Philosophical Review

Aquinas on Sense-Perception
Author(s): John J. Haldane
Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 92, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 233-239
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review
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 The Philosophical Review, XCII, No. 2 (April 1983)

DISCUSSION

AQUINAS ON SENSE-PERCEPTION

John J. Haldane

W hen giving an account of the nature of sense-perception, St.

Thomas Aquinas invokes the idea of the intentional, or spiritual,
reception of the sensible form of the object perceived; and he contrasts this
with the natural mode of reception of a form, as when something acquires a
property by being acted upon. He claims that while some sensations involve
both kinds of modification (touch and taste, for example), what is char-
acteristic of all sense-experience is that it is only possible in so far as the
former mode of reception is present.' He writes that:

External sense-cognition is achieved solely by the modification of the sense by

the sensible. Hence by the form which is impressed by the sensible, sensation
takes place.2

In a recent article,3 S. M. Cohen takes issue with the received interpreta-

tion of Aquinas's theory, and argues that it errs in conceiving of the recep-
tion of sensible forms as involving immateriality. While he refers to several
sources for this view, dating back to de Wulf, Cohen directs his remarks
against the account of St. Thomas's position given by D. W. Hamlyn.4
Here I wish to take note of Cohen's criticisms of that account, and to
comment on his positive thesis: that for Aquinas the 'spiritual' reception of
a form in sensation is a wholly physical process. I shall argue that when one
considers Aquinas's writings there is evidence to support both Hamlyn's
and Cohen's interpretations; and that the implication of this is that the

'Summa Theologiae, Ia, q78, a3. Unfortunately, there is a lack of good, modern
translations of St. Thomas's writings. Among works referred to below the following
exist in complete translations: Summa Theologiae (sixty volumes) Blackfriars edition
(London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1963-75); Aristotle's de Anima with the Commentary of
St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. Foster & Humphries (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1951); The Disputed Questions on Truth, (three volumes) tr. Mulligan, McGlynn &
Schmidt (Chicago: Regnery, 1952-54); and On Being and Essence, tr. Maurer
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1968).
2Questiones Quodlibetales: Quodlibetum V, q5, a2, ad3.
3S. M. Cohen, "St. Thomas Aquinas on the Immaterial Reception of Sensible
Forms," The Philosophical Review, XCI, No. 2 (April 1982), pp. 193-209.
4D. W. Hamlyn, Sensation and Perception (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1961), pp 46-51.

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 JOHN J. HALDANE

Thomist account of sense-experience is self-contradictory. Having said

this, let me note without elaboration that I do not believe that Aquinas's
theory of cognition is worthless. On the contrary, it is a serious attempt to
develop a philosophical theory of cognitive psychology, consistent with the
assumption of epistemological realism; and offers important insights for
those who would attempt such a task today.
Cohen begins his article by extracting from Hamlyn's discussion three
related elements: (a) an interpretation of the distinction between natural
and spiritual reception as marking a difference between types of physical
and nonphysical events; (b) the belief that for Aquinas sensation always
involves a nonphysical event (the spiritual reception of a sensible form);
and (c) the claim that the process of sensation leads to the formation of a
mental item (a 'phantasma') corresponding to the physical alteration in th
sense organ. Cohen's own view, which he supports by reference to various
texts, principally the Summa Theologiae, involves the rejection of all three
elements:

I think that contrary to (a) and (b) Aquinas holds that the reception of a
sensible form, whether natural or spiritual, is always a physical event, and that
contrary to (c) the spiritual reception of a sensible form results not in a mental
image, but in a physical likeness.5

In a section of a work in which he comments on Aristotle's views, St.

Thomas distinguishes two modes of being (esse natural and esse intentionale)
corresponding to the different ways in which forms can be received:

Now there is this difference between these two divisions of being, that in so far
as a thing is material, it is restricted by its matter to being this particular thing
and nothing else, e.g., a stone; whilst in so far as it is immaterial, a thing is free
from the restriction of matter and thereby is in a certain way unlimited, so that
it is not merely this particular subject but, in a certain sense, it is other things as
well ... in the lower terrestial natures there are two degrees of immateriality.
There is the perfect immateriality of intelligible being; for in the intellect
things exist not only without matter, but even without their individuating
material conditions and also apart from any material organ. Then there is the
half-way state of sensible being. For as things exist in sensation they are free
indeed from matter, but are not without their individuating conditions, nor
apart from a bodily organ.6

To make sense of this claim about some things being both themselves
and others, one has to understand something of the metaphysics standing

5Cohen, pp 194-95.
6In Aristotelis Librum de Anima Commentarium, Lib II, Ch III, Lectio 5, 282-84.
Compare this with ST, Ia, q14, al: "the difference between knowing and non-
knowing subjects is that the latter have nothing but their own form, whereas a
knowing subject is one whose nature it is to have in addition the form of something
else; for the likeness of the thing known is in the knower."

