Self-Knowledge in Petrus Hispanus’ Commentary on the De anima

Celia López Alcalde

Universidad de Granada, Spain
ORCID: 0000-0002-4606-8516

Recibido el 28 de julio de 2020; aceptado el 17 de agosto de 2020.

Abstract

In the Sententia cum questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis (c. 1240), attributed to Petrus Hispanus, the recovered Aristotelian understanding of the soul does not completely replace the old Neoplatonic frame. Indeed, the commentary holds the existence of self-knowledge from the very beginning of the existence of the soul, before the acquisition of species. The aim of this paper is to describe Sententia’s view on self-knowledge analysing it in the context of its eclectic psychology and epistemology. I will attempt to demonstrate that, although the commentary is set in an explicit Neoplatonic framework, Petrus Hispanus seems to be quite uncomfortable within this framework and becomes increasingly committed to the Aristotelian doctrine and its vision of science.

Keywords: Commentaries on the De anima, Sententia cum questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis, Petrus Hispanus, Knowledge, Self-knowledge, Soul

Autoconocimiento en el Comentario de Pedro Hispano al De anima

Resumen

En la Sententia cum questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis (c. 1240), atribuida a Pedro Hispano, la recuperada comprensión aristotélica del alma no reemplaza completamente el viejo marco neoplatónico. En efecto, el comentario defiende que existe un autoconocimiento del alma desde el nacimiento, antes de la adquisición de las especies. El artículo expondrá la concepción de la Sententia sobre autoconocimiento, analizándola en el contexto de la ecléctica psicología y epistemología del comentario. El objetivo es demostrar que, aunque el comentario en principio se sitúa en un contexto neoplatónico, Pedro Hispano parece terminar mostrando mayor afinidad con un concepto de ciencia más aristotélico.

Palabras clave: Comentarios al De anima, Sententia cum questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis, Pedro Hispano, conocimiento, autoconocimiento, alma

1. Petrus Hispanus’ Theory of Knowledge

The Sententia cum questionibus De anima I-II Aristotelis is an incomplete Latin commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima attributed to Petrus Hispanus, who was identified as Pope John XXI.1 The work is transmitted by two manuscripts: Kraców, Biblioteka Jagiellońska Ms. 726, ff. 45r-138v (K), and Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Ms. lat. Z. 253 (1826), ff. 54r-99v (V). There is an edition by M. Alonso Alonso (1944) based solely on the Polish manuscript, and currently we are working on a new edition which deals with both manuscripts.2

This commentary is commonly considered one of the first commentaries in the Latin milieu (Bazán, 2002: 126; Meirinhos 2011: 27, 36), and was included by Gauthier in the description of commentaries on the translatio vetus (Gauthier, 1984: 239*-242*). Indeed, the translation used by Petrus Hispanus was the one made from the Greek by James of Venice, the most used at this period (Brams, 1997: 16). The context is clearly the Faculty of Arts, and the text is quite probably the reportatio of an oral course, divided into lectiones (Meirinhos, 2005).

As some precedent studies pointed out (Meirinhos 2011: 38; Bazán, 2002: 127), the commentary manifests some doctrinal syncretism, sharing, in general lines, theories with most of the Latin masters in those years, around 1240; in words of Gauthier:

la doctrine des cours de Pierre d’Espagne sur l’âme répond bien à l’état des questions dans les années 1230-1250, mais, dans l’état actuel de nos connaissances, il est difficile de mesurer son originalité : plusieurs des traits qu’on a retenus comme caractéristiques de sa doctrine de l’intellect, — la part réservée à l’illumination à côté de l’abstraction, le recours à la doctrine avicennienne des deux faces de l’âme, — sont en réalité à l’époque des idées largement répandues (Gauthier, 1984: 240*).

Regarding knowledge, the principal source is, logically, the Aristotelian book, but the speculations are frequently enriched by the former Latin tradition, on the one hand, and by the new translations of Arabic texts, on the other. As it is well-known, during those decades, authors such as Avicenna and Averroes were influential to the reception of Aristotle’s text.3 Usually they were interpreted in conciliation with the authorities of the Latin tradition, such as Augustine, Boethius or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. This conciliarist strategy is also given in the understanding of knowledge and self-knowledge in the Sententia, which assumes the Aristotelian definition of knowledge as “unio cognoscibilis cum cognoscente” (Sententia: 70). With a definition quite obscure like this, and, in order to understand better the nature and limits of human knowledge, Petrus Hispanus addresses the discussion of the origin of knowledge, contrasting the Platonic position, which assumes innate knowledge in the soul, and the Aristotelian position, which upholds that there is only acquired knowledge from sensation.4 His own position, nonetheless, does not agree with any of these, as he defends, from an inclusive model, the co-existence of two kinds of knowledge in the soul, and not only one:

