The Notion of Person

and the

Encounter with Being

Robert M. Greenburg, Ph.D.

Published as a Public Service

by the

Institute of Christian Higher Education

822 Eventide Dr.

San Antonio, TX 78209

March 1988

All rights reserved

The Notion of Person

and the

Encounter with Being

Copyright 1984R.M. Greenburg

To My Wife Carolynand

My ChildrenMichael and Peter

With Love

To My Parents WhoSo Patiently Supported

Me In This Work

With Appreciation

CONTENTS

ChapterI. STATE OF THE QUESTION

The Problem and Its Source

Significance of the Study

II. THE ONTOLOGY OF PERSON 10

Introduction

Bergsonian Anti-PersonalismThomistic Foundations for the Notion of Person

The Ontological PersonSubsistence: The Ontological Principle of PersonPerson and Nature

III. MARITAINS PERSONALIST THEORY OF POETIC

INTUITION 32

Introduction

The Contents of the Poetic Intuition

Mechanics and Dynamics of the Poetic IntuitionPoetic Intuition and Philosophical Knowledge

IV. EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES 45

Introduction

Cognition in GeneralSensual CognitionIdeogenesisJudgment

V. EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THEINTUITION OF BEING AND CRITICAL REALISM 60

Introduction

Science, Mathematics, and IntuitionMetaphysics and IntuitionCritical Realism

CHAPTER I

STATE OF THE QUESTION

The Problem and Its Source

This study is primarily concerned with the thought ofJacques Maritain.However, both the problems to be addressed and the principles of theirsolution transcend the work of any one Thomist. Rather, they originateboth in the works ofSt. Thomas Aquinas himself, and in the recent effortsof certain neo-Thomists. Accordingly, we will begin by establishing theThomistic origin and character of both the problem and the principles,before developing both within the context of Maritain's thought.

Now, while the exact nature of St. Thomas' philosophical endeavorsseems to remain a perennial problem,1 he was—first and foremost—aCatholic theologian, for whom the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and theIncarnation were the ultimate objects ofanalysis and contemplation: "thepurpose and fruit ofour whole life is the knowledge oftheTrinity in unity."2

"Person"3 is the principle analytic instrument used by St. Thomas in hiselucidation of these great Mysteries;4 and his esteem for this "tool" isunequivocal: "Person means that which is most perfect in all nature,namely that which subsists in rational nature."5 "Nature", "subsist" and"rational" are philosophical categories.This suggests that, while "person" isthe key to Aquinas' analysis of Christianity's most sublime theologicalMysteries, it is, in fact, a philosophical notion, used by St. Thomas in serviceto theology. This is borne out by Aquinas' own development ofthis categorywhich parallels Boethius' expansion ofAristotle's metaphysics.8

Wherefore whatsoever a thing contains pertaining to the commonnature is included in the signification ofessence, whereas this cannotbe said of all that is contained in the individual substance. For if

whatsoever is in the individual substance were to belong to thecommon nature, there would be no possible distinction betweenindividual substance of the same nature. Now that which is in theindividual substance besides the common nature is individual matter

(which is the principle ofindividuation) and consequentlyindividualaccidents which determine this same matter. Accordingly the essenceis compared to the individual substance as a formal part thereof, forinstance, human nature in Socrates. Hence, in things composed of

matter and form, the essence is not quite the same as the subject, andconsequently it is not predicated ofthe subject: for we do not say thatSocrates is his human nature ... Now two things are proper to thesubstance which is a subject. The first is that it needs no externalsupport, as existingnot in another but in itself. The second is that it isthe foundation to accidents bysustaining them, and for this reason itsaid to substand. Accordingly, substance which is a subject, inasmuchas it subsists, is called subsistence, but inasmuch as its substands it iscalled hypostasis by the Greeks, and 'first substance' by the Latins. Itis clear that hypostasis and substance differ logically but are one inreality. Essence, however, in material substances is not the same asthey really, nor yet is it altogether diverse since it is bywayofa formalpart... Person adds a definite nature to hypostasis, since it isnothing more than a hypostasis of rational nature.7

Insofar as "person" names the existent individual of a rational nature, itdoes not refer to what a man is, his essence, or even to his act ofexistence,but rather to the subsistent subjectwho possesses them both, but is limitedto neither; "for a man is neither his humanity nor is he his own being."8 Notnaming a man's essence or form, "person" is not properly a concept:8 it "iscontained in the genus substance, although not as a species but as defininga specific mode of existence."10

The mode in question is that which is peculiar to rational beings andincludes characteristics which are both presupposed by, and consequentupon, the exercise of rationality.11 While it is rationality which specifies ahypostasis to be a person, "person" shares two characteristics withhypostases of any nature, "first, it must be selfsubsistent and undivided initself; secondly, it must be distinct from other hypostases of the samenature."12

From its distinctive rationality proceeds the autonomy of action13 towhich the dignity of the person is proportioned,14 and it is a dignitysurpassed by no other category of being; for "person means that which ismost perfect in all nature .. ."I5 The exercise of autonomous rationalagency renders the person "non-assumptible" into any larger whole orcollectivity.16

For St. Thomas, then, "person" names the subsistent rational individualwho is non-assumptible into any greater whole and whose substantialintegrity and autonomy of being result in its supreme dignity, which ismanifested by the exercise of its agency, of itself and for itself.

Applicable to both God and man, the notion of person must be ananalogous one.

... it is fitting that the word 'person' should be used of God;nevertheless it is not used in exactly the same sense of God as ofcreatures but in a higher sense, as are other words by which we namecreatures."17

Here we are told that, in the order of being, the Divine Person is theprimary analogate. However, in the order of knowledge, it is the humanindividual who provides the primary model for this notion.

The principal characteristic ofany beingwhich earns the name "person"is the exercise of some form of intellectual agency.18

Now to act by themselves is becoming in a higher degree tosubstances of a rational nature than to others: since rational

substances alone have dominion over their actions, so that it is inthem to act or not to act, while other substances are acted on ratherthan act themselves.19

Such exercise is the basis ofAquinas'Trinitarian analysis,20 the resultingautonomy of rational beings, and the criterion of their supreme dignity.21

These relatively few statements made by St. Thomas regarding thenotion of person are of such profundity as to allow for extensive analysisand, as we shall see below, wide-ranging application. At this point,however, several points must be raised which will provide thejustification,significance and direction for this study.

If, as we have seen above, a man is the primary exemplar of "person"—with the autonomous exercise ofintellectual agency his central characteristic—then the depths of this notion may be explored by reflecting uponone's immanent life of intellection and volition as well as one's transient

interactions with men and nature. Accordingly, one might expect to find inthose works of St. Thomas which explore human life and activity, both apenetrating analysisofman as person and the relationship ofall immanenthuman activities to their personal source; as well as extensive applicationstowards the better understanding of all levels of self-transcendent, interpersonal relations. This is, however, not the case: neither an analysis ofman as person-agent nor the application of personal agency to intra-personal or inter-personal "activities" are to be found in St. Thomas' studiesofman. Theology, too, would seem to be well served by such an analysis if itwere provided with deeper insights into Divine Person-hood. At this point,it must be noted that nothing thus far said is to be construed as a criticismof St. Thomas. The point that is being raised is not that he ought to havedelved more deeply into the notion of person and applied it to his study ofman, but simply the fact that he undertook neither task. Furthermore,since this is not a historical study, no attempt shall be made to explain thisfact in terms of the circumstances of his life, the intellectual climate inwhich he lived, or the political institutions ofhis times. This is not to suggestthat St. Thomas be held accountable for these tasks, but rather, that acomplete development ofa Thomistic understanding ofcognition requiresthem.

Of course, it is possible that, though "person" is a properly philosophicalnotion, it is inapplicable within a "scientific" Thomistic study of man, his

relations and activities—particularly cognition. After all, science in theAristotelian-Thomistic sense of"knowledge through causes" deals with theabstract and the universal, whereas "person" names that which isindividual, unique, and existent. Perhaps an understanding of what itmeans for a person to know has no place in a scientific understanding ofhow man knows. An examination of the requirements of an Aristotelian-Thomistic science should clearly indicate whether the notion ofperson isinappropriate as an analytic tool for scientific philosophizing, or whether,according to its own methodological principles, a Thomistic science ofman's cognitive activities, in fact, requires a description and analysis oftherelationship between the existent knowing subject, the metaphysicalprinciples of his agency, and his acts of cognition and their objects.

As a "knowledge through causes," a complete science of the Aristoteliantype must, by definition, include an identification and analysis of thematerial, final, formal, and efficient causes of its object of study. ForAristotle, this served as an approach to all levels of subject matter frombiology to metaphysics to politics. In each area, he sought to reduce allcausality to the formal; as in the case of his Metaphysic8(1028a13).

For Thomism, no such facile reduction to formal causality is possible,since it cannot limit the effect of the efficient cause to motion; butexpanded its function to include the bestowal of being, from whencemotion springs as an externalization: "operatio sequituresse."Thus, whilean Aristotelian science could be completed within the serene and changeless world of abstract formality, a complete Thomistic science mustrecognize, if not confront, the "booming,buzzingconfusion" of the existential realm.

While the Thomistic definition ofscience requires existential considerations, they necessarily become extraordinary aspects of its theory ofcognition by its adoption of the language and approach of Aristotle's DeAnima. Cognitive acts are distinguished according to their objects, andcognitive powers according to the distinctness of their respective acts; andthe various immanent "processes" which constitute the acts of cognitionare analyzed solely in terms of the formal efficacy of their operativepotencies (powers), without reference to the efficient agency of theexistent, knowing, person who exercises these powers.

This is not to say that the Thomistic analysis of cognition is whollyformal; for it describes the attainment of existence (esse) in the act ofjudgment as its culmination. Such references to esse are both with respectto the object known, and the knowing agent exercising22 his esse in acts ofcognition.

The adoption ofa formalistic language and mode ofanalysis would causeproblems of continuity and coherence for any philosophycommitted to anexistential (esse) understanding of reality. Thomism tries to overcome thisdisjunction between the essential and existential with extensive

use of analogy. Indeed, one can say that the intellect thinks and the willwills in the analogical sense of them being that by which one thinks andwills. Unfortunately, this can create a severe pedogogical problem for thosewho lack a well-developed sense of analogy; for, by attributing primarycausal agency to a power, Thomism seems to substantialize or re-ify thatpower, by endowing it with independent substantial existence. The neteffect is the admittedly false impression thatThomism conceives the act ofcognition to be like the process by which an automated photographic filmdeveloper (agent intellect) extracts a visual form (expressed species) fromitsvirtual chemical state within the exposed film (phantasm), and rendersit visually intelligible (concept). This misleading and mechanistic visualization has its origins in the reification and agentizing ofthe cognitive powers,in lieu of the actual agency involved: the existent cognizing person.

In addition to modifying Aristotle's conception of efficient causality,Thomism identifies a metaphysical distinction ofwhich it makes extensiveuse: the distinction between that which (id quod) exercises, or is thesubject of, action; and that by means of which (id quod) that agency isexercised, or that by means of which the action is carried out. Consequently, if, as Thomism rightly claims, it is not my intellect which thinks,but I who think by means of my intellect, then any complete Thomisticdescription ofwhat it means to know must include, not only an analysis ofthe "id quo" powers by which I know, but also their relation to me as theknowing agent exercising them, and the metaphysical sources of myagency and its exercise.

"Actiones sunt suppositorum"—actions proceed from supposits—is afundamental, Thomistic, metaphysical, principle.23 When predicated oftherational human supposit, it becomes "actiones sunt personarum"—actions proceed from persons. Ifone accepts this principle and reflects onit in light of the Thomistic definition of science, one must again concludethat any complete Thomistic description of what it means to know mustinclude, not only an analysis of the "id quo" powers by which I know, butalso their relation to me as the agent exercising them, and the metaphysical source of my agency.

What follows is just such an extension ofthe Thomistic description oftheknower's participation in his act of cognition from the level of the formalcausality of his intellectual powers to that of the efficient, existentialcausality which he exercises as knower; that is, by virtue of the metaphysical source of his agency, and within the conditions of his being.

Having described this thoroughlyThomistic problem, it is now possible todevelop the foundations for a thoroughly Thomistic solution. The writingsof St. Thomas might appear to be the best source for its categories andmethodology. However, it will be based upon the works ofJacques Maritain.

This choice is based on a two-fold consideration. First, since this was nota problem treated by St. Thomas, his works provide little in the way ofdevelopment of such principles as person, subsistence, and the like; and,nothing by way ofmethodology. On the other hand, everyThomist who haswritten since Immanuel Kant awoke from his "dogmatic slumber," has hadto confront the problem of "Critique," and with it, the relation of thecognizing subject to the objectivity of his thought.

In a chapter of the book Epistemology, entitled "The Neo-ScholasticProblem," L. M. Regis discusses the nature of the problem which theCartesian-Kantian demand for critique has created for Neo-Scholasticthinkers.

Here in other words, is the dialogue in which the Neo-Scholasticphilosopher takes part: Thomistic metaphysics says, "I exist and Iknow that my knowledge is true, because I have analyzed my object,being as being." The idealist answers, "You do not exist, and you donot even know thatyou do not exist, becauseyou have never analyzedor criticized the thinking subject as thinking subject." Thus the Neo-Scholastic soul is faced with the problem of the existence ofmetaphysics. This is the true problem, and to place it elsewhere is tofalsify it completely.

If we grant that this existence is the object of two divergentaccounts—one ofwhich would have this existence to be possible onlyafter analysis of the subject, whereas the realist narrator assertsthat it is possible upon analysis of the object.. ?*

Having shown this situation to fit the conditions for a true mirabile, Registhen lists the alternatives the Neo-Scholastics have in reacting to it, andhow some did in fact react.

1. The acceptance of both narratives in the hope of their bothcontaining complementary fragments of truth, to be confirmed ordenied by the inquiry.

2. The acceptance ofone ofthe accounts as true and rejection oftheother as false, with the inquiry demonstrating the falsity of therejected narrative.

3. The rejection of both accounts as nonevident or false, with theinquiry consisting in the discovery of another way of revealing theexistence of metaphysics.

What direction will Neo-Scholastic philosophy take, which of thethree alternatives will it adopt? This is the beginning ofthe nightmare,related in Van Riet's book, whose plot was given at the beginning ofthis chapter. All Neo-Scholastics are realists in theThomistic sense ofthe word. They all recognize the truth ofSt. Thomas' metaphysics and,therefore, its existence as metaphysics. It would seem that the only

possible attitude for a Neo-Scholastic would be the second alternativementioned above, i.e., the rejection of the idealist method, be itCartesian or Kantian. The only contemporary philosophers to adoptthis solution (the only logical one in view of the terms in which theNeo-Thomist problem is stated) are Professors Maritain, Gilson, andhistorian of philosophy, Professor H.Gouhier. On the other hand, thislogical position has been opposed by almost all Neo-Scholasticepistemologists who consider it a naive realism. This realism is on thesame footing with that of the forerunners and initiators of Neo-Scholastic epistemology.26

Maritain himself leaves little doubt as to the correctness of Regis'observation.

Thus, a Thomistic critique of knowledge is distinct from everyidealistic pseudo-critique in the very way in which it poses thequestion and in its first starting point.26

What Regis' analysis suggests is that Maritain did not merelyoverlook thepossibility ofinvolving the person in the development ofhis metaphysics ofcognition but purposefully avoided any such approach; lest he in any wayblur the sharp line of demarcation he sought to draw between hisThomistic critical realism and post-Cartesian idealism.

There are eight reasons for choosing the works ofJacques Maritain. First,his works include metaphysical treatments ofperson, subsistence, and thedistinction between the possession of esse, and its exercise. Second, hepresents an extensive Thomistic analysis of cognition. Third, he madeextensive use of "person" in his treatments of the practical order. Fourth,he stressed the quo/quod distinction. Fifth, he uses the notion ofperson toanalyze a form ofknowing: the poetic. Sixth, he grounds his metaphysics ina form of cognition—the intuition of being. Seventh, he modified hisunderstanding of subsistence, relating it to the exercise of esse ratherthan its mere possession. Eighth, as a self-declared Thomist, he would beunlikely to incorporate non-Thomistic elements into his works.

The Significance ofthe Study

Neo-Thomists have long been aware of the problems besetting theirepistemologies. The present state of their research on this matter reflectsboth the current division within Thomism itself, and the significance anduniqueness ofthe approach here proposed. In an article reviewingwhat heconsiders to be the most significant aspects ofSt. Thomas' metaphysics, W.Norris Clarke concludes that, regarding the intentional orders ofcognitionand love, "this whole domain of being simply escapes or transcends theentire set of Aristotelian categories of change, immutability, and realrelation,"27 and then proposes a personalistic re-thinking of St. Thomas.

Once this perspective of the correlativity (though not full co-extensivity) ofbeingand person is achieved, the human person can betaken as the primary model or analogue for us of all the basicmetaphysical concepts, such as unity, activity, efficient physicalcausality, act and potency, etc.—the privileged vantage point fromwhich we know from within what each concept stands for and fromwhich we extend it by analogy both below and above us. But it is onlyhonest to admit that the richness and fruitfulness of this personalistviewpoint on being has not been given adequate thematized treatment by St. Thomas himself, this remains one of the major tasks forcontemporary Thomists.28

Echoing the call for "a contemporary reconstruction ofThomism, GeraldMcCoolcites a workbyJohannes Metz.29 Metzclaims that every phUosophyhas a specific denkform,30 and the Greek"denkform" ofnature, upon whichAristotle's categories are founded, is inadequate for expressing the depthsofa Christian philosophy, which requires a specifically Christian denkformwhich, for St. Thomas—Metz claims—is the notion of person.

Nevertheless, since his categories are almost entirely Greek in origin,they cannot do proper justice to the insights of his essentiallyChristian, and modern, metaphysics. New categories would have to becreated, and old ones refined and modified, before its categoricalformulation would be adequate to the content of St. Thomas'metaphysics; whose horizon is being-as-person and not being-as-nature, and in which primacy is given to freedom, history and time.

Unfortunately, St. Thomas' successors in the School failed toappreciate the necessity of this all-important task. Their Thomismconfined itself too closely to the Aristotelianism of St. Thomas'categorical structure, and failed to give free and adequate expressionto the new elements in the thought of the Angelic Doctor.31

In addition to agreeing that the envisioned reconstruction ofSt. Thomashas yet to be accomplished, Clarke, McCool, and Metz all suggest thatTranscendental Thomism represents the best attempt to date. However,the uniqueness of what is to follow below lies in its divergence from theTranscendental approach. Other Thomists,32 including Maritain, see noneed to restructure St Thomas' epistemology in conformity with theexternal and alien requirements of the Kantian critique, in order to justifythe very possibility of Thomistic metaphysics. On the other hand, whatfollows proposes to build upon the achievements of Thomistic epistemologybydrawing upon the philosophical resources alreadypresent—butas ofyet undeveloped—in its own metaphysics. This would of course be aMaritainian solution to a Maritainian problem, but one which would, ofnecessity, have significant implications for Thomists of all types andrealists ofall persuasions; as it will provide a new approach to the problems

with which they are presently concerned: the origin of metaphysics;33 thenature of the cognitive act,34 and intentional being;36 the nature andfunction of the act ofjudgment;36 and the knowledge of existence and itscontent.37

CHAPTER II

THE ONTOLOGY OF PERSON

INTRODUCTION

In order to carryoutthe "mandate" as described, this studywill proceedwith an analytic summaryof the development ofMaritain's understandingof the metaphysics of person. To successfully use this notion we mustthoroughly explore its necessity, origin, principles, and ramifications. Achronological order of presentation will underscore the change which tookplace in Maritain's understanding of subsistence, the metaphysical originof person. This is no trivial matter; for as Maritain himself admits, "thenotion of subsistence is one of the most difficult and controversial in

Thomistic philosophy."1 Further, as we shall see, it is this very change ofapproach on Maritain's part, which best reveals the true "notion"ofperson,and suggests the reason for its centrality in any authentic, existential,Thomistic metaphysics.

Bergsonian Anti-Personalism

Our summary-analysis ofMaritain's notion ofperson begins with his firstbook, Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism.2 Although its direct references to the notion of person are few, this work is significant by virtue ofthat specific aspect of person which Maritain uses to criticize Bergson.

This work has a two-fold end. Maritain establishes that Bergson's effortsto overcome the mechanistic determinism spawned by Descartes, werethemselves able to render God, man and nature no more intelligible thanhad Descartes and those who came after him.3 As an alternative to both the

Cartesians and Bergson, Maritain espouses the lucid consistency ofThomas Aquinas4 with special emphasis on the Thomistic notion ofsubstance, as a via media between the Parmenidian rigidity of theCartesians,5 and Heraclitian flux of Bergson.6

Maritain cites Bergson's "confusion" between selfor person, and memory,as just one instance of his overall identification of substance withoperation—of"whatendures in time or through time, and time itself".7 Hereminds us that, when Bergson equates the person with memory, he doesso because he has already identified memory with the past itself; as itsurges forward as uninterrupted change.8 The net effect of Bergson's

10

approach is to render any self-awareness to be meaningless, and eachperson to be unintelligible to himself.

But to saythat "I CHANGE,"that "I am pure change, without a thingwhich changes," is to say that there is no substance subject of thischange, therefore no I which changes, and that I am not a person forthe very good reason that I am not, that I do not succeed in being, andthat there is only pure becoming. It is therefore impossible, in theBergsonian thesis, to say or to think I.9

With a view to later developments in Maritain's thought, this critique can berestated in other terms. What Bergson has in effect attempted to do is todescribe the person as a pure exercise of existence;10 rather than thesubstantial subject who both possesses and exercises his existence.11

The notion ofperson is also an element in the more positive aspect ofthiswork. Here, as Maritain presents the Thomistic view of man, he points outseveral times12 that the Thomistic notion ofperson involves both body andsoul; even though the human soul is the spiritual, subsistent, substantialform ofthe body.13 Here, it would appear that his target is the dichotomiza-tion of the knowing human person14 by the Cartesians rather thanBergson's reductionism, though he finds much similarity between them.15

With this work, Maritain shows that, by substituting duration forsubstance and intuition for abstraction, Bergson, like the Cartesians,deprives both the person and the world of their respective stable,intelligible structures.

