Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

352 Ria van der Lecq
the mind, extra-mental objects. In fact, he held this position all his life. But before
the 1260s he seems to identify concept and intelligible species (mental image).
In his commentary on the Sentences Aquinas distinguishes between three kinds
of names. First, there are names for extra-mental things. When the intellect
conceives a likeness of an extra-mental thing, for example a stone, the word ‘stone’
signifies that mental image, which is elsewhere called ‘intelligible species’. This
image is not simply a picture of the extra-mental object, but an abstraction: it does
not contain individual features. Second, there are names that signify intentions
like ‘genus’ or ‘species’, with only a remote foundation in reality. Finally, there
are names that signify concepts without foundation in reality, like the concept of
‘chimera’. In the first and the third case names signify concepts in their function of
images of existing or non-existing things; in the second case they signify concepts
of concepts. 19
The older Thomas Aquinas: Primary signification of the concept
In his more mature writings 20 Aquinas does not identify intelligible species and
concept any more. 21 The concept — or ‘the thing conceived’, also called intentio
intellecta 22 — is the essence of the extra-mental object as it is abstracted by our
intellect from the object’s being. For example, the concept ‘man’ is the result
of an abstraction of the essence of a man, leaving his particular existence out
of consideration. 23 This concept is signified by the spoken word ‘man’. It is
also that which is understood. Individuals cannot be primarily signified, because
they cannot be primarily understood. Unlike the sensitive faculty of the soul, the
intellective faculty does not have a direct cognition of extra-mental objects: it
understands by virtue of an intelligible species and its object is the concept or
mental word (verbum mentis).
In the scholarly literature there is a discussion about the interpretation of
Aquinas’s mature theory. Some authors state that the mental word (also called
‘intention’) should be identified with the extra-mental thing insofar as it is understood;
others say that it is a product of the intellect completely distinct from
the extra-mental thing. 24 As we shall see below, Duns Scotus seems to refer to
the first interpretation: words signify things insofar as they are understood, but
both interpretations have their advocates. 25 It should be noted, however, that in
medieval philosophical writings the terms ‘concept’ and ‘intention’ are semantically
ambivalent in the sense that a concept always includes what it intends to
signify. 26 Concepts always have a foundation in reality, directly or indirectly. The
19See the paragraph on second intentions in this chapter.
20Especially his commentary on Peri hermeneias, theSumma theologiae and De potentia
21E.g. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I.82.2.
22See below, p. 372.
23This is the so-called ‘non-precisive abstraction’. Precisive abstraction is the abstraction of
the form; the result would be the concept ‘humanity’.
24Cf. Pini [1999, p. 49], who speaks of a ‘realistic’ vs. a ‘mentalistic’ interpretation.
25See Pini [1999, pp.49–50] for examples.
26De Rijk [2005, pp. 24-5] and passim.