
explains the difference between " intelligence " in animals and instinct in the fol
lowing terms: " By a perceptual abstraction in an animal I mean a disposition
to perceive a number of sensible particulars (or, in laboratory parlance, stimuli)
as the same in kind or as sufficiently similar to be reacted to as the same. . . .
This disposition is only operative in the presence of an appropriate sensory
stimulus, and never in its absence."

" Outside of the laboratory and in the field, ethologists have found that animals have the disposition to recognize other animals as members of their own species or as members of alien species, in spite of individual differences among the perceived instances. Here again we have the operation of perceptual abstraction in animal behavior; but here the perceptual abstractions are, according to the ethologists, instinctive or innate . . . they are not perceptual attainments, but perceptual endowments. However, this difference does not affect their character or functioning as perceptual abstractions."

64 JOHN N. DEELT

sentiae memoriae, quaedam animalia " aliquid prudentiae ha-bere possunt "⁴⁶--does not have a univocal meaning even in the order of animal consciousness. Not only is it necessary to aver that " dicitur prudentia aliter in brutis animalibus, et aliter hominibus inesse,"⁴⁷ but also that " dicitur prudentia aliter in brutis secundi gradus cognitionis, et aliter in brutis tertius gradus inesse." In the former case, prudentia means " an innately structured repertoire of interaction responses "; in the latter case, it means " able to learn from experience." From this it can be seen that, on the one hand, the ancient outlines of the nature of animal intelligence were basically sound and grounded in principle, but at the same time they were also beset by a number of ambiguities and uncertainties consequent on the want of laboratory experiments and the meagerness of field researches. These ambiguities and uncertainties such as have been brought out in the foregoing textual analyses, moreover, resulted--as indeed it was inevitable they should--in a certain amount of equivocation and hesitation when it came to considering the upper levels of sensory apprehension in relation to intellectual apprehension, bearing witness to the great difficulty, as Simon says, of separating, " even incompletely, the processes pertaining to animal intelligence from the rational processes which penetrate them intimately."⁴⁸ Therefore, it is necessary to keep before one's mind in an explicit way the question which is our guide through each of these classical texts: what is the highest level in principle open to the workings of animal intelligence, and how is conceptual intelligence related thereto?

2. The third or highest level of sensitive awareness.

What we have established thus far is that of the three so-called grades or levels of animal awareness, it is only the third that need be of further concern to us in the present analysis. What are the ambiguities and uncertainties in the traditional

"In I Met., lect. 1, n. 11.

"Ibid.

⁴⁸ Simon, op. cit., p. 112.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 65

analyses of that sort of animal able to learn from experience, and how are they to be resolved in view of the question at hand?

Interestingly enough, we find in St. Thomas's analysis of the operation of animal intelligence an ambiguity exactly analogous to that which obtains in his analysis of the operation of human intelligence, but with the opposite emphasis. His analyses of the contrasts between practical and speculative reason in man and the superiority accorded to the latter are well known. Equally well known is St. Thomas's conclusion that speculative reason and the contemplative life it founds are strictly speaking more divine than human,⁴⁹ being aspects in which man in a certain manner transcend his own proper nature. Thus he goes so far as to say that " the highest attainments open in principle to the workings of human intelligence are realized perfectly only in the divine intelligence, and, insofar as they are realized in the human mind, they exist not so much as a possession of man but rather as something borrowed by man from God." ⁵⁰ And he contends that, so far as possible, it is in the light of such life and wisdom proprie superhumana that man must seek to organize his existence.

Now a distinction in every way paralleling this is drawn by St. Thomas in the order of animal intelligence in the text from the De Veritate which we have already had occasion to notice:

It should be recognized that in the order of animal awareness . . . there is not only a capacity which is strictly proper to animal intelligence, but also a capacity by virtue of which the animal in an improper way attains the level of human intelligence.⁶¹

⁴⁹ Cf. Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (New York: Mentor, 1963), esp. pp. 26-28; St. Thomas, de Veritate, q. la, a. 1, and de Virtutibus Cardinalibus, q. 1.

⁶⁰ In I Met., lect. 3, n. 64: " talem scientiam, quae est de Deo et de primis causis, aut solus Deus habet, aut si non solus, ipse tarnen maxime habet. Solus quidem habet secundum perfectam comprehensionem. Maxime vero habet, in-quantum suo modo etiam ab hominibus habetur, licet ab eis non ut possessio habeatur, sed sicut aliquid ab eo mutuatum."

⁵¹ De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4: " Sciendum est ... quod ... ex parte appre-

66 JOHN N. DEELY

In others words, the highest attainments open in principle to the workings of animal intelligence are realized perfectly, secundum perfectam comprehensionem, only in the workings of human intelligence; and insofar as they are realized in the animal mind they exist not so much as a possession of the animal but rather as something " borrowed " by the animal from man.

Just as the power of imagination (vis imaginativ a) belongs to the animal soul by virtue of its proper nature as sensitive, ... so, by contrast, the capacity for practical assessments in view of development and survival (vis aestimativa) . . . exists in the animal soul according as it in a certain manner transcends its own proper nature.⁵²

In other words, just as the higher and more noble capacities of the human intelligence are quaedam participatio divinae, so the " superior et dignior " capacities of the animal intelligence are quaedam participatio humanae. " From such consideration it is beyond dispute," say Aquinas, " that the vis aestimativa is the highest and most noble among the various capacities of animal apprehension." ⁵³

From this, according to the principle that each thing is said to be directed by the highest of its capacities, it would follow that, as Price says, " any creature which can be aware of present-to-past resemblance [quod habet memoriam] at all has

hensivarum virium . . . sensitivae partis, aliquid est quod competit sensibili animae secundum propriam naturam; aliquid vero, secundum quod habet aliquam participationem modicam rationis, attingens ad ultimum eius in sui supremo."

⁵² Ibid.: " Sicut vis imaginativa competit animae sensibili secundum propriam
rationem, . . . sed vis aestimativa, per quam animal apprehendit intentiones non
acceptas per sensum . . . inest animae sensitivae secundum quod participât aliquid
rationis." See also Aquinas's remark in De Potentia, q. 5, a. 8, as cited and
commented on by Yves Simon in his " Essay on Sensation," fn. 31 (in The
Philosophy of Knowledge, ed. by R. Houde and J. Mullally [Philadelphia:
Lippinoott, I960], p. 78).