Dicendum est ad hoc quod anima intellectiua habet duplicem aspectum: unum, scilicet ad creatorem a quo exit in esse quem cognoscit, quoniam illius est causa. Iterum habet aspectum ad substantias superiores sibi similes separatas a materia et ad corpus quod dirigit et ad ea que ad corpus ordinantur que sub ipsa sunt. Et secundum duplicem aspectum duplicem habet potentiam: unam per quam comparatur ad superiora et per quam nata est separari et que est lumen ipsius anime illuminata, et hec potentia est intellectus agens, et hec est ei propria. In hac enim non indiget corpore uno [ullo?] modo. Alia autem potentia eius est intellectus possibilis per quam cognoscit corpus et ista inferiora et regit corpus (Sententia I, lect. 6, q. 1 [ed. Alonso: 294-295]).

The soul has a double sight: one to its creator, from whom it exits to the being, to whom knows because he is its cause. Additionally, the soul has a sight to the superior substances similar to itself, separated from the matter, and to the body it governs and to those things that are disposed for the body, which is below the soul. And as this double sight, the soul has a double potency: one by which it is compared to the superior things and by which is naturally separated, and this is the light of the illuminated soul itself, and this potency is the agent intellect, and this is proper. In this way, the soul does not need the body at all. The other potency is the possible intellect by which it knows the body and inferior things and governs the body (Sententia I, lect. 6, q. 1).5

The starting point of this third position is the theory of the double face of the soul, which, having a Platonic origin, was assumed later by Neoplatonism and reached the Latin and the Arabic traditions; as Rohmer stated, “sans doute les deux doctrines [arabe et latine] ne sont-elles que les deux filiations d’une même source néoplatonicienne, deux enfants d’un même père qui, après avoir traversé les siècles, se sont retrouvés au haut moyen âge” (1927: 77). According to this perspective, the soul is intrinsically related to two realities, one superior and other inferior, and this fact determinates soul’s ontology and its possibilities of knowledge.6

As Bazán notes, Petrus Hispanus connects this doctrine of the double face of the soul to the Aristotelian duality of the agent and possible intellects (2002: 131). Accordingly, the knowledge that comes from a natural and superior illumination is related only and exclusively to the agent intellect. The other, on the contrary, involves agent but also possible intellect; this is the knowledge of mundane things, which is closely related to the data coming from the senses. This latter is obtained by the cognitive process known as “abstraction”, which lets the soul know the world.7 Abstraere is, in this sense, a human mechanism of knowledge carried out by the set of cognitive faculties of the soul. Accordingly, there are successive receptions of the form that converge in abstraction: the senses abstract the sensible species from the things and afterwards the imagination receives these species from the senses; finally, the intellect receives the species from the imagination. The abstraction is, thus, a natural process that moves from smaller to larger spiritualization due to external and internal senses, and the intellectual faculty as is in Aristotle.8 At the last stage, this abstractive process is completed by the action of imagination and human intellect, which, in turn, is divided into two, agent intellect and possible intellect. At this level, the phantasms are illuminated in the possible intellect by the agent intellect, which performs as light, producing clarity, understanding. This agent intellect performs acts of two different natures: a) it illuminates the possible intellect, making it actual –this act of the intellect could be considered communis, because in a way (quodam modo) it depends on the body because it depends on imagination–; b) it considers things completely abstracted from matter –by this action, intellect performs its activity with complete independence from the body, developing its proper activity–. Thus, with no help other than its own light, it turns itself over the received species and judges them. To clarify this double aspect of the intellect, Petrus makes use of two verbs which express the actions of light: “to illuminate” (illuminare), which needs an object to exist, and “to shine” (lucere), which expresses intransitivity and its character of pure action, in contrast to other activities stimulated by and destinated to external objects.9 The knowledge of physical things in the world depends on sensory data, whereas intellectual thought depends on true and spiritual principles.10 Because of that, the intellect is responsible for universal knowledge of extramental things, and this intellect, integrated both by the agent and the possible, is human, belongs to the human soul. Such consideration of the intellect pertaining to the soul is a deviation from Avicenna’s view, which claims that the agent intellect is outside the human soul; the disagreement is not a novelty introduced by Petrus Hispanus, rather was a commonplace in the Latin commentaries during these decades, which wanted to dissociate themselves from Neoplatonic views which defended knowledge by emanation. As Bazán notes, “the doctrine of the agent intellect as a faculty of the soul is an original contribution of the Latin Masters to the reading of Aristotle’s De anima III, 4-5” (2000: 37).11

