Herramientas

Modes and intentions: arts masters and theologians

William of Auvergne and Thomas Aquinas were both theologians; the two preceding chapters have argued that their views about intellectual knowledge cannot be understood apart from their specifically Christian presuppositions and aims. But there were, in the medieval universities, a group of teachers who, though Christians, were professionally dedicated to discussing problems by using reason and observation alone and assuming only principles self-evident to all men (not the revealed truths of Christianity). They were the arts masters—some of whom stayed on in an arts faculty long beyond the compulsory two years as regent master (‘necessary regency’ —see above, p.23). How did their approach to the problem of intellectual knowledge differ from that of theologians?

The obvious place to look for arts masters’ views about the intellect might seem to be their commentaries on Aristotle’s De Anima. But so great was their desire to represent Aristotle’s teaching faithfully that the scope for independent thought in this context was usually limited. For instance, the various writings about the De Anima by Siger of Brabant—the arts master best known to historians—are interesting, not so much for the doctrines they propound, but for the positions they adopt with regard to supposedly Aristotelian doctrines which theologians would find unacceptable. But arts masters also considered problems about intellectual knowledge in connection with another part of their work. In teaching grammar and logic, they were forced to ask about the relationship between objects in the world, thoughts of them in the mind and the words used to speak about them. Two concepts played an especially important part in medieval approaches to these questions: modes and intentions. When thinkers from the mid-thirteenth century onwards wanted to talk about how one and the same thing exists, is thought and is referred

to by a word, they distinguished between modes or ways of being, thinking and signifying (modi essendi/intelligendi/significandi). When they wished to refer to a concept in the mind, as opposed to the thing thought, they often talked of an’intention’ (intentio).

Modes and intentions were discussed by both theologians and ar ts master s. This chapter will illustrate their differences in approach by a limited comparison: between the treatment of these concepts by an outstanding theologian, Thomas Aquinas, and that given by three important arts masters of the mid to late thirteenth century: Boethius and Martin of Dacia (Denmark) and Radulphus Brito.

Boethius of Dacia was one of the leading masters of arts in the late 1260s and early 1270s. Some contemporaries believed that he was a principal target of the 1277 condemnations—although neither his treatise on the eternity of the world (see above, pp.72–3) nor any other of his surviving works reveals him as a heretical thinker, but merely one who strove to keep separate the domains of each branch of knowledge. Besides the De Aeternitate Mundi and a short work on human happiness from the point of view of natural reason (De Summo Bono), he wrote a treatise De Modis Significandi (MS; c. 1269–1270) and quaestio-commentaries on a number of Aristotle’s works.

Less is known about Martin, another scholar from Denmark. Unlike Boethius of Dacia, after his period as an arts master he went on to study theology. He taught arts during the 1270s and perhaps from even earlier, producing another textbook De Modis Significandi (MS) and quaestio- commentaries on the logica vetus.

Radulphus Br ito was an outstanding ar ts master of a later generation. He taught in the f aculty around the tur n of the fourteenth century, before going on to study theology, incepting as a master of theology in 1311/1312. Among his non-theological works is a set of Quaestiones super Priscianum Minorem (PM) and a wide range of quaestio-commentaries on Aristotle, including one on the De Anima (A).

Modes

Although moder n philosophers debate problems about truth as energetically as their predecessors, they would not think it a problem that thoughts of material things are themselves immaterial. But for medieval philosophers, whose view of the intellect derived from Aristotle, this

disparity between what is in the mind and what is outside it seemed a real difficulty which needed resolution. If intellectual knowledge consists in the information of the intellect by an object in the world, then how can that which informs the intellect differ from that which it is supposed to know? By positing a difference between the mode of something’s being and the mode of thinking it was possible to resolve this problem. (1) Aquinas

Aquinas’s discussion of the issue is particularly clear. He puts the following argument to himself (ST 1, 85, 1 arg. 1): any intellect is false which thinks of a thing otherwise than as it is (quicumque… intellectus intelligit rem aliter quam sit, est falsus); if, then, we intellectually cognize (intelligimus) material things by abstraction, we will not have true intellectual knowledge, since the forms of material things are not in fact abstracted from particulars. He answers by saying that there will be no falsity in our knowledge if the abstraction is simply a matter of considering one aspect of a thing but not another. Just as we can consider the colour of an apple without the apple, so we can consider the nature of a species without the individuating features of an individual. The phrase think of a thing otherwise than as it is can be interpreted in two ways: the otherwise can apply to the thing, or to the thinking. In the first case, there would be falsity, but not in the second.’For there is no falsity if the mode of the thinker in thinking (modus intelligentis in intelligendo) is different from the mode of the thing in existing (modus rei in existendo): for the thought of the thing (intellectum) is in the thinker immaterially, not materially in the manner (per modum) of a material thing.’ For Aquinas, a logical point was rarely without connection to a theological one. The modes of being and of thinking provide him not only with the terms to resolve his difficulty about the truthfulness of ordinary thoughts, but also—slightly adapted—with a manner of describing the limitations of human knowledge. Different things, he says (ST 1, 12, 4; cf. SM II, 1, 13, quV 8, 3), have different modes of being. Bodily things can exist only as individual material things (this man, that house); incorporeal things do not have any matter, but their mode of being is distinguished from God’s because, as Aquinas puts it, unlike God they are not their own esse. At least some of what St Thomas means by this can be put in linguistic terms: whereas it is coherent, he believes, though false, to say that’the angel Gabriel does not exist’, to say’God does not exist’ is not only false but logically incoherent.