⁵³ Ibid., par. 5: " Patei igitur ex dictis, quod irascibilis et concupiscibilis sunt
diversae potentiae, et quid est objectum utriusque, et quomodo irascibilis juvat
concupiscibilem, et est superior et dignior ea, sicut aestimativa inter cetera»
apprehensivas virtutes sensitivae partis."

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 67

taken the first step toward cognition also, though it still has a very long way to go and may never be able to complete the journey ";⁵⁴ and it would further follow that among those animal forms belonging to the second and third grades of cognitive differentiation (which St. Thomas groups together as " animalia perfecta " over against the "animalia imperfecta " of the first grade), the more perfect among them would organize their life so far as possible secundum quod habent aliquam participationem modicam mtionis, that is, by virtue of the vis aestimativa insofar as it means animal intelligence rather than mere instinct.

3. Textual difficulties.

There are a number of terminological difficulties that resist any smooth resolution. Let us make explicit note of them so that we can at least make some account of them.

First of all, there is the difficulty consequent on the diverse uses of the notions of imagination and memory. In distinguishing the first and lowest possible level of animal or sensory existence Thomas says: "In quibusdam vero animalibus ex sensu non fit phantasia, et sic in eis non potest esse memoria." ⁵⁵ Now the term " phantasia " in usually regarded as a synonym for " imaginatio," but, if we were to make this substitution in the text just cited, the following inconsistency would result:

In quibusdam vero animalibus ex sensu non fit imaginatio, et sic in eis non potest esse memoria; et huiusmodi sunt animalia imperfecta, quae sunt immobilia secundum locum, ut conchilia. . . . Animalibus vero immobilibus sufficit ad proprias operationes. prae-sentis sensibilis acceptio ... et ideo sola imaginatione confusa habent aliquem motum indeterminatum. . . .

In other words, the imperfect forms of animal life have no memory because they have no imaginative capacity, although they do have some imaginative capacity! Obviously,

⁵¹ Price, op. cit., p. 74.

⁵⁵ In I Met., lect. 1, n. 10.

68 JOHN N. DEELY

St. Thomas has in mind some kind of distinction between " phantasia " and " imaginatio," but what exactly is it?

In the text just cited, it was said that " memoria " presupposes " phantasia," although some form of " imaginatio " can pre-exist " memoria." On this accounting, " imaginatio " would be a capacity lower in the scale of sensory consciousness than the capacity for " memoria." This inference is borne out in a later passage of the same lectio:

Dicit [Aristotelis] ergo quod vita animalium regitur imaginatione et memoria; imaginatione quidem, quantum ad animalia imperfecta; memoria vero quantum ad animalia perfecta. Licet enim et haec imaginationem habeant, tarnen unumquodque régi dicitur ab eo quod est principalius in ipso.⁵⁸

But, while this way of stating the matter is consistent within the lectio, it conflicts with the statement in the De Veritate according to which the vis aestimativa is placed at the summit of sensory consciousness " and would accordingly be the virtus regitiva vitae quantum ad animalia perfecta saltern in tertium gradum cognitionis sensitivae. It also conflicts with the statement that " vis imaginativa competit animae sensibili secundum propriam rationem,"⁵⁸ for if " imaginato " is the same capacity as the " vis imaginativa," the text just cited from In I Met., lect. 1, n. 14 (at fn. 56 above), is saying in effect that, whereas the imperfect animals are ruled by id quod competit animae sensibili secundum propriam rationem, seil., imaginatio sen vis imaginativa, the perfect animals are ruled by aliquid quod competit animae sensibili secundum rationem non propriam, seil., memoria. This ambiguity is compounded by the use of the phrase vis imaginativa in the Summa TheoL, I, q. 85, a. 2 ad 3, which, as we have already seen (see text above at fn. 20), certainly suggests that the vis imaginativa corresponds to the highest capacity of sensory awareness, whereas the text from De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4 (cited

"Ibid., n. 14.

"See fn. 53 above.

⁵⁸ De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 69

in in. 29 above) sharply distinguishes the vis aestimativa as the highest sensory capacity from the vis imaginativa.

These ambiguities, in my judgment, amply reinforce Price's observation that " the language of faculties is a useful servant but a bad master " ; and they indicate the justice of my earlier remark to the effect that the term vis aestimativa cannot be understood as a name for a distinct faculty, unless it is also understood in wider terms as a descriptive label for animal intelligence both in its instinctive and educable manifestations,⁵⁹ or for what Adler aptly calls the capacity for perceptual thinking. Thus Gredt, for example, after restricting the notion of vis aestimativa to the instinctive aspect of animal intelligence ⁶⁰ and equating phantasia with imaginatio, so that phan-tasma becomes simply " imago rei in phantasia existens,"⁶' is compelled to concede the inadequacy of this rigidly delimited terminology when it comes to explaining the precise manner in which sensory awareness serves as the foundation of intellectual conceptions, saying that, in this reference, phantasm does not mean simply ' product of imagination " but rather the combined product of all three of the higher " senses." ⁶³ In general, what seems to me to be missing from contemporary expositions of the traditional doctrine of the internal senses is a clear analysis of the ways in which the so-called senses

⁵⁹ As we shall see, whereas vis aestimativa in the former reference betokens
instinct, in the latter reference it betokens what Aquinas and Aristotle called the
experimentum.

⁶⁰ Josephus Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae Aristotelioo-Thomisticae, editio décima
tertia recognita et aucta ab Euchario Zenzen (Barcelona, Spain: Herder, 1961),
p. 422, par. 501. See also John of St. Thomas (né Jean Poinsot), Cursus Philo
sophions Thomisticus, Reiser ed., (Marietti, 1937), Vol. Ill, p. 264al2-bl6.

⁶¹ Ibid., p. 418, par. 497.

⁶² Ibid., p. 470, par. 551, n. 2: " Vocem phantasiae latius sumimus, quatenus
complectitur etiam memoriam sensitivam et cogitativam, seu quatenus significat
très altiores facultates partis sensitivae. Hae facultates objectum cognoscunt
independenter a praesentia et secundum omnes qualitates suas sensibiles, ac
proinde intellectui objectum praebent, ex quo quidditativum cognitionem haurire
possit." For the rationale of this usage of the term " phantasia " in a broad
as well as in a restrictive sense, see Jean Poinsot, Cursus Philosophions, III, Q.
8, Art. 2, esp. 252a43-b2, 253a42-46, 258a9-37.