Human knowledge, in contrast with divine or angelical knowledge, is the outcome of the combination of a priori faculties, which provide the innate possibility of conformity to things, and the sense data acquired a posteriori.12 Both elements, only when are together, provide the acquired and, at the same time, appropriate representation of things, because the ontological principles of things are also principles of knowledge. As there is a correspondence between intelligibles, true knowledge of the things of the world can occur.13

But, despite its key role in human cognition, abstraction is not the only way of knowing. The assumption of the theory of the double face indicates another source of knowledge. Indeed, Petrus Hispanus defends another type of knowledge, the one by illumination. This category includes the soul’s self-knowledge, on which we will focus from this point on.

2. Self-Knowledge

The reference to soul’s self-knowledge is provided at the very beginning of the Sententia, in the first question of the introductory section, devoted to elucidate the epistemic grounds that legitimate the science of the soul.14 This early apparition in the discussion is not by accident; the inquiry on a possible innate self-knowledge is intimately related to the legitimation of the science of the soul as Aristotle proposed in his De anima, which can be completely superfluous if there exists a natural and innate self-knowledge, that is, if we have a direct and complete knowledge of our soul and its operations since ever. Nevertheless, Petrus Hispanus, far from seeing in it a contradiction, is going to defend both the existence of self-knowledge and the necessity of a psychological science.

Self-knowledge (cognitio sui) first mention takes place when Petrus Hispanus exposes seven ways of the intellect to gain accurate knowledge. According to this inventory, the first way is through sensitive knowledge, which is particular, and comes directly from the sensual species. By the other ways, nevertheless, the intellect not only can abstract intelligible species from the sensual species but can also know more: by means of other species (2nd mode); reaching the cause of the sensible effect (3rd mode); by presence (4th mode); conceiving spiritual things by the privation of physical realities (5th mode); understanding by analogical thinking from a physical to a non-physical model (6th mode); thinking the universal through the similarities from the particulars (7th mode). By all of these last six ways, says Petrus, the intellect can obtain an essential knowledge of the soul.15 With them the intellect does not have any direct relation with the corporeal reality; rather, it deals only with the intellectual and spiritual reality to perform its own activity, which is free from the corporeal element.

Among them, the 4th mode is, in turn, different from all others, because it does not come, originally, from the abstracted data, but is per presentiam sui; here Petrus, in order to clarify what that knowledge consists of, refers to al-Ghazali:

Quarto modo per sui presentiam et sic anima illuminata non obumbrata mole carnis se per se cognoscit, quia apparet sibi nuda et presens. Deus enim se ipsum cognoscit, quia est sibi presens, quia inter ipsum et ipsum non cadit medium, sicut uult Algazel, et similiter est de anima (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 1 [ed. Alonso: 62-63]).

The fourth way is by its presence and thus the illuminated soul, not being shaded by the flesh, knows itself through itself because it appears to itself naked and present. Indeed, as Algazel says, God knows Himself because He is present to Himself and because between He and Himself there is not a medium, and something like this happens to the soul. So, in a similar way, the soul can know itself (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 1).16

As it is presented, this self-knowledge does not seem to correspond to that conceived by Aristotle in the brief lines devoted to self-knowledge, in the De anima, according to which the soul’s self-knowledge would come together with the knowledge of the things:

Once the mind has become each set of its possible objects, as a man of science has, when this phrase is used of one who is actually a man of science (this happens when he is able to excercise the power on his own iniciative), its condition is still one of potentiality, but in a different sense from the potenciality which preceded the acquisition of knowledge by learning or discovery; the mind too is then able to think itself”. condition is still one of potentiality, but in a different sense from the potenciality which preceded the acquisition of knowledge by learning or discovery; the mind too is then able to think itself (Aristotle. De anima III, 4, 429b5-10). 17

The adherence to a non-Aristotelian view of self-knowledge is confirmed below, when assuming the theory of the double knowledge of the soul, mentioned before. Next, Petrus Hispanus explains more about the character of this special knowledge, produced by illumination:

Anima enim illuminata est a primo et data est ei uirtus a principio ut cognoscat se ipsam et diuinum bonum, et de hac cognitione uerum est quod est ei innata; et hec non est cognitio sciencifica ipsius animae, set est cognitio sui. De cognitione autem sciencifica dicendum est quod non est nobis innata set potius acquisita (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 2 [ed. Alonso: 66, repeated in 167]).

