Intentionality
| Latin | esse intentionale; intentio intellecta |
|---|---|
| Locus in Aquinas | Summa theologiae I, q. 85, a. 2; q. 16, a. 1; De veritate q. 1 |
| Branch | Philosophy of knowledge |
| Controlling authority | Catechism 355–384; Fides et Ratio; Thomistic synthesis |
| Doctrinal standing | Knowledge attains extra-mental being; esse intentionale is scholastic analysis, not a defined term of the Magisterium |
| School | Thomism |
Intentionality, in the Thomistic sense treated here, is the existence of the known in the knower as a likeness ordered to the thing, not as a second physical specimen of that thing.[1]
The known in the knower without a second horse
Aristotle said that the soul is in a way all things. Aquinas takes this as a claim about likeness, not about the soul's being composed of earth and fire. Summa theologiae I, question 16, article 1, notes that knowledge is according as the known is in the knower, whereas appetite is according as the desirer tends to the thing. The term of the intellect, the true, is therefore in the intellect. The stone is not physically relocated into the mind. Its likeness is there as the form by which the intellect is actually understanding.[2]
Later Thomists named this mode of presence esse intentionale, intentional being, to distinguish it from the natural being of the stone in the world. The name is school Latin for a distinction already at work in questions 84–85. The species is a likeness of the object, not a duplicate object. If it were a duplicate, science would be about inner pebbles, and the world's stone would remain unknown.
Two operations, and the word as sign
Question 85, article 2, distinguishes impression of the species in the possible intellect from the intellect's forming a definition, composition, or division expressed by a word. Words signify what the intellect forms for judging of external things, not the species as a private impression. Intentionality therefore covers both the received likeness and the conceived word, always as ordered to the thing. De veritate, question 1, had already said that the true adds to being the conformity of thing and intellect.[1]
Sense already has a likeness of the proper sensible, yet does not know that likeness as conformity. The intellect can reflect on its own act. That reflection is not a third world. It is the same power knowing that it knows. The 1913 article on intellect insists that conception, judgment, and reasoning exhibit a suprasensuous element. Intentionality is the metaphysical grammar of that element.[3]
Not modern phenomenology under a medieval label
Twentieth-century philosophy reused 'intentionality' for the directedness of consciousness. The word may be pedagogically handy. It is not to be read back as if Aquinas were a disciple of later authors. His question is metaphysical and Aristotelian: how a form can be in another without making that other into the first thing. It is not a method of describing lived experience as a closed field.[4]
Fides et Ratio defends the mind's real attainment of being against both idealism and a despair of metaphysics. The Thomistic account of intentional presence is one classical way of stating that attainment. It also protects the distinction of knower and known. God knows by his essence; creatures know by received likenesses. The difference is the difference of Creator and creature, not a difference of sincerity.[4]
Doctrinal service of a school word
The Magisterium has not defined esse intentionale. It has taught that the human person knows and loves, that truth is possible, and that the world is not a dream of the soul. Catechism 355–384 places spiritual operations in a body-soul unity. Intentionality language is not a myth of two horses, one in the stable and one in the head, and it is not a claim that only acts of knowing are known.[5]
Used soberly, the distinction lets Catholic theology speak of sacraments, faith, and the beatific vision without confusing sign, concept, and thing. The species in faith is not the beatific essence. The Eucharistic accidents are not a concept. The world remains, the mind attains it, and God remains other. That is all the term is for. Beyond that it is a classroom instrument, commendable with Aquinas, never a substitute for the Creed.[6]
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 85, articles 1–2 — Primary analysis of abstraction from phantasms and of the intelligible species as that by which the intellect understands, not that which is primarily understood.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 16, articles 1–2 — Primary account of truth as conformity of intellect and thing, residing first in the intellect composing and dividing, and analogically in things as related to intellect.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, question 1, article 1 — Disputed-question definition of truth as the adequation of thing and intellect, and of the true as a mode of being relative to knowledge.
- Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio — Encyclical on the harmony of faith and reason, the enduring value of Aquinas, metaphysical realism, and legitimate philosophical plurality within Catholic faith.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 355–384 — Authoritative anthropology of the human person as a unity of body and soul, with the soul as the form of the body and the principle of spiritual operations.
- Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Intellect — Public-domain scholastic survey of intellect as a spiritual cognitive power, including the Aristotelian-Thomistic distinction of agent and possible intellect.