70 JOHN N. DEELY

are not only analytically distinct but also existentially separable--the sort of analysis essayed in former times in such neglected classics as Jean Poinsot's treatise De sensibus internist

However, such an analysis is not essential to our immediate purpose, which is to get clearly in mind the meaning of experi-mentum; and having taken note of the foregoing difficulties, we may resolve them sufficiently for our immediate purpose in the following manner.

4. Resolution of difficulties: the synonymy of " vis aestima-tiva " and " experimentum."

Inasmuch as Thomas says that the lives of the " perfect " animals are ruled by memorial whereas the vis imaginativa belongs to the sensitive soul according to its own proper nature,⁶⁴ it is clear that in this respect the two terms are being used synonymously. On this acceptation, we would expect that, just as St. Thomas says with respect to the vis imaginativa that it is in animal life inferior to that higher level of sensory awareness, the vis aestimativa, which is a quaedam participatio humanae cognitionis, so over and above memoria there would be found in the more perfect of the animalia perfecta some further achievement of animal consciousness.⁸⁵ This expectation is realized.

es« rpjjj_s t_reati_se f_orms Q. g of the Cursus philosophicus, Vol. Ill (Reiser ed.; Rome: Marietti, 1937), pp. 241-271, esp. Art. 2, " Quid sint phantasia et reliquae potentiae interiores, et in quibus subiectis sint."

⁶⁸ In I Met., lect. 1, n. 14.

"* De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4.

"^s This leaves unresolved, however, the question of how to interpret St. Thomas's earlier reference in par. 11 (of this same lectio which makes memoria the rule of perfected animal life) to " judgment " in " animals other than man " as being founded on " a certain natural instinct." " Judicium autem de rebus agendis non ex rationis deliberatione, sed ex quodam naturae instinctu, prudentia in aliis animalibus dicitur. Unde prudentia in aliis animalibus est naturalis aestimatio de convenientibus prosequendis, et fugiendïs nocivis, sicut agnus sequitur matrem et fugit lupum." (In I Met., lect. 1, n. 11) St. Thomas clearly has the vis aestimativa in mind here, yet equally clearly he has in mind only that sense of it which translates as " instinct " rather than animal intelligence. Perhaps the

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 71

Over and above memory, . . . the next and highest level of sensory consciousness is that organization of past perceptions which is made on the basis of memory and which is called " experience." Now although this manner of learning through interaction is something properly human achieved by virtue of the vis cogitativa, which is also called the ratio particularis, [inasmuch as, on the one hand, this capacity is rooted in the material aspect of the soul; on the other hand,] because animals too habituate themselves to the pursuit and avoidance of certain things on the basis of a memory of previous encounters, it must be allowed that some among the brute animals are able to achieve that organization of consciousness which is here called experience.⁶⁶

best that can be said in the face of these difficulties is that at the first and lowest grade of sensory consciousness are those animals which are able to respond only to the actual presence of an edible object by an innate " knowledge," or to a direct physical assault in a simple reflex way. At the second level or grade of sensory consciousness are located all those forms which have sufficient memory to spatially orient themselves but the general life-style of which is governed by innate mechanisms of response or instinct, as is clear in the world of insects. At the third or highest level of sensory apprehension are those animal forms which lie in the anthropoid evolutionary line, animals capable of perceptual thought and rudimentary forms of imitative transmission of behavior. But there is no way of smoothly integrating even this usage with all the others that have come to light. Yet, for all the confusion at the verbal level, the thought involved remains surprisingly constant and clear. " But though sense-perception is innate in all animals, in some the sense-impression comes to persist, in others it does not. So animals in which this persistence does not come to be have either no knowledge at all outside the act of perceiving, or no knowledge of objects of which no impression persists; animals in which it does come into being have perception and can continue to retain the sense-impression in the soul: and when such persistence is frequently repeated a futher distinction at once arises between those which out of the persistence of such sense-impressions develop a power of systematizing them and those which do not." (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Bk. II, ch. 19, 99b35-100a4.) Cf. also Henri Bergson, " The Divergent Directions of the Evolution of Life--Torpor, Intelligence, Instinct," Ch. I of Creative Evolution, authorized trans, by Arthur Mitchell (New York: Modern Library, 1944), pp. 109-203.

In I Met., lect. 1, n. 15: " Supra memoriam autem . . . proximum est experimentum, quod quaedam animalia . . . participant . . . parum. Experimentum enim est ex collatione plurium singularium in memoria receptorum. Huiusmodi autem collatio est homini propria, e;t pertinet ad vim cogitativam, quae ratio particularis dicitur rnihilominus tarnen haec vis est in parte sensitiva--In III de Anima, lect. 13, n. 397]: quae est collativa intentionum individualium, sicut ratio univer-salis intentionum universalium. Et, quia ex multis sensibus et memoria animalia ad aliquid consuescunt prosequendum vel vitandum, inde est quod aliquid experiment!,

72 JOHN N. DEELY

D. The Accidental and the Essential Universal.

This particular conception of experience lies at the base of the distinction between the per se and per accidens universal.⁶⁷ The following text comes closest to making this clear, provided that, in reading it, one adverts explicitly to the concession that in principle the level of the experimentum is open to animal intelligence in some measure:

Just as memory comes to be in those animals able to retain the impressions of sensation, so likewise does experience come to be on the basis of the recognized repetition of similar sense impressions on separate occasions and under differing circumstances, inasmuch as experience is nothing other than familiarity based on a multiplicity of memories.

Yet familiarity presupposes some active assessment whereby one thing is compared with another and related thereto."⁸. . . An active assessment of this kind goes beyond the impressions of sense by

licet parum, participare videntur. Homines autem supra experimentum, quod pertinet ad rationem particularem, habent rationem universalem, per quam vivunt, sieut per id quod est principale in eis " (see further citation in fn. 67 below).