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 AQUINAS ON SENSE-PERCEPTION

behind Aquinas's theory of cognition. Throughout his writings he charac-

terizes cognition in terms of existence. In De Veritate he writes as follows:

This is the perfection of a knower qua knower, for something is known by a

knower only in so far as the known is somehow in the knower . .. in which way
it is possible for the totality of the whole universe to exist in one thing.7

All states of awareness, be they perceptual or conceptual, involve the cog-

nitive presence of their objects: somehow the world can come to be in a
subject. Aquinas also expresses this view by speaking of the identity of the
known and the knower.
This state of affairs in which the object of cognition is in the subject in
such a way that he or she can be said to become it, calls out for an explana-
tion, which Aquinas provides by reference to a distinction between nature
or form, and existence. Put briefly the claim is that natures can be in
different ways: one and the same form can exist in esse intentionale, and in
esse naturale. A particular material substance is so much matter organized
by a substantial form-that of humanity, for example. In this case the
individual is naturally a man, i.e., humanity is exemplified in esse naturale;
however, this individual has the power to receive other forms (including
humanity) not naturally but intentionally. For Aquinas this is what cogni-
tion consists in: the presence in esse intentionale of a form or nature:
"knowledge in us is the stamping of things on our minds,"8 and this is
explained more fully in the Summa:

We have actual sensation or actual knowledge because our intellect or our

senses are informed by the species or likeness of the sensible or intelligible
object.9

Elsewhere he connects this explanation with the ontological claim about

distinct modes of being:

And it is thus that a sense receives form without matter, the form having, in the
sense, a different mode of being from that which it has in the object sensed. In
the latter it has a material mode of being (esse natural) but in the sense, a
cognitional and spiritual mode (esse intentionale).10

No doubt this theory is open to serious objections, but it is not to the

point to consider these here. Rather it should be noted that for Aquinas
the proper objects of awareness are not individuals but forms or universals
(species), and hence the issue arises of our knowledge of particulars. Since
the content of a thought of a thing "is in some way the very quiddity or
nature of the thing existing intentionally, and not naturally as it is in

7De Veritate, II, 2.

8De Veritate, II, 2, al, ad2.
9ST, la, ql4, a2.
'I0n de Anima, Lib II, Ch XII, Lectio 24, 553.

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 JOHN J. HALDANE

things," " it follows that the content of Peter's thought of Paul is specifical-
ly the same as that of his thoughts of Andrew and of James. What is
required therefore, is some individuating component which will secure the
reference of an act of awareness to a particular; and this is provided in
Aquinas's accoung by what is, in effect, a causal link from subject to object
via sensation. This is the importance of the remarks towards the end of
one of the passages I cited above:

as things exist in sensation they are free indeed from matter, but are not
without their individuating conditions, nor apart from a bodily organ.12

In answer to Wittgenstein's question: what makes my thought of him a

thought of him? Aquinas would reply that there must be the form of
humanity existing intentionally in the thinker, and a causal connection
with the particular man, involving sensation. The latter provides the neces-
sary correspondence between the universal humanity and its natural ex-
emplification by the individual being thought of.
In considering this theory of cognition, a problem suggests itself: if
singular reference is secured via a sensory component which retains the
individuating conditions resulting from matter, must not that component
be physical?-some kind of imprint perhaps? Conversely, if it is, as Aqui-
nas frequently claims, immaterial, how can it retain its relation to an indi-
vidual, and thereby determine awareness to that particular? It appears as if
Aquinas attributes both immateriality and singular intentionality to the
form existing in sensation; but given other of his views this should be an
impossibility.
As mention of forms, species, and natures makes clear, Aquinas is a
realist about universals. However, his account of the matter differs signifi-
cantly from that of Aristotle with whom he is often compared. For while he
does not deny that there are general natures, he maintains that they do not
exist as such outside of cognition. In nature there are only individualized
forms:'3 to speak off-ness existing in esse natural is always to designat
some particular case off-ness-the f-ness of a, for example-consisting of
a quantity of mater (materia signata quantitate) characterized in a certain
way. Aquinas writes:

Matter limits form because a form as such may be shared by many things, but
when acquired by matter becomes determinately the form of this thing.'4

" Quodlibetum VI II, q2, a2.

'2Quodlibetum V.
'3For an interesting interpretation of this doctrine which connects it with Frege's
claim that Concepts are incomplete, see: P. Geach, "Form and Existence," in God and
the Soul, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), pp 42-64.
14ST, Ia, 17, al.

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 AQUINAS ON SENSE-PERCEPTION

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are all men, but while humanity is in each it is
not present qua universal; there is only the humanity of Socrates, that of
Plato, and that of Aristotle-each nature numerically distinct though spe-
cifically alike: "there is nothing common in Socrates; everything in him is
individuated."15
I suspect that this theory is incoherent and collapses to a version of
universalia in rebus, for there cannot be a plurality of human natures, but
only the one nature multiply exemplified. Setting this aside, however, and
staying with Aquinas's position, it becomes clear that the only way in which
a nature can exist qua universal is if it is removed (somehow) from the
matter that determines it to particularity. Matter is the principle of indi-
viduation, so if it is left out what remains is no longer particular but exists
in a state of universality. Standardly, the way in which natures come to be
separated from matter is in cognition. As was seen, awareness consists in
the reception of a form without its matter. This is the process of abstrac-
tion, whereby the intellect reveals the species contained in the products of
sense-experience (the phantasmata):