The soul is illuminated by the first, and the soul has the power of knowing itself and the divine good from its beginning, and with regards to this knowledge, it is true that it is innate. And this is not scientific knowledge of the soul but it is self-knowledge. However, with regard to scientific knowledge, it is true that it is not an innate knowledge, but it is acquired (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 2).

This illumination provides to the soul an innate self-knowledge which is not a scientific knowledge from the senses but another kind of true knowledge, from the beginning of the soul’s existence. This means that self-knowledge is not via the acquisition of species, but, if any sort of innate self-knowledge exists, it is of a different kind, similar to God’s self-knowledge, per presentiam. For supporting this view, Petrus Hispanus invokes the authority of no others than Boethius and Augustine of Hippo:

Dicendum est quod anima cognoscit se per se, sicut uult Boetius in libro De consolatione, duo sunt que anima non potest ignorare, scilicet uerum et se. Verum non potest ignorare quia tam cito ignorat uerum decipitur. Se autem non potest ignorare, quia semper est sibi presens. Item Augustinus dicit quod cum anima omnia alia cognoscat se non debet non cognoscere; et sic patet per Boetium et per Augustinum quod anima cognoscit se ipsam. Ad rationem in contrarium dicendum est quod duplex est cognitio anime: una que oritur a sensu, et hec incipit ab obiectis et terminatur ad potencias, et a potenciis ad substantias, set hec non est cognitio anime que sit de se uel sui. Est autem alia per reflectionem supra se, et hanc habet anima de se, et de hac non est uerum quod obicit (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 2 [ed. Alonso: 66, repeated in 167]).

The soul knows itself by itself. As Boethius said in the De consolatione, the soul cannot ignore two things, namely, the truth and itself. […] The soul cannot ignore itself because it is always present to itself. Also, Augustine says that as the soul knows everything, it is impossible that it does not know itself; so, it is clear that soul knows itself, as it was shown by Boethius and Augustine. On the contrary, it should be said that the knowledge of the soul is double: one originates in the sense and starts in the objects and ends in the potencies and from the potencies goes to the substances. This is not the soul’s self-knowledge. There is other knowledge of the soul by means of a reflection of itself, and the soul has this knowledge about itself; and about this one, the objection is not pertinent (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 2).18

True self-knowledge is produced from the beginning because the soul is always present to itself and cannot ignore itself, and this innate knowledge is per reflectionem sui supra se.

The distinction between the two kinds of self-knowledge in the soul –one because of the species, and the other by presence, a priori– is again provided below in the text, where Petrus insists on saying that self-knowledge is the one obtained by reflecting on itself, innately and by presence:

Dicendum est quod cognitio anime sui ipsius est duplex: una est per reflectionem sui supra se, et hec prius cadit supra se et hec est ei innata, et hec non datur cuilibet anime, set magis abstracte a sensibilibus, non dico separate set abstracte, quia talis est sibi presens et quanto est abstractior tanto est sibi presentior. Est autem alia cognitio anime per informationem sciencie acquisite, et hec incipit a rebus exterioribus et terminatur ad animam, et de hac loquitur Aristoteles. Et hec prius cadit supra res et per res supra animam. Prima autem super animam primo (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 5 [ed. Alonso: 70]).

The soul’s self-knowledge is double: one is by its reflection over itself, and this falls over itself first and it is innate, and this is not given to all the souls but only to the soul that is more abstracted from sensual things. I do not say separated but abstracted, as that one is always present, and when it is more abstracted, it is more present to itself. There is another soul’s cognition by means of the information by the acquired science, and this starts from the exterior things and finishes in the soul and about that Aristotle speaks. And this later falls over the thing first and through the thing over the soul. Nonetheless, the former cognition falls over the soul first (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 5).

As it is described, this is a different kind of knowledge from that proposed by Aristotle in the third book of the De anima, which, according to the author of this commentary, is this one produced when the agent intellect illuminates the possible agent. Because of that difference, to Petrus, like to Avicenna, as Sebti notes (2000: 107), Aristotle’s understanding of self-knowledge, as it is usually conceived, is not true self-knowledge.19 True self-knowledge, both innate and by presence, is by the reflection of the agent intellect on itself: “dicendum est quod uirtuti anime agenti intellectiue debetur hoc, scilicet cognoscere se ipsam” [“It must be said that it is due to the agent power of the intellectual soul that it knows itself”] (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 8 [ed. Alonso: 71]). This natural self-knowledge (cognitio sui) does not have any relation to the acquisition of the species.20 What Petrus Hispanus does mean by cognitio, when referring to self-knowledge, clearly differs from that provided through abstraction. Nonetheless, despite these statements, the content and idiosyncrasy of self-knowledge are questions that still remain obscure to the reader of the commentary.