⁶⁷ Ibid., n. 16: " Sicut autem se habet experimentum ad rationem particularem, et consuetudo ad memoriam in animalibus, ita se habet ars ad rationem universalem. [" Experimentum " and " consuetudo " here are synonymous, saving only the difference between perceptual thought as suffused by understanding (" experimentum " strictissime dictum) and perceptual thought in a pure state (" consuetudo " in animalibus brutis) ; " memoria " is loosely used here to designate the highest level of organization of perceptual thought as perceptual, and therefore is partly synonymous here with "vis aestimativa " (see the analysis of the Textual Difficulties in Section III-C-3 of the present article), which in turn is a synonym for " ratio particularis "--saving, again, the aforementioned difference between qualified and unqualified perceptual generalization: thus, " experimentum seu consuetudo " here = what I am calling the " universale per accidens," whereas true art, " ars " as superordinate to " experimentum," already depends for its reality and existence on the workings of the " ratio universalis seu intellectus," i. e., on the products of conceptual thought properly so-called, the " universale per se."] Ideo sicut perfectum vitae regimen est animalibus per memoriam adjuncta assuefactione ex disciplina, vel quomodolibet aliter, ita perfectum hominis regimen est per rationem arte perfectam. Quidam tarnen ratione sine arte reguntur; sed hoc est regimen imperfectum." Parallelly: some animals are governed by instinct with little, or no contribution from experience, but this is an imperfect level and pattern of sensory existence.

^es Compare Thomas's thought here with the remarks made by H. H. Price in Thinking and Experience, pp. 33-35.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 73

relating a number of them under some common aspect, which the intelligence can consider in itself apart from any one particular memory or sense-impression.⁶⁹

The " transcendence of the given " through experience is exactly what is meant first of all by the " universal ": " the mind persists in attending to its perceptions until it discriminates some aspect under which they may be unified, which is what is meant by a universal." ⁷⁰ How the universal is further distinguished as accidental or essential may be seen from the following:

If many singulars which are indifferent under one or another of their actual aspects are apprehended as such by the mind, that one aspect or aspects under which they are not different, when apprehended by the mind, becomes a universal in the primary sense, whether it pertains to the essence of the singulars or not.⁷¹

There we have the basis for the distinction between the essential and the accidental universal.⁷² The relations between

⁶⁹ In II Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 592: " ex sensu fit memoria in illis animalibus,
in quibus remanet impressio sensibilis, sicut supra dictum est. Ex memoria
autem multoties facta circa eamdem rem, in diversis tarnen singularibus, fit
experimeutum; quia experimentum nihil aliud esse videtur quam accipere aliquid
ex multis in memoria retentis.

" Sed tamen experimentum indiget aliqua ratiocinatione circa particularia per quam confertur unum ad aliud, quod est proprium rationis. . . . Ratio autem non sistit in experimento particularium, sed ex multis particularibus in quibus expertus est, accipit unum commune;, quod firmatur in anima, et considérât illud absque consideratione alicuius singularium."

⁷⁰ Ibid., n. 595: " anima stat per considerationem quousque perveniatur ad
aliquid impartibile in eis, quod est universale."

⁷¹ Ibid., n. 594: " Si enim accipiantur multa singularia, quae sunt indifferentia
quantum ad aliquid unum in eis existens, illud unum secundum quod non différant,
in anima acceptum, est primum universale, quidquid sit illud, sive scilicet
pertineat ad essentiam singularium, sive non."

⁷² The distinction between the "universale quod pertinet ad essentiam " and the
" universale quod pertinet ad accidentia alicuius rei existentis " is first of all
simply the distinction between concepts which express what are real essential
definitions philosophically speaking, on the one hand, and concepts which express
definitions which are real but descriptive of a syndrome of accidents rather than
of an essential property in the strict sense, on the other hand: see J. N. Deely,
"The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species," Part II, The Thomist,

74 JOHN N. DEELY

the two include the relation of sense to intellect. To see how this is so, it is necessary to see the manner in which a purely animal intelligence can attain to an accidental universal, without any need at all for concepts in the strict sense. St Thomas gives the following example of an accidental universal:

Through experience we find that Socrates and Plato and many others are indifEerent with respect to whiteness, and we apprehend this unifying feature, whiteness, as an accidental universal.⁷³

Now consider this example in the following situation. Imagine a dog lost in a jungle while a puppy, and having to grow up fending for itself. In the area where the dog grows up there are two mutually hostile tribes, one made up entirely of black men, the other made up entirely of whites. In the course of his hunting the dog in one way or another recurrently comes upon members of both tribes and is equally suspicious of black and white the first few times. However, on every occasion that the dog both notices and is noticed by one of the black men, the black makes some sort of friendly overture, either by throwing the animal a bit of food, or by calling out in a friendly voice, or by some other such gesture of " friendship." Whenever the dog is noticed by a member of the white tribe, the very opposite occurs. The white man stones the animal or clubs it and in general manifests an active hostility. It is not long before the dog seeks to actively avoid any member of the white tribe

(April, 1969), esp. pp. 327-328. In a secondary sense, however, the distinction rests on the difference between the order of perceptual abstractions and that of conceptual abstractions, inasmuch as a unification of individuals by the mind under some common sensory features with respect to which " they are not different " can take place perceptually as well as conceptually--which is the whole point of applying the term " abstraction " in Geach's and Price's sense to both orders. It is this subdistinction of the per accidens universal that is important for the present discussion.

⁷³ In 11 Post. Anal., n. 594: " Quia enim invenimus Socratem et Platonem et multos alios esse indifferentes quantum ad albedinem, accipimus hoc unum, scilicet, album, quasi universale quod est accidens." See fn. 73 above on the primary and secondary senses of the " universale quod est accidens," and on the sub-distinction of the secondary sense according as the " universale quod est accidens " is conceptual or perceptual in nature.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 75

and tentatively to multiply encounters with members of the black tribe. Without any need for words, and indeed without any capacity at all for speech, the dog reaches a conclusion very much like the propostions "All white men are enemies " and "All black men are friends."

It is easy to see that this process by which the animal comes to regard all white men as enemies and all black men as friends is that very process "of discriminative attention to some feature given in experience " which Geach tells us " is thoroughly incoherent." ⁷⁴ It is also clear that it is the very process which the birth of conceptual thought in man presupposes and from which the primitive concepts directly take rise, both those of the theoretical and those of the practical order. From one point of view, the development of awareness is a unitary process proceeding from singular impressions through memory and experience to the formation of general categories:

Out of sense perception comes to be what we call memory, and out of frequently repeated memories of the same thing develops experience; for a number of memories constitute a single experience. From experience again--i. e., from the universal now stabilized in its entirety within the soul, the one beside the many which is a single identity within them all--originate the skill of the craftsman and the knowledge of the man of science, skill in the sphere of becoming and skill in the sphere of being.