Thomistic Foundations ofthe Notion ofPerson

The next section ofthis summary may require some patience on the partof the reader; because much of it does not directly involve the subject athand. It will be, in fact, a necessarily sketchy and simplified synopsis ofthebasic concepts of the Thomistic philosophy of nature and metaphysics.This is quite necessary in order to establish the absolute need for the notionofsubsistence by the inherent failure ofthe other ontological principles toprovide an ontological ground for the distinction between substance andaccident, and for the causal efficacy of supposits in general, and of thehuman person, in particular.

Maritain presents his first systematic discussion of the metaphysicalnotion of person in a text book which he characterizes as "a faithfulrepresentation of the system ofAristotle and St. Thomas,"16 "intended forbeginners." This work is synoptic in nature. As a result, only the most basicconcepts and problems are dealt with in any detail. Those of a derivativenature are simply named; and then related by appropriate distinctions.

The three chapters (V, VI& VII) devoted to ontology attempt to answerone question from three points ofview: "what are absolutely the first dataof the intellect?"17 Essence answers this question from the standpoint of

11

intelligibility, substance and accident from that of existence, andpotency in terms ofact18

In chapter five, Maritain derives the concept of essence; and distinguishes the concepts of nature, quiddity, matter, and existence; and thenotions of the subject of action, suppositum, and person. Following anorder "demanded by a strictly scientific study"19 he proceeds by analysis ofexamples rather than "developed arguments." To this end, he draws uponthe common experience of any person seeking an understanding of theconstituent principles ofa being. This method will hereafter be referred toas "existential-analytic"; insofar as it probes the existent in order todistinguish those principles required to account for both its intelligiblestructure, and its active, substantial presence in the real world. Aprogressive purifying of the content of such an understanding reveals itspurely intelligible core: the essence.

In its most inclusive sense, essence is defined as "simply an object ofthought as such" that "possesses its intelligible constitution, which distinguishes it from others and involves certain attributes."20 This primarydatum of the intellect21 is existentially neutral22 connoting only possibleexistence; as its content is wholly unaffected by the actual existence ornonexistence of such a being.23

On this basis the very concept of being must now embrace two distinctand irreducible categories: essence as that which is, or may be,"24 andexistence, "that act of being" which "posits a thing outside non-entity, andoutside its causes."25 In much the same way, two meanings for existencemay be distinguished: "the fact of existing (existentia in actu exercito),and existence as an object of thought (existentia ut quod quid est)."26

Maritain then proceeds to refine this "very wide concept" of essence byconsidering it "insofar as they can be apprehended by the intellect when itjudges,"27 thereby bringing the act ofunderstanding to completion. His goalis the absolutely first datum of the intellect in relation to intelligibility.28Relative to actual existence, the immediate and primary object of theunderstanding is "a particular whole, individual, concrete, and independent subject, completely equipped for existence and action," the"actors in the drama of the universe."29 As intelligible, they are includedunder essence in the wide sense and known as primary subject ofexistence and action, suppositum, person, as that which is. However,strictly relative to their intelligibility, they are not directly known asexistent, concrete or individual, but rather in terms of what they are.Therefore this "what" constitutes essence in the strict sense,30 to the strictexclusion of all other aspects, particular^ existence.

Continuing his analysis ofexamples, Maritain establishes the characteristics of the what of things: first, it is necessary and immutable, withoutwhich a being cannot be the type ofbeing it is;31 and second, it is the sourceor ground of all characteristics necessarily possessed by the subject, but

12

not directly constitutive of what it is.32 'The essence of a thing is what thatthing is necessarily and primarily, as the first principle of its intelligibility."31'

For the purposes of this study, "essence" wil be used in the strict sense:"what a particular subject primarily is for the intellect."34 This restrictionalso applies to essence as quiddity answering the question, "what is it?" andessence as nature, the first, formal, principle of operations.3"

As related to the being possessed of it, the essence is that by which (idquo) the being is known to be what it is. Plato notwithstanding, an essencecannot be a thing, or a being in itself—a that which or id quod—for it"abstracts from every condition and mode ofexistence."36 Thus its mode ofbeing will be determined by its possessor: individuated, when present in anactual thing, universalized in order to be known;37 being neither individualnor universal in itself.38 In spite of the fact that the essence of a being isindividuated due to its possession by an individual being, it is not individualqua essence, and therefore can only account for what the being shares incommon with all others of its kind and not its individual characteristics."'

"Unalterable and necessary": such characteristics must have a sourcewithin the individual as individual which source Maritain calls the

individual nature: "by individual nature we mean incommunicable to anyother object or, if you prefer, wholly circumscribed."40

He then derives the principle ofprime matter to explain these necessary—but individual—characteristics of a being and thereby distinguishes theindividual nature from the essence.41

That Socrates possesses his essence not precisely as Socrates, butas man,... Socrates'individual nature is the essence ofman individuated by materia signata.4-

One may conclude from all of this, that the essence is the formal principleof that identity and set of characteristics which any being has in commonwith all other beings of its type and that the "individual nature" includesthis essence plus any individual material identity or characteristics.

The Ontological Person

In Chapter VI Maritain proceeds to consider the being of things "inreference to existence."

What the mind apprehends first of all as existing is beings such asPeter, Paul, this man, this dog, this bird, individual concrete andindependent subjects, fully equipped to be and to act, and which wehave termed the primary subjects of action, supposita, or persons. Itis they who primarily fulfill the act of being.43

Having introduced the notion of person or supposit under the title"subject ofaction,"Maritain then proceeds to develop it and relate it.to themore general concepts ofsubstance and accident. The subject of action isdistinguished by two characteristics. First, "taken separately it possesses

13

in itself—or in its own nature—everything necessary to receive existence.44This is existence perse. Second, the subject of action exists in se "when itdoes not exist as a part of a whole previously existing, but itselfconstitutesthe whole which exists."45 Existence in se is logically consequent uponexistence per se, and both are distinguished from existence a se which isattributable to God alone.46 Such subjects of action existing per se and inse are "from the standpoint ofexistence, the first datum ofthe intellect."47

The preceding citation suggests that "subject of action," "supposit,""person," or "that which is," refer to an actual existent. However, asMaritain proceeds to describe them under the title of"subjectofaction," hequalifies their existential status with such phrases as "immediatelydisposed to exist per se,"48 and "is capable of existence."49 Thus, while"subject of action," etc. are predicable of concrete existents, these titles donot designate actual existents, but only their possible existence; insofar asthey have fulfilled some or all of the requirements for actual existence.50

Maritain then proceeds, on the basis of these properties, to describesubstance, and distinguish between the subject ofaction (person), nature,and substance; all of which possess these properties. The subject ofactionpossesses existence "pure and simple" byvirtue ofits essence or nature.61 Inpoint of fact, human subjects of action never exist purely and simply butrather with "a host ofsecondary qualifications" or essences,62 which existneither inse nor perse, but rather as complements or perfections of beingswhich do so exist. Since these qualifications exist only as related to,dependent on, and possessed by a subject ofaction, they are characterizedas accidents, with the person (subject of action) as their "underlying"substance. Both the subject of action and its nature merit the name"substance"63 as an actuality related to its potentiality.

The term substance signifies a thing capable ofexisting in itself, orofsubsisting; that is to say, ofbeing self-contained as an existent thing(its function, subsistere), so that, once it exists it sustains in beingthe additional qualities or accidents with which it is invested (itsfunction, substare). But it is only as a suppositum that substance isimmediately capable of performing these two functions. Consideredas a nature or essence it merely seeks to perform them.54

Substance is predicable ofessence,55 individual nature,56 and the subjectofaction.57 Since essence is relegated to a secondary level ofsubstantiality,substantia secunda,58 what is to be the primary instance ofsubstance, thesubstantia prima? If existence per se and in se are taken in an"unqualified"or "absolute" sense then the subject ofaction alone meets thequalification for substantiality.59 Both the essence and individual nature(essence individuated by prime matter) are id quo, possessed by thesubject of action, the id quod. However in deference to the traditionalAristotelian and Scholastic terminology,60 and because it is by virtue ofthe

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individual nature, that the subject of action exists as such;61 Maritainincludes it under the definition of substance, as substantia prima; byrestricting existence per se to mean independence of any "previouslyexisting" being.62 Accidents are then distinguished as secondary qualifications in virtue of which it exists—not only simply (simpliciter)—but alsounder a particular aspect (secundum quid).63

With the adoption of the less restricted definition of existence per se,both the subject of action, and its individual nature qualify as substantiaprima. The individual nature—as substance—likewise shares in theexistential ambiguityofthe subject ofaction and supposit; as they all "mustbe defined as a thing or nature capable of existing per se or apt to existper se."64

What of the individual concrete existent? Since, substantiality has beendefined in terms of the manner or condition of existing (per se and in se);does it not seem to follow that a being actually existing per se and in seshould be the primary instance of substantiality (substantia prima)rather than that which is only capable of so doing? Maritain will answerthis question in his revised version of the notion of subsistence.

Substance is the most universal of the three concepts as encompassingthe other two, which share it as a common genus.65 How then are theydifferent? Enter the notion of subsistence.

The subject of action (suppositum or person) is nothing but thesubstantial nature completed by a particular modality (subsistenceor personality) which terminates it, as a point terminates a line(without adding anything to it in its order of nature) and renders itabsolutely incommunicable. ... But when we distinguish and contrast the nature (not terminated) and the subject of action, the termsubstance remains attached to the nature (not terminated) and isthen contrasted with the subject of action taken as such. Thus whenwe speak ofPeter's substance, we mean precisely the nature by virtueof which the subject of action Peter possesses primary being, andwhich is part of him.66

Maritain indicates that the term "substance" refers to the individual

nature of the subject of action without reference to whether it isterminated (i.e., a subject of action) or not. "Suppositum" and "person" dohowever refer to the individual nature as terminated and actually orpossible existent.67 "Person" in turn is "reserved for supposita of anintellectual nature who are therefore masters of their actions and possessthe maximum of independence."68

This "mode or fashion of existence," subsistence, renders the individualnature absolutely incommunicable, thus capable of receiving only its own69existence.

The individual nature is related to the subject of action as the id quo

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(that by means ofwhich) is to the id quod (that which);70 with respect toboth intelligibility and existence. As indicated above, the essence ornature71 is that by which the subject of action is what it is, and is known assuch. The nature is also that by which the subject of action receives itsexistence.72 The three functions differ in that the last requires subsistence.

Subsistence: The Ontological Principle of Person

To say that subsistence terminates the individual nature "as a pointterminates a line (without adding anything to it in the formal order ofnature) and renders it absolutely incommunicable,"73 leaves much to besaid regarding subsistence. In a later reference to this same analogy, it ismore fully explained.74 Whatever the exact nature of this perfectionbestowed by subsistence, at this point, we are told only that its net effect isto render the nature incommunicable with respect to its primary existence(esse).76

As did St. Thomas,76 Maritain relates subsistence to personality, assupposit is related to person.77 As "person" names the supposit (terminated nature) of rational nature, "personality" names the subsistence of arational nature.78 As the subsistence ofa person's nature, personality, hereused, represents that"ontological seal79by which the person's80 existence ishis own, and incommunicable with any other person or supposit. As aresult, each person's actions (actiones sunt suppositonim) can be ofhimself, for himself, and consequently attributable to him, ethically andpsychologically. This is obviously not personality in the contemporary,scientific meaning of the term,81 but rather its ontological basis, whentaken together with the individuation of materiality.82 As a preconditionfor our existence, it is also a precondition for the fulfilment of our humanbe-ing.83 Possessed ofpersonality, the person is ontologically characterizedby individuality, unity, integrity, subsistence, intellect, will, liberty, and thepossession of the self by the self.84 Sadly, it is the burden of the humancondition that "personality while metaphysically inalienable suffers manya check in the psychological and moral register."85

Ontological personality is perfected by its realization on the moral andpsychological level when each person becomes able to "give a face to theturbulent multiplicity that dwells within him, freely seal(s) it with the sealof his radical ontological unity."88

Permit me, now, to summarize this second stage of development. Thenotion of person designates the subject ofaction of an intellectual nature.As a subject of action is able to exist per se; in that it contains in itselfeverything necessary in order to receive existence, and consequentlyexistsin se; in that it will not exist as a part of any previously existing whole. Onthe basis of these modes ofexistence "person" designates a "substance," asid quod; which possesses all of its powers and accidents by which it acts.Being of an intellectual nature terminated by subsistence, the person

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possesses the maximum degree of substantiality and independence.This treatment of subsistence is found in a series of footnotes. When

taken as a group, these almost comprise a sub-treatise in terms of theprocedure followed therein. Unlike the existential-analytic procedurewhich characterizes the body of the text, every discussion of the originalversion of subsistence, in this and future works, consists in consideringwhat is required to synthesize a possible existent (supposit, or person) interms of such principles as substance, essence, prime matter, individualnature, supposit, person, and existence. This God's-eye view of creationconcludes with the necessity for subsistence to insure that the existence tobe received by the individual nature be its own (per se) and not ofanother(in se). In effect, this approach seeks to explain the genesis of the possibleor actual existent as a synthesis ofprinciples, none ofwhich itselfsubsists.This introduction of the notion of subsistence provokes more questionsthan it supplies answers. Why is subsistence necessary to a Thomisticdescription of reality? What is the exact nature of the perfection which itbestows upon the individual nature when it "terminates it, as a pointterminates a line" to become a subject ofaction? What is the relation ofthisperfection to a being's essence, to its act of existence?

In Maritain's next treatment of the metaphysics of person is found thefirst version of his answers to the above questions. Originally published asan article, it subsequently appeared as Chapter V of The Degrees ofKnowledge under the title "Metaphysical Knowledge."

Subsistence is presented as that perfection required to guarantee thesubstantiality of existent substances.

Subsistence presupposes a (substantial) nature that is individual orsingular (i.e., having the ultimate of actuation and determination in thevery line of nature or essence). What it properly signifies, insofar as itgives the final completion to the order of created things, is that thisnature, from the fact that it is endowed with subsistence, cannotcommunicate with any other substantial nature in the very act ofexisting, it is, so to speak, absolutely enclosed in itself with regard toexistence. My person exists before acting; and it possesses its existence,as it possesses its nature, in a way absolutely proper to it as incommunicable. Not only is its nature singular, it owns so completely the existencewhich actuates it that it desires to keep it to itselfalone; it can share thisexistence with no other.88

This completion is necessitated by an acceptance of the real distinctionbetween essence and existence, related as potency to act.89 If essence andexistence be the constituent principles ofall actual beings, then how doesone account for the fact that some types of beings exist with the self-containedness and independence ofa substance, and other beings which—also possess an essence—exist in that state ofdependencycharacterized as

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accidental? Neither essence nor existence—alone or in combination—canaccount for these two distinct levels of being.

In order to better understand Maritain's response, it is necessary torecall his definition ofsubstance: "substance as a thing whose property is toexist by itself (per se) or in itself (in se)".90Clearly, of the two constitutiveprinciples of being, substantiality is a modality ofexistence not essence.Existence in se, Vhen it does not exist as a part of a whole previouslyexisting, but itself constitutes the whole which exists,"91 or existence perse, "when it is brought into existence in virtue of itself, or of its ownnature,"92 determines a being's analogous degree of substantiality.

What then ofthe being which does not exist in se and perse? Accordingto one form ofthe principle ofcausality,93 that which cannot exist in se andperse must exist ab alio, by way of another being, which in turn does thusindependently exist.94

Subsistence is the very perfection which accounts for the analogicalmdependence of the substance as compared to the relative dependence ofthe accident, by guaranteeing that the existence which a substantialnature receives is "its own," incommunicable with another.96

At this point, one is directed to Appendix IV entitled "On The Notion ofSubsistence—First Version" which was added when the various articleswere incorporated into book form.

While as we have seen, subsistence arises out of the "extention of theAristotelian doctrine of potency and act to the relation of essence toexistence,"96 its specific point of origin is not what this relation has incommon with other analogous instances ofthis doctrine, but rather, whatMaritain claims is its unique property. In an earlier work,97 Maritain listsseven "axioms" regarding act and potency. Axiom Five states, "act andpotentiality belong to the same order."98 By way of example, Maritainsubstitutes "A faculty in relation to its operation" for Aristotle's acorn inrelation to its yet-to-be oak tree. Being of two different orders of being,essentia and esse "violate" this axiom.

Essence and existence belong to two different orders, and essenceis in potencywith respect to existence. It cannot properlybe said herethat the act is received in a potency because the word "to be receivedin a potency" relates to an act which itself is posited in existence as adetermination of that potency's own reserves of determinability.99

Indeed, while a faculty must exist prior to its operation, an individualnature cannot exist prior to receiving its veryact ofexistence (esse). Thus,while the act ofcognition is the fruition or perfection ofthe cognitive poweras cognitive, its act is its own, and could not be that of any other type offaculty, i.e., volition. This, Maritain concludes cannot be the case foressence and the act of existence; because existence "is not a quidditativedetermination."

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There is a sort of transcendence of the act of existing by reason ofwhich (not being the achievement ofa potency in the order proper tothat potency—for the existence is not the achievement of essence inthe order of essence: it does not form part of the order of essence).The potency which the act achieves, considered with respect to itsquidditative constituents, has not in itself anything by which tomake ITS OWN the act in question.100

It would appear that what is unique to this particular potency-actrelation is what it lacks: namely, a common "middle term" between theorder of formality and that of existence, without which it cannot beexplained how esse "actuates essence and it is not an actuation of thereserves of potency within essence.101 This is based on an axiom regardingpotency and act which did not appear on the original list: "it is potencywhich limits act."102

As a consequenceofall of this, there is, claims Maritain, no way by whichan act ofexistence can necessarily be attributed to a particular substantialnature as to be its own existence "to the exclusion ofany other essence."103Moreover, the very distinction between substance and accident is based onthose realities which do not share in the existence of one another:

substances, and those which do: accidents.However, substances and accidents do exist; therefore, there must be

some "substantial" mode such that

its proper office is to terminate substantial essence, to bring it to passthat the essence be rendered incommunicable—by which it is to beunderstood not to be able to communicate with another substantial

essence in the existence that actuates it; to cause it to be divided offfrom every other, not only as regards that which it is (as individualsubstance) but divided off from every other in order to exist.104

No being can exist as a substance—defined above—unless its existence beits own and there can be no common "middle term" between a substantial

nature and its act ofexistence. By "its own" Maritain means that the act ofexistence is "incommunicable"such as "not to be able to communicate with

another substantial essence in the existence that actuates it."105 Thus

subsistence terminates the essence such that the existence it receives

cannot be shared in common by another substantial essence.106

Thus, subsistence appears as a sort of individuation of the essencewith respect to the order of existence, leaving the line of nature toface up to something altogether different, to make the leap intoexistence; a sort of individuation by whose means the essence,individuated in its own line, appropriates to itselfalone the existenceit receives.107

By virtue ofits act ofsubsistence, the completeness and encapsulation that

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the substantial essence possesses in the quidditative order, is extended tothe existential order, as the ultimate disposition to receive existence.However, subsistence is not itself the act of existence108 but rather, itsprerequisite.1'"'

Maritain further exemplifies the individuation effect ofsubsistence as itapplies to the human composite. Subsistence renders the human soulunited to the body "a closed WHOLE in the order ofthe aptitude to exist(by itself)""" i.e., as a subject of action or a substance.

Once possessed of subsistence, this composite is no longer a quo—a bywhich—but now a quod—a that which—now capable of possessing itsexistence as its own. As before, subsistence adds nothing to the quidditative or intelligible content of the composite.

Then, it is not only a principal quo, it is a principle quod; it is not thatby which a man is what he is, it is this man, you or I (and that whichexists is you or I); it is not only apt to exist by itself, it is apt to have thisexistence as its own; it is in condition to limit existence to itself, to bea closed whole for the purpose of existing. Only when it possessesthat last metaphysical complement does it have the ultimate disposition to receive existence.111

And finally, like esse itself, subsistence is not an essence but does have anintelligible content; for by virtue of his act of subsistence, each personknows himself as a quod, as the possessor of his essence and existence.112

Subsistence has been invoked in order to distinguish between theindividual nature, and the subject of action, supposit, or person.113However, as subsistence is not existence (esse) itself114 but rather ischaracterized as a necessary pre-condition for its reception, subsistencecannot be used to distinguish the actual from the possible but differentiates one level of possible existence from another.115 Nothing is changed inthis respect when Maritain specifies that subsistence guarantees that theexistence to be received by a nature will be its own, in the sense of beingincommunicable with another nature.

"On the one hand, this subsistence is not one of the quidditativeconstituents of essence, and, on the other hand, it is not yet existence."116Just where does it fit within the Thomistic structure of reality? If the realdistinction between essence and existence is to be sustained, then thisoriginal version leaves subsistence in an ontological limbo, being neitherfish nor fowl. Has he a choice in the matter? If subsistence is to be justifiedas a pre-condition for the reception of existence; one could hardly beginwith the existent so as to presuppose what is to be explained.

Supposit and person meet much the same fate. True, they can be used inreference to existent beings; however, they do not formally specify them asactually existent. Rather, they indicate the highest state ofpreparedness toreceive existence. Thus far, Maritain's ontology includes essence and

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existence—but no existents.

Let us not forget that the issue at hand is Maritain's explanation of thefunction of subsistence, and not the requirement for it. As our previoussynopsis ofThomistic principles indicates; no one, nor any combination ofthese principles (essence, nature, quiddity, existence, form, matter,potency, act, substance, or accident) can sustain or ground the realdistinction between essence and existence,117 or substance and accident;'IKor account for the agency exercised by supposits and persons, who includeall, transcend all, and are restricted to none.

In 1934, two years after the publication of The Degrees ofKnowledge,Maritain published the first of two works devoted exclusively to metaphysics.119

After identifying what he considers "counterfeit metaphysics," Maritaindescribes the intuition of being as "the ground of any authentic metaphysics" and proceeds to discuss "being" as attained by such an experience.The remainder of the work then considers the necessary "principles ofbeing:" identity, sufficient reason, finality, and causality.

