Simple Apprehension and The Concept

a. Definition of Simple Apprehension

To show its connection with what we have already had, we shall first define simple apprehension as the operation by which we grasp the meaning of a term. Suppose, for instance, that you hear the word “chiliagon,” which means “thousand-sided figure,” and that you advert to its meaning: the operation by which you know the meaning of this term is an example of simple apprehension.

However, simple apprehension precedes our use of terms and frequently we know what a thing is without being able to call it by a suitable term. Hence, it is better and more philosophical to define simple apprehension without reference to terms.

Without reference to terms, simple apprehension is defined as the operation of the mind by which we mentally grasp a thing, making it present in and to our minds but without affirming or denying anything about it.

The words “operation of the mind” express the proximate genus 1 of simple apprehension; that is, what simple apprehension has in common with the things that resemble it most closely. These words differentiate simple apprehension from non-mental operations such as those of the will and the sensory faculties but not from judgment and reasoning, which are also mental operations.

The words “by which we mentally grasp a thing. . .” express the specific difference of simple apprehension; that is, what differentiates simple apprehension from the things that resemble it most closely. These words differentiate simple apprehension from other mental operations by expressing its special function, which is merely to lay hold of, seize, grasp, reproduce, express, or represent the essences, or quiddities, of things, thus making things present in and to our minds, but without affirming or denying anything about them. To affirm or deny is the specific function of judgment.

We can define simple apprehension more briefly as the operation by which we grasp the essences of things. You will understand the propriety of this definition more clearly when we have taken up the formal object of simple apprehension.

b. The Object of Simple Apprehension

First we shall explain the general notion of object, of material object, and of formal object; then we shall apply what we have said about object in general to the object of simple apprehension.

1. GENERAL NOTION OF OBJECT. An OBJECT, in the technical sense in which the word is commonly used in philosophy, is a thing inasmuch as this thing is the terminus of a cognitive or appetitive faculty. Antecedently to its being known (at least potentially), a thing is not an object; but on becoming known, it becomes an object. To the notion of “thing,” the notion of “object” adds a relation¬ ship to a cognitive or appetitive faculty—that is, to an intellect, a will, or a sense faculty. However, at present we shall speak only of the objects of cognitive faculties.

Philosophers distinguish between the material object and the formal object. This distinction is not only of great importance in our analysis of simple apprehension but also in the definitions of the various sciences.

A MATERIAL OBJECT is the whole object just as it is in itself, together with all its attributes and relationships.

A FORMAL OBJECT is the special aspect of the material object that a faculty or operation grasps directly and immediately. It is what we know about the material object through the use of some faculty or by means of some operation. Notice that the formal object is the material object itself but only insofar as the material object enters directly into cognition.

An example may help to clarify the notions of material and formal object.

Suppose you are standing on a hilltop and see an object at a great distance. At first, let us say, you know it merely as something; but as it comes closer, you know it successively as an animal, as a man, as a big man, as a well dressed man, and finally as John Smith. Now the material object of each act of cognition was the same—it was all of John Smith, as he is in himself, together with all his attributes and relationships; but the formal object, or what you knew about John Smith, increased progressively with each successive act.

2. APPLICATION TO SIMPLE APPREHENSION. We shall now apply what we have just said of the general notion of object, material object, and formal object to the object, the material object, and the formal object of simple apprehension.

The OBJECT of simple apprehension is what we grasp by simple apprehension. This object is always something distinct from the mental operation by which we grasp it and belongs either to the real order of actual (or possible) existence, to the imaginary order of fiction and fairy tale, or the purely mental order.

The MATERIAL OBJECT of simple apprehension is the whole thing that is known by simple apprehension: it is the thing as it is in itself, together with all its attributes and relationships. The material object of simple apprehension includes not only what we know about the thing grasped by simple apprehension (that is, its formal object), but also all else that is knowable in the thing.

