William of Ockham and the Self

WILLIAM OF OCKHAM AND THE SELF IIntroduction N QUESTION 87 of the Summa Theologiae St. Thomas wrote the following: The intellect knows itself,. not by its essence but by its act. This happens in two ways: in the first place, singularly, as when Socrates or Plato perceives that he has an intellectual soul because he perceives that he understands. He indicates that there is a second kind of knowledge of the intellectual soul which is universal in nature and which is derived foom a knowledge of the intellectual act. This requires a careful and subtle inquiry. For the first kind of knowledge, however, there is only required the presence of the mind to itself. The mere presence of the mind suffices for the first; since the mind itself is the principle of action whereby it perceives itself by its own presence.1 Less than a century later William of Ockham could write the following: If we understand by the intellectual soul an immaterial. and incorruptible form which is totally in the whole and totally in each part, we cannot know either through reason or experience that we possess such a form? 1 S. Th., I, 87, 1. 2 Quodlibid Primum, Quaestio Decima, Strasbourg Edition, 1491. "Dico quod intelligendo per animam intellectivam formam immaterialem incorruptibilem quae tota est in toto et tota in qualibet parte, non potest sciri evidenter per rationem vel experientiam quod talis forma sit in nobis, neque intelligere talem substantiam proprium sit in nobis, nee quod talis anima sit forma corporis. Quidquid de hoc senserit Aristoteles non curo, quia ubique dubitative videtur loqui. Sed ista tria sola fide tenemus." 415 416 HARRY R. KLOCKER, S. J. He adds that he cares not what Aristotle said about this because he seems to be doubtful about it himself. Ockham accepts the very existence of such an intellectual and incorruptible soul only on faith. The radical change in the position taken by Ockham is startling. It is the purpose of this article to trace the process which led Ockham to the position he took. The Object of Knowledge It seems that if anyone could be immediately aware of the presence in man of an intellectual soul, that person was 'William of Ockham. In order to safeguard the certainty of human knowing he had carefully distinguished between intuitive and abstract knowledge. He rejected the Thomistic contention that the universal is known intellectually prior to the singular in which it is grounded. If this were so, what possible certitude could be had for the objectivity of such a universal? But if the existing singular is known first, the ground for existential objectivity is there. Not only is this true of material singulars existing outside the mind, but it is also true of those acts of the intellect and will which we elicit. They, too, can become by a reflexive act immediate objects of our knowledge. Such knowledge depends on a previous act of intuition of the object of such acts of knowing, affection, joy, etc., but the intellect can turn directly to the interior act and apprehend it intuitively. The mind can know intuitively some things which are interior, for example, acts of intellection and willing and delight independently of the senses, .... although some other intuitive knowledge is presupposed.3 He is, however, careful to add that such intuitions are only of the acts, not of habits or other intelligibles in the soul. Now one could leap to a facile conclusion based on Ockham's insistence that every reality is a unique singular and that from 1 Ibid., 14. "Utrum intellectus noster pro statu isto cognoscat actus suos intuitive ... dico quod sic. Et ratio est quia de cognitione intellectus et volitionis formatur propositio contingens quae evidenter cognoscitur ab intellectu nostro; puta, talis: Intellectio et volitio est." WILLIAM OF OCKHAM AND THE SELF 417 one such singular another cannot be known. Hence, the argument could be made that, since each act of the soul is a singular act, one is not justified in asserting the existence of the soul as the subject of the act. After all, the act is not the soul, and, as is well known, God by His absolute power is...