We conclude that these states of knowledge are neither innate in a determinate form, nor developed from other higher states of knowledge, but from sense-perception. It is like a rout in battle stopped by first one man making a stand and then another, until the original formation has been restored. The soul is so constituted as to be capable of this process.⁷⁵

So true is it that there is a communality between the highest attainments of animal intelligence and the origin of the primitive concepts in man--the " species intelligibles ipsae " of I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3--that Aquinas, in commenting on the text just cited from Aristotle, expressly remarks on the confusion which

"Geach, op. at., p. 19.

'"Aristotle, Postenor Analytics, Bk. II, Ch. 19, lOOa 4-13.

76 JOHN N. DEELY

will result if one does not keep in mind the distinction between the essential and accidental universal, both of which are proper to man, but the latter of which is attainable in an improper sense even by some among the animals.⁷⁶ Pierre Duhem, in his remarkable history, summed the matter up in a line: "Aristotle [in this followed by Aquinas and H. H. Price, and opposed by Geach] believes that a part of the truth directly grasped by the senses is carried up to the level of the theory," i. e., of the theoretical understanding of the structure of the world.^7ea

⁷⁶ In II Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 593: " Posset autem aliquis credere quod solus sensus, vel memoria singularium sufficiat ad causandum intelligibilem cogni-tionem principiorum, sicut posuerunt quidam antiqui, non discementes inter sensum et intellectum; el ideo ad hoc excludendum Philosophus subdit quod simul cum sensu oportet praesupponere talem naturam animae, quae possit pati hoc, idest quae sit susceptiva cognitionis universalis, quod quidem fit per intellectum possibilem; et iterum quae possit agere hoc secundum intellectum agentem, qui facit intelligibilia in actu per abstractionem universalium a singularibus."

That the danger of confusion here is indeed more real than apparent can be seen from H. H. Price's gloss, in Thinking and Experience, pp. 60-61, on this very passage of Aristotle's text. If we keep clearly in mind Adler's decision to restrict the term " abstraction " preclusively to the perceptual order, then in my judgment the interpretation of Aristotle from The Difference aj Man, fn. 9, p. 321, is unexceptionable. Cf. Price, op. cit., pp. 60-61; also pp. 35, 43, 52-53, 56, 73, and 341-358.

^T<"* Pierre Duhem, Le système du monde de Platon a Copernic (Paris: Hermann, 1913), I, p. 140. Yves Simon, in a brilliant " Essay on Sensation " (in The Philosophy of Knowledge, edited by R. Houde and J. Mullally [Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott Co., 1960], pp. 89-91), in the course of unravelling the knotty problem of the " truthfulness " of sensation--i. e., of whether, over and above yielding information about the useful or harmful effects of surrounding agents upon our bodies (over and above their undoubted pragmatic reliability in ordinary course), the senses also provide an avenue to the grasp of what things are (ways to a world of scientific intelligibility) --sets himself to determine " what relation there is between the sense qualités as sensed and the same qualities as understood." His answer to this question contains observations parallelling those of Price indicated in fn. 32 above, namely, that it is not the singular as such and for its own sake that captures the everyday interest of animals. On the contrary, the Practical Man, the Scientific Man, the Philosophical Man, and the brute animal alike have this minimum in common: that the best of their attention " goes to the régularités observed in changing situations." Yet it is important to add here that in a footnote on this text (fn. 38 on p. 90) Simon calls attention

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 77

E. The Proper Contrast Between Animal Intelligence (" Vis Aestimativa ") and the Perceptual Roots of Concept-Formation in Man (" Vis Cogitativa").

Only in this way can the proper contrast between the vis cogitativa and the vis aestimativa, between perceptual and conceptual abstraction, be drawn:

Whenever a man apprehends something singular, as when on seeing some colored object I perceive this particular man or this particular animal, it is through the operation of the vis cogitativa. . . . But in the case of brute animals, the awareness of singular existents is brought about through the operation of the vis aestimativa. . . . The vis aestimativa achieves this awareness differently than does the vis cogitativa. For the cogitativa apprehends the individual as existing under a common nature, which is possible for this perceptual or sensory capacity only by virtue of existing in a human subject, who is able to perceive this man precisely according as he is this man [existing in his own right, and not merely as something to be eaten, feared, etc.], and this stick of wood according as it is this stick of wood. The aestimativa, by contrast, does not apprehend any individual object according as it is under a common nature but only to the extent that it is a term or principle of some action or experience, as the sheep knows this particular lamb principally as something to be suckled, or knows this grass only under the aspect of food. And because the brute animal can only apprehend things in relation to itself, whatever does not have some relation to its own actions or passions is in no way perceived by the animal's vis aestimativa. For the intelligence in animals is entirely absorbed in actions and experiences so as to seek out what satisfies it and avoid what does not, without any concern for or awareness of the reality of things in themselves.⁷⁷

to the logical fate of the position that, over and above its pragmatic significance, sensation as such has no theoretical import for philosophy: " if sense impressions do not resemble bodies, except fortuitously, how can they supply regular information about the effects that their nature exerts, upon ours? The great metaphysical myths of occasionalism and preestablished harmony will soon be needed to account for the dependability of the senses, with regard to utility and harm-fulness, in a system which denies them all dependability with regard to the real state of affairs."

⁷⁷ In II de Anima, lect. 13, n. 396-398: " Si vero apprehendatur in singulari, utputa cum video coloratura, percipio hunc hominem vel hoc animal, huiusmodi quidem apprehensio in homine fit per vim cogitativam ... in parte sensitiva;

78 JOHN N. DEELY

Such is the real contrast between human and animal intelligence, both of which " abstract " in the precise sense thoroughly incoherent to Geach. (So much the worse for Geach.)

We notice more regularities than animals do, because a knowledge of " how nature works " gives us a certain satisfaction in itself, though in some men the satisfaction is small. The animal achieves the ideal which the Practical Man only approaches; he only notices the constant conjunctions which are directly relevant to his biological needs. His inductions, such as they are, are based upon these regularities. He does not bother his head with generalizing about others, and so his generalizations are few, and very closely bound up with action. When A recurs, its occurrence is not so much a premiss from which B can be inferred, as an opportunity for B-seeking action; or in other cases ... an urgent signal for B-avoiding action. The animal mind is the Pragmatist's paradise.⁷⁸

quia vis sensitiva in sui supremo participât aliquid de vi intellectiva in homine, in quo sensus intellectui coniungitur. In animali vero irrationali fit apprehensio intentionis individualis per aestimativam naturalem. . . .