"Subsistence" as such is not treated in this work. Of greater importance isthe suggestion of a change in Maritain's approach to the relation of thesubject to its act ofesse. While discussing the esse-essentia composition ofbeing in the "Second Lecture," Maritain thrice interprets "esse ut exercita"as esse "possessed potentially or actually by a subject."120However, by the"Fifth Lecture," he interprets the phrase "What exists, exists" as "What isposited outside its causes exercises an activity, an energy, which isexistence itself."121

In 1947 Maritain published his last book on metaphysics.122 It representsa departure from previous works in its style, approach, and intent. Thiswork defends the existential character ofThomistic metaphysics. In muchthe same spirit with which Maritain had previously presented Thomism asan alternative to theself-destructive essentialism ofmodern philosophy,1'-3he uses this work to advocate its intrinsic superiority to the various formsofexistentialism so fashionable at the time of its publication. He claims thethought of St. Thomas to be the only "authentic" existentialism, evenamong those claiming theistic or Christian origins.

One way is to affirm the primacy of existence, but as implying andpreserving essences or natures and as manifesting the supremevictory of the intellect and of intelligibility. This is what I consider tobe authentic existentialism.124

Interestingly enough, this work does not deal with "essences or natures"but rather has the human existent, the person, and his activities as itscentral topic. Maritain discusses the problem of subsistence, makingmention ofthe defense he offered in the first version of"Appendix IV," andalso seeks the same conclusion from a somewhat different approach taken.

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he says, from Cajetan and John of St. Thomas.

When they explain that an essence or a nature, considered strictly,cannot exist outside the mind as an object of thought, and thatnevertheless individual natures do exist, and that, consequently, inorder to exist, a given nature or essence must be other than it has tobe in order to be an object of thought, that is to say, it must bear initselfa supreme achievement which adds nothing to it in thelineof itsessence (and consequently does not enrich our understanding by anynew note which qualifies it), but which terminates it in that line ofessence (constitutes it as an in-itself or an inwardness face to facewith existence) in order that it may take possession of this act ofexisting for which it is created and which transcends it.125

While this does explain why the essence needs the act of subsistence to"take possession of this act of existing," it—like those of the originalversion—does not answer the questions posed above. As it turns out, thisline of argumentation was not used in Maritain's final discussion ofsubsistence.

What is of real significance in this approach to subsistence is what it doesnot have in common with the rest of the book: its description of theesse-essentia relation as that ofthe act received is to the recipient. Prior tothis work this description was consistently employed by Maritain in hisdiscussions of essence, existence, and subsistence. However, in Existenceand the Existent, emphasis is shifted from the reception of esse to itsexercise.

Maritain does not here discuss this distinction per se, but rather uses itwith reference to a number of important topics: understanding,126 judgment,127 being (as the subject of metaphysics),128 being (per se),129 evil,130love,131 divine causality,132 ethics,133 and last but not least, the subject.134 Itshould be noted however, that when the subsistence of the subject isdiscussed it is in terms of the reception, not exercise, ofexistence.136 Evenafter our awareness of our own subjectivity136 and God's knowledge ofus asindividuals are described in terms of the exercise of our existence,137Maritain continues to follow Cajetan and John ofSt. Thomas regarding therole of subsistence.

He also continues to use the abstract-synthetic (God's-eye) approach tothe explanation of subsistence regardless of his treatment of the relatedtopics. However, he does follow his discussion of subsistence with astatement which seems to indicate that he is not entirely comfortable withits implications.

God does not create essences to which He can be imagined as giving alast rub on the sandpaper of subsistence before sending them forthinto existence!138

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And indeed there is much reason for discomfort with such expressionsas "the existence it receives"130 or "it confronts existence as a closed

whole"140and the like. This God's-eye view provokes statements to the effectthat there is something which receives a termination before it even existsand is somehow present to receive existence before it exists.

In this same year this "reception" interpretation is found in a workdealing with the relation of the person to the many social groups in whichhe participates but of which he is never a part.141

In 1950, Fr. Herman Diepen published a study of the theology of theHypostatic Union. The first part of his study deals with the notion ofsubsistence as conceived by Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Cajetan,Maritain and others.142

In the course of his discussion ofCajetan's theory ofsubsistence, Diepencriticizes the analogy of subsistence as terminus purus: as a point is to aline. He argues that this analogy—borrowed from Cajetan by Maritain—isinappropriate because subsistence is a positive perfection bestowed on anindividual nature; while the point's function in limiting the extension of aline is negative in character.143 He further points out that while both pointand line are in the same order, i.e.,quantity; subsistence does not completeor limit the nature in the order of essence.144

Unfortunately, even if one grants the propriety of this analogy todescribe the effect of subsistence, it fails to support the real distinctionbetween substance and accidents; since both require existential limitation.

Fr. Diepen then takes issue with the arguments presented by Maritain in"Appendix IV"of The Degrees of Knowledge in defense of his theory ofsubsistence.146 Using a series of quotations, Diepen shows that St. Thomashimself consistently affirmed the analogy between essence-existence andfaculty-operation.146

According to FY. Diepen, the problem originates in Maritain's adoption ofa univocal understanding of existence as related to essence; with this inturn resulting in univocity regarding the relation of an act to itscorresponding potency.147 If existence is univocal; then all acts ofexistencewould be the same; therefore, interchangeable. Accordingly, no individualnature could claim its existence as its own, nor would there be anything toprevent two substantial natures from sharing one act of existence. Ineither case the substance-accident distinction ceases to be necessary orjustifiable.

Again citing St. Thomas,148 Fr. Diepen argues that the act ofexistence isanalogous, and therefore the acts of existence of distinct beings arethemselves distinct;149 whether they be of different essences or individualswithin a single species. Since potency formally limits its act, so will eachsubstantial nature uniquely specify its act of existence; thereby making itits own act of existence,160 and incommunicable with respect to any othersubstantial nature.161

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As a result of the analogical character of existence, the essence-existence relation is typical, not unique, among potency-act relations.Existence is related to essence as an operation is to its faculty, and just asthe eye sees and the ear hears—with neither performing the act of theother, nor one able to perform both—"it is an impossibility for one essenceto be joined to another in a common actuation, hence is an act of existinginsofar as it is, the actuation of the essence."162

The citations163 from the works of St. Thomas with which Fr. Diepenjustified his critique were undoubtedly available to, and probably known,by Maritain as well. Thus, it would appear that, in order to preserve atheological theory, he was willing to overlook certain philosophicalprinciples and, in effect, sacrifice the handmaiden in lieu of her mistress.

This same attitude appears to have been taken towards the notion ofesse ut exercita. In spite of its literal rendering of "existence (to be) asexercised" it is translated by Maritain as existence as received orpossessed.164Even when he draws on the analogy between acts ofcognitionand cognitive powers as relating existence as the actus essendi, hedescribes the esse utexercita revealed by the senses165 and attained in theexercise of the act ofjudgment,166 as esse received or possessed. Some tenyears after his reflections on the principle of identity posited esse as anexercised act,167 we find esse ut exercita still associated with thepossession of existence on one page of the text158 and its exercise on thenext,159 and thereafter. However, Maritain has no such vacillationregarding the original notion ofsubsistence.160 This he yielded only underthe pressure of criticism.

What Fr. Diepen hasshown is that the very problem upon which Maritainhad based the need for subsistence is an impossibility; therefore, renderingsubsistence unnecessary for a Thomistic metaphysics. Worse yet, withsubsistence, goes the distinction between the individual nature and subjectof action, as well as a metaphysical basis for the real distinction betweensubstance and accident

Fr. Diepen's critique went unanswered for some three years duringwhich Maritain turned his literary efforts towards political philosophy,161moral philosophy,162 the creative intuition,163 and proofs for the existenceof God.164 In 1954, Maritain answered this critique166 by agreeing with it,and recasting his understanding ofsubsistence, and ofcourse, his notion ofperson.

Maritain bases his revised version of subsistence on three philosophicalconsiderations; and for the first time, takes an existential-analyticapproach to it. The first of these is a brief summary of our experience ofexistent subjects bywhich we came to know their essences. Referring to aprevious analysis of the first operation of the intellect,166 Maritainconcludes that we know these essences not as things in se (id quod) but asthat by which (id quo) subjects are what they are.167

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The second consideration is a complete reversal of his previous stand,which he supports with a quote from St. Thomas:

Between essence and existence there is a relation analogous to thatwhich we observe between the intelligence and the act ofintellection,the will and the act of volition.168

For the third consideration Maritain discusses the nature ofexistence as

it comes to be known in that intuition "which is the first act of anyauthentic metaphysics."169

This intuition brings us back to the analogy between esse and its essenceand an operation (cognition) and its power (cognitive power). The validityofthis analogy now rests on our experience ofour own esse via our acts ofcognition and volition; in which we experience our esse as an exercisedact.170

the esse is perceived quite precisely—even as in their own orderintellection and volition—as an exercised act, exercised by the thingor the existent subject, or as an activity in which the existent itself isengaged, an energy that it exerts. Existence is therefore not onlyreceived as if by esse essences were pinned outside nothingness like apicture hung on a wall. Existence is not only received, it is alsoexercised. And this distinction between existence as received and

existence as exercised is central for the philosophical theory ofsubsistence.171

As potency, essence is sufficient to limit, circumscribe, or otherwisemake the act ofexistence it receives, its own. What becomes ofsubsistence?Unnecessary for the reception of esse, it is required for its exercise.Actiones sunt suppositorum. An essence may receive existence but onlyasupposit or person can exercise esse or any action. "In other words, toexercise its existence, the essence must be completed by subsistence andthus become a supposit.172

Maritain then turnsto an analysis ofthe substance-accident relation as aconfirmation of the distinction he is making between esse as received andesse as exercised. In this case the relationship of dependency whichcharacterizes this relation is between the supposit, as substance (quod),which acts and its powers, as accidents (quo), by which it acts. Becauseaccidents exist we know that they possess their act ofesse. And, becausethey are of and for the supposit (quo), their esse is received from thesupposit. What distinguishes the substance from its accidents, the suppositfrom its powers, is that, while the supposit both receives and exercises itsesse, it exercises, but does not receive, that of its powers and operations.The powers (accidents) receive their esse from the supposit but cannotexercise it.

In all other cases it is the supposit alone which exercises the esse of

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the accident, which receive but is not exercised by them. In this we haveone ofthe characteristic signs ofthe fact that there is only analogy betweensubstantial esse and accidental esse. Any other conception of accidentmakes it an additional little substance.173

Allofthis has implications regarding the difference in order, between anessence and an existent supposit, and the role of subsistence in bridgingthe gap.

... it must be said that (substantial) essence or nature can receiveexistence only by exercising it, which it cannot do as long as it remainsin its own essential order. In other words it can receive existence onlyon condition ofbeing drawn at the same time from the state ofsimpleessence and placed in an existential state which makes of it a quodcapable ofexercisingexistence. This state which completes, or rathersur-completes the essence—not at all in the line of essence itself, butin relation to a completely other order, the existential order, andpermits the essence (henceforth supposit) to exercise existence, isprecisely subsistence.174

The net effect of subsistence is still an incommunicability, but not inregards to the reception or possession of existence, but rather its exercise.

And so the proper effect ofsubsistence is not, as we thought at thetime of the final drafting of this Note, to confer on the individuatedessence or individual nature an additional incommunicability (thistime in relation to existence) or to make it limit, appropriate, orcircumscribe to itself the existence it received, and hence prevent itscommunicating in existence with no other essence; it is simply toplace it in a state ofexercising existence, with the incommunicabilityfrom the fact ofsubsistence. Facing existence as a subject or suppositcapable of exercising existence, it is enabled to transfer into theexistential order, to exercise in existence itself the incommunicability, but the promotion onto a new plane ofthe incommunicabilitywhich defines singularity. Subsistence renders the essence (becomesupposit) capable ofexisting per se separatim, because it renders anindividual nature (become supposit) capable of exercisingexistence.176

Now as to the nature ofsubsistence, Maritain expresses agreement withFr. Diepen, when he calls it a "positive perfection" or "state," really distinctfrom essence.

It appears, then, that subsistence constitutes a new metaphysicaldimension, a positive actuation or perfection, but under the title of astate (according as a "state" is distinguished from a "nature") or of aterminative mode. Thus do we understand, with, however, certainimportant modifications, the position of Cajetan. Let us say that the

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state in question is a state of active exercise, which by order ofessentiality (terminates it in this sense) and introduces it into theexistential order—a state by reason of which the essence so completed faces existence not in order only to receive it, but to exercise it,and constitute henceforth a center of existential and operativeactivity, a subject or supposit which exercises at once the substantialesse proper to it and the diverse accidental esse proper to theoperation which it produces by its powers or faculties.176

These "Further Elucidations" are applications of this new understandingof subsistence to the person. In this case, subsistence results in "a state ofactive and autonomous exercise, proper to a whole which envelopes itself(in the sense that the totality is in each of its parts) therefore, interior toitself, and possessing itself."177

Subsistence renders a substantial nature able to be an en soi but it also

enables the intellectual substantial nature to be a pour soi as well.

Such a whole, possessing itself, makes its own in an eminent sense, orreduplicatively, the existence and the operations that it exercises.They are not only ofit but for it—for it as being integral parts of thepossession of the self by the self characteristic of the person. All thefeatures we have just indicated belong to the ontological order. Theyrefer to the ontological depths of subjectivity. Precisely here lies theontological basis of the properties ofthe person in the moral order, ofthe mastery that it has over its acts by free choice, of its aspiration toliberty of autonomy, of the rights it possesses—these latter inreference to goods which are due to it as pertaining to what we haveelsewhere referred to as the sphere of its possession of itself by itselfand of its mastery of itself, or its auto-determination.178

In order to unite what he has gone to such great lengths to distinguish,Maritain invokes the axiom causae ad invicem sunt causae.

And from the side of dispositive causality (material causality), it ison condition that subsistence carries the essence beyond its ownorder and constitutes it as a supposit capable of exercising existence,that the essence receives esse and is actuated by it. In other words itis by being received by the essence that existence is exercised by thesupposit, and it is by being exercised by the supposit, that existence isreceived by the essence.179

The final philosophical subject of the addendum deals with the type ofcausality involved in the exercise of substantial and accidental esse by theperson or supposit. The analogy betwen esse-essentia and operation-power suggests specification or formal causality only. The supposit wouldexercise the accidental esse of accidents, powers, and operations as theirefficient cause; thereby guaranteeing its unity. However, the supposit

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cannot be efficient cause of its own esse.

... this is the privilege, and the mystery, of the act of existing—thatfor esse, to actuate the supposit is (in virtue of the divine actioncompenetrating it) to be the fundamental and absolutely first activity[actuality] of the supposit in its substantial intimacy and depths-activity eminently its own when the supposit is a person—by which itis other than nothing.180

Having revised his notion of subsistence "from a purely philosophicalperspective without depending on any particular theological thesis,"181Maritain then completes his "Further Elucidations" by applying thisrevision to the theology of the Incarnation of Christ according to ThomasAquinas, and some of the contemporary problems related to it.182 His onlyother application of this revised notion is also theological in nature andunique in character. In On the Church of Christ* The Person of theChurch and Her Personnel,183 Maritain applies his new ontology ofpersonto St. Paul's doctrine of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.184

He confronts a paradox which he states as the title ofhis second chapter,"The Members ofthe Church Here on Earth are All Sinners and the Church

Herself is Without Sin." And his resolution of this mystery is the use of St.Paul's description of the Church of Justification for extending to thechurch the perfection ofsubsistence, and therefore, the status ofperson.185

... the Church, while subsisting naturally with the subsistence ofherinnumberable individual members, possesses herself, supernaturally,insofar as she is the whole—one and universal—of this multitude, apersonality, truly and ontologically (and not in a wholly analogicalsense, in the fashion of that which the jurists call "collective persons"or "moral persons"), she is herselfa person in the proper and primarysense of the word, a person who renders a worship to God, whoproposes to us the truths revealed by Him, who sanctifies us by hersacraments, who speaks, who teaches, who acts.186

Being theological in nature, these applications have no direct bearing onthis philosophical study. However, they do share the common note thatontological person-hood is established on the basis of the exercise ofagency by an existent intellectual "subject."

In his "Further Elucidations" Maritain uses Fr. Diepen's own argumentsagainst the original "reception" understanding of subsistence in hisjustification and derivation of the "exercise" approach. In so doing, he isable to portray subsistence in such a way that it overcomes the manylacunae, contradictions, and ambiguities of its original version. This is, ofcourse, made possible by his shift in emphasis from the reception orpossession of existence to its exercise. This is no small matter in that itallows for further development of St. Thomas' existential approach to

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being itself, which cannot but have extensive implications for all philosophic sciences, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. And let it notbe forgotten that these implications are the premise of this study.

With subsistere187 posited as a "state of active exercise of existence,"Maritain can use Fr. Diepen's own citation from St. Thomas to invoke in itsdefense the analogical character of being and the typicality of the esse-essentia relation as an act-potency relation.

He is also able to use an existential-analytic approach to subsistence andthe existent, and avoid the incongruity ofspeaking as if something existedprior to receiving existence.

The absolute necessityofthe state ofsubsistere can now be defended onthe inability of essence, nature, or esse itself, to account for the activeagency of supposits and persons. The following is a paraphrase of one ofthe arguments Maritain proffered in his original version,188 but recast forsubsistence as it is related to exercise.

When they explain that an essence or a nature, considered strictly,cannot exist outside the mind as an object of thought, and thatnevertheless, individual persons do exercise esse, and that consequently, in order to exercise esse, a given person or supposit must beother than it has to be in order to be an object of thought, that is tosay, it must bear in itself a supreme achievement which adds nothingto it in the line of its essence (and consequently does not enrich ourunderstanding by any new note which qualifies it), but which places itin a state of active exercise of its existence and that of its powers orfaculties.189

Person and Nature

The distinction between nature and person is now definable with clarityand precision. An essence or nature cannot do anything, its causal efficacyis wholly formal. Pre-eminently intelligible, it remains an id quo, of theexistent subject who—as an id quod—exercises it by virtue of his state ofsubsistere.

In a like manner, Maritain clarifies the independence-dependencerelation which characterizes that of a substance to its accidents.

The phrase "his own"existence now has not only the negative meaning ofincommunicability, but a strongly positive sense of my existence being myown; because I exercise it and that of each of my faculties.

"Personality" can clearly be associated with subsistence insofar as thestate of active exercise is clearly related to one's pattern of behavior orexercise.190

"Esse ut exercita" can now be taken literally, and the primary instanceofsubstantiality is the existent person for whom alone subsistence brings"a state of active and autonomous exercise, proper to a whole whichenvelopes itself—in the sense that the totality is in each of its parts—

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therefore, interior to itself and possessing itself."101Maritain categorizes subsistence as an "existential state,"192 "a new

metaphysical dimension,"183 "under the title of state (according as state isdistinguished from a "nature")"194 and "a state of active exercise."195Combining these, one could characterize subsistence as a state orcondition of the active exercise of existence. In general, it is the suppositthat is the agent ofsuch exercise but when the agent has a rational nature,the supposit is called person.

Person names the rational existent agent, or rational supposit, in moreScholastic terms. Insofar as this designation involves both constituentprinciples ofbeing (essence and existence), person can be characterized asa condition ofbeing.This is not in "violation" ofthe real distinction betweenessence and existence; because "person" does not name an essence inwhich existence is being included. It would seem that if Maritain hasdescribed a new metaphysical dimension, person is its primary analogicalinstantiation, possessing subsistere as its existential ground.

Maritain also uses the distinction between state, and nature or essence196to clarify the question ofChristian philosophy, under the titles oforder ofexercise and order of specification.

This means that we must distinguish between the nature of philosophy or what it is in itself, and the state in which it exists in the realfact, historically, in the human subject, and which pertains to itsconcrete conditions of existence and exercise.197

Nature and state or essence and existence may be distinguished, but theirseparation will result in a distortion of being,198 and—as the history ofphilosophy reveals—its replacement by one of its constituent aspects.199

Since actions follow upon esse (operatio sequituresse) the person is anagent200 as the source or principle of his actions and operations201—actiones sunt suppositorum. Maritain uses the term agent to designatethe efficient cause of either transitive or immanent activities.202 The

exercise of his own esse is the first act (actus primus) ofthe person.203 Theperson perfects himself204 by his actions—if immanent—or perfectsanother—if transitive205—with both effects combined in the actions

(second act) of a created person.206 Actions are perfective in that theyresult in the communication of being and act.207 Knowing and loving aresuch acts by which the person perfects himself.

It is the intentional being by which, in the case of knowledge, theknower can become something other than himself, indeed, all things.This perfects the knowing subject in himself. It is the intentional beingby which, in the case of love, the subject can exist by way of gift andcan overflow to all things, which thus become himselfto himself. Andthis will be completed by another sort ofunion, the real union with theobject of love.2"8

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The agent-person is distinct from his acts;209 accordingly there must be asufficient reason for a given action.210This reason is the love ofthe end2" orgood212 to which it tends: "it arises from a tendency, an inclination, whichfollows knowledge .. ,"213

Person, therefore, names an intellectual, subsisting, substantial agent ofactions. As subsisting, such an agent both possesses and exercises his ownact of existence (esse). As substantial, he exercises his esse, perse, in se,and for himself, with the autonomy and the integrity of action which ischaracteristic of intellectual (spiritual) beings. A person is, he who is andhe who acts by means of the operations of his powers, whose esse heexercises. As an intellectual agent, he freely acts in the view of an end; asdictated by his attraction to a known good. The autonomous, integral, andprescriptive character of his agency, render him accountable for itsexercise.