The FORMAL OBJECT of simple apprehension is the essences, or quiddities, of things. In other words, simple apprehension does not grasp whether a thing is—which is the function of judgment— but only what a thing is. If we grasp what a thing is, no matter how vaguely or indeterminately, even if we grasp it only as a vague and indeterminate “something”—or as “something big, ‘something colored,” “something far away,” and so on—we grasp its essence, or quiddity, in the sense in which we understand these words here. [Note: We are using "essence" in its broadest meaning; in a later chapter we shall use "essence" in its strict and proper sense in which it signifies the basic intelligible elements of the comprehension of a concept.]

It is extremely important to bear in mind that the object of simple apprehension is not merely the sensible qualities of a thing—such as what it looks like, sounds like, feels like, tastes like, or smells like— and that simple apprehension is not like taking a little photograph or a sound-recording of a thing. Simple apprehension, rather, is an intellectual grasping of what a thing is.

c. The Concept

A CONCEPT is the mental expression of an essence or quiddity. It is the product that simple apprehension produces within the mind as a means of knowing the essences of things. It is a pure “image,” or sign, whose whole essence is to be only a sign and nothing else, and whose sole formal function is to give knowledge of whatever it signifies. For this reason it is called a formal sign.

Now, you do not know a formal sign first and then the thing it signifies; you know both of them simultaneously. First you direct your attention primarily to the thing it signifies, and you know the sign concomitantly; then, if you direct your attention to the sign itself, you know the thing concomitantly. It is impossible to know either of them without knowing the other.

The study of concepts belongs to many branches of philosophy Insofar as concepts are modifications of a thinking subject and physical accidents inhering in the soul, their study belongs to the philosophy of human nature. Insofar as they are representations of things, their study belongs to epistemology, criteriology, and to some extent to metaphysics. Only insofar as they are genera, species, specific differences, and so on, and insofar as they are the subjects and predicates of propositions and the terms of syllogisms, are concepts the concern of logic.

Of the innumerable classifications of concepts, we shall take only those that have some bearing on logic. Carefully note the point of view from which each classification is made. This point of view is called the basis of classification or division. If you understand this basis, it will be very easy for you to understand and remember the following definitions.

a. First and Second Intention

For medieval philosophers, “intention” signified an act of the mind as representative of things. By a first act of the mind we merely grasp the essence, or nature, of a thing; we do not advert to the special mode of existence that the thing has as it exists in the mind and gets as a result of being known. By a second, reflective act we become aware of the attributes that an essence, or nature, has as it exists in the mind but does not have in the real order.

Hence, a FIRST INTENTION is a concept by which we grasp what a thing is according to its own proper being and without our adverting to the special mode of existence that the thing has as it exists in the mind and gets as a result of being known. Thus, when I say “Man is mortal,” “man” is a first intention, because man is mortal as he exists or can exist in the real order. Man is mortal whether we think of him or not. Similarly, in the proposition “A dog is an animal,” “dog” is a first intention, because a dog’s existence as an animal does not depend on our thinking of him.

A SECOND INTENTION is a concept in which, after grasping what a thing is according to its own proper being, we also advert to the special mode of existence that the thing has as it exists in the mind. Thus when I say “Man is a universal concept,” “man” is a second intention, because man exists as a universal concept only as a result of being thought of. Man is not a universal concept as he exists in the real order, but only as he exists in the mind. In “Man is a species” “man” is also a second intention, because man does not exist as a species except in the mind.

b. Concrete and Abstract Concepts

Abstraction consists in considering one aspect of a thing while omitting other aspects.

In one sense, all conceptual knowledge is abstract because it expresses certain aspects of its material object while leaving other aspects unexpressed. The concept “man,” for instance, is abstract in the sense that it expresses only the essence “man” and omits innumerable differences (for instance, sex, race, weight, height, social status, and so on). As opposed to abstract in this sense, terms like “this man” and “John Smith” are concrete, since they stand for an individual being and include all his attributes (at least indeterminately).

However, in the classification we are about to take up, we shall call a concept concrete or abstract from a different point of view. We shall call it concrete if it expresses a “subject” and a “form” but abstract if it expresses a “form” only and omits the “subject” in which this form inheres. We shall now explain this classification.