" Differenter tarnen circa hoc se habet cogitativa, et aestimativa. Nam cogitativa apprehendit Individuum, ut existens sub natura communi; quod con-tingit ei, inquantum unitur intellectivae in eodem subiecto; unde cognoscit hune hominem prout est hic homo, et hoc lignum prout est hoc lignum. Aestimativa autem non apprehendit aliquod Individuum, secundum quod est sub natura communi, sed solum secundum quod est terminus aut principium alicuius actionis vel passionis; sicut ovis cognoscit hune agnum, non inquantum est hic agnus, sed inquantum est ab ea lactabilis; et hanc herbam, inquantum est élus cibus. TJnde alia individua ad quae se non extendit eius actio vel passio, nullo modo apprehendit sua aestimativa naturali. Naturalis enim aestimativa datur animalibus, ut per earn ordinentur in actiones proprias, vel passiones, prosequendas, vel fugiendas," as St. Thomas accounts for elsewhere (In I Met., lect. 1, n. 14) in the following Darwinian terms: " In hoc vero, quod cognitionem animalium déterminât per comparationem ad regimen vitae, datur intelligi quod cognitio inest ipsis animalibus non propter ipsum cognoscere sed propter necessitatem actionis." This contrast between the human and the brute perception of the singular is expressed in contemporary discussion with extraordinary clarity by Adler in The Difference of Man, fn. 14 p. 334.

The senses, thus, know indeed the singular; but concern with the singular precisely as it is singular--that is the privilege of the Poetic Man and a function of intellect as enrooted in the senses--a point made beautifully in what may well be Jacques Maritan's greatest book, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York: Pantheon, 1953). The " world " of the animal is one of objects organized along the lines of generalized action exceptancies in terms of the " friendly " and the " hostile," and that is a sphere of accidental universals as much as it is of singulars. See the remarks of Yves Simon cited in fn. 76a above.

⁷⁸ Price, vp. cit., pp. 42-43. Cf. IV Contra Gentes, c. 33, n. 5.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 79

These lines by Price, a profound author whom Geach has understood as poorly as he has St. Thomas, serve as an exact commentary on the text from St. Thomas last cited.

F. The Sphere of Animal Consciousness and the World of Human Awareness.

The animal achieves the ideal which the Practical Man only approaches: so true is this, writes St. Thomas, that when it is a question of immediate action, the difference between the essential and the accidental universal (insofar as it is based on the difference between perceptual abstraction and conceptual abstraction) is effectively suppressed. For the experience accessible to animals differs from the art which man develops only by virtue of the difference between perceptual thinking and conceptual thinking,⁷⁹ very much the difference between vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa; but when it is a question of immediate action, inasmuch as all action has reference to what exists in the physical world, this difference becomes irrelevant, so much so that the experienced animals will be able to respond with more effective intelligence than would a man given only theoretical instruction and placed in the same situation!^so Yet in the long run, because the experienced animal would possess only know-how, without any knowledge of why (" experti autem sciunt quia, sed nesciunt propter quid "⁸¹), the human being will be able to change the situation by virtue of applying his theoretical, i. e. conceptual, knowledge of it, in ways totally beyond the comprehension of the animal, which will thereupon adapt itself to the changed cir-

⁷⁹ See text cited in fn. 67 above and that in fn. 80 below.

⁸⁰ In I Met., lect. 1, n. 20: "quantum ad actrnn pertinet, experientia nihil
videtur differre ab arte. Cum enim ad actionem venitur, tollitur differentia,
quae inter experimentum et artem erat per universale et singulare: quia sicut
experimentum circa singularia operatur, ita et ars; unde praedicta differentia
erat in cognoscendo tantum. Sed quamvis in modo operandi ars et experimentum
non différant, quia utraque circa singularia operatur, différant tarnen in efficacia
operandi. Nam expert! magis proficiunt in operando illis qui habent rationem
universalem artis sine experimento."

^S1lbid., n. 24.

80 JOHN N. DEELY

cumstances with a cunning and thoroughness that can only further stir the admiration of the Practical Man, who, try as he might, is condemned by his nature to fall short of his animal ideal.

The order of animal intelligence, even at its summit, is one of the strictest pragmatism; there is in it neither a speculative nor a practical order of estimations. That distinction depends on seeing that there are things and aspects of reality independent of one's ambit of interest and activity, just what the brute animal in principle cannot and in fact does not see. The animal world is exclusively a world of safe and dangerous places, pleasing or unsettling circumstances, edible or distasteful objects, threatening or familiar individuals. It has frequently enough been assumed, Jacob von Uexkull has remarked, " that all animals with eyes saw the same objects." ⁸² Nothing could be less true (save perhaps Geach's interpretation of Aquinas). " The animal's ' environment ' is altogether different from the natural scene; it more nearly resembles a poorly furnished room." ^ss

Animals are perfectly adapted to their sharply defined and and delimited environment--perfectly adapted to it, but equally imprisoned within it, so that they cannot overstep the frontier in anyway whatsoever: they cannot even find an object though armed with senses that are apparently well adapted to the purpose, unless, that is, the object fits into their selected partial world. This selected reality, selected by the biological necessities either of the individual or the . . . species, so limited and sharply defined, is what Uexkull calls Umwelt: ' environment ' in contrast to ' surroundings ' and in contrast to ' world '. . . . An animal's field of relationships is not its ' surroundings ' and certainly not ' the world.' Its field of relationship is very clearly delimited ' environment ': a world from which something has been omitted [namely, things in themselves, existentes in se], in which its inmate is enclosed and to which it is, at the same time, perfectly adapted.⁸⁴

⁸² Jacob von Uexküll, Der unsterbliche Geist in der Natur (1938), p. 63, as cited in Pieper, op. cit., p. 85. ""Ibid., p. 76 (Pieper, p. 85). ⁸⁴ Pieper, op. at., pp. 112-113.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 81

The world of human awareness, by contrast, is differentiated, both by the nature of the knowledge it contains and by the motivations of the men who inhabit it, into speculative and practical realms, interpenetrating, no doubt, and mutually fecundating, but in principle distinct. The world of animal intelligence is one of unrelieved Pragmatism, a paradise or ideal limit, as Price says, to which the Practical Man can only approximate. It is the difference, as Adler has so clearly shown, between the orders of perceptual and conceptual thinkers.⁸⁵

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the animal intelligence is able to achieve a quaedam participatio humanae by forming for itself and its own well-being, and in an improper sense, an " accidental universal," i. e., " a unification by the mind [in this case the anima sensibilis sen solummodo sensitiva] of several things under one aspect." ^S6

G. Rational Processes and Animal Intelligence: Summary Restatement.

Although in context St. Thomas is speaking of the operation of sense as it operates in man under the influence of reason, and, in general, when treating of this question, tends to play down the attainments of the sensitive soul as such,⁸⁷ the foregoing discussions show that the following remarks can be

⁸⁵ Adler summarizes the issue whether concepts differ in kind or degree from
percepts in terms of the presently available evidence on pp. 161-162 in The
Difference of Man.