The way in which different beings have knowledge depends, not on the nature of the things they know, but on their own nature: as Aquinas

puts it in a phrase he often repeats:’the thing known is in its knower in the mode of its knower’ (cognitum est in cognoscente secundum modum cognoscentis). As a corporeal creature, man is fitted to know other corporeal things, although he has the special power to abstract natures which can only exist in matter from the matter in which they exist (see above, pp.118–19). If, St Thomas says,’the mode of being of something known exceeds the mode of the nature of the knower, then the knowledge of that thing must be beyond the nature of that knower.’ Direct knowledge of separate substances is beyond man’s natural grasp, and direct knowledge of God beyond the grasp of the angels: the only being which naturally knows God is God himself.

But Aquinas does not wish to remove all possibility of man’s knowing the angels and God. He considers that the souls of the blessed in heaven can be raised above their nature by divine grace so as to see the essence of God (ST 1, 12, 4; 11). Some will be allowed to see it more perfectly than others: what they all see will be the same, but the modus intelligendi will differ (ST 1, 12, 6 ad 2).

St Thomas also believes that men in this life have some imperfect and indirect knowledge of God. In defining it, he develops a notion of modi significandi. God unites in himself in a higher form all the perfections which are found in his creatures. When the intellect gains knowledge from created things, it is informed with the likenesses of divine perfections which are in God’s creations, such as goodness and wisdom. From these it is able to form a concept of God which is true in the sense that God really does have the perfections which are attributed to him. But the intellect cannot arrive at a definition of God’s essence, in the way that it can of man or other bodily things (quP 7, 5). Does this mean that, when we describe God, the words we use do not properly apply to God? Our intellect, Aquinas replies (ST 1, 13, 3), apprehends divine perfections as they are in his creatures and signifies them as such in speech. None the less, with regard to what they signify (id quod significant) — the perfections such as goodness and life—the words not only apply to God but apply to him more properly than to any of his creatures. But with regard to their modus significandi they are not properly said of God, since they have the mode of signifying which is appropriate for created things.

(2) Martin and Boethius of Dacia

For Aquinas, each time he used them, the modes of being, thinking and signifying were a way of discussing the differences between how

things are and how they are thought and spoken about by humans. But it was possible to use the modes in a different way, emphasizing their congruity. This was the approach which Martin and Boethius adopted in formulating the theoretical basis of speculative grammar. The modes of being, Martin explains (MS p.4) are’the properties of a thing according to the thing’s being outside the intellect’; the modes of thinking are the same properties of the thing according to its being in the intellect; whilst the modes of signifying are the same properties according to its being signified in speech. Things in the world (MS pp.4–5) have many properties— they are singular or plural, they are passive or active and so on. When the intellect thinks (intelligit) something (MS p.5), it conceives it with these sorts of properties; the thing becomes the thing thought and’what were previously called the “modes of being” of the thing outside are called the “modes of thinking” of the thing thought’. When the intellect wants to signify its concept to another, it imposes words on the thing thought in order to express its concept, just as the inn-keeper puts a circle to signify wine. When words have been imposed, the thing is called the thing signified, and all the properties of the thing, which were first called modes of being and then modes of thinking are now called modes of signifying (modi significandi).

As grammarians, Martin and Boethius are especially interested in the modi significandi. The thing in thought itself, as represented in speech, is the significatum speciale; its properties,’consignified’ in speech, are the modi significandi (Martin—MS p.8). Just as things are distinguished by their properties, so the parts of speech (oratio) are distinguished by their modi significandi. On this basis Martin and Boethius expound a special sort of g rammatical theory which became known as speculative grammar. In their analysis a first imposition (impositio/copulatio) links a given sound with a given sort of thing; this meaningful, but not yet precisely meaningful sound is called a dictio. A dictio becomes a part of speech (pars orationis) by having modi significandi: these distinguish it first as a noun, pronoun, verb, particle, adverb, preposition, conjunction or interjection; and then more precisely with features such as case, number and tense. The modi significandi are more than the categories of traditional grammar under a different name, because they involve the explicit attempt to link precise grammatical function with the properties of things in the world.

