Showing posts with label Dietrich of Freiberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dietrich of Freiberg. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Dietrich of Freiberg on Univocity

Here are some remarks of Dietrich's I came across, though their actual status (what he himself thinks of them) is unclear to me. The first paragraph appears to be a position he himself rejects.

De visione beatifica, 4.2.1 (Opera omnia I, 109)

positions of "others"

"Quamvis autem uniquicque enti determinato correspondeat aliqua determinata et propria ratio apud intellectum agentem sive ex prioribus rei secundum naturam sive ex posterioribus confecta, in qua unumquodque entium intelligitur, totalitati tamen seu universitati entium non respondet aliqua una communis ratio univoca, quae adaequet totam entium universitatem, sed sola universalitas talis intellectus, quae attenditur in essentia sua, correspondet universitati seu totalitati entium.

Cuius causa est, quoniam propria ratio rei dicens quid est seu ipsae partes formales, ex quibus huiusmodi ratio conficitur, habent rationem principii respectu rei, cuius est propria ratio, principii, inquam, et secundum rationem essendi et secundum rationem innotescendi seu intelligendi. Ratio autem concepta virtute intellectus agentis de entibus separatis, si qua sunt puri intellectus, non habet ratinem principii respectu eorum. Esset enim intellectus agens talibus entibus separatis et principium intelligendi et principium essendi in genere intelligibilium, quod est impossibile."

Dietrich responds with some statements based on the De anima that the agent intellect does make all things to be in the soul.

Translation [a painful one]:

"Although there corresponds some determinate and proper ratio in the agent intellect to any determinate being, or from something prior of the thing acccording to nature or gathered from posteriors, in which any being is understood, nevertheless some one common univocal notion does not correspond to the totality or university of beings, a notion which is adequate to the total universe of beings, but only the universality of such an intellect, which is noted in its own essence, does there correspond to the totality or universality of beings.

The cause of which is, since the proper notion of a thing means the what it is or its formal parts, from which a notion of this kind is constructed, it has the notion of a principle with respect to the thing, of which it is the proper notion; principle, I say, and according to the notion of being and according to the notion of coming to know or understanding. But a notion conceived by the power of the agent intellect of separate beings, if they are of the intellect alone, does not have the notion of principle with respect to them. For the agent intellect would be a principle of understanding and of being for such separate beings in the genus of intelligibiles, which is impossible.