⁸⁶ In II Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 595. " anima stat per considerationem quousque
perveniatur ad aliquid impartibile in eis [seil., in sensibilibus], quod est universale."

⁸⁷ E. g., in the Summa Theol., I, q. 78, a. 4: " Considerandum est autem
quod, quantum ad formas sensibiles, non est differentia inter hominem et alia
animalia: similiter enim immutantur a sensibilibus exterioribus. Sed quantum
ad intentiones praedictas [seil., sensuum internorum], differentia est: nam alia
animalia percipiunt huiusmodi intentiones solum natural! quodam instinctu, homo
autem etiam per quandam collationem [seil., per experimentum]." It is such
statements as these concerning that instinctive mode of operation of the vis
aestimativa wherein the notion of experimentum has no role (which are by far
the more common expressions in scholasticism) that have contributed to so
much misunderstanding in modern times over questions of human evolutionary
origins and of the capacities of the animal mind .

82 JOHN N. DEELY

legitimately appropriated in response to our question, which was never broached explicitly by Aquinas, namely, the question as to what in principle is the animal mind able to attain at its highest level of organization.

If it were the case that sense could apprehend particularities in an exclusive manner, so that by no manner or means could it apprehend a universal aspect within the particulars, it would be impossible that the knowledge of the universal should be in any way caused in us by reason of the perceptions of our senses.⁸⁸ Since therefore, as a matter of fact, we clearly do derive some of our intellectual knowledge from the objects which sense alone is able to apprehend as such, Aristole considered it to be rather plain that we must arrive at a knowledge of the first universal principles through induction« For it is only through an inductive process that the activities of sense are able to initially establish cognitive generalizations within the organism's field of apprehension, inasmuch as the activities of sense are what bring the relevant singulars into relation.⁸⁹

Moreover, these remarks indicate the manner in which the transition from animal to man was achieved in the evolutionary series without any sharp discontinuity in the phenotypic and behavioral order, despite the irreducible difference in kind between perception and conception as ways of knowing:

When it comes to action, the distinction between art and experience, which is based on the difference between perceptual and conceptual abstraction, is obviated, because . . . that distinction rests entirely on a difference in modes of apprehension. Where it is a question of action, however, what is important is the manip-

⁸⁸ In II Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 595: " Si autem ita esset quod sensus appre
henderet solum id quod est particularitatis, et nullo modo cum hoc apprehenderet
universalem naturam in particulari, non esset possibile quod ex apprehensione
sensus causaretur in nobis cognitio universalis."

⁸⁹ Ibid.: " Quia igitur universalium cognitionem accipimus ex singularibus, con-
cludit manifestum esse quod necesse est prima universalia principia cognoscere
per inductionem. Sic enim, scilicet per viam inductionis, sensus facit universale
intus in anima, inquantum considerantur omnia singularia." How anyone could
miss this point if he has read St. Thomas with the minimum of scholarly care
is a mystery to me--e. g., see the Summa TheoL, I, q. 84, a. 6.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 83

ulation of singulars, and to this end any distinction in how those singulars are known [whether by animal or properly human intelligence] is not directly relevant.⁹⁰

We see therefore how the relation must be understood, and in what sense Price could say that " intelligent behaviour, no less than thinking, depends on the awareness of universalia in re," so that " even animals must have some awareness of universals." ⁹¹ Without any confusion of the orders of sense and intellect, of percept and concept, it is possible to say that both sense and intellect apprehend universals, but in the former case it is a question of a universal which exists only in relation to the perceiving organism as an environmental factor, in Uexkull's sense, and in no other way; whereas in the latter case it is a question of a universal which indeed exists in relation to me, but through which are seen realities as indifferent to me and in themselves as well. Similarly, both sense and intellect apprehend the singular, but in the former case the singular is apprehended properly and essentially as an aspect of environment, i. e., as something to be dealt with in the forseeable future; whereas in the latter case the singular is always apprehended as an aspect of the world, i. e., as a particular being which exists or could exist quite apart from my dealings and interests. Moreover, these apprehensions first come about in both cases by that " thoroughly incoherent " process Geach calls abstraction.

⁹⁰ In I Met., lect. 1, n. 20: " Cum enim ad actionem venitur, tollitur differentia, quae inter experimentum et artem erat per universale et singulare: quia . . . praedicta diflerentia erat in cognoscendo tantum." " Cum enim ad actionem venitur . . . sicut experimentum circa singularia operatur, ita et ars," unde " tollitur differentia, quae inter experimentum et artem erat per universale et singulare." This text is cited in full in fn. 80 above. Further to this point, see J. 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), esp. pp. 153-176.

⁸¹ Price, op. cit., p. 36. See, however, fn. 72 above, and the reference fn. 116 below.

84 JOHN N. DEELY

IV. Aquinas and Mr. Geach: A Study in Parody.

In conclusion, it is enough to merely juxtapose the following two passages, to see how really insupportable is Geach's claim that the opinions of St. Thomas in the Summa, like Geach's own, are anti-abstractionist.

According to Geach:

We can now say something that goes for all concepts without exception: Having a concept never means being able to recognize some feature we have found in direct experience; the mind makes concepts, and this concept-formation and the subsequent use of the concepts formed never is a mere recognition or finding. ... In all cases it is a matter of fitting a concept to my experience, not of picking out the feature I am interested in from among other features given simultaneously. . . . What is logically distinctive in the use of colour words [for example] is certainly not to be reached, by an act of abstraction, from the seeing of red in things.⁹-'

What relation is there between such a view and that expressed in the following words?