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CHAPTER III

MARITAIN'S PERSONALIST THEORY

OF THE POETIC INTUITION

INTRODUCTION

After Fr. Diepen's critique ofhis original notion ofsubsistence and beforethe release ofthe "RevisedVersion," Maritain published his most significantand complete analysis of artistic knowledge.1 In this work he establishesboth the distinction and indissoluble union between these "strangecompanions" by exploring the essential part played by the intellect orreason in both art and poetry .. ."2 The relevance ofthis work to our studyis suggested by the very definition of poetry upon which it is based: "thatinter-communication between the inner being ofthings and the inner beingof the human self "3 While many of the key concepts had beenintroduced in an earlier work,4 this one is characterized by his extensiveuse of the ontological notions of self, subjectivity, personality and, byinference, subsistence. Using these, Maritain describes the content andmechanics of the poetic intuition, as compared to the more speculativecognitive activities characteristic of science, mathematics, andphilosophy.6

The goals of this study limit our concern with this work of Maritain's tothe mechanics and content of the poetic intuition, their differentiationfrom properly speculative knowing and knowledge, the pre-requisites forexperiencing this intuition, and its applicability outside the realm of artand poetry.

The Content of the Poetic Intuition

Maritain's definition ofpoetry, suggests the content ofits creativesource:

... at the root of the creative act there must be a quite particularintellectual process,without parallel in logical reason, through whichThings and the Self are grasped together by means of knowledgewhich has no conceptual expression and is expressed only in theartist's work.8

The term "things" refers to

that infinite host of beings, aspects, events, physical and moraltangles; of horror and beauty—of that undecipherable Other—with

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which Man the artist is faced .. .7

In philosophical terms, "thing" must correspond to what Maritain haselsewhere called the subject,8 and St. Thomas, the suppositum.9 Thus,"thing" does not refer to essence; rather, each thing as it "possesses anessence and pours itselfout in action."10Material things confront the artistwith opaque indeterminacy. However, by virtue of being subjects—therefore agents—"each is, for us, in its individual existing reality, aninexhaustible well of knowability."11 Of course, in the case of conceptualknowing, subjects are known to the extent they can be objectified.

We know subjects not as subjects, but as objects, and therefore onlyinsuch-and-such of the intelligible aspects, or rather inspects, andperspectives in which they are rendered present to the mind andwhich we shall never get through discovering in them.12

This temporal universe of subjects is hierarchical in structure. Itprogresses in a continuum ofinner complexity from purelyphysical bodies,and their merelytransient activities, to the human self, orperson, with "theperfect immanent activity of the life of the intellect,"13 whereby "thethreshold of free choice is crossed,"14 and the "liberty of spontanietybecomes liberty of autonomy."16 This is a hierarchy of agency: the exerciseof existence as activity—operatio sequitur esse.16

While their materiality individuates the members of a species, and thespecific difference in turn differentiates species; all existent subjects sharein the possession of the act of to-be (and its exercise in activity) as acommon trait This continuum of agency will prove to be a key point inexplaining the non-conceptual relation ofthe poet to things, viathe poeticintuition.

Maritain uses several notions to refer to the human factor in the creative

intuition. Unfortunately, it is not always obvious in what sense he is usingsuch notions, even in a given context.

"Self is most often used byMaritain to name this factor. He bemoans thefact that it is an unavoidablyabstract term for naming"both the singularityand infinite internal depths ofthis flesh-and-blood and spiritual existent,the artist.. ."17 In this term, Maritain finds a contemporary and artisticallyacceptable synonym for "person."

The creative Self of the artist is his person as person, in the act ofspiritual communication, not his person as material individual or asself-centered ego.18

"Personality" is also understood by Maritain in a metaphysical sense as

The subsistence of the spiritual soul communicated to the humancomposite and enabling the latter to possess [exercise] its existence,to perfect itself and give itself freely, bears witness in us to thegenerosity or expansivity of being which, in an incarnate spirit,

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proceeds from the spirit and which constitutes, in the secret springsof our ontological structure, a source of dynamic unity and unification from within.19

Like person, personality must never be conceptualized as a thing or object,but rather like subsistence itself, be seen as "a state of active exercise."20

Several times in the course of his analysis of the creative intuition,Maritain uses the term "subjectivity" in lieu of either "self" or "person."However, in doing so, Maritain is not identifying self and subjectivity; sincehe had previously pointed out that selfcannot be his subjectivity becausehe possesses it,21 as he does his essence.22 Even though it shares a commonrelation to its subject with the essence, subjectivity is not an essence, or ofthe essence.

But the intuition of subjectivity is an existential intuition whichsurrenders no essence to us. ... Subjectivity as subjectivity isinconceptualisable; is an unknowable abyss. It is unknowable by themode of notion, concept, or representation, or by any mode of anyscience whatsoever—introspection, psychology, or philosophy.23

To know one's subjectivity as subjectivity is to experience oneself as asubject.24 This non-conceptual and spontaneous intuition reveals to eachperson that "he is a self,"25 and is unconscious or pre-conscious ascompared to the reflective, conceptual consciousness of what one is.

For Maritain, the content of this intuition of subjectivity

is knowledge of the "concomitant" or spontaneous consciousness,which, without giving rise to a distinct act of thought, envelopes infact, in actu exercito, our inner world in so far as it is integrated intothe vital activity of our spiritual faculties. Even for the mostsuperficial persons, it is true that from the moment when they say I,the whole unfolding of their states of consciousness, and acts, issubsumed by a virtual and ineffable knowledge, a vital and existentialknowledge ofthe totality immanent in each of its parts and immersed,without their troubling to become aware of it, in the diffuse glow, theunique freshness, the material connivance as it were, which emanatesfrom subjectivity. Subjectivity is not known, it is felt as a propitiousand enveloping night26

What is here suggested, is that, as in the case of its popularized,psychological usage, ontological subjectivity refers to the inner, immanent,spiritual life ofthe self, as distinguished from ontological personality—alsoidentified with subsistence—which refers to the outer, transient life ofaction, wherein the self becomes an object to itself and other selves.27 The"totality immanent in each of its parts (immanent acts)" is none other thanthe self as the originating source—or agent—of all such acts; for our actsare tolerable because "our consciousness of them is immersed in the

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obscure experience of subjectivity,"28 and

there is nothing which crushes us so much as our own acts when,forgotten and then one day evoked by some relic of past time, theypass to the state of objects, separated from the living waters ofsubjectivity.28

This knowledge once again returns us to that ontological state by whichall of our acts are not only of us, but for us, i.e., subsistence.

Let us say (subsistence) is a state ofactive and autonomous exercise,proper to a whole (person) which envelops itself (in this sense thatthe totality is in each of its parts), therefore interior to itself, andpossessing itself, makes its own in an immanent sense, or reduplica-tively, the existenct and the operations that it exercises. They are notonly ofit, but for it as being integral parts ofthe possession ofthe selfby the self characteristic of the person. All features we have justindicated belong to the ontological depths of subjectivity.30

As thus described, subsistence must be what is experienced as "apropitious and enveloping night" called subjectivity which is none otherthan our state of immanent, active, autonomous exercise of existence:subsistence.

This interpretation of subjectivity is contingent on the applicability ofMaritain's final or "exercise" approach to subsistence in spite of the factthat it postdates this analysis of creative intuition. Accordingly it isnecessary to justify its use in this context.

By describing subjectivity as "a universe unto itself, which spirituality ofthe soul makes capable of containing itself through its own immanentacts ...," Maritain might appear to be advocating the original "possession"understanding of subsistence. However, when he discusses the characterofsubjectivity, as related to the poetic intuition, he emphasises the active,creative nature, of all contributing factors. The phrase "creativesubjectivity"31 is used in his analysis of Oriental32 and Hellenic33 art; fromwhich he concluded that "the inner mystery of personality was not yetrevealed to man."34 During the Renaissance, "the unconscious pressure ofthe artist's individuality ... came to exercise and manifest itself freely inhis work," and his subjectivity was also expressed by "the mode with whichthe artist performs his work."36

In its most recent stage of development, Maritain sees modern paintingrevealing the very experience of creative subjectivity in the expression ofits creative energy, via its inter-communication with Things.37

With respect to the problem at hand, it would appear that it is thisself-same active exercise of creative, artistic, agency that Maritaindescribes as "the individual, incommunicable universe of creativesubjectivity .. ."38 This conclusion is strengthened by Maritain's own final

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description ofthe effect ofsubsistence, as an incommunicability related tothe exercise of esse which is "not a new kind of incommunicability butpromotion onto a new plane which defines singularity."39

In this phase, the process of internalization through which humanconsciousness has passed from the concept of Person to the veryexperience ofsubjectivitycomes to fulfillment: it reaches the creativeact of itself. Now subjectivity is revealed, I mean as creative.40

Clearly, Maritain is describing the "experience of subjectivity" as theexperience ofthe artist's very exercise of his existence, as creative activity,creative agency. Indeed, what is here described has little or nothing incommon with the incommunicable possession of existence.

This sense of creative exercise is heightened by the requirement that"subjectivity communes with the world,"41 as one half of an activereciprocity, central to the artist process.

On the other hand, when art primarily intent on the artist's Selfsucceeds in revealing creative subjectivity, it does also revealobscurely Things and their hidden aspects and meanings .. .42

Such an existential quest and creative revelation requires a state of activeexercise over and beyond mere incommunicable possession.

Indeed, is it not possible, (ifnot probable) that Maritain's reflections onthe creative intuition,43 which followed upon Fr. Diepen's critique, contributed significantly to his revision of his interpretation of subsistence?The ontological depths ofsubjectivity"44 sounds too much like "subjectivityin the ontological sense,"46 to be unrelated.

From this preponderance of evidence, one may conclude that, withrespect to the creative intuition, "ontological personality" refers to anoverall pattern ofactive, autonomous, personal exercise ofexistence, and"ontological subjectivity refers to the state ofactive, autonomous, personal,immanent exercise of existence. This, together with the experience ofThings, constitutes the content of the creative intuition.

Mechanics and Dynamics of the Poetic Intuition

The function of the self in Maritain's description of the characteristics,mechanics and dynamics46 of the poetic intuition can now be described.

Thus far, everything said regarding the poetic intuition has beenpredicated on a definition gleaned from the testimony ofpoets, artists, andphilosophers. However, it is one thing to define something, and quiteanother to explain its genesis, mechanics, and dynamism in terms of aparticular understanding of the human being. And indeed, for Maritainthere is no question that it is to St. Thomas Aquinas that he will turn for thisexplanation.

In St. Thomas' discussion ofGod's creative knowledge Maritain finds "thesupreme analogate ofpoetry."47Several analogous parallels may be drawn

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between God's creative knowledge and the poetic intuition, as previouslydefined. Both are radically free, involving "an infinity of possible realizations and possible choices."48 In contradistinction to abstract, conceptualknowing—whereby the knower conforms to the pre-existing object via theconcept—the creative knowledge ofGod and that ofthe artist is formativeof its object: the finite being and the artistic work respectively.49 God'screations are finite participations in His Essence/Existence.

His essence must be the sufficing principle ofknowing all things madeby Him, not only in the universal, but also in the singular. The samewould apply to the knowledge of the artificer, if it were productive ofthe whole thing and not only the form.50

By an analogy of proportionality, the artist's self-knowledge becomes anelement ofthe artist's "creation" to the extent to which it is permeated withhis creativity, to the extent to which he is able to "subdue to his ownpurpose all these extraneous elements (matter, language, sounds, etc.),and manifest his own substance in his creation."51

Thus, while his definition of the creative intuition is decidedly non-Thomistic in character, Maritain is able to demonstrate its compatibilitywith the Thomistic Synthesis via its description of God's knowledge of hiscreations. He will draw upon this compatibility to explain the mechanicsand dynamics of the poetic intuition in terms of the Thomistic understanding of human being.

The mechanics and dynamics of the creative intuition are analyzed byMaritain in order to establish their abiding relationship to the artist'srationality.

... poetry and the intellect are ofthe same race and blood, and call toone another, and that poetry not only requires artistic or technicalreason with regard to the particular ways ofmaking, but, much moreprofoundly depends on intuitive reason with regard to poetry's ownessence and to the very touch of madness it involves."52

Maritain's explanation ofthis relationship is predicated on the existenceof "a spiritual unconscious, or rather, preconscious."63 The spiritualpreconscious is described as a rational realm on the border betweenconsciousness and unconscious. Here, reason not only functions asconceptual, logical, or discursive but also as intuitive.54

For reason does not only articulate, connect, and infer, it also sees;and reason's intuitive grasping, intuitus rationis, is the primary actand function of that one and single power which is called intellect orreason.55

It is within the preconcious that first principles are first "seen"56and "everygenuine intellectual grasping, or even new discovery, is brought about."57

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Far beneath the sunlight surface thronged with explicit concepts andjudgments, words and expressed resolutions or movements of thewill, are the sources of knowledge and creativity, of love and super-sensuous desires, hidden in the primordial translucid night of theintimate vitality of the soul.58

While readily admitting that the Schoolman had no explicit doctrine ofthe unconscious,59 Maritain proceeds to demonstrate that its existence isimplicit in the Scholastic mechanics ofabstraction. In order to explain "theprocessofformation of intellectual knowledge [as] a very complex processof progressive spiritualization,"60 St. Thomas posits the existence of theIlluminating or agent intellect; the intellectus possibilis; the impressedspecies; and, the expressed species or concept. The Illuminating Intellectand impressed species are essential to every level of cognition; with theIntellect providing an unceasing dynamic actuation at every stage of thisprogressive spiritualization.61

Since conscious understanding or insight is the culmination of theactions of these cognitive powers, then neither the powers nor theiroperations can themselves be directly known. Only the object is directly,consciously known by means of these powers; as they function "below" thelevel ofconscious knowing, to which they collectivelygive existence. By wayof the conscious mind alone, is one able to deduce what is required for theacts of cognition, "but they themselves totally escape experience andconsciousness."62

If this is the case for the formation ofconscious, conceptual, discursiveknowing, how much more so must it be true of the genesis of art andpoetry?

we can with greater reason assume that such a non-conceptualactivity of the intellect, such a non-rational activity of reason, in thespiritual unconscious, plays an essential part in the genesis of poetryand poetic inspiration.63

The dynamics of the poetic intuition are explained in terms of theThomistic schema for the ontological relationships between the powers ofthe soul. All of its powers proceed ontologically from the "essence of thesoul," the lower from higher; such that the higher are the raison d'etre ofthe lower; and "the efficacious source of their existence,"64 "for they [thesenses] exist in man to serve imagination, and through imagination,intelligence."66 The result of this progressive, telescoping genesis is acommon ontological root, and resulting integrity of structure of thecognitive powers on both the preconscious and conscious levels. Thishierarchical progression of cognitive powers is formal in nature. Theactual exercise ofsuch creative integration of the artist's entire being canonly be attributed to an existent person in a state of active exercise of hisexistence, i.e., in a state ofsubsisting. By virtue of this functional integrity,

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data from the external senses "radiates upwards into the depths of theSoul.. .,"66 and a poetic intuition comes to be.

No such result is forthcoming, if the preconscious is wholly or principallyabsorbed in its everyday task of grounding our conscious, rationalactivities. There must be "another reserve of vitality"67 free from allconscious control or the demands oflogic; a vitality which follows an "innerlaw of expansion and generosity,"68 thereby manifesting itself by creativeacts which are "shaped and quickened by creative intuition."

Here it is in this free life of the intellect which involves a free life ofthe

imagination, at the single root of the soul's powers, and in theunconscious of the spirit, that poetry, I think, has its roots.69

In St. Thomas, Maritain finds a form of non-discursive knowing by"inclination or connaturality." St. Thomas refers to such knowing as a formofwisdom, which is exemplified by the unerringly correct moral judgmentsof the virtuous man, even one who is ignorant of moral science.7" Poeticintuition also results in such affective, connatural knowing, "whichessentially relates to the creativity ofspirit, and "tends to express itself in awork."71 As the spiritual man person-ifies a virtue, and expresses hiswisdom in correct judgments, the artist person-ifies that which heexperiences and expresses his "wisdom" in the work of art. The poeticintuition is "an unpredictable experiential insight, which gives notice of itsexistence, but does not express it."72

Just as the work of art plays the part ofthe concept and judgment,73 it isan emotion "as form" which functions as the instrumental, intentionalsign. However, before the exact function of emotion in the creativeintuition can be described, the exact meaning of the term in this contextmust be ascertained.

Maritain is very specific as to what he does not mean by emotion. Heexcludes any "sentimentalist theory of poetry,"74 any emotion which theartist might attempt to express in the work or any emotional response bythe observer of the work.75 By his exclusion of"brute or merely76 subjectiveemotion," Maritain rather obliquely suggests in what sense he is using theterm. What he is excluding he describes as "a simple psychological state,"77and "merely matter or material."78 However, since every emotion has itsorigin in sense perception, how can an emotion transcend the "merelysubjective" and take on an objective content by which it becomes

that emotion which causes to express, emotion as formative,emotion as intentional vehicle of reality known through inclinationand as proper medium of poetic intuition. ... In reality the man whosuffers is in the mind which creates—as creative subjectivity and tobe given in the work—separated from the self-centered ego by theoperation of poetic knowledge and creative emotion. In this senseonly it is true that "the emotion of art is impersonal"—that is to say

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detached from the self-centered ego and one with poetic intuition, themost personal act of the creative Self.79

In relation to the Thomistic Synthesis, we find that "pleasure" and"feeling" are contemporary nomenclature for acts of the sensitive appetitewhich accompany every cognitive act.

There is pleasure not only in touch and taste, but also in the exerciseof every sense; and not only in the exercise of the senses, but also inthe functioning of the intellect, as when our rational speculationsbring us certitude about various matters. Among the operations ofsense and intellect, those yield us most pleasure that are most perfectin their results ... And so we may conclude that every cognitive act ispleasurable, to the extent that it is perfect80

For the artist engaged in his cognition ofNature (things), this pleasure isthe "joy of beauty" which Maritain describes as arising out of an inter-penetration of the two. The seduction of the artist by Nature

is pure, and purely aesthetic, when the invasion of man pertainsexclusively to the joy of a vision or intuition, that is of a purelyintentional or super-subjective becoming.81

The super-subjective character of this encounter is made possible by apsychological mechanism reminiscent of Aristotle's Law of Association,82and the psychology of Empedocles. A person finds the joy of beauty inthings because, "all these non-human things return to man a quality of thehuman mind which is concealed in them .. ."83 The qualities of rhythm,proportion, and consistency are listed as such qualities.84 The aestheticdelight is "purer and deeper" in direct proportion to the extention andprofundity of the human imprint.

From this, Maritain draws two conclusions. First, the emotion essentialto the aesthetic experience, which fructifies in the creative intuition,transcends mere subjectivity to the degree that it arises out of theexperiencing by the artist of the human qualities objectively present inNature. Second, laden with these qualities, things have an implicitintelligible content for the artist—over and above their own intelligiblenatures—which meanings affect the pre-conscious intuitions of the artist.

Unexpressed significance, unexpressed meanings, more or less unconsciously putting pressure on the mind, play an important part in theaesthetic feeling and the perception of beauty.85

How is this emotion to function as an intentional idea or form86 when no

essence or concept is present? In what sense can Maritain say that"emotion carries the reality which the soul suffers—a world in a grain ofsand—into the depth ofsubjectivity, and ofthe spiritual unconscious oftheintellect.. .?87 Due to the operative integrity of the person as previously

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described, this emotion permeates the entire soul88 transcending the levelof mere sensation in which it originates. There, present in a preconsciousstate, to the Illuminating Intellect, the emotion is permeated by its lightand "transferred to astate ofobjective intentionality," "conveying, in a stateof immateriality, things other than itself."89

The emotion is spiritualized or raised to a state of intentionality when

... it is permeated by the light of the Illuminating Intellect: then,while remaining emotion, it is made—with respect to the aspects inthings which are connatural to, or like, the soul it imbues—into aninstrument of intelligence judging through connaturality, and plays,in the process of this knowledge through likeness between realityand subjectivity, the part ofa nonconceptual intrinsic determinationof intelligence in its preconscious activity.90

Thus it is by a process of resonare—via the affinity of the like forlike—that the emotion is

transferred into a stateofobjective intentionality; it is spiritualized, itbecomes intentional, that is to say, conveying, in a state ofimmateriality, things other than itself.91

This now spiritualized emotion resonates within, and is thus experiencedby, the preconscious "with respect to the aspects which are connatural to,or like, the soul it imbues."02 Thus the artist becomes the other as other-knows the Thing—not by being in-formed by the object's immaterializedessence, but rather, insofar as the thing presented by the emotion—now ade-materialized form—presents qualities of the person, which byresonance according to the law of association, raises these qualities—already present in the soul—to the level of the pre-conscious, intuitiveawareness. Thus, instead of the possible intellect intentionally becomingthe object by being informed by the impressed species extracted from thesense image, it is actualized by those characteristics it shares with the thingexperienced—and the associations therein—insofar as these affectivelyresonate with

all the harvest of experience and memory preserved in the soul, all theuniverse of fluid images, recollections, associations, feelings, anddesires latent, under pressure, in the subjectivity and now stirred.93

This is "knowledge through cogeniality."94 The resonance of whichMaritain speaks has a physical analogy in the process by which a singer isable to shatter a crystal goblet by singing at that specific frequency atwhich the goblet naturally vibrates or absorbs mechanical energy as aconsequence of its individual form (shape), material (matter), andinternal structure. All physical things and systems or combinations ofthings react in a similar fashion. The most important aspect of thisphenomenon is that the frequency at which it occurs, depends only on the

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individual nature ofthe receptor, which will react similarly, no matter thesource of the energy, as long as it is at the receptor's natural frequency.

In the case at hand, the receptor is the pre-conscious ofthe artist whichwill resonate with, or react to, the spiritualized content of an emotion, byvirtue of those elements of the emotion already present in the preconscious, from imagination and memory. This is a process of association,of like affecting like—action at a distance, if you will. No pure sign orconcept is required because the preconscious is not informed by theemotion, but rather re-acts to its shared contents; arising out of pastexperiences, previous reactions to such emotions, or their implicit rationalcharacteristics.

Concurrent with suffering affective resonance with the Thing via hisemotion, the artist experiences himself as suffering, as resonating, as anagent exercising his esse in an act of preconscious, rational intuition.