The key to answer these questions may be found in the description of the soul’s ontology provided by the commentary. This description departs from what has been called “the doctrine of the plurality of substantial forms”, which was assumed by many Latin authors.21 Accordingly, Petrus presumes the existence of three different substances in the human soul, namely the vegetative, the sensible and the intellective substance.22 Regarding self-knowledge, only the superior one, the intellective substance, can know itself because it is the only one present to itself by virtue of its pure immateriality, not shaded by the flesh. Whereas the other substantial forms are not transparent to themselves, the intellective is able to apprehend itself:

Sensus enim obfuscatus est organo, et propter hoc suam operationem non cognoscit set alia uirtus interior abstractior est et potencior, scilicet, sensus communis, qui est superior ad sensus particulares. Sic autem non est de anima intellectiua, quia sic non est obumbrata, et propter hoc ipsa se et suum actum potest apprehendere (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 7 [ed. Alonso 71]).

Indeed, the sense is obfuscated by the organ, and this is the reason why it does not know its operation, but this is known by other inner faculty, more abstract and potent, namely, the common sense, which is superior to the particular senses. That does not happen to the intellective soul, as it is not shaded in this way. Because of this, the intellective soul knows itself, and is able to apprehend its own action (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 7).

In contrast to what happens with the senses, the intellect can apprehend its own activity, an apprehension that only the superior faculties are able to perform. This can only mean that the intellect, by its own active presence, knows itself as a pure knower, as intellect. It is a kind of cognition per actus, and, at the same time, it is a direct cognition through presence, without intermediaries. Thus, only in the scope of the intellective soul, and, namely, in the activity of the agent intellect, the soul can have self-knowledge by its own act. In consequence, the soul and, by extension, the human being do not acquire, in this knowledge, a complete understanding of their whole reality, unlike God or the other intelligences have.

This lack of adequacy between intellective self-knowledge and the soul’s self-knowledge in Petrus Hispanus’ view can be properly understood from the distinction between the substance and potency of the soul, which he adopts, and which overlaps the doctrine of the plurality of forms in the soul (see López Alcalde, 2018: 376-381). Petrus Hispanus, in contrast to Augustine and other contemporary authors, assumes a fundamental distinction regarding the soul, differentiating the soul as actus primus and actus secundus. As first act, the soul is beyond its potency, it is more than its potency.23 Consequently, the soul’s own and entire substance is far from being directly apprehended by any human faculty. Self-knowledge, properly speaking, is related only to the potency of the soul. This knowledge, therefore, cannot be considered a real quidditative knowledge of the soul as a substantial reality, but only a knowledge of a direct “experience” of the exercise of its potency. At the back there is the old distinction between the soul’s substance and potency, according to which “intellect” is only a nomen officii. Therefore, concepts as “intellect” or “intellective soul”, do not allude to the entire substance of the soul.24 Self-knowledge is not a direct knowledge of the essence of its substance, which would consist of the apprehension of its reality as a spiritual reality. Actually, the knowledge of the soul as substance, Hispanus notes, is not easily given.25

This distinction between the soul and one of its faculties is also adequate to explain the way Petrus Hispanus addresses the Avicennian “flying man argument”.26 According to Bazán (1997: 103) or Toivanen (2015: 64), more recently, by the argument, Avicenna aimed to demonstrate the existence of the soul as an immaterial, autonomous and sufficient substance. In turn, Petrus Hispanus uses it here to demonstrate the existence of the intellective soul in the body:

Alia est ratio Auicenne per quam possumus animam intellectiuam ymaginari esse in nobis. Intelligamus quod aliquis sit subito creatus et perfectus ultima perfecctione habens in se animam intellectiuam et habeat omnia exteriora uelata et uisum exteriorem uelatum. Item non tangat ipsum spissitudo aeris ut moueat membra eius, nec aliquod extrinsecum moueat membra eius ut ipsum excitet ad operationem nec etiam sentiat aliquod membrum moueri, nec unum alterum moueat ut non concurrant membra ad inuicem nec se tangant nec faciant motum, tum ille in tali statu affirmabit se esse, unde si sic interrogatur, interrogatione spirituali utrum sit respondebit responsione spirituali intrinseca quod est. Si autem queratur utrum ipse sit sua manus aut pes respondebit quod non et quod ignorat omnia illa esse partes suas cum illas non sentiat nec se credat eas habere, similiter si interrogatur utrum sit totum corpus quo uelatur respondebit quod non, quia non sentit corpus nec scit ipsum esse partem sui. Ergo aliquid aliud preter corpus et partes corporis est in ipso quod affirmat se esse. Hoc autem non est nisi substantia cognoscitiua que est anima intellectiua que est in corpore que confirmat se ipsam et que non eget corpore ad hoc ut affirmet se et sic necesse est eam ponere et ymaginari esse in corpore humano (Sententia II, lect. 4, q. 10 [ed. Alonso: 622]).

Another argument is that of Avicenna by which we can imagine that the intellective soul exists in us. Let us think that one man is created and completed suddenly having in himself the intellective soul as the ultimate perfection and having all external things and outer vision blindfolded. Additionally, let him not touch any air density while moving his limbs. And [assume] that nothing outside moves his limbs nor excites each to action, nor feels any limb to be moved, nor one to move the other, nor members to act among themselves, nor to touch nor to make a movement, yet in such a state, he will affirm that he exists. If he is questioned by a spiritual questioning if he exists, he will respond by a spiritual answer that he exists. If he were also asked whether this is his hand or foot, he will answer that he is not and that he does not know that any of them are his parts because he does not feel them or believe that he possesses them. Likewise, if he is questioned whether it is his whole body with which is veiled, he will answer that not because he does not feel the body nor does he know that it is a part of himself. Therefore, there is some other thing distinct from the body and its parts in himself that affirms that exists. This is but a cognitive substance, which is the intellective soul that is in the body, which confirms itself and which does not need the body to assert itself, and thus it is necessary to affirm it and to imagine it existing in the human body (Sententia II, lect. 4, q. 10).27

The flying man argument, adopted here to demonstrate the existence of the soul in the body, seems also to confirm the irrefutable reality of the act of knowing, but not much more. Although it is quidditative knowledge –knowledge on the nature of the intellective soul–, it is an incomplete soul’s self-knowledge. Again self-knowledge appears to be limited to the knowledge of the soul just as an intellectual potency, which is the agent of knowledge. And because in the intellect the terms of the cognition are the same (the subject and the object) the relation between them is without no intermediaries, so there is a transparency between the agent of knowledge and its object.

As we have seen, at the very beginning of the Sententia Petrus states the existence of an essential soul’s self-knowledge by means of a direct contact with its substance; nevertheless, following the progress of the commentary, and thanks to a more global comprehension of Petrus Hispanus’ psychology, we can say that the object of this knowledge is reduced to a direct comprehension of its intellective nature. Indeed, there is clarity in the knowledge of the potency. But, to Petrus, the complete substance in its spirituality is still far from our regular cognitions. Beyond the soul’s active reality as an intellective form, its substance remains unknown and inaccessible to man, except for what is known by this internal and privileged experience of the act of knowing. The essence of the human soul is its own perfection, and the intellect appears to be naturally blind to it,28 because the soul is a spiritual substance united to a body, and, in consequence, the human soul’s ways of cognition need, indeed, the operation of these two realities, the soul and the body. The intellective soul knows itself as a separated substance only when is abstracted, and this is the reason why we do not have knowledge of the separated substances or of our soul as a separated substance. In conclusion, self-knowledge, as Petrus Hispanus conceives, because of it concerns only the intellect, does not let man know the nature of its soul.

Nonetheless, such limitation does not make of this self-knowledge a useless knowledge, for it can be a first step for the constitution of a scientific knowledge of the soul, if considered as a specific kind of perception of the soul, as inner perception. The resultant scheme comes very close to that initiated by means of the external operations of the soul. In this case, it is by means of a perception of pure inner activity. The posterior stage for building knowledge from this cognitio sui would be a secondary act of the intellect or consideration –from the effects to causes, by comparison, etc.– raising scientific cognition:

Ad hoc dicendum est quod anima nata est diffiniri, et loquimur primo de anima intellectiua in qua est maior manifestatio et ratio diffiniendi. Ipsa enim diffinitur secundum multiplicem uiam. Habet enim aspectum ad creatorem a quo recipit influentiam et esse et conseruationem, et habet aspectum ad corpus sibi subiectum quod perficit et conseruat et supra quod dirigit operationes, et habet aspectum ad suam essentiam, et habet comparationem ad diuersa a se respectu quorum diffinitur per priuationem. Et hiis quatuor cognoscit quelibet substantia spiritualis, scilicet per aspectum ad creatorem, et per comparationem ad illud supra quod influit, et in sui essentia, et per priuationem aliorum. […] A parte autem sue substantie habet anima rationem diffinitionis. Set illa oculta nobis ratione sue simplicitatis. Per relationem autem ad alias creaturas diffinitur per priuationem earum, sicut quodlibet principium et quodlibet simplex hoc modo diffinitur (Sententia I, lect. 2, q. 7 [ed. Alonso: 227-228]).