Now to know something which in fact exists in individuated matter, but not as
existing in such or such matter is to abstract as form, from individual matter
represented by sense images (phantasms).16

Cohen quotes Aquinas as holding that phantasmata are in bodily organs,

and argues that sensation (as opposed to intellectual cognition) does not
involve anything other than physical events.17 Certainly this account gains
some support from the passages cited in his article; and the physicality of
sensation appears to be a necessary condition of singular cognition, given
the ontological theory of awareness. Yet, it is clear that Aquinas also wants
to account for sensation in terms of esse intentional; and recognition of this
fact is one of the factors underlying Hamlyn's interpretation of the Tho-
mist view. But to treat sensation as the "reception of the form impressed by
the sensible,"'8 prohibits appeal to it in the explanation of knowledge of
the individual.
It appears then that one or other of the following must be abandoned: a
sensory element secures singular reference, which is what Aquinas main-
tains; in which case it must be something physical, one term of a causal
relation existing between the subject and an object; or, it is, like its intellec-
tual counterpart a concept (the intelligible species), an immaterial item, a
form or nature existing in esse intentional, and hence universal in its repre-

'5De Ente et Essentia, III.

16ST, Ia, q85, al.
17Cohen, p201.
18 Quodlibetum V, q5, a2, ad2.

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 JOHN J. HALDANE

sentation, for it is a general feature. Clearly it cannot be both. Aquinas's

talk of "two grades of immaterial experience," one fully fledged, the other
"the half-way state of sensible being,"'19 is simply a vain attempt to combine
incompatible features.
Here I am inclined to agree with Hamlyn's diagnosis of the problem:

Phantasmata, then are postulated as the mental products of the stimulation of

our senses. They are introduced to fill a gap in a causal theory of perception,
even if they are not thought of as perceptions themselves. Once it is admitted
that the mind can be affected by external objects through the reception of
species, a link must be found between the stimulation of the sense organ and
the final judgement about those objects.20

At the same time, I think Cohen is right to argue that to discharge its
role in St. Thomas's theory, sensation must be a physical process and the
phantasmata, its products, physical items. Where I believe that Cohen is
mistaken is firstly, in denying that Aquinas sometimes supposes other-
wise-a claim at odds with the texts I have cited; and secondly, in trying to
give his physicalist interpretation of sense-experience in terms of the re-
ception of a sensible form.
If any progress is to be made in developing a theory of cognition embod-
ying the Thomist notion of intentional being, one must abandon the ap-
plication of the doctrine in respect of sensation. It may well be that the true
answer to Wittgenstein's question is the one I indicated above: a thought of
him involves the form of humanity existing intentionally in the thinker,
and in addition a causal link via sensation with the object of thought. But it
is neither necessary nor possible to extend the account of the reception of
forms to the sensations which give rise to thought and secure its reference.
Of course Aquinas may be right in holding that sense-experience neces-
sarily involves the immaterial reception of the form of the object. Indeed,
given the Thomist theory of intellectual cognition, and the independently
plausible claim that all perception is conceptually informed, this would
follow. For what concepts are, according to Aquinas, are intelligible species,
i.e., universals abstracted from the material conditions that individualized
them. However, sense-experience is not sensation, and in tending to con-
flate the two Aquinas, as have others, misapplies his theory with disastrous
consequences.
Given his account of knowledge, sensation has to discharge two func-
tions: (a) it has to provide the material, or the conditions, out of which
universals are formed in the intellect; and (b) it has to provide a route from
f-ness qua universal, which is as such particular-indifferent, to thef-ness o

'9In de Anima 284.

20Hamlyn, p 49.

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 AQUINAS ON SENSE-PERCEPTION

x, or rather to the x which is f. Both requirements could not be met if, as

Aquinas sometimes claims (and pace Cohen), sensation is the intentional
reception of a form. I want to distance myself from the general assessment
of the Thomist theory of knowledge given by Hamlyn:

it is the combination of these three theories-atomist epistemology, Aristo-

telian theory of mind, and Thomist psychology-in one apparatus, which leads
to the involution of his theory and a justified accusation of 'Scholasticism' in a
perjorative sense of that word.2'

But I believe he is correct in identifying in Aquinas's characterization of

the nature of sensation, the attempt to combine elements of an atomist
epistemology, with an Aristotelian account of the nature of the intellect.
The way out of the contradiction this leads to, is to allow that sensation is a
physical process having physical products; and as Cohen's interesting dis-
cussion indicates, this is a move St. Thomas seems at times to have
favored.22

Birkbeck College, University of London

21Hamlyn, p 51.
221 am grateful to D. W. Hamlyn for his comments on an earlier version of this
discussion. In conversation he has suggested a further possible reason why Aquinas
might have been inclined to an immaterialist view of sensation: in effect, the qualia
objection of a physicalist account of psychological items. However, I think that it
would be open to a Thomist who wanted to maintain such a theory, with respect to
sensation at least, to argue that qualia are properties of the physical realization of
phantasmata.

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