The analyses worked out by Martin, Boethius and the speculative grammarians (or modistae) of the late thirteenth century form an interesting, if somewhat isolated, chapter in the histor y of

grammatical theory. A modern reader might also believe that they are interesting philosophically because—so he imagines—the modistae engaged in linguistic analysis, similar in character, though not terminology, to that pursued by some modern philosophers. But they were not. Two fundamental differences separate the theoretical outlook of Martin, Boethius and their medieval successors from modern linguistic philosophers. First, the modistae hold to the view of the De Interpretatione that thoughts are what words primarily signify, not things (cf. Martin, Quaestiones on De Interpretatione, 7); and furthermore that sentences cannot be formed in speech without the prior formation of a complex thought (cf. Boethius MS 27). Second, the modistae clearly regard the study of the modi significandi firmly as the province of the grammarian. It is the philosopher’s job to discuss how things are and how they are known; the g rammar ian’s to examine how language corresponds to them (cf. Boethius—MS 2). For this reason Boethius argues that, whoever first imposes words on things must be both a grammarian and a philosopher—a grammarian because he would have to consider the modes of signifying, a philosopher because the task would involve knowledge of the nature of things (MS 12). They do not at all believe, as a moder n philosopher might, that the nature of things is to be discovered by looking at the nature of language. On the contrary, from what is known about how things are in reality and in the mind, they find it possible to discuss how they are in speech, which follows thought directly and reality at one remove.

In the discussions with which they introduced their detailed accounts of the modi significandi, the speculative grammarians did however consider at least one important abstract question about the nature of thought and language—a question close in subject to one which St Thomas had resolved by reference to’modes’ (see above, pp.134–5). The properties which something really has, those which it is truly thought to have and those which it is truly said to have are the same; but since things, thoughts and speech are different, how can this be so? The technical formulation of this problem is simple: are the modes of being, thinking and signifying the same or not? Martin (MS p.6) says that they are the same, although they differ accidentally, just as a man who goes from one place to another remains the same man although he differs by the accident of location. Each of the modes are in the thing as their subject; but the modes of thinking are also in the intellect’as something known in the knower’ (sicut cognitum in cognoscente) and the modes of signifying in the words (vox) as in a sign (p.7).

Boethius of Dacia (MS 27) disagrees with Martin’s position: the modi essendi, intelligendi and significandi, he believes, are similar to one another but different. He argues from the precedence of the mode of being over the mode of thinking, and the mode of thinking over the mode of signifying. Even if something could not be signified in speech in a certain way, it might still be thought that way; even if it could not be thought that way, it might still in reality have those properties. And, contrary to Martin, Boethius holds that the modes are in different subjects: the modus essendi in the thing, the modus intelligendi in the intellect and the modus significandi in the dictio. In answer to the objection that it is the same thing which is, is thought of and is signified, Boethius simply answers that a thing, a thing in thought and a thing in speech do differ at least in reason (saltem in ratione) although in reality (realiter) they are the same. Boethius and Martin, then, each state a position but do not analyse it in much depth.

(3) Radulphus Brito

Radulphus Brito deals with the same problem at considerably greater length. By this time, it was nor mal to make a distinction between’active’ and’passive’ modes of thinking and signifying (modi intelligendi/significandi activi/passivi). The passive mode of signifying, Radulphus explains (PM 18), means a thing’s mode of being as consignified in speech; the active mode of signifying is the type of consignification (ratio consignificandi) through which a word signifies that mode of being; and similarly for the modes of thinking. The purpose of this distinction seems to have been to accommodate arguments such as Martin advanced for identifying the modes, and arguments such as Boethius’s for keeping them apart: the passive modes of signifying and thinking were identical with the mode of being, but the active modes of signifying and thinking were the same as each other but not as the mode of being.

Radulphus himself, however, posits a further distinction: between the modes, active and passive, considered’formally’ (formaliter) and’materially’ (materialiter). It is difficult to gather Radulphus’s meaning for these terms except from the way he uses them. Although they differ materially, formally, he says (PM 22) the active and passive modes of signifying must be the same as each other. One and the same correlation of word and object (ratio significandi) makes the word signify the thing, and the thing be signified by the word; and the same must be true of consignification. The active and passive modes of thinking too, though different

materially, are formally identical: the cognition by which a thing is thought is the same as that by which the intellect thinks it. In the light of his distinction, Radulphus holds that only materially can the passive modes of signifying and thinking be the same as the mode of being (PM 18); formally the passive modes of signifying and thinking (which are the same as the active modes of signifying and thinking) are similar to each other, but not identical (PM 19), nor are they identical to the mode of being.

What is Radulphus trying to argue in his elaborate fashion? He could be seen as providing a justification for a view like Boethius of Dacia’s, that the modes are not identical, by granting that there is just one truistic sense in which they are—it is the same thing which is, is thought of and is referred to in speech. If this interpretation of it is correct, Radulphus’s own distinction between taking the modes formally or materially is not supposed to complicate an already overloaded classification, but rather to reveal the artificiality of some of its categories.

Intentions

(1) Avicenna and Aquinas

The Ar istotelian view of intellectual knowledge is mainly concerned with the way in which the intellect thinks of (intelligit) things. But as well as thinking of things, the mind can think of its