Abstraction occurs in two ways. One way is through the operations of synthesizing and distinguishing, as when we understand that one thing does not depend on another, or exists independently of it. The other way is through an act of attention, as when we understand one thing without taking any account of something else. ... In this second manner of abstracting, for the intellect to consider one thing in isolation from another thing on which it depends in actual existence does not involve error, as is clearest when it is a question of abstraction from sensible objects. ... If we were to consider color and its properties without paying any attention to, say, the apple before us which is colored, or even if we express our consideration verbally, there is error neither in our opinion nor in our speech. For being colored docs not necessarily imply being an apple. . . . The same remarks hold for any other consideration of aspects of the sensible world ... : they can be legitimately considered quite apart from any individual principles not implied by them with necessity. This indeed is exactly what it means to abstract a universal from a particular, or an intelligible likeness from a sensible likeness, namely, to consider the nature

⁹³ Geach, op. cit., pp. 40-41.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 85

involved without considering the instances represented as such by the perceptual abstractions.⁹³

The distance between this view and that expressed by Geach is logically and philosophically infinite.

A. The Problem of Particular Judgments.

That is why, in facing the question as to how a judgment, that is, an intellectual judgment, being " inherently general, can be tied down to particular things," ^M what for Aquinas is the answer (intellectu convertendo se ad phantasmata) strikes Geach as a " metaphorical term," " obviously a mere label with negligible explanatory value."⁹⁵ What is metaphorical about saying that " even after conceptualizing the perceptual attainments of sense, the operation of the intellect continues to depend on sense," ⁹⁶ especially after having made it clear that " the agent intellect is not related to our capacity for conceptual understanding as its object, but rather as causing the potentially intelligible objects of sense to become actually so. Obviously, to function in this way there is re-

⁹³ Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 1 ad 1: " dicendum quod abstrahere oontingit
dupliciter. Uno modo, per modum compositionis et divisionis; sicut cum intelligimus
aliquid non esse in alio, vel esse separatum ab eo. Alio modo, per modum simplicis
et absolutae considerationis; sicut cum intelligimus unum, nihil considerando de
alio. . . . Sed secundo modo abstrahere per intellectum quae non sunt abstracta
secundum rem, non habet falsitatem; ut in sensibilibus manifeste apparet. . . .
Si vero consideremus colorem et proprietates eius, nihil considérantes de porno
colorato; vel quod sic intelligimus, etiam voce exprimamus; erit absque falsitate
opinionis et orationis. Pomum enim non est de ratione coloris; . . . Similiter dico
quod ea quae pertinent ad rationem speciei cuiuslibet rei materialis, . . . possunt
considerari sine principiis individualibus, quae non sunt de ratione speciei. Et
hoc est abstrahere universale a particular!, vel speciem intelligibilem a phan-
tasmatibus, considerare scilicet naturam speciei absque consideratione individualium
principiorum, quae per phantasmata repraesentantur."

⁹⁴ Geach, op cit., p. 65.

⁹⁵ Ibid. It is useful to compare Geach's glib dismissal here with the analytical
evaluation made by Jean Poinsot " De necessitate conversionis ad phantasmata,"
in his Cursus Philosophicus, III, 331-3.

⁸⁶ Summa Theol. I, q. 86, a. 1: intellectus noster "etiam postquam species intelligibiles abstraxit, non potest secundum eas actu intelligere nisi convertendo se ad phantasmata, in quibus species intelligibiles intelligit."

86 JOHN N. DEELY

quired, in addition to the agent intellect, the presence of perceptual attainments, proper functioning of the sensitive powers, and deliberate effort on the part of the one seeking to understand, since we come to understand what is not known through bringing it into some actual relation with what is known." ⁹⁷

B. The Role of the Intellectus Agens in Concept-Formation.

Similarly, Geach's reference to the intellectus agens as being, for St. Thomas, " the mind's concept-forming power " ^9S shows how completely he has misread even the texts he does cite, such as I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3. To speak exactly, the intellectus agens is not for St. Thomas our concept-forming power but the proximate cause postulated as necessary for establishing a proportion between understanding and nature, so that what is only potentially intelligible of itself may be established in a condition where it can actually be conceptualized. In other words, it is the cause whereby our capacity for understanding is placed in first act, on the basis of which that capacity is able to form for itself conceptions and so actually understand in actu secundo. This is the profound importance of the " duplex operatic intellectus " described in I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3: " Nam primo quidem consideratur passio intellectus possibilis secundum quod informatur specie intelligibili. Qua quidem formatus, format secundo vel defmitionem vel divisionem vel

"Ibid., q. 79, a. 4 ad 3: intellectus agens " non se habet ut objectum, sed ut faciens objecta in actu: ad quod requiritur, praeter praesentiam intellectus agentis, praesentia phantasmatum, et bona dispositio virium sensitivarum, et exercitium in huiusmodi opère; quia per unum intellectum fiunt etiam alia intellecta. . . ." The problem of particular judgments in Geach is a totally different problem from the question as it arises in St. Thomas. In the latter case, it is a question of the manner in which the various powers of apprehension work together to constitute a unified sphere of conscious awareness; in the former case the problem stems from astonishment that a part of the cognitive dynamism, in this case the intellect, does not seem to achieve the same results when it has been cut off in analysis from its perceptual and roots, as it seems to achieve in actual exercise where it exists and operates in living contact with the perceptual order. See St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 10, a. 5, corpus.

⁹⁸ Geaeh, op. cit., p. 130.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPT-FORMATION 87

compositionem, quae per vocem significatur." To speak exactly, the intellectus agens is our abstraction making power: " it must be said that the intellectus agens is the cause of our concepts only inasmuch as it renders what exists under the conditions of materiality in the order of sense as existing free from those conditions at the level of intellect." " The elaboration and application of concepts, by contrast, i. e., the actual exercise of understanding, belongs to what St. Thomas calls the intellectus possibilis, not, indeed, entirely on its own resources, in terms of which it is utterly passive, but as " formed," i. e., placed in actu primo, by the intellectus agens operative on the attainments of perceptual " thought " : " because it is not owing to the intellectus agens that sometimes we understand and sometimes we do not, but to the intellect which is in potency," in potency, that is, to natures rendered intelligible actually.¹⁰⁰ This is why, in mentioning conditions required for understanding and for the formation of concepts, over and above the presence of the intellectus agens, St. Thomas refers to the factor of our own sustained and repeated efforts: " et exercitium in huiusmodi opère."¹⁰¹ This is also the reason why, as Aquinas clearly points out, if the intellectus agens were not primo et per se et secundum naturam propriam ems an abstractive power in just that sense so th