Compare “animal” with “animality,” “long” with “length,” and “white” with “whiteness.” If you have an animal, that animal has animality; and the concept “animality” expresses what it is that makes the animal an animal. If you have a long thing, that long thing has length; and “length” expresses what it is that makes the long thing long. If you have a white thing, that white thing has whiteness; and “whiteness” expresses what it is that makes the white thing white. If a thing has animality, it is an animal; if it has length, it is long; and if it has whiteness, it is white.

Whatever has, or is looked upon as having, a perfection or attribute embodied in itself is called the subject of that perfection or attribute. Previously we spoke of the subjects of propositions. Now we are speaking of subjects as possessing perfections. A perfection, or attribute, is looked upon as inhering in (embodied in) the subject that possesses it. The perfection, or attribute, itself is called form. Thus, “animality” is the form that makes its subject an animal; “length” is the form that makes its subject long; and “whiteness” is the form that makes its subject white.

1. A CONCRETE CONCEPT is one that presents to the mind a form as inherent in a subject. It presents to the mind both a form (that is, a perfection or attribute) and the subject in which that form (perfection or attribute) is embodied. “Animal,” “long,” and “white” are concrete. They present to the mind the forms “animality,” “length,” and “whiteness” together with the subjects in which these forms inhere.

(The demonstrative pronouns “this,” “that,” and so on, are concrete terms that present only a subject to the mind without expressing a form at all. But such pronouns, strictly speaking, do not signify concepts because they do not express what a thing is but merely point out a subject of perfection.)

All adjectives signify concrete concepts. Even if an adjective modifies an abstract noun, what is signified by the adjective is regarded as concrete, because it is looked upon as inhering in what is signified by the abstract noun. Thus, what is signified by “great” in “great height” is looked upon as a form inhering in the subject “height.”

2. AN ABSTRACT CONCEPT is one that presents to the mind a form (perfection, or attribute) as separated from its subject (such a concept as “animality,” “whiteness,” and “length”). It does not express what a subject is, but that which makes a subject what it is. “Animality,” for instance, expresses the perfection that makes an animal an animal.

c. Absolute and Connotative

Is a thing presented to the mind as a substance, or as an accident inhering in a substance? If as a substance, the concept is absolute; if as an accident inhering in a substance, the concept is connotative.

1. AN ABSOLUTE CONCEPT (as opposed to a connotative concept) is one that presents its object to the mind as an independent reality, either as a substance or as though it were a substance. It either expresses the subject in which the form that it sets before the mind inheres (“man,” “animal,” and “sun”), or else it abstracts from the subject altogether (“humanity,” “animality,” “kindness”). All abstract concepts are absolute in this latter sense. Absolute concepts are also called “nonconnotative concepts.” [Note: “Absolute concept” is also opposed to “relative concept.” In this sense it means a concept that (unlike a relative concept) can be thought of and defined without reference to anything else. ]

2. A CONNOTATIVE CONCEPT is one that presents its object to the mind as an accident actually inhering in, and therefore implying, a substance. It directly sets before the mind a form and merely “connotes,” but does not express, the subject in which the form inheres. “Long,” “acrobat,” “rider,” and “weak” are connotative concepts.

All adjectives signify connotative concepts; so do nouns like “orator,” “teacher,” “pupil,” and so on, which express accidental modifications of a being (a man) that is substantially complete. This synoptic diagram shows the relationship of concrete and abstract, as well as of absolute and connotative, concepts to both form and the subject in which form inheres.

d. Positive and Negative Concepts

Does a concept present a thing to the mind according to what the thing is or what it has, or according to what the thing is not or what it lacks?

1. A POSITIVE CONCEPT presents a thing to the mind according to what it is or what it has; for instance, "being," "man," "rational," "rationality," and "living."

2. A NEGATIVE CONCEPT presents a thing to the mind according to what the thing is not or what the thing lacks; for instance, “non-being,” “non-man,” “irrational,” “irrationality,” and “dead.”

No concept is entirely negative in all respects; for every concept must, in some way or other, be an expression of “something,” and “something” must be positive in at least some respect. Even “non-being” is positive insofar as the mind gives it a kind of mental being.

Negative concepts are called infinite or indefinite concepts if they include in their extension everything not expressed by the corresponding positive concept. Thus, “non-man” