The Discursive Power: sources and doctrine of the Vis Cogitativa according to St. Thomas Aquinas By George P. Klubertanz, S. J. (review)

Book Reviews133 student. We recommend the work especially for Franciscan seminars: the first opuscule strongly influenced the doctrine on the Assumption in the Early Franciscan School, and the second one is written by a Franciscan. Eligius M. Buytaert, O. F. M. Franciscan Institute The Discursive Power: sources and doctrine of the Vis Cogitativa according to St. Thomas Aquinas. By George P. Klubertanz, S. J. (St. Louis: The Modern Schoolman, 1952. Pp. VII-353. Paper. % 5,00.) To appreciate this dissertation (Toronto, 1947), one must realize the lack of any extensive Uterature on the inner senses considered from the historical viewpoint. Apart from a few articles such as that by H. A. Wolfson in the Harvard Theological Review (1935) and the thesis of Fr. E. J. Ryan, The Role of the "Sensus Communis" in the Psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas (1951), most studies are content to consider the topic from a systematic viewpoint based on the doctrine of Saint Thomas. Father Klubertanz essays to give both the historical background as well as a detailed study of the Angelic Doctor. Though his primary subject is the discursive power, the vis cogitativa, the very nature of his research has resulted in an over-all history of the interior powers of sense-cognition. The first half of the thesis, therefore, is devoted to a detailed survey from Aristotle to Saint Albert the Great; the remainder, to an analysis of the doctrine of Saint Thomas, also undertaken in the approximate historical order of his works. The result is a most valuable contribution to the history of psychology, indeed to psychology itself. Since the work stops with Saint Thomas, it does not propose to be a fuU history of the doctrine of the interior senses. The author hints at later developments when he writes (pp. 7—8) that Francisco Suarez urged a return to the theory of a single internal sense. Citing Suarez, Hugo Cavellus in his annotations to Scotus' Quaestiones super libros de anima (Vives ed., torn. Ill, p. 521) claims that this was also the teaching of Duns Scotus against Henry of Ghent. Many moderns are of Uke opinion. The historical survey rightly begins with Aristotle (i. e., the Corpus Aristotelicum ) and the classic Greek commentators. In the former one finds the scanty beginnings of a theory on the internal sensory powers; the classical AristoteUans, however, are disappointing in their lack of any doctrinal development. The physician Galen, inspired to some extent by the Stoics, would appear to have had greater influence. Specifically, he locaUzed the imagination, reason and memory in corresponding ventricles of the brain; this doctrine, with later additions, held sway until the Middle Ages. The tri-partite division of the brain is found in (though not whoUy accepted by) Gregory of Nyssa (whom the author unfortunately omits despite his influence on William of Saint-Thierry); it is taught by Nemesius and the latter's faithful "plagiarist", Saint John Damascene (through whom the doctrine came to John de la RocheUe). Costa-ben-Luca seems responsible for further 134Franciscan Studies divisions of each ventricle, a theory adopted by Avicenna, repeated by Algazel, and modified by Averroes. Paralleling the doctrines of localization are corresponding theories of the number and functions of the inner senses. The over-all picture is admittedly confused and lacking in unity. Nor is uniformity to be found later among the Scholasticis, since some held to five and even six inner senses, while Saint Thomas preferred to adopt the Averroist position of four interior powers. Throughout this survey, Father Klubertanz endeavors primarily, of course, to discover the early developments of the vis cogitativa, as a background for Saint Thomas, who alone of the Scholastics paid adequate attention to the problems involved in this particular power of sense cognition. Nevertheless, the work is most helpful in its general survey of the wider history of aU the interior senses. Its value is somewhat marred by the failure to include discoveries made on the Scholastics in the interval between the writing of the thesis and its publication. Little or no use is made of Dom Lottin's Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, the study of Monsignor Geyer on the Philosophia...