But poetic knowledge implies that kind of invasion of things into thepreconscious night of the spirit, near the center of the soul, throughemotion and affective union, by means of which poetic intuition isborn; and it knows things as one—intentionally one, but one—withthe Self, as resounding in subjectivity.95

Indeed, it is ultimately the exercise of his agency and the "spiritual fluxfrom which existence proceeds" which the artist grasps "in the night of hisown Self, or knows as unknown,""6

since the thing grasped and the subjectivity are known together in thesame obscure experience, and since the thing grasped is grasped onlythrough its affective resonance in and union with the subjectivity.97

Poetic Intuition and Active Philosophical Knowing

As previously stated, the next concern is the differentiation ofthe poeticintuition as a form of knowing and knowledge from those speculative formsof knowing and knowledge associated with science, mathematics, philosophy, and especially, metaphysics.98 Since the characteristics ofall oftheseforms of knowing have been elucidated previously in the process ofdescribing the content and mechanics of the creative intuition, we needonly summarize the differences.

Speculative Knowing Poetic Knowing

a. Culminates in an act of a. Culminates in an existent

knowing artistic work

b. Its formal sign is a pure b. Its formal sign is aabstract species dematerialized emotion

c. It is a pre-conscious cognitive c. It is a pre-conscious cognitiveprocess with a conscious process with a pre-consciouscognitive result cognitive result

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Speculative Knowing

d. Both subjects and selves areknown as objects

e. Its object is known by way ofabstraction, idealization, andconceptualization

f. Involves the intellect only, thenthe will only

g. Expresses what is eternal,universal, and abstract in aformal sign

h. Knows objects as possible oractual existents

i. Seeks disinterested objectivity

j. Truth results from conformitywith the object

k. Seeks the essence of its object

Poetic Knowing

d. Subjects and selves are knownas subjects and selves

e. Its subjects are known byinclination, sympathy,connaturality, and congeniality

f. Concurrently involves bothintellect and will

g. Expresses what is universal inthe singular and concrete

h. Knows subjects as actualexistents

i. Requires the love of its subjectas beautiful

j. Truth results from the desiredinformation of its medium

k. Manifests any sign of itssubject

Maritain himself sums up the relationship between poetry andmetaphysics.

Metaphysics gives chase to essences and definitions, poetry to anyflash ofexistence by the way, and anyreflection ofan invisible order.90

The Who, When, and Why of the Poetic Intuition

This final section will answer three questions. Who may experiencepoetic intuition? What are the pre-requisite conditions for this experienceto occur? In what areas ofendeavor is this experience efficacious? Answersto these questions will be extracted from the analysis concluded above.

Just as St. Thomas found emotion to be a necessaryconsequence ofeverycognitive act,100 Maritain sees the poetic intuition as a naturalfunctioning101 of our intelligence, which, as preconscious, is beyondrational initiation, control, or cessation. Accordingly, every person issubject to such preconscious experiences,102 whether aware ofthem or not.Therefore, although we are not all poets or artists, it is not for the lack ofpoetic intuition. Rather, we tend to be inattentive to both Nature103 and ourown subjectivity. This is due to our virtually complete preoccupation withthe concerns of day-to-day living.104 The poetic intuition is spontaneous. Itcannot be learned or improved.105 However, by eliminating distractionsand placing oneself in a state of alert receptivity, one can prepare forand protect the experience.106

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All in all, it is not surprising that this "ordinary and everydayfunctioningofintelligence" is found to be operative in every field ofhuman endeavor, atall times.107 Although it is "subdued to the specific purposes and the specificlaws of this foreign activity,108 it is only in connection with artistic activitiesthat is it totally free.109

In light of the foregoing summary and analysis, there can be no doubtthat the notions of subject, person and subsistence are the unique andindispensable elements in Maritain's understanding of both the contentand mechanics of the poetic intuition. Indeed, this explanation of thestructural integrity of the cognitive apparatus is "formal" in character;insofar as it involves such instrumental or essential concepts as soul,power, intellect, imagination, and the like. However, for all of theirintellectual lucidity, no formal entity alone can do anything or explain theexistence of agency or the integral exercise of efficient causality. Theselatter events require a state of active exercise of existence and an activeagent to bring them about and explain them.

The next chapter will explore the consequences of applying the roles ofperson, of subsistence, of intuition, and of their ancillary notions anddistinctions to Maritain's theory of speculative knowledge.

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CHAPTER IV

EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES

FOR MARITAIN'S NOETIC

INTRODUCTION

Armed with the metaphysical principles of person and Maritain'sunderstanding of the poetic intuition, their epistemological consequencesmay be extracted. Our efforts will be guided by the following description ofepistemology:

Epistemology as defined, investigates what is uniquely proper tohuman knowledge to the degree to which that proper to humanknowledge is related to the metaphysics of being and truth; since itlooks to human understanding, it belongs partially to psychology itinvestigates the origin, processes and conditions of human understanding; since it looks to human knowledge, it belongs partially tometaphysics: it investigates the act of knowledge and truth.1

In accordance with this description, the epistemological consequences tobe sought will include an explanation of the "origin, process andconditions" of human cognition based on subsistence as a new metaphysical dimension, mode, or state of active exercise of esse;2 thedistinction between esse as received and as exercised; and Maritain'sdescription of the poetic intuition, based on affective, preconsciousresonance.

It could be asked whether such an endeavor is valid, or even necessary.While its validity can only be defended after its completion, we haveMaritain's own declaration of its necessity.

For philosophers, the notion of species is not, any more than thenotion of esse intentionale, an explanatory factor already knownand alreadyclarified bysome other means. Species are, as it were, theabutments upon which an analysis ofthe given leans for support, thereality of which the mind, by that very analysis, is compelled torecognize—with certainty.3

The first consequences to be proposed will be an interpretation of thesevery factors by "some other means." Maritain himself indirectly suggestssuch an interpretation. Insofar as the process of cognition involves the

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exercise of cognitive faculties by a supposit in a substance/accidentrelation, he concludes that any understanding of such a process, notpredicated on the distinction between the reception and exercise ofesse,renders the accident/faculty "an additional little substance."4 Consideringalso that his very purpose for studying the poetic intuition is anexplanation of its mechanics and dynamics based on the role of the non-discursive, non-conceptual functioning of the intellect, it is not then toounreasonable to expect that his findings will in turn shed some light on thediscursive and conceptual functions of these same faculties;6 particularly,in light of his own view that "concretely, our life of knowledge and ouremotions do involve each other."6 To this one must add the very title ofoneof Maritain's last works, wherein he associates some form of intuition witheach state ofboth the conceptual and discursive processes at every level ofabstraction.7 All of this will not require the presentation of a completeepistemology but only those "abutments" already mentioned, proceedingfrom the specific to the general.

Cognitive in General

As previously noted, the distinction between esse received and exercised, is a basis for Maritain's revision of, and justification for, his newnotion ofsubsistence.8 The propriety ofthis distinction, is based in part, onits ability to explain the existential, operative relation between a substanceand its accidents.9 When applied to the more specific instance of therelation of the person (supposit) to his several cognitive powers, thisdistinction has many consequences:

In short, it is only when an accident (such as an active power or ahabitus ...) is actually used by the supposit to produce an operationthat it exercised—secondarily and instrumentally—an accidentalesse (that of operation). In all other cases it is the supposit alonewhich exercises the esse of the accidents, which is received but notexercised by them. In this we have one of the characteristic signs ofthe fact that there is only analogy between substantial esse andaccidental esse. Any other conception of accident makes it anadditional little substance.10

This causal relation applies to the person and his cognitive powers eventhough "such operations inasmuch as they are of themselves not 'actions'but 'qualities' and kinds of super-existence, are more properly exercisedand lived than produced."11 As a result, it is no more correct to say that theintellect abstracts, understands,judges, etc.; than to claim that the artist'sbrush paints or his pencil sketches. Indeed, the brush and pencil are atleast existents in their own right; whereas the unqualified attribution ofagency to a power is not only a pedagogical nightmare, but also a two-foldphilosophical confusion; insofar as it tends to reifywhat cannot subsist in

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itself,12 and then proceeds to attribute efficient causality to it. This is not tosay that those who use such language—including Maritain—purposelyfoster such misunderstanding. However, the fact remains that this can bethe result.

A conscientious application of the reception/exercise distinction wouldrequire a strong emphasis on both the id quo character of the powers'faculties' efficacy and the transcendent agency of the person who senses;the person who understands; the person who judges; and, the person whoreasons.

To know does not consist in making anything nor in receivinganything, but in existing in a way better than by the simple fact ofbeing set outside of nothingness. Knowing is an active, immaterialsuper-existence whereby a subject not only exists with an existencelimited to what that subject is as a thing enclosed within one genus—as a subject existing for itself—but with an unlimited existence inwhich by its own activity it is and becomes itself and other things.13

When viewed in light of the revised version of subsistence, there are twophrases in the preceeding statement which stronglysuggest the reception/exercise distinction. "Set outside of nothingness" is to be found in a slightlyaltered form describing the reception of esse by an essence: "as ifby esseessences were pinned outside nothingness like a picture hung on a wall."14This is juxaposed to "an unlimited existence in which by its own activity16 itis and becomes itself and other things." The "apparent scandal to theprinciple of identity" by which the knowing subject is "the other as other"may be described as the state of active exercise of his esse under theintelligible determinations of the essence of the object. In so acting, theknowing subject does not receive the esse of the object, but ratherexercises his own accidental esse so as to be or "do" the known. To knowthe other as other is to intentionally experience both the esse and theessence of the other: the "doing," the being of the knower, the essence—ormanner of "doing"—the being of the known. As finite persons, our esse isdetermined and circumscribed by the limitations ofour human nature andits accompanying materiality. These, we may transcend in the exercise ofour esse, by means of the unspecified, immateriality of the intellect. Thus,one finds Maritain describing esse intentionale as a determination

by which the thing will be able to exist with the very same activesuperexistence which is the existence of the knower that hasbecome the thing known.16

Sensual Cognition

One may instantiate the various processes of cognition with that ofauditory sensation; insofar as it serves as a physical model or analogue forthem.17 Longitudinal waves of pressure cause the ear drum to vibrate in

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resonance with their amplitude and frequency. These resonantmechanical vibrations are transferred by the bones of the middle ear,through the oval window and a liquid of the inner ear, to hair cells whichconvert the amplitude and frequency of its pattern into an equivalentresonant pattern ofelectrical impulses, which are, in turn, transmitted tothe auditory center of the brain.

All sensory systems function in a manner similar to the auditory.18 Apattern of mechanical or electromagnetic energy forces a specialized,active receptor into an active state of resonance, which it converts into anequivalent pattern of electrical energy. Thus, it is by means of a series ofresonant re-actions that a sensible object is internalized sans its materiality, and is able to be present in the knower insofar as the object's natureformally determines the pattern replicated in the sensory process.19

It is of the nature of resonant systems that they will react to only aspecific type of energy (mechanical, electromagnetic, etc.) of a particularpattern or frequency. And indeed, our sense organs do each react to aspecific type of stimuli, within a general range ofvalues. There are soundswe cannot hear, light we cannot see, and so on. As thus limited, the healthysense organ will react only to those stimuli which it can faithfully replicate.Thus, while the thing is sensed by accidentally modifying the sense organ,the process of sensation in no way formally affects the thing,20 whileproviding it an additional internalized mode of image existence, wherebythe thing not only subsists in itself but also exists as an accidentalmodification of the subsisting, knowing subject.

For the next stage of the sensory process, the Thomistic theory requiresthe actions ofinternal senses to—among other acts—structure the varioussense impressions into an integrated sensory image or phantasm as theexpressed species of the imagination. The object is now ready for a secondde-materialization whereby its inherent intelligible aspects will berendered actual as it is freed from the conditions of materiality by aprocess traditionally described as illumination of the phantasm by theagent intellect.

Ideogenesis

... the intellect that knows and is originally devoid of any form, hasby itself a vitality characteristic of knowledge, is capable by itself ofbecoming the object in a living manner; yet the power it thus has isonly actualized through the efficiency of an ever-actual intellectualitythat alone can provide the reason for the process of immaterializingand understanding of which we are authors and which already existsby itself at the highest levelof actuality, but without an object, and inorder to illumine, not to become. Thus the agent intellect is theactivator of intelligence, its light the focus of all its force ....... in the state of union with the body, it is through the activation ofthe agent intellect that the knowing intellect, after having been

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fecundated by the agent intellect by means of the phantasms andformed in actu primo by the species impressa, produces within itselfthe species expressa and actuates itself in ultimate act21

Based on this description ofthe agent intellect, it would appear that theterm "agent" may be taken quite literally as referring to the person, activelyand autonomously exercising his esse by means of those immaterialpowers which form "part of the preconscious equipment ofknowledge .. ."22 Agency is attributed to that integral, personal totalitywho "is in each ofits parts,"23 as the intellect "is wholly present in each ofitsoperations,"24 and who, as an agent, "has efficient power over itsoperations."25

Aristotle's formalistic analysis was well able to schematize the variouscognitive processes from the sensory to the intellectual, and abstractlyinterrelate their respective powers.26 However, the active, operationalintegration of the human cognitive powers can be explained only in termsof a central existential agent, the person, who participates in all lifeprocesses, but is restricted to no one of them. The instrument for thisparticipation is the agent or illuminating intellect.

The powers of the soul envelop one another, the universe of senseperception is in the universe of imagination, which is in the universeof intelligence. And they are all, within the intellect, stirred andactivated by the light of the Illuminating Intellect.27

The poetic intuition provides one instance of cognitive integrity; as theemotion to be spiritualized is first received into an intelligence which is"permeated by the diffuse light of the Illuminating Intellect and virtuallyturned toward all the harvests ofexperience and memory preserved in thesoul.. ."28 Likewise our conceptualizations do not occur in isolation onefrom the others;

because when our intellect is already busied with forms, the newconcepts it engenders (whose formation no longer depends on thething alone, but on objects already possessed and in virtue of whichthe new object is placed before the mind) can be formed awry.29

Simple apprehension is described as a pre-judicative process of decomposition,30 by way of abstraction

according to which the intellect actively draws from sensible data;from things as the sense first lays hold of them, this or that contentwhich is potentially intelligible in those data—an operation which ispossible only if individuating notes, invested in the sensible as such,are left aside. It is this intelligible content which the intellectactualizes and expresses in the concept—and which is the objectknown by it.31

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By abstraction as described, the illumination of the agent intellectactualizes the potentially intelligible32 aspects of the phantasm. This is apositive actualization of the potentially intelligible with the abandoning ofan unintelligible (i.e. material) residue rather than the stripping away ofthe unintelligible in search of an intelligible residue.33

The problem is how this actualization is to be achieved by a powerwhichitself does not know the intelligible; acting as it does prior to the state ofactual understanding? Can what is potentially intelligible be distinguishedfrom the actually unintelligible aspects of the phantasm; when neither isyet known and both have been sensed? One answer can be derived fromMaritain's previously described genesis ofthe poetic intuition by means ofa"spiritualized emotion" and the process of resonance.34

As part ofthe ground work he lays for this analysis, Maritain schematizesand diagrams the powers of the soul and their cognitive counterparts,according to the ontological principle that

one power or faculty proceeds from the essence of the soul throughthe medium orinstrumentalityofanother—which emanates beforehand. For the more perfect powers are the principle or raison d'etreof the others, both as being their end and as being their "active"principle or the efficacious source of their existence.35

Corresponding to each power is its cognitive "product;" for the intellectthere are "Concepts and Ideas in a state of explicit formation."36 Theinternal senses begin with

intuitive data offered by external Sensation (which is, and becomessense perception when it is interpreted and structured through theinstrumentality of memory, imagination, and the other "internalsenses").37

Within this structure, sense images may exist in three possible states orfields: the Conscious, the Spiritual Preconscious, or the Automatic(Freudian) Unconscious.38 Like the cognitive powers, these field are"stirred and activated by the light of the illuminating intellect."39

The poetic intuition originates in "intuitive data afforded by externalSensation" which is spiritualized by affective resonance with the subjectivity, in its function as Illuminating Intellect. Thus raised from the levelof the Automatic Unconscious, to that of the Spiritual Preconscious by aresonant, immaterializing illumination: the data—now an intentionalemotion including data and subjectivity—functions as a form, as an"affective concept" by means of a second connatural resonance with theentire fluid and dynamic universe of the preconscious.40 The result is apreconscious intuition ofa singular existent,41 grasped only bymeans ofitsaffective resonance in and union with the subjectivity.42

It (the spiritualized emotion) becomes for the intellect a determining

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means or instrumental vehicle through which the things haveimpressed this emotion on the soul, and the deeper, invisible thingsthat are contained in them or connected with them, and which haveineffable correspondence or coaptation with the soul thus affectedand which resound in it, are grasped and known obscurely.43

And what of conceptual understanding? The poetic intuition isdescribed as a "quite particular intellectual process" which is possible onlybecause

in the spiritual unconscious the life of the intellect is not entirelyengrossed by the preparation and engendering of its instruments ofrational knowledge and bythe process of production ofconcepts andideas.44

Considered in concert with the communality ofthe dynamic source ofallcognitive vitality, and the previously described structural and functionalintegrity ofthe cognitive powers, one is led to infer that poetic intuition andconceptual understanding share a common process, while differing intheir formal and material objects.45 Whereas the poetic intuition originatesfrom the preconscious issue of the external senses, the abstractiveintuition is grounded in the organized and structured, externals of theimagination.46 As so structured, the phantasm is a conscious, repeatable,sensible representation of the object; whereas the immediate data of theexternal senses exhibits no such stability.47

The process ofideogenesis transcends the realm ofmateriality with whatSt. Thomas described as the illumination of the intelligible aspects of thephantasm by the agent intellect. The phantasm is not merely a staticpicture or copy of the object, but rather a dynamic, sensorial representation of the original actions of the material subject on the senseorgans.48 When this dynamic and potentially intelligible image encountersa dynamic—but unspecified49—immaterial, intellectual power, the resultmay be described as an active resonare50 between their common intelligible elements.

By virtue ofits immateriality, the illuminating intellect is intelligible in se,insofar as it is in act, and intelligible to the knower by his reflection on hiscognitive acts. Thus, the common resonant factors are the potentialintelligibility of the object—formally present in its actions—and the actualintelligibility of the illuminating intellect. As Maritain describes it, byabstraction, the illuminating intellect,

by the very fact that it is spiritual, proportions its objects to itself byelevating them within itself to diverse degrees increasingly pure, ofspirituality and immateriality.51

Those conditions of materiality present in the phantasm, but not theintellect, will not be in common. Thus they cannot resonate, and will,therefore, be automatically excluded from an efficacy in the cognitive

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process.

The intelligible content of the phantasm—now actually resonant—fulfills the requirement for an impressed species as the "objectifying form"wh ich makes the object to be known, to be present to the knowing subject62

The process thus far described, constitutes the preconscious preparation for the act of understanding, for which the impressed species is theprinciple, and the concept, or mental word, its term.63

As he had in the case of sense knowledge, Maritain describes understanding in terms of first and second act.54The passive intellect is in firstact when the illuminating intellect—specified by resonare with theintelligible elements of the phantasm—actuates and informs the passiveintellect, according to the determinations of the pattern of resonare,functioning as species impressa,

a "presentative form" abstracted from the sensible and "received" byit .... In this way, the intellect itself actuated by the speciesimpressa, and then producing within itselfa species expressa oftheintelligible order, and "elaborated" or "uttered""presentative form" inwhich it brings the object to the highest level of actuality andintelligible formation, becomes the object in final act.65

In its state of resonare with the intelligible content of the phantasm,66the act of the agent intellect is thereby formally and instrumental!}/67specified58 by the phantasm, which is then enabled69 to educe60 this sameformal specification from the potentiality61 of the knowing intellect62 as italso attains an actual83 state of resonare with the formal contents, orpattern, of the impressed species. In this way the object is made present tothe knowing power84 in its first act. For its part, the knowing intellect"expresses" the similitude, which it has received, by virtue of its state ofresonare; whereby the act of understanding is terminated65 in second act.The actively11" expressed or exercised pattern of resonare functions as theexpressed species or concept.67

As so informed, the knowing agent is exercising the accidental esse ofhisintellect; as determined by the exigencies of the resonant pattern, whichre-presents,iH t he form09ofthe sensed object, and thereby is—or does—thatobject in the act. of understanding.

The proceeding analysis has been offered as a cognitive model forMar itain's Thomistic description of ideogenesis. And, as would be requiredof any model, it must be evaluated insofar as it meets the requirements ofthe phenomenon it seeks to explicate. In this case one may turn toMaritain's own seven-point summary of his theory of conceptual understanding.7"

The first requirement "is a vigorous correspondence between knowledgeand immateriality."71 Resonare on both the sensory and spiritual levels ofthe cognitive process enables the object to exist "within" the knower in a

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progressively more immaterial state; insofar as the object is borne by thepattern of resonare which is progressively de-materialized. Abstraction isdescribed as a resonare between the phantasm and the illuminatingintellect, which is made possible by a similitude or connaturality betweenthe intelligible aspects of the phantasm and those of a cognitive power,whose essential indeterminacy requires its immateriality.

For the second requirement Maritain defers to John of St. Thomas.72

Whereas the knower, even while maintaining his own nature intact,becomes the known itself and identifies himself with it, the knowerbeing thus incomparably more one with the known than matter withform.73

The knower becomes the object in the act ofunderstanding by exercisingthe esse of his knowing power in a state of active resonare under theformal determinations of its pattern, as abstracted from the phantasm. Atthe same time the knower "maintains his own nature intact" because it ishis accidental esse being exercised. And the pattern of resonare allows forthe re-presentation of the object without its esse naturale. As a result, notertium quid is formed.

The third requirement is that "to know" be a kind of "immaterialsuperexistence" wherein the knower, "by his own activity" transcends thesimple fact of being set outside nothingness.74 According to Maritain it isthe reception of esse by which "essences were pinned outside of nothingness like a picture hung on a wall."75 However, the resonare ofconceptualization is an act which is exercised by virtue ofthe subsistere ofthe knower.Therefore, it transcends the simple fact ofbeing set outside ofnothingnessby requiring this state as its necessary pre-condition. Operatio sequitursubsistere.

The fourth requirement is that the act ofknowing be neither a transitive"action" or "passion" but "a properly immanent action, a perfectly vitalaction, belonging to the category of"quality."76As the exercise ofresonare,the conceptual act is not transient in any sense; since it is the act ofknowing intellect itself, and only its formal determinant, pattern ofresonare, is received by way of sensation.

The "inner production" of the pattern of resonare, the concept, is notformally the act of knowing itself; insofar as that act is being or "doing" theobject i.e., the active exercise of esse as informed by the essence of theobject, the concept. As the pattern of resonare the concept is "at once acondition and a means and an expression of that act (of knowing)."77 Assuch, this description also fulfills Maritain's condition that the esse of theconcept be that of the act of knowing itself.78

The fifth requirement is that special, immaterial form of existence bywhich the knower retains his identity while becoming the other, as other:

an existence according to which the known will be in the knower and

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the knower will be known, an entirely tendential and immaterialexistence, whose office is not to posit a thing outside nothingness foritselfand as a subject, but on the contrary, for another thing and as arelation. It is an existence that does not seal up the thing within thebounds of its nature, but sets it free from them. In virtue of thatexistence, the thing exists in the soul with an existence other than itsown existence and the soul is or becomes the thing with an existenceother than its own existence.79

In the act of resonare, the known is the knower by virtue of thecontinuity of the process which guarantees the replication of the essentialattributes virtually contained in the object's initiating actions on theknower's sense organs. Immateriality is achieved by resonant similitudewith the immaterial intellectual power in the process of abstraction. Notertium quid is possible; because neither the existent nor its existence isreceived.80 Rather, abstraction is a connatural resonare exercised by anexistent intellectual subject in accordance with the known object's formeduced from the potency of his possible intellectual power. The object isliberated from the constraints of matter by a succession of spiritualizingacts of resonare from sensation, through illumination, to understanding.

In the act of understanding, esse intentionale cannot be the essenaturale ofeither the knower,81 or the known.82 Accordingly, the proposedmodel describes it as a state or terminative mode of the actual exercise of

his accidental esse, in an act of resonare by the knowing subject,83according to the exigencies of the object's essence. With both knower andknown in an actual state of resonare,84 "the thing will be able to exist withthe same active superexistence which is the existence of the knower thathas become the thing known."85

Maritain himself describes esse intentionale as "not exactly a thing-in-itself but, rather, a mode."86 Unlike subsistence itself, esse intentionalecannot be a substantially terminating mode; since no tertium quidresults.87 However, resonare can be a spiritually terminative mode or stateof active exercise; whereby the concept exists "terminating the intellectintentionally, and in the line of knowing, in that it expresses the object andrenders it transparent"88

The sixth requirement is that of a "medium thanks to which the thingknown exists intentionally in the knower and thanks to which the knowerintentionally becomes the thing known."89 In the proposed model,"resonare" is used to designate that active exercise of the accidental esseof cognitive power under the specification of the received formaldeterminant. Resonare commences in first act with the reception of theform, as the necessary and accidental form which acts at the principle ofcognition.90This is the impressed species as described by Maritain.91Once itis formally determined,92 the cognitive power enters an active state of

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resonare wherein the essential form becomes the operative form byvirtueof those exigencies, the exercise of accidental93 esse actualizes, produces,utters, or expresses the operative form, as an expressed species, concept,or mental word the term ofits act94 By an act ofresonare with that whichthe operative form represents, the knower is the known.

The known exists in the concept and is grasped in it in the sense thatby the very fact of emitting the concept, and fulfilling itself in thisspiritual production, the immanent act of understandingimmediately attains the it, clad in the conditions of the concept.95

The proposed model is also compatible with the description of theexpressed species as "principle or fertilizing seed,"96and the "active" role ofthe intellect as it "forms the conception of the thing within itself so as toknow the thing it has understood."97 In addition, the model fulfills therequirement that "the object is the content of the concept or what itpresents to the mind, it is not the concept itself "**

The seventh requirement is the dual function ofthe species: an entitative"modification of the soul" and that of "purely and formally vicars of theobject."99 The operative form, or pattern ofresonare, fulfills both relations.With respect to the knower, it is an operative, accidental, formal,modification of the operation of a cognitive power.100 However, as a purecontent or meaning, it relates directlyback to its source which is the objectknown, insofar as it re-presents "the object itself divested of its properexistence and made present in an immaterial, intentional state."101 This ispossible because the form is an immaterialized reverberation of theoriginal act whereby the object manifested itself to the knower. The twofunctions are carried out in first and second act as already detailed. As aresult, the only difference between the individual form ofthe object, in theobject and in the knowing subject, is its state or mode of existence.102

This entirely immaterial informing, wherein the soul receives orsubmits only in order to exercise its own vital activity—only in orderto bring itself in act to an exercise that is not limited to itselfalone—isthat which constitutes knowing.103

The proposed model fulfills Maritain's seven requirements. Admittedly,these seven points do not exhaust the content of the Thomistic theory ofcognition; however, they do represent its essential tenets. Of course, shouldsome Thomistic assertion be found to be in conflict with the model, thenone would have to weigh the consequences ofmodifying the model againstthe relative importance of the assertion. Indeed, even if modification berequired, this is a normal mode of progress, and in no way discredits theentire model. After all, St. Thomas himself expresses reservationsregarding his use oflight as a model for abstraction.104 He even goes so faras to provide an alternative approach in terms ofinstrumental causality106

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of the phantasm.

In the reception by which the possible intellect receives the speciesof things from the phantasms, the phantasms are as the instrumental and secondary agent, while the active intellect is as theprinciple and primary agent.106

Judgment

Just as the act ofjudgment completes and perfects the cognitive process,any model of this process must satisfy the requirements of Maritain'sanswer to what he calls "the problem of the philosophical significance ofjudgment, and ofthat existence itselfwhich, according to Thomists, it is itsfunction to affirm."107

The process ofhuman understanding necessitates both an essential andexistential dissolution of the known subject, depending on its intrinsiccomplexity and existential status. All known subjects (whether actuallyorpossibly existent) undergo an essential dissolution insofar as "the object isthe only one or other of the intelligible determinations that may bedistinguished within it (in otherwords, it is the thing as objectifiable underthis or that aspect)."108 The acts of judgment leading to a definition willrestore this lost unity depending on the adequacy of the method ofinvestigation used, and the veracity of the intuitions which guide it.109

The more problematic dissolution is that ofthe essence and existence ofthe object; as is required by the immateriality of the act of understanding.By means of one's acts ofjudgment the existential integrity of the object isintentionally re-established in the knower.110

In other words, when the intellect judges, it sees in an intentionalmanner and through an act proper to it the very act ofexisting thatthe thing exercises or can exercise outside the mind.111

Thus the knower experiences the esse exercised bything1,2 in and throughhis very act of affirmation: an exercise of his own esse.

From the mere fact that the mind makes its pronouncements aboutwhat is, there is a reflection in actu exercito of the mind upon itselfand upon its own conformity with the thing.

... it (the reflection) is but the mind "taking hold" ofitself, and that isnothing but the act ofjudging.113

Thus the meaning orintelligible content ofthe esse affirmed in judgmentis the intuition of the exercise of the very act of judgment. This act isattributed to the known subject by virtue of the known existentialconformity of this act of judgment with the exercised act of resonare,whereby the knower is in formal conformity with the object, and whereinthe subject manifested itself by way of its action on the knower's senses.

... consciousness is unavoidably brought to bear on the data of

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external sense when it seeks the original type to which the notion ofactual existence corresponds.114

The attribution ofresonare is especiallyapplicable to the case ofpossibleexistence. While the fact of possible existence is "implied by intellectualknowledge115 as 'that which has that intelligible determination,"116 thecontent ofthe notion (as the possible active exercise ofesse) can arise onlyfrom an actual exercised judicative attribution itself.

If it is not admitted that our objects of thought are aspects (or"inspects") of actual or possible things; if it is not admitted that eachofthem contains, if I maysayso, an ontological or metalogical charge,then the proper function ofjudgment becomes unintelligible.117

Beyond any concept or notion, the content of the existential judgment"objectifies itself in us in the very act of judgment,"118 and is described byMaritain as "the super-intelligibility of the act of existence itself."119

The formal unity lost in process ofabstraction is recovered to the degreethat one's judgments culminate in an adequate expression of the object'sessence.

Here we are concerned with the predicative function ofjudgment, thecomposition and division of concepts. This concern involves, not the act ofresonare itself, but its pattern. A positive predication maybe described asan affirmation ofa connatural similitude between the resonant patterns oftwo or more acts of resonare, or concepts. On the other hand, a negativejudgment will be an affirmation of the lack of a connatural similitude.

In the case of necessaryjudgments, all similitudes between subject andpredicate would be virtually present in the notion of the subject; whereascontingent judgments would affirm similitudes found in the phantasmwherein the object was experienced. In its predicative capacityjudgmentof all types relate to the esse rerum, "with a view ofstating how the thing,which is attained in our notions, behaves in this esse (actual orpossible) .. ."120

If intellectual knowledge is perfected in judgment, it, in turn, is perfectedin truth. Maritain is quite explicit as to what St. Thomas meant by his use ofthe definition of truth: "adaequatio rei et intellectus"121

does not mean that in judgment the mind judges that the concept isconformed to the thing. It means rather, that the mind in judgingknows in actu exercito that it itself is true or in conformitywith thething, i.e., that it possesses within itself the likeness of the thingknown.122

This conformity requires not only the intentional and entitative functionsbut an act "implicit" or "lived" self-reflection

whereby (even more than bythe simple apprehension ofthe objects ofthe concept wherein it has already become intelligible in act to itself),

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even before any introspective reflection, the mind knows theexistence of the thinking self in germ or in first act and in apreconscious manner.123

The knowing subject, in acto exercito, must be—at least in a preconsciousmanner—aware ofhis own agency in his act ofjudgment in order to intuithis conformity with the object. The intentional and entitative functions ofthe concept have alreadybeen described in terms ofthe pattern and activeexercise of resonare. Both the pattern and its active exercise themselvesbecome objects ofunderstanding when the knower reflects on the conceptof the subject and that of the predicate, as required for a judgment Theimplicit awareness of the ontological self occurs because the act ofjudgment is another instantiation of the exercise of the knowing person'saccidental esse bymeans ofhis intellect. Selfawareness is possible becausethe intellect in act is intelligible to itself,124 and the act ofjudgment revealsthe agent to himself in his very act of judgment.

Being, it is claimed,126 is the object ofall forms ofknowing at every level ofabstraction. Accordingly, any viable Thomistic theory of cognition mustprovide for the two inseparable126 co-principles of being, essentia andesse. The foregoing analysis clearly indicates that the proposed modelmeets this, and every other Thomistic requirement, herein considered.

The previous chapter concluded with a list of differences betweenconceptual understanding and poetic intuition. However, if as Maritainclaims, both are really and genuinely knowledge, then knowing isanalogical. Accordingly this chapter will conclude with a list of thesimilarities between these forms of knowledge:

1. Both originate from sense data

2. Both require a dematerialized, intentional, form

3. Both require preconscious intermediary process

4. In both processes, the agent intellect is the dynamic element

5. Both are available to all human persons

6. Both require a connatural similitude ofintelligibilityon the side ofbothknower and known

7. Neither is explicable without the ontological integrity of the person

8. Both are conditioned by the prior content of the imagination andmemory

9. Both reveal a universal meaning in the singular object

10. Both reveal the ontological subjectivity of the knower as expressed inhis cognitive acts

11. Both are essentially undetermined, each grasping for the infinite in itsown way

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12. Both are adequately described in terms of the active exercise of theknower's esse in a series of connatural resonare

13. Just as the poetic intuition is preceded by a perception of beautywhich, Maritain claims, is proportionate to the degree to which natureis "laden with emotion" (insofar as it signifies its invasion by man); soalso is the abstractive intuition preceded by a wonder proportioned toits objects' intelligible, connatural, similitude to the knower

14. Both transcend their preconscious origins in order to be perfected in aconscious act: speculative knowledge in the judgment (insight), andthe poetic intuition in the execution of the artistic work

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CHAPTER y

EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THE INTUITION

OF BEING AND CRITICAL REALISM

INTRODUCTION

The previous chapter considered the epistemological consequences ofthe notion of person for the specific aspects of the cognitive process. Thisfinal chapter will do likewise for the three levels ofspeculative knowledge.Accordingly, it will culminate in a treatment ofthe intuition of being as thesource of Maritain's metaphysics; and his defense of his Thomistic realismas Critical Realism.

Science, Mathematics and Intuition

Maritain both began and ended his long literary career describing thevarieties of, and the necessity for, intuition. His first book criticized HenriBergson, not for grounding his metaphysics on an intuition ofduration, butrather the non-intellectual character of this intuition, and the resultinganti-intellectual stance of Bergsonian thought1

As part of this critique, Maritain reviews the traditional varieties ofintuition, as instances ofimmediate knowledge or perception, without anyobjective intermediary.2 While intuition in its strictest sense excludes evena subjective intermediary (as in the case of angelic knowledge and theBeautific Vision), its less strict philosophical sense includes sense perception, introspective self-perception and the abstractive intuition of conceptual understanding.3 It also includes—in seminal form—Maritain'sdefense of the Thomistic contention that the object, and not its concept, isknown in the act ofunderstanding.4 He bases this first defense ofthe purelyinstrumental function of the concept on the nature of the sensory andabstractive intuitions. Discursive reason is presented as originating in anintuition of first principles and culminating in an intuitive grasp of theobject itself.5

However, in his later epistomological studies, Maritain emphasizes therole of intuition in art, mysticism, and moral wisdom, while grounding theveracity of conceptualization on esse intentionale.6 He maintained thisperspective until one of his last publications; the very title of whichdeclares a return to the centrality of intuition in speculative, cognitiveprocesses: There Is No Science Without Intuition."7 This is science in thescholastic sence, as related to the three degrees ofabstraction. Intuition is

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found to be central to every stage ofthe cognitive process and at every levelof abstraction, from external sensation to the intuition of being.

The form ofabstraction which is peculiar to the physical sciences is seenas "enveloping an intuition."8 Such sciences are also dependent on that typeof judicative intuition which frequently alters the course of scientificinvestigation by

bursting like a spark, first in the creative imagination as a new imagetowards which the mind turns, then in the intelligence, as a newassertion that will change the entire system of ideas accepted up tothe present.9

The relationship between scientific reasoning and the scientific intuition isone of causal reciprocity.10 Reason controls intuition by correct conceptualization and the exigencies oflogical inference; while the direction ofthe rational process is—concurrently and forcibly—modified by intuitiveinsights into the reality under consideration." While the rules of inferencecan be used to ascertain whether a valid conclusion has been drawn from

any given premises, on what basis are those premises to be chosen, whichwill yield true—and not merely valid—conclusions? For the empiricalsciences and applied mathematics, which are on the first level ofabstraction, "it is by the intuition ofsensible things, that the mind perceivesof a reality and turns toward it."12

On the second level of abstraction, the discursive processes of mathematics are guided by an imaginative intuition of reason, and its pureobjects of thought13 Although this form of intuition is poetic in nature, itsveracious fulfillment consists in its conformity with the real as a pureobject of thought.14 As presented, the empirical sciences—and even puremathematics—seem to have as much in common with art as they do withlogic. Indeed, it would appear, that, due to the necessarily pervasive andefficacious presence of intuition, neither science nor mathematics oughtany longer to be characterized as merely an opus rationis. Rather, everyhuman endeavor—including these—ought to be understood as an opuspersonarum, with all that is implied by it

Metaphysics and Intuition

Even from its transcendent heights on the third level of abstraction,15metaphysics as a science (an opus personarum), shares with mathematicsand science, the pervasive and efficacious presence of intuition, and isvirtually pre-contained in that intuitive experience in which it originates:16the intuition of being,

the highest fulfillment and perfection of the intuition of theintellect . . . ,17 ... superior to any discursive reasoning ordemonstration because it is the source of demonstration.18

This genuine19 intuition is at once a transcendentally objective and

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intensely personal "fundamental intuition upon which everything inThomism depends."20As the ultimate source ofall metaphysical demonstrations,21 it must virtually contain the entire science by which it "affords agrasp on the necessary and universal certainties of a scientific knowledgeproperly so-called.22 As such, it must be an ideating or abstractive23intuition of being which

evokes it (the intuition) from the intellect and by means ofa concept,and idea. The concept or notion of being corresponds with thisintuition.24

As both genuine and abstractive, the intuition ofbeing maybe describedin terms ofthe previously proposed model ofideogenesis. To this end, it willbe necessary to delineate the main points ofMaritain's views on the contentof both the intuition of being and its resultant concept of being, fromwhence originates the science of metaphysics.

As the instrumental25 subject ofmetaphysics, this concept ofbeing mustbe ofsuch a distinctively profound character so as to virtually contain theentire contents of a metaphysical science.26 This distinctive "mark" isbeing's "polyvalence or analogy, its essentially analogous value."27

It (metaphysics) proceeds from the eidetic visualization of a transcendental which permeates everything and whose intellectualityinvolves an irreducible proportionalityor analogy—a is to its own actof existing (esse) as b is to its own act of existing (esse) ....

Essence and existence are the analogous29 and inseparable,30 conceptualco-principles31 of finite being—neither being intelligible without the other.Being and its co-principles are also hierarchically related; for it is esse,above all else, that is the supreme, super-intelligible,32 subject of metaphysics.33 Even "thevery intelligibility ofessences is a certain kind ofabilityto exist."34

In the intuition and concept of being, the transcendentals are revealedas "being itself apprehended under a particular aspect;"35 as are the firstprinciples of metaphysics, particularly that of identity. This "firstfundamental law ofreality itself36 is the guardian ofuniversal multiplicity,the axiom of being's irreducible diversities."37 Drawing upon the inexhaustible reserves ofits intuitive source, metaphysics—as do all sciences-proceeds by means ofa causal involution of reason and intuition to explorethose analogous notions which reveal the universal in the particular, andthe frontiers of infinity, beyond the realm of matter.

Being is then seen in its distinctive properties, as trans-objectivelysubsistent, autonomous, and essentially diversified.38

While the concept of being is the most universal and objective ofconcepts, its intuitive source is highly personal, both psychologically39 andmetaphysically. It is the latter that is revealed as Maritain describes the

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mechanics of this intuition:

There is nothing simpler than to think I am, I exist... the worldexists. The all-important thing is for such a perception to sink deeplyenough within me ... to stir and move my intellect up to the veryworld of preconscious activity, beyond any word or formula ... .40

... it can come about that this simple I am will seem like a revelationwhich will awaken echoes and surprises on all sides and give a hint ofthe inexhaustible ampleness it permits one to attain.41

It is in a judgment (or in a preconscious act equivalent to anunformulated judgment), and in a judgment of existence, that theintellectual intuition of being occurs.42

These statements, together with personal experiences and "concreteapproaches" mentioned by Maritain himself,43 leave little doubt that heenvisions the intuition ofbeing as originating primarilywith the intuition ofthe Self,44 revealed in the exercise of esse, as acts of judgment46 Suchsubsistent agency is then in turn attributed to external subjects, whoseactions and existence have been experienced as a sensorial presence.46Thus, it is not unlikely that the very intuition which gives rise to themetaphysical concept of being—of which the notion of esse is the primefactor—is itself a judgment, whose content is the culmination of thepreconscious reverberations of many previous judgments47 of existenceand predication. In the intuition ofbeing, previously lived or experiencedjudicative instances of existence coalesce into a metaphysical intuition ofesse, as actively exercised;48 which includes them all but is restricted tonone, and

gives the objects received through our senses (whose speciesimpressa is buried in the depths of the intellect) a new kind ofpresence in us: they are present in a mental word, another life, a livingcontent which is a world of trans-objective presence andintellectuality.49

The proposed cognitive model based on resonare has already explainedboth the abstractive intuition and act of judgment, as they relate to theindividual object. This model also pertains to the intuition ofbeing insofar as "itis in things themselves that metaphysics finds its object,"50 and the adequateunderstanding of which must begin at the occasion of its first declaration.

Every judgment culminates in a verbum mentis.51 This complexconcept62 contains both the formal53 and existential elements of the act ofjudgment, which constitutes the content of the concept of being.

At the instant when the finger points to that which the eye sees, at theinstant when sense perceives, in its blind fashion, without intellectionor mental word, that this exists; at that instant the intellect says (in a

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judgment), this being is or exists and at the same time (in a concept),being.54

This concept remains implicit56 until,

by an explicitly reflection upon its act, does the intellect becomeexplicitlyconsciousoftheexistenceofthethinkingsubject Andby opposition: It knows explicitly, as extramental the being and theexistence which in their extramental reality had already been givenit... .M

In terms of resonare, the formal content of the judgment is the patternofresonare, and the active exercise ofthe existence to be attributed to theobject in the very act of affirmation,67 is the act of resonare itself. Thisconstitutes the judicative concept or mental word. It follows then, that inevery cognitive instance of resonare—whether actual judgment or thepreparatory acts ofsimple apprehension and sensation—esse is implicitlypresent as the exercised act (of resonare) of the knowing subject58

Thus, every act of understanding completed from sensation throughjudgment reveals the be-ing of beings.69

Now consider the effect of each judicative concept as it passes beyondthe moment of conscious attention to join its predecessors in the preconscious treasury of the memory and imagination. Each will in turn aidand condition forth-coming acts of understanding and judgment,60 as ithad, in turn, been conditioned, at its inception.

This explanation is obviously a parallel to Maritain's description of thegenesis of the creative intuition.61 However, at no time had he suggestedthat the creative and abstractive intuitions require different cognitivefaculties, or different functions ofthe same faculties. Quite to the contrary,his major work on the creative intuition sought to explain the essentialpart played by the intellect or reason in both art and poetry.62 Therefore, itis not unreasonable to liken the effect of a judicative concept on theantecedent contents of the preconscious to that of the intervention of thespiritualized emotion, which generates the creative intuition.

And it suffices for emotion disposing or inclining, as I have said, theentire soul in a certain determinate manner to be thus received in the

undetermined vitality and productivity of the spirit, where it ispermeated by the light of the Illuminating Intellect: then, whileremaining emotion, it is made—with respect to the aspects in thingswhich are connatural to, or like, the soul it imbues—into aninstrument of intelligence judging through connaturality, and plays,in the process of this knowledge through likeness between realityand subjectivity, the part ofa non-conceptual intrinsic determinationof intelligence in its preconscious activity.63

Like the creative, spiritualized emotion, each judicative concept, once

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produced, reverberates within

all the harvests of experience and memory preserved in the soul, allthe universe of fluid images, recollections, associations, feelings anddesires latent, under pressure, in the subjectivity.. .M

As each judgment reverberates within the subject, all prior cognitivecontents will resonate with it, insofar as each shares with it a connaturalsimilitude. The similitude present in all objects is being; in its inseparableco-principles: essence, insofar as each concept has a pattern of resonare;and esse insofar as each concept is also put into an active stateofresonareto the degree that being is connatural to it.

This reverberation occasions the intuition of being. It reveals being astranscendent ofanyone being or beings in particular, or matter, in general;because it presents both essence and the pure exercise ofexistence, whichare common to all, yet restricted to none. The proportionality betweeneach being and its act of esse (resonare), as required for the intuition ofbeing, is revealed in the varying degrees of the similitude of autonomybetween the acts ofresonare—as determined by each being's essence, andexperienced in actu exercito in judgment—and the autonomous indeterminacy ofthe knowing subject, as re-presented in the Illuminating Intellectitself. The principle of identity is likewise revealed in the very fact of everyact of resonare having a determinate pattern. Such principles as those ofsufficient reason, finality, and causality arise from the necessary relationbetween the pattern ofresonare (essence) and its active exercise (esse) bythe knowing subject66

As presented, it would seem that the metaphysical intuition of beingcould result from any and every act of judgment. However, as is the casewith the creative intuition, being will only be heard or become manifest tothose few who listen; who are contemplative and receptive66 to "what allthings whisper ... .^

Objects, all objects murmur this being; they utter it to the intellect, butnot to all intellects, only those capable of hearing.68

Critical Realism

The most significant instance of such metaphysical "deafness" was thatof Immanuel Kant. According to Maritain, Kant was far too engrossed in"an intellectual technique of extreme subtlety" to "hear what all thingswhisper."69 Kant, of course, went so far as to deny the "whisper" itself.

The first chapter of this study recounted the various reactions ofcontemporary Thomists to the continuing pressure of the demands forKantian critique and Maritain's rejection ofthe "veryway in which it posesthe question and in its first starting point"70

Critique ofknowledge presupposes a long effort of knowing, knowingwhich is not only spontaneous but scientific, too, and not only

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scientific (in the modern meaning of word "science"), but philosophical psychological, logical and metaphysical knowledge as well.

Since much ofMaritain's discussion ofCritical Realism has already beenincluded in previoussections ofthis study, it will not be necessary to reviewit in detail. Rather, this closing section will focus on what Maritainconsiders necessary to complete his "critique."

As it is apparent, the critique envisages two sets of difficulties. Thefirst are of a strictly epistemological order: to justify the finality ofsensible and intellectual perception and the finality ofjudgment. Thesecond belong to metaphysics: to determine the type of being of thephenomenon of cognition and the necessary conditions for thepossibility of knowing.72

The finality of perception is established in the identity of the thing andthe object. This is corroborated by the continuity of the process ofresonare, from the initializing action of the thing, to its objectification inthe concept, as its pattern. This continuity also explains how, in the act ofjudgment, the knowing subject is tacitly aware of both himself, and hisconformity with the thing present in sense or memory.

As for the second stage of critique, the proposed model has alreadyaccounted for both the central aspect of Maritain's ontology of the act ofknowing, esse intentionale, and the concept as a formal sign. In fact, withrespect to esse intentionale, this model is able to overcome a seriousobjection.

What does it mean actually, to say the intentional being, in the eyes ofa metaphysician who makes his fundamental thesis the unity of theesse analogum et transcendens? It is impossible to consider thisopposition as a final principle of explanation if one wishes to escapethe criticism of those who poke gentle fun at the intentional speciesofthe scholastics as being something like the vitrus dormitiva of thedoctors in Moliere. It is surprising how rare are those who haveattempted to explain the opposition and define the analogical unitywhich relates the intentional being and the natural being withoutconfusing them.73

As a state ofresonare, esse intentionale can hardly be confused with theesse naturale ofthe known object; insofar as this condition ofbe-ing is theactive exercise of the accidental esse of the knowing subject.

The analogical character of esse intentionale is preserved by thecontinuity of resonare, whereby its pattern originates with the knownthing itself; so that its intentional esse is proportioned to it, as is its essenaturale. All of this is, of course, consequent to esse understood as anexercised act, and subsistence as that condition ofbeing by which it can beexercised. Thus onewho follows Maritain in his defense ofCritical Realism

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may use Maritain's own distinctions to avoid the charge that "he digs apractically impassible moat between the real and intelligible when hedistinguished them as being two parallel orders, not degrees of analogicalperfection belonging to a single reality."74 Indeed, these distinctions call forthis relationship to be present as two parallel conditions of being.

The status of the concept as a formal sign has been insured by itsidentification with the pattern of resonare, as exercised by the knowingintellect. Insofar as the thing is present in its action upon the sense organ,the continuity of resonare insures that it is re-presented at every level ofthe cognitive process, which culminates in the production ofits conceptualsimilitude, the mental word. As the pattern of an accidental modificationof a cognitive power, the concept fulfills its entitative, as well as, itssignatory function.

The final element in the critique is his theory of judgment which, aspreviously explained, culminates in a complex verbum mentis; wherebythe knowing subject is able to return from the order ofthe object to that ofthe thing. With this passage the validity of knowing is assured, the critiquecompleted; and the success of the proposed model for the ontology ofknowing, is verified.

It would appear that Critical Realism is possible only if knowing isunderstood as an activity of the metaphysical person. The ontological andresulting functional integrity ofthe person can alone guarantee the validityof cognition on every level. Any attempt to explain or justify humanunderstanding solely in terms of its cognitive instrumentalities mustsuccumb to the Transcendental Critique. One wonders if Kant would haveadopted his Transcendental Method had he been aware of the pervasiverole of intuition in both science and mathematics, as it is attested to by thepractitioners of these disciplines themselves.75

Creative imagination is richer in science than in the arts because ithas to transcend sense experience and common sense and it is moreexacting, because it has to transcend the self and must try to betruthful.76

Those Thomists who pursue a 'Transcendental" understanding ofThomism, should seek their a priori categories on the existential—notformal—level, in thesuper-intelligibility ofesse as known in actu exercito,in its exercise by the knowing subject. After all, to the extent that Maritain'sdescription of understanding, and its relation to intuition, is correct, purereason is a myth.

Since its revival at the end of the Nineteenth Century, Thomism hasdeveloped by meansofa series ofshifts in emphasis77 from act and potency,to the analogy of proper proportionality, to participation, and finally, tothe existential implications of esse. In recent times, emphasis has onceagain shifted; but this time, from content to method, e.g. phenomenology,

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evolution, and Transcendental Thomism. The preceeding study suggeststhat perhaps the next stage of development ought to be by way of anexistential "leap" from the order ofthe non-subsistent principles ofbeing tothat existent being who possesses and exercises them: the metaphysical78person. Just as this study has presented the bases for a personist,Thomistic epistemology; so also, can there be a personist philosophy ofnature, and personist metaphysics, for which the exercise of esse by theperson is the primary instance wherein both nature and being becomeintelligible.

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NOTES FOR CHAPTER 1

'"Eight problems that remain today will be considered: 1. Did Thomas Aquinas everphilosophize—or was his mature thinking always that of the theologian? 2. IfAquinas had aphilosophy of his own, as the Encyclicalassumes, was itvalidonlyfor the thirteenth Century? 3.Is there a perennial philosophy in which philosophical Thomism lives on through the ages? 4. Isecclesiastical approval of a given philosophy really helpful to the life of philosophy? 5. Is itpossible for philosophy to be closely associated with, and positively influenced by, religiousrevelation—and not lose its philosophical character? 6. Can a sincere religious believerphilosophize in abstraction from his religious beliefs? 7. Is it possible to theologize apart from aset of philosophical convictions? 8. Ifoneattempts to develop a Christian philosophyfor today, isit necessary to take over some existing type of philosophy such as Platonism. Aristotelianism,Cartesianism ...." (Vernon Bourke, " 'Aeterni Patris,' Gilson, and Christian Philosophy,"Plenary Session of the Fifty Third Annual Meeting of the American Catholic PhilosophicalAssociation (Toronto: April, 1979).

'St. Thomas Scripts super libros Sententiarum 2.1.

3For the purposes of this study, the unmodified term "person" will refer to themetaphysical, intellectual being, or self, whose agency is manifested in a variety of modalitiesoften equated with it, i.e., physical person, psychological person, ethical person, economicperson, and personality. See Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald B. Phelan fromthe 4th French edition (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1959), p. 231.

•St. Thomas Summa Theologiae I. 27-32. Hereafter cited as ST.

5|bid.. 1.29.3.

6Boethius Liber da persona et duabus nature 62.1434d; 64.1432.

'St. Thomas Da Potentia Dei 9.1. Hereafter cited as De Pot. ST III. 2.2; I. 3. 3.

"St. Thomas De Pot 7.4; 1.75.4; I. 39. 5 ad 5; 1.29.1.

9As signifying "a specific mode of existence," the name "person" stands somewherebetween the formal determination of a concept and the maddening unintelligibility of anexistentential predication, and therefore, will hereafter be referred to as a "notion" so as toindicate that the reality it names cannot be grasped within the narrow confines of an abstraction;but must be experienced as an individual existent presence.

,0St. Thomas De Pot 9.2.6.

"St. Thomas ST 1.40.3 ad 1.

"St. Thomas De Pot 8.3 ad 7; 9.2 ad 5.

"St. Thomas De Pot 9.1 ad 3; ST 1.3.8; ST 1.75.3; Quoestiones disputate de veritate II.6ad 3.

"St. Thomas ST III. 2. 2 ad 2; ST 1.40.3 ad 1.

'5see note 5.

"St. Thomas ST 1.29.1 ad 2; III.2. 2 ad 3.

"St. Thomas ST 1.29.3 resp; I. 29.4 ad 4.

'«St. Thomas ST 1.40.3 ad 1.

<*St. Thomas De Pot 9.1 ad 3.

"St. Thomas ST 1.30.1.4.

"St. Thomas ST III. 2. 2 ad 2; 1.29. 3.

2Jlnthis study we will extend this analysis back to its metaphysical basis in that state of theactive exercise of esse which Maritain will eventually identify with subsistence. As will be shown,this extension is implicit in, and even required by, the existential character of the thought of bothSt Thomas and Maritain.

"St. Thomas In I. Sent. 5.1.1.

"L M. Regis, Epistemology, trans. Imelda Byrne (New York: Macmillan, 1959), p. 77.

"Ibid., p. 79.

zejacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 80; and, Fernand Van Steenberghen,Epistemology, trans. L. Moonan from 4th ed. (New York: Joseph F.Wagner, 1970), p. 23.

27W. Norris Clarke, "What Is Most and Least Relevant in the Metaphysics of St. ThomasToday?" International Philosophical Quarterly 14 (December 1974): 425.

JBlbid.

"Johannes B. Metz, ChristlicheAnthropozentrik (Munich: Kosel, 1962). Cited by GeraldMcCool,"Philosophical Pluralism and an EvolvingThomism." Continuum 2 (Spring 1964): 3-16.

*°"... a thinker's fundamental understanding of his own self and of being in general."McCool, "Philosophical Pluralism," p. 11.

3,lbid.,p. 12.

B'The Thomistic metaphysics of being transcends the well known Kantian and positivistcritique of a metaphysicswith no experienced object. St. Thomas never said esse was an object:on the contrary, he denied it." Frederick Wilhelmsen, "The Concept of Existence and theStructure of Judgment: A Thomistic Paradox." Thomist 41 (July 1977): 348.

33James Counahan, 'The Quest for Metaphysics." Thomist 33 (July 1969): 519-572;Joseph Owens, "Separation in Aquinas," Mediaeval Studies 34 (1972): 287-306; FrederickWilhelmsen, "The Priorityof Judgment over Question: Reflections on Transcendental Thomism."International Philosophical Quarterly 14 (December 1974): 475-493; Denis Bradley,'Transcendental Critique and Realist Metaphysics," Thomist 39 (October 1975): 631-667.

^E. E. Murnion, "St. Thomas Aquinas" Understanding of the Act of Understanding,"Thomist 37 (January 1973): 88-118; J. Weisheipl, "The Principle Omne quod movetur ab aliomovetur in Mediaeval Physics," Isis 56(1965): 26-45; N. Lobkowicz, "Quidquid moveturab aliomovetur," New Schlastictsm 42 (1968): 401-421.

35See no. 46.

36E. Winance, "Le Jugement et L'Existence," Revue Thomiste 75 (October-December1975): 562-581; Joseph Owens, "Aquinas on Knowing Existence," Review of Metaphysics 29(June 1976): 670-690.

37F. Wilhelmsen, "Existence and Esse." New Scholasticism 50 (Winter 1976): 20-45.

70

NOTES FOR CHAPTER TWO

'Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 430.

2Jacques Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism, trans. M. L. Andison (NewYork: Philosophical Library,1955) p.430. Originaledition: LaPhilosophic bergsonienne, etudescritiques (Paris: Marcel Reviere et Cie, 1914).

'Jacques Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy, p. 71.

'Ibid., p. 15. sibid., p. 66. «lbid..p. 68. 'Ibid., p. 232.

ajbid., p. 230. 9lbid. '"Ibid., p. 136. " Ibid., p. 135.

"Ibid., pp. 229, n. 1; 244-247. "Ibid., p. 246.

"Ibid., pp. 23,26,66,114,204. "Ibid., p. 223, n. 2.

"Jacques Maritain,An Introduction to Philosophy, trans. E. I. Watkin (New York:Sheedand Ward, 1932; reprint edition, Sheed and Ward, 1959) p. IV. Original edition: Elements dophilosophie. I. Introduction generate a la philosophie (Paris: PierreTegui, 1920).

"Ibid., p. 165, n. 2. "Ibid., p. 143. "Ibid. »1bid.

2llbid.. p. 144. "Ibid. p. 143. "Ibid., p. 145. "Ibid., p. 146.

»lbid., p. 145. »lbid, p. 145, n. 1. "Ibid., p. 146.

28lbid "Ibid., p. 147. *°lbid.

"Ibid, p. 148. 33lbid„ p. 149. Mlbid., p. 151. "Ibid.

35lbid, p. 152. Itshould be noted that these principles "exercise" only formal causality, andcannot of themselves account for existential agency.

Mlbid, p. 155. Italics are mine.

3,lbid. The following analogy would seem to be applicable: essence is to its object asconcept is to its essence.The essence then is a formal sign (a pure id quo) of the known being, justas the concept is a formal sign of the essence; thereby assuring that it is the being—notconcept oressence—which is attained by knowing. 'The concept or mental word is not that which is knownwhen our intellect is at work; it is the means whereby intellection takes place." Maritain, TheDegrees of Knowledge, p. 120.

38Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 156.

a'lbid, p. 157 «°lbid «'Ibid, p. 159.

«lbid, p. 159. n. 4i. -"Ibid, p. 164. "Ibid., p. 146.

4Slbid, p. 179. 46lbid, pp. 179,180.

"Ibid., p. 165. The being is signified by its essence, which is signified in turn by its conceptas pure formal siga

«lbid„ p. 165. «lbid, p. 166. "Ibid., pp. 147; 164; 169, n. 3; 176-177; 179, n.

s' Ibid., p. 166. "Ibid, p. 167, n. 1. "Ibid., p. 167.

"Ibid., p. 169, n. 3. 55lbid, p. 167, n. 3. 6Slbid., pp. 167; 169, n. 2.

"Ibid., p. 168. 58lbid, p. 177. «>lbid.. p. 168.

"Ibid, p. 167. 6'lbid, pp. 166; 177, n. 1. 62|bid-# p. 16&

•aibid, p. 166. "Ibid, p. 169, n. 2. ^Ibid. p. 168.

66lbid., p. 168. A change of analytic method—only hinted at by this citation—will beexplored below.

8'lbid., p. 176, n. 1. «lbid, p. 164, n. 3.

71

eslbid., p. 157. "Its own" can be defined by Maritain only in the negative sense ofincommunicability. Maritain,The Degreesof Knowledge, pp. 231, We shall see that he is forcedto abandon the analogy: ibid., p. 438.

TOMaritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 178.

"Ibid, pp. 152;160,n. 1.;162.

"Ibid., p. 177, n. 1. This analogy is taken directly from Cajetan—In Idisp. 4, ant 1, n. 12.

"Ibid., pp. 168, n. 1.;179,n. 1.

""... subsistence ... which is not a quidditative constituent of essence any more thanthe point which terminates a line is itself an extent, a segmentof the line." Maritain. The Degreesof Knowledge, p. 431.

"Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 169, n. 2.

"Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality—A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought trans.Patrick Cummings (New York: B. Herder Book Co., 1950), p. 394, n. 1.

"Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 165, n. 2.; 166, n. 1.; 168, n. 1., and TheDegrees of Knowledge, p. 232.

78Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality' P- 395, n. 17.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 231. *°lbid.

81J. F. Donceel, Philosophical Psychology (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), p. 363.

^Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 233.

Mlbid., p. 232. <»lbid,p. 233. <»lbid., p. 232. ««tbid.

87Note that the English translation cited in the bibliography was approved by Maritainhimself on p. XVII.

B8Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 231. wlbid.

"Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 178. Also see p. 169.

"Ibid, pp. 179 and 179, n. 1. "Ibid

^Maritain, Jacques, A Preface to Metaphysics: Seven Lectures on Being, trans. E. I.Watkin (New York: Mentor Omega Books, 1962), pp. 90-102. Original edition: Sept lecons surI'etre et les primiers principes de la raison speculative (Paris: Pierre Tegui, 1934).

^Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 169.

«lbid.. p. 232. ^Ibid, p. 430.

"Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 188-189. "Ibid.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 430.

loofojd. ioiibid. <«lbid '«lbid ^Ibid, p. 431.

ios|bid. "»lbid„n. 1. ""Ibid., p. 433. "»lbid,p.431.

,09lbid.,p. 433. "°lbid '"Ibid '"Ibid

'"Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 177, n. 1.

"'Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 341.

n6Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 169, n. 3.

'"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 431.

'"Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, pp. 361, n. 2; 395. '"Ibid.

"'Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics.

72

'Mlbid., pp. 27-28. "'Ibid, p. 93. Italics mine.

'"Maritain, Jacques, Existence and the Existent, trans. L Galantiere and G. B. Phelan,(New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1948). Original edition: Court Traite de I'existence et deI'existant (Paris: Paul Hartmann, 1947).

'"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics.

'"Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 3.

'»lbid.,p.64. "8lbid, pp. 10-12. "'Ibid., pp. 17; 26, n. 13. "8lbid.p.32.

'^Ibid, p. 34. 'Mlbid., p. 39. '"Ibid., p. 40.

,32lbid,p.41. 'Mlbid.. p. 48. '^Ibid., pp. 62-84. '35lbid, p. 81.

'Mlbid, pp. 69-70. '37lbid, p. 108. ,38lbid, p. 65.

<39Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 232. ,40lbid.

""Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good, trans. J. J. Fitzgerald, (NotreDame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), p. 41. Original edition: Lapersonneet le biencommun (Paris: Descleede Brouwer, 1947).

UJFr. Herman Diepen, "La Critique du Baslieme selon St. Thomas d'Aquin," RevueThomiste 50 (1950): 82-112,290-328.

143lbid., p. 110. Itought to be noted that while it is true that the end pointsof a line do limit itto a specific length, an infinite line—as per the definition of a line—can only existas a universal inthe mind, as does any other essence. And likeany essence, the line must be finite and individualin order to actually exist. Therefore, as with any essence, the point does limit the line but as apre-condition for the most positive of perfections: existence.

,44lbid., p. 109. Inpoint of fact the point and line are not of the same order in that the pointhas no geometric quantity or extension, as does the line.

'«lbid, pp. 112-117.

,4*lbid., pp. 114-115. "Essentia est essendi principium, potentia vero operationis," St.Thomas Quodlibet X. 5. '"Ibid., p. 114.

,48lbid..p. 115. "Essediversum est in diversis." St.Thomas De Enteet essentia, c. 5 initio.

'49lbid, It is unexpected that Maritain would overlook something so basic to Thomisticmetaphysics.

18°lbid., p. 116. "'Ibid., p. 115. '"Ibid., pp. 115,304.

'"Diepen, "La critique du Baslieme," pp. 114-115.

'"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 86.

'»lbid, p. 91. '"Ibid., pp. 97; 98, n. 3; 137.

"'Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 93.

'^Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 17. "9lbid., p. 18. '"ibid, pp. 64; 64, n. 1.

"'Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1951).

'"Jacques Maritain, Neuf lecons sur las notions premieres de la philosophie morale(Paris: Peirre Tieque, 1951).

IS3Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York: Meridian Books,1955). The use of the notion of person in this work will be taken up in Chapter III of this study.

'"Jacques Maritain, Approches de dieu (Paris: Alsatia, 1953).

"sJacques Maritain. "Sur la notion de subsistence," Revue Thomiste 54 (1954): 243-256. Since the 1959 edition of The Degrees of Knowledge this article has appeared as anaddendum to "Appendix IV" under the title "Further Elucidations," pp. 434-444.

73

,88Maritain,An Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 143-163.

"'Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 436.

'"Ibid, St. Thomas De spiritualibus creaturis a. 11.

,89lbid. Note that he refers to it as the "intuition of existence" not the "intuition of being."

""Diepen, "La Critique du Baslieme," p. 303.

'"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 436.

'"Ibid '"Ibid, p. 437, n. 1. '"Ibid, p. 437.

"slbid., p. 438. Here Maritaindisclaims that subsistence confers incommunicability withrespect to the reception of existence.

"sIbid. In footnote n. 2, p. 438, Maritain parts company with Cajetan on the use of"terminus purus": with respect to subsistence.

'"Ibid, p. 438. "8lbid, p. 439. 'ralbid. '"Ibid. "'Ibid '^Ibid, pp. 440-444.

'wjacques Maritain, On the Church of Christ: The Person of the Church and HerPersonnel, trans. Joseph W. Evans (Notre Dame, 1973). Original edition: De I'eglise du Christ: lapersonne et son personnel (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1970).

'"Ibid., p. 17. 'Mlbid, pp. 15-23. '"Ibid., p. 18.

,87While he consistently uses esse, Maritain fails to employ the active verb formsubsistere. Rather he continues to use the reified form, "subsistence" even after he identifies itwith the active exercise of esse.

,88Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 64.

'"Ibid. '"Ibid, pp. 81,82.

"'Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 439.

'"Ibid., p. 437. '"Ibid, p. 438. ,94lbid. ,85lbid.

'"Jacques Maritain, An Essay on Christian Philosophy, trans. E. H. Flannery (New York:Philosophical Library, 1955) p. 17.

"'Ibid, p. 11.

'"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 67.

'"Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute ofMediaeval Studies, 1952) pp. 227-232.

MOMaritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 108.

»'lbid. «M|bid,pp. 108,109.

2MMaritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 439. In the order of be-ing, the act(reception/possession) of esse is first act as related to second act: the exercise of substantialesse. In the orderofoperation, the exercise of substantial esse is first act as related to second act:the exercise of the accidental esse of the powers and their operations.

swibid.p. 105. **lbid ""Ibid "'Ibid., p. 107.

20elbid., p. 110. "Unlike the intentional being of knowledge, the intentional being of love isnot an esse in virtue of which the one (knower) becomes the other (the known); it is an esse invirtue of which the other (the beloved), spiritually present in the one (the lover) as a weight orimpulse, becomes to him as another self. This is an immaterial processus but entirely differentfrom that of knowledge." Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 369, n. 5.

»9|bid,p.112. 2'°lbid.,p. 11. 2"lbid 2"lbid.

2,3lbid.,pp. 114,116(Italics mine). This is in contrast with lower forms of agency which actin an automatic manner, according to the exigencies of their nature. See p. 70.

74

NOTES FOR CHAPTER THREE

'Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (NewYork: Meridian Books. Inc..1959).

2lbid.. p. 3. 3lbid.

4Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism and the Frontiers of Poetry, trans. JosephEvans (New York: Charles Scribner Sons, 1962).

5Also unique is his procedure of inducing the characteristics of the poetic intuition fromthe "testimony" of artists, poets and other creators.

6Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 29. 'Ibid., p. 9.

8Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 62.

"Ibid. "Ibid., p. 66. ' 'Ibid., p. 67.

"ibid. Also see The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 91.

"Ibid., p. 67. 14lbid. "Ibid., p. 68.

"In spite of his emphasis on the exercise of esse, he continued to cling to the originalunderstanding of subsistence until the "Redaction."See Existence and the Existent, p. 64.

"Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 9.

"Ibid., p. 106. Also see Existence and the Existent, pp. 73, n. 7, p. 82.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p.81. This definition appeared before the "FurtherElucidations (1954)." However, it must be noted that, in those editions of Existence and theExistent published after 1957. the citation in ChapterThree regarding subsistence was replacedby its counterpart from the "Further Elucidations (1957)." Accordingly, I have added the term"exercise" in order to bring this definition in line with Maritain's final understanding ofsubsistence.

20Maritain. The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 438.

2'Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 68.

22lbid.,p.81. 23lbid, p. 69. 24lbid. "Ibid. 26lbid., p. 70.

"Ibid., p. 76. 28lbid., p. 79. "Ibid.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 438.

31 Maritain, Creative Intuition, pp. 17,18.24.25.28.

Mlbid, p. 10-18. 33lbid, pp. 18,19. Mlbid., p. 19. ^Ibid, p. 22 (italics mine).

"Ibid, p. 25, 26. 37lbid., pp. 25-30. "Ibid., p. 25.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 438.

"Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 25. "Ibid. 42lbid.,p. 29.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 430-434. '"Ibid., p. 439.

45Maritain. Creative Intuition, p. 82.

4eBy "mechanics" I mean a description of how the creative intuition comes to be.

"'Ibid., p. 81. ^Ibid, Also see St. Thomas ST 1.19. 3.

49lbid.,Also see Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, p. 120; St. Thomas ST 1.14.8; Maritain.The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 36-98.

"St. Thomas Aquinas, Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, ed. Anton Pegis(New York: Random House. 1945), p. 152 (ST 1.14).

75

"Maritain. Creative Intuition, p. 82. "Ibid., p. 66.

"Ibid., p. 67. Maritain distinguishes between the poetic preconscious and the "deaf,""automatic," or "Freudian" unconscious, which usually interfers with—but remains distinctfrom—the "spiritual" preconscious.

"Ibid, pp. 68,69. "Ibid., p. 55. "Ibid "Ibid., p. 68. "Ibid., p. 69.

"Ibid., p. 70. "Ibid., p. 71. See St. Thomas ST 1.79,80,85. "*lbid.,p.71.

62lbid. Also see St. Thomas ST 1.87.3. Consider how difficult it has been to come to anunderstanding of the ordinary inner processes of the visible, accessible, human body.

"Ibid., p. 74. ""Ibid., p. 76.

"Ibid. Also see St. Thomas ST 1.77.4. "Ibid., p. 78. "Ibid., p. 79.

"Ibid. "And therefore, the fact that God created all things that they might have beingdoesnot exclude that he created them for his own goodness. St. Thomas, BasicWritings, p. 612 (ST I.65. 2 ad. 1.). "Ibid.

"Maritain. The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 260. Also see St. Thomas ST 1.1. 6 ad. 3.

"Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 86. "ibid "Ibid.

"Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, p. 167.

"Ibid., p. 63. "Italics mine.

"Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 310. relbid.

"Ibid., pp. 310,313. Also see Maritain,The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 109, n. 2.

"St. Thomas In Ethica Nichomachea, b. X. 1.6. quoted in Robert E. Brennan, ThomisticPsychology (Toronto: The Macmillan Co., 1969). p. 153.

8'Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 5.

82Brennan, Thomistic Psychology, p. 131.

"Maritain, Creative Intuition, p.5;also see Maritain,The Degreesof Knowledge, p. 281,n. 1.

Mlbid. "Ibid., p. 8. "Ibid., p. 87. 8'lbid„ p. 88. "Ibid.

"Ibid, p. 89. "Ibid. "Ibid "Ibid, pp. 88,89. "Ibid.

»*lbid, pp. 91-93. "Ibid, p. 170,190. "Ibid, p. 92. *'lbid., p. 93.

"Ibid., pp. 173, 174. Herein, Maritain contrasts poetic intuition with metaphysicalknowledge. "Ibid.

'"See p. 98. n. 80.

"'Maritain, Creative Intuition, pp. 32.68,89.

,02lbid., pp. 68,89. '"Ibid, p. 26. wibid. p. 89. '"Ibid, p. 102.

'"Ibid., pp. 102.103. "'Ibid, p. 175. '"Ibid, p. 176. '"Ibid

76

NOTES FOR CHAPTER FOUR

'Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, Man's Knowledge of Reality (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, Inc.. 1956). p. 5.

'Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 438. 3Ibid.. pp. 115-116. 4lbid..p. 437.

'While it is true that Maritain claims that the poetic intuition has no parallel in logicalreason, this analysis involves those cognitive processes which are the pre-conditions fordiscursive reasoning. See: Maritain, Creative Intuition, pp. 29,84-85.

8Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 111, n. 2.

'Jacques Maritain, "IIn'y a pas de savoir sans intuitivite," Revue Thomiste, 70 (January-March, 1970): 30-71.

sMaritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 436.

'Ibid "Ibid. p. 437. n. 1. "Ibid. "Ibid. "Ibid., p. 113.

'"Ibid., p. 436. "Italics mine. "Ibid., p. 116. italics mine.

"St. Thomas ST. 1.84.3. and 1.85.2; De Veritate 2.6.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 115. "St. Thomas De Veritate 2. 6.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 87.

21 Ibid, p. 126, n. 1. See Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 79.

"Ibid., p. 120 n. 3. It is by reflection on his acts of understanding that the person maycometo knowthis preconscious process which preceeds the act of understanding. See ibid., p. 77 n. 4;p. 89 n. 1;p. 120 n. 3.

"Ibid., p. 439.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 24.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 439. 26Aristotle On the Soul.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p.79. "Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 88.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 127. "Ibid., p. 98, n. 2. 3'lbid., p. 130.

32"By intelligible we mean knowable by the intellect." Maritain, An Introduction toPhilosophy, p. 140.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 86.

^Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 76.

"Ibid. "Ibid. "Ibid., pp. 77-79. "Ibid. "Ibid.

*°lbid.. pp. 88-93. "'Ibid. «lbid.

43Maritain, Creative Intuition, p. 89. "Ibid., Creative Intuition, p. 79.

45Adistinction between formal objects does not always require a real distinction betweentheir respective acts, and. in turn, their originating powers, e.g. the distinction betweenspeculative and practical knowledge. "It can also be seen how true it is to say that moralphilosophy proceeds modo practico in respect to the conditions of the object known, and theprocess of reasoning, and modo speculativo in respect to the means themselves, ofapprehending and judging." Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 458. "... essences aredisengaged from concrete reality in a concept,... they are in an object for speculativeknowledge ... ."Maritain, Creative Intuition, p.91. "Such is, Ithink the thing grasped by poeticintuition: the singular existent which resounds in the subjectivityof the poet, together with alItheother realities which echoin this existent, and which it conveys in the manner of a sign." Ibid.,p.92.

77

48Wilhelmsen, Man's Knowledge of Reality, p. 96. Brennan, Thomistic Psychology, p.124.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 113,116,126. 48lbid., p. 115.

49'The intellect that illumines and the intellect that knows are by themselves equallyundetermined." Ibid., p. 127. See John of St. Thomas, Curses Phil.: Phil. Nat., IV. p.. q. 10, a. 2.Quoted inJohn Peifer, The Mystery of Knowledge (Albany,N.Y.: MajiBooks. Inc., 1964), p. 129n. 64 (hereafter cited as Peifer, The Mystery of Knowledge).

"Ibid. Another physical analogy will serve to further illuminate the processes of resonare,and re-confirm its applicability to ideogenisis. Black light posters are partially covered withsubstances which absorb ultraviolet light and emit it as visible light. Thus, in a room illuminatedbyan ultraviolet lightalone, onlythose aspects or patterns on the poster which are painted withthe ultraviolet-sensitive substances will emit light and be seen. The non-sensitive areas will beblack and without a pattern. The sensitivity of the substancesas explained in terms of the electronconfiguration of certain types of atoms whereby they absorb,or resonate with, energy of thefrequency or pattern referred to as ultraviolet. Thus the communalityof a specific property canexplain the resonare of this effect.

61 Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 61.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 115, n. 2.

"Ibid., p. 392, n. 1. 54lbid.. p. 116. "Ibid., pp. 116-117,126. n. 1.

"John of St. Thomas Cursus Phil.: Phil. Nat., IX. P., q. 26. a. 2. Quoted in Peifer, TheMystery of Knowledge, p. 127, n. 61.

67St. Thomas Summa Theol, I. P., q. 45. a. 5 and John of St. Thomas. Cursus Phil.: Phil.Nati., I. P., q. 26. a. 2. Quoted in Peifer,The Mystery of Knowledge, p. 128, nn. 62, 63.

"Ibid. Also see John of St. Thomas Phil. Nat., IV. P., q. 10, a. 1. and St. Thomas DeVeritate. q. 10, a. 6 ad 7 and St.ThomasDe Potentia,q.9, a. 5.Quoted inPeifer,The Mystery ofKnowledge, pp. 128, nn. 62,63. p. 131. n. 67, p. 122. n. 53. p. 142. n. 18.

"St. Thomas Quodlibetum V. Q. 5, a. 2 ad 2. Quoted in Peifer. The Mystery ofKnowledge, p. 97, n. 1.

"John of St. Thomas Cursus Phil.: Phil. Nat, IV. P., q. 6, a. 3. Quoted in Peifer. TheMystery of Knowledge, pp. 83, n. 57 and 87, n. 65.

«'St. Thomas Summa Theol., I. P., q. 84, a. 3. Quoted in Peifer, The Mystery ofKnowledge, p. 75. n. 36.

"John of St. Thomas Cursus Phil.: Phil. Nat, IV. P., q. 10, a. 2. Quoted in Peifer, TheMystery of Knowledge, p. 131. n. 67.

"St. Thomas Summa Theol., I. P.,q. 14, a. 2. and St. Thomas. De Potentia, q. 9, a. 5.Quoted in Peifer. The Mystery of Knowledge, pp. 56 n. 48.142. n. 18.

84Johnof St. Thomas Cursus Phil.: Ars Logics, q. 22, a. 3. Quoted in Peifer,The Mysteryof Knowledge, p. 68, n. 18.

"St. ThomasDeVertiate.q.4, a.2.Quoted inPeifer, The Mysteryof Knowledge,p.37, n.57.

"John of St. Thomas Cursus Phil.: Ars Logics. II. P., q. 22, a. 2. Quoted in Peifer, TheMystery of Knowledge p. 158. n. 62.

8'St. Thomas Commentum in Joannem Evangelistam, Cap. I, lect. 1. Quoted in Peifer,The Mystery of Knowledge, p. 34, n. 58.

"John of St. Thomas Cursus Theologicus. Disp. 16. a. 1. Quoted by Peifer, The Mysteryof Knowledge, p. 51.. n. 35.

"St. Thomas DeVeriate, q. 2. a. 5 ad 17. Quotedin Peifer,The Mystery of Knowledge, p.84. n. 62.

78

'"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 112-118.

" Ibid, p. 112. "Ibid, p. 112, n. 1. "Ibid. p. 112. "Ibid., pp. 112-113.

'5lbid. p. 436. 78lbid, p. 113. "Ibid.

"Ibid., pp. 394,399,408,409. '8lbid, pp. 114,123, n. 1. "Ibid., p. 409.

81 Ibid, p. 123, n. 1. "Ibid., p. 409. "Ibid., pp. 126,177. "Ibid, p. 115.

"Ibid, p. 116. "Ibid, p. 125. 8'lbid., p. 126. "Ibid. "Ibid, p. 115.

"John of St. Thomas Cursus Phil.: Phil. Nat. IV. P., q. 8, a. 4. Quoted in Peifer, TheMystery of Knowledge, p. 108. n. 22.

91 Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 117.

92John of St. Thomas Cursus Phil.: Ars Logica. II. P., q. 21, a. 4. Quoted in Peifer, TheMystery of Knowledge, p. 94, n. 79.

"Ibid., Phil. Nat., IV. P.,q. 6, a. 3. Quoted in Peifer, The Mystery of Knowledge, p. 93, n.

Mlbid., q. 8, a. 4. Quoted in Peifer, The Mystery of Knowledge, p. 108, n. 22.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 124.

"Ibid., p. 393. 9'lbid, p. 402. "Ibid., p. 408, n. 1.

"Ibid., p. 117. Also ibid., pp. 121,125.388. '"Ibid., p. 436. "'Ibid., p. 117.

,02St. Thomas, IVContra Gent, cap. 14. Quoted in Peifer,The Mystery of Knowledge, p.166, n. 81.

'"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge p. 117.

,04St. Thomas, De Anima,a. 5 ad 4. Quoted in Peifer, The Mystery of Knowledge, p. 121,n.48.

'"Peifer, The Mystery of Knowledge, p. 122.

'"St. Thomas, DeVeritate, q. 10, a. 6 ad 7. Quoted in Peifer,The Mystery of Knowledge.p. 122, n. 53.

"'Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p-16.

'"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 392; Preface to Metaphysics, p. 62.

'"Ibid, p. 98.

'"Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 17.

'"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 98, n. 3. Also ibid, p. 88.

'"Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 18.

'' 3Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 89, n. 1. ' "Ibid., p. 96.

'"Ibid '"Ibid '"Ibid., p. 97.

'"Maritain, Existence and the Existent P-19. "9Ibid.

"°Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 131. The term "behaves" certainly suggeststhe exercise rather than possession of esse.

"'St. Thomas De Veritate, 1.1.; 1.9.

"'Maritain, The Degreesof Knowledge, p. 97. '"Ibid., p. 89, n. 1. "4lbid., p. 89.

'"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 25.

'"Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 25.

76.

79

NOTES FOR CHAPTER FIVE

'Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism, p. 155.

'Ibid., pp. 149-159. 3lbid„ p. 150, n. 2.

"Ibid., p. 151. Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 119-128 and pp. 387-417.

5Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism, pp. 154.

8Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 114-115.

'Jacques Maritain, "II n'y a pas de savior sans intuitivite,'' Revue Thomiste 70 (1970):30-71.

8"... qui enveloppe une intuitivite." Ibid., p. 31.

9"... jaillissent. a la maniere d'une etincelle d'abord dans ('imagination creatice uneimage novelle vers laquelle I'esprit se tournera, puis dans ('intelligence une assertion nouvellequi changera tout le system d'idees accepte jusqu'alors." Ibid., p. 33.

"Ibid, p. 36. "Ibid.

""en bref, c'est par I'intuitivite du sens que I'esprit regarde alors le reel et est tourne versle reel." Ibid., p. 59. "Ibid., p. 68. 14lbid.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 79-85.

""It requires all metaphysics hitherto elaborated or to be elaborated hereafter in its entirefuture development to know all the riches implicit in the concept of being." Ibid., p. 51.

""... le plus pleinementetleplusparfaitmentl'intuitivitedel'intellect." Maritain, "IIn'y apasde savior sans intuitivite'," p.63.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 50. "Ibid., p. 50.

'"Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 35. Also see, ibid., p. 37.

21"... superior to any discursive reasoning or demonstration because it is the source ofdemonstration." Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 50.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 31.

"Ibid. Also see Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 61.

'"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 51. "It is by producing in conjunction with realitya mental word within itself that the intellect immediately attains being as such, the subject matterof metaphysics." Ibid.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent pp. 33-34.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 51.

"Ibid, p. 66. Also see ibid. p. 67.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 30. "Ibid., p. 25.

"Ibid., p. 24. "... these two linked and associated members of the pair essence-existence, which the mind cannot isolate in separate concepts." Maritain, A Preface toMetaphysics, p. 68.

3'Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 24. "... in other words, the extension of thedoctrine of potencyand act to the relation of the essence and existence, is directly connected withthis intuition. Ibid, p. 35.

"Ibid. pp. 21, 24,43.

"Ibid., p. 33. "Existence isthe term as a functionofwhich metaphysics knows everythingitdoes know...." Ibid., p. 31. Also see ibid., pp. 21,24; Maritain,A Preface to Metaphysics, p.158.

80

^Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p."36.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 69. "Ibid., p. 60.

"Ibid., p. 61. Other such principles are those of Sufficient Reason, Finality,and Causality.See ibid., pp. 90-142. "Ibid., p. 49. "Ibid., pp. 54,55.

40Maritain,The Peasant of the Garonne, p. 162.

41 Ibid, p. 163; also see p. 162. 42lbid.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, pp. 52,53-55. "Ibid., p. 66.

""Here, then, is for man a true experience of the singular existence of his soul through andin its operations." Jacques Maritain, Ransoming the Time (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,1941), p. 270. Also see Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 89, n. 1.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 52.

4The concept of esse is "delivered up to the mind in the very operation which it performseach time that it judges, and from the first judgment." Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p.24. Also see ibid, p. 23.

48"... what is now perceived is, as it were, a pure activity, a subsistence, but a subsistencewhich transcends the entire order of the imaginable, a living tenacity at once percarious... andindomitable." Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 57.

49Ibid., p. 53.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 31.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 394. "Ibid.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 25.

54"The mental word in question makes known what Ithink (composition or division) of thethings (as they are made objects of understanding in set in my concepts of the subject andpredicate)." Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 395.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 25.

"Ibid., p. 26, n. 13.

""From the mere fact that the mind makes its pronouncements about what is, there is areflection in actu exercito of the mind upon itself and upon its conformity with the thing."Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 89, n. 1. "Ibid, p. 77.

"Maritain, Existence and the Existent p. 25.

"Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 127.

61 Maritain, Creative Intuition, pp. 88-89.

"Ibid., p. 3. "Ibid, pp. 88-89 84lbid, p. 88. "Ibid.

"Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics, p. 53. "Ibid., p. 49.

"Ibid, p. 53. "Ibid., pp. 52,53.

"'Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 79. "Ibid.

"Georges Van Reit, Thomistic Epistemology (St. Louis: Herder Book Co., 1963), p. 326.

"Andre Hayen, L'lntentionnel dans la philosophie de Saint Thomas (Paris: Desclee DeBrouwer, 1954), p. 16. Quoted in Van Reit, Thomistic Epistemology, p. 334, n. 126.

"Ibid.

"Mario Bunge, Intuition and Science (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1962); Pierre Duhem,Aim and Structure of Physical Science. (New York: Antheneum, 1962); Michael Polanyi,Science Faith and Society (Chicago:U. of Chicago Press, 1966).

81

'8Mario Bunge, Intuition and Science, p. 96.

"Joseph Owens, St. Thomas and the Future of Metaphysics (Milwaukee: MarqueneUniversity Press, 1957), pp. 33-36.

"This is not a proposal to revive the post-war personalism which emphasized variouslevels of personality (moral, psychological; social and religious) rather than the metaphysicalperson, who participates in them all, but is restricted to none.

82

The notionof"person" isone of the most important in allof theology andphilosophy.

It is also one of the most difficult. Feware those who have developed boththe necessary expertise and the courage to pursue its depths.

Those who have entered upon this research, therefore, deserve ourcommendations and our full support.

The Institute of Catholic Higher Education is privileged to offer this workas a public service.

Robert M. Greenburg received his doctorate in philosophy from St. John'sUniversity, in New York, in 1984.

At present, Dr. Greenburg serves as Vice President for Research at theInstitute.

President, Institute of CatholicHigher Education