It should be said that it is natural to the soul to be defined, and we speak first about the intellective soul, in which there is more manifestation and reason to define. Indeed, it [the soul] looks to the creator from whom it receives influence, being and conservation. It looks to the body with whom it is united, which is perfected by the soul and maintained and to whom it addresses the operation. And it looks to its essence. And it has a comparison to different things from itself, being defined by privation. And in these four ways, that is, by looking to the creator, by comparison to that by which it is influenced, by its essence, and by privation of others things, every spiritual substance knows. […] With regard to the substance, the soul has a reason for being defined. However, it is occult to us because of its simplicity. However, by comparison to other creatures, it is defined by privation, as every principle and every simple thing is defined this way (Sententia I, lect. 2, q. 7).

The science of the soul –as Aristotle conceived of it– is therefore necessary to understand the reality of the soul in its relation with a body, as the form of the body and its perfection. In another level, Metaphysics, as a prior scientia, is the science which aims to know the soul in its pure spiritual dimension:

Dicendum quod dupliciter est loqui de anima intellectiua: uno modo a parte sue substantie et uite separate, et sic est de consideratione metaphysice. Alio modo contingit loqui de anima a parte unionis eius cum corpore et existentie eius in corpore secundum quod mouet corpus et habet operationes communes cum corpore, et sic spectat ad naturalem scienciam, quia naturalis sciencia considerat passiones et operationes in materia; et ita hec sciencia de anima, que est presentis speculationis, naturalis est, quia est de anima unita corpori (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 12 [ed. Alonso: 78]).

There are two ways of speaking about the intellective soul: one is related to its substance and separated life, and in this sense, it pertains to metaphysical discourse. The other is speaking about the soul related to its union with the body and its existence in the body, and in this sense, it looks to natural science because natural science considers passions and operations in matter. Thus, this science of the soul, which is this speculation, is natural because it is about the soul united to the body (Sententia, Qpream. 1, q. 12).

In sum, self-knowledge should be considered an insufficient way of having cognition about the soul, providing little information about its functional, spiritual and divine nature, or about how our actions should be from a moral perspective. For these reasons, the dedication to human sciences such as metaphysics or ethics is pertinent and convenient. Before them all, however, the (Aristotelian) science of the soul is necessary for explaining not only the soul’s intellectual operations but also for highlighting the role of the body in human knowing and acting.29

3. Concluding Remarks

At the beginning of the commentary, Petrus Hispanus seems to reject the Aristotelian view of self-knowledge in favour of some kind of illuminist view in which real self-knowledge is, from birth, inside the soul. Nevertheless –as this paper aimed to point out– Petrus Hispanus’ conception of the soul’s self-knowledge, understood rather as “self-awareness,” is in fact restricted to the innate intellective disposition and action, being more intellectual self-perception than self-knowledge in a complete sense. The actual fulfilment of this intellectual self-knowledge seems to exist only when the soul acts the intellective operation, which is performed also by the possible intellect and, in the last stage, done with the help of the sensible species; in other words, with the content of the data coming from the senses. Because of that, also regarding self-knowledge, the often-quoted Mediaeval aphorism attributed to Aristotle, “sicut habetur in tercio De anima nihil est in intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensu” [“as it is in the third book of the De anima, there is nothing in the intellect that has not been before in the sense”], would remain preserved.30 This means that, previous to its contact with sensible things, the soul is like a tabula rasa without anything of the world written in it, without content at all.31

With the background of the theory of the illumination and avoiding the complete rejection of soul’s self-knowledge, by reducing it, actually, to one of its potencies, Petrus Hispanus, the author of the Sententia, intends to conciliate the Augustinian view on self-knowledge with Aristotelianism, by means of the distinction between the soul’s officium and its substance, or the soul as form and hoc aliquid.

Because of the inaccessibility to the substance by this self-knowledge, our master after all justifies the sciences as were conceived by Aristotle, which exist to understand the world and other non-corporeal realities, such as the human soul or God, whose essences are far from being known and understood by the limited human intellect.

Bibliography

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» Aristóteles (1978). Acerca del alma. Trans. Calvo Martínez, T. Madrid: Gredos.

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Complementary Bibliography

» Bäck, A. (2014). Aristotle’s Theory of Abstraction. Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-04759-1.

» Bazán, B. C. (1969). “Pluralisme de formes ou dualisme de substances? La pensée pré-thomiste touchant la nature de l’âme”, Revue Philosophique de Louvain 67.93, 30-73.

» Bazán, B. C. (1997). “Thomas Aquinas’ Critique of Eclectic Aristotelism”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 64, 95-126.

» Bazán, B. C. (2000). “Was There Ever a ‘First Averroism’?”. In: Speer, A. and Aertsen, J. A. (eds.). Geistesleben im 13. Jahrhundert. Berlin / New York: De Gruyter, 31-67.

» Bazán, B. C. (2002). “13th Century Commentaries on De anima: From Peter of Spain to Thomas Aquinas”. In: Fioravanti, G., Leonardi, C., Perfetti, S. (eds.). Il commento filosofico nell’occidente latino (secoli XIII-XV): Actes du colloque international de Florence-Pise, octobre 2000. Turnhout: Brepols, 119-184.

» Brams, J. (1997). “The Latin Aristotle and the Medieval Latin Commentaries”, Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 39, 9-22.

» Boer, S. W. de (2013). The Science of the Soul. The Commentary Tradition on Aristotle’s De anima, c. 1260 - c. 1360. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

» Cranefield, P. F. (1970). “On the Origins of the Phrase Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu”, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 25.1, 77-80.

» D’Ors, A. (1997). “Petrus Hispanus, O.P., Auctor Summularum (I)”, Vivarium 35.1, 21-71.

» D’Ors, A. (2001). “Petrus Hispanus O.P., Auctor Summularum (II). Nuevos documentos y problemas”, Vivarium 39.2, 209- 254.

» Ferreira, J. (2002). “A doutrina das duas faces da alma, em Pedro Hispano”, Cultura 14, 219-231.

» Gauthier, R.-A. (1984). “Préface”. In: Sancti Thomae de Aquino Sententia libri de anima in Opera omnia. T. XLV-1. Paris: Vrin, 1*-294*.

» Gilson, E. (1929). “Les sources greco-arabes de l’augustinisme avicennisant”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Age 4, 5-107.

» López Alcalde, C. (2018). “The Communication between Substances and the Unity of the Human Being in Petrus Hispanus’ Commentary on De anima”, Enrahonar. An international journal of theoretical and practical reason. Supplementary Issue, 375-385.

» López Alcalde, C. (2019). “Maimonides’ First Reception in Latin Philosophy”, Mediterranea. International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge 4, 35-56.

» Meirinhos, J. F. (1996). “Petrus Hispanus Portugalensis? Elementos para uma diferenciação de autores”, Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval 3, 51-76.

» Meirinhos, J. F. (2003). “Conhecimento de si e linguagem interior. Agostinho, João Damasceno e Avicena na Scientia libri de anima de Pedro Hispano Portugalense”. In: De Boni, L. A. (org.). A recepção do pensamento greco-romano, árabe e judaico pelo Ocidente medieval. Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS, 301-317.

» Meirinhos, J. F. (2005). “Comentar Aristóteles na primeira metade do século XIII. A Sententia cum questionibus in De anima atribuída a Pedro Hispano”, Revista da Faculdade de Letras - Série de Filosofia 23, 127-160.

» Meirinhos, J. F. (2011). Metafísica do homem. Conhecimento e vontade nas obras de psicologia atribuídas a Pedro Hispano (século XIII). Porto: Afrontamento.

» Owens, J. (1981). “A note on Aristotle, De anima 3.4.429b9”. In: Catan, J. R. (ed.). Aristotle, the Collected Papers of Joseph Owens. Albany: State University of New York Press.

» Rohmer, J. (1927). “Sur la doctine franciscaine des deux faces de l’ame”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Age 2, 73-77.

» Sebti, M. (2000). Avicenne: L’âme humaine. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

» Silva, J. F. (2012). Robert Kilwardby on the Human Soul: Plurality of Forms and Censorship in the Thirteenth Century. Leiden / Boston: Brill.

» Spruit, L. (1994). Species intelligibilis. Leiden: Brill. (Vol. I).

» Toivanen, J. (2015). “The Fate of the Flying Man. Medieval Reception of Avicenna’s Thought Experiment”, Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 3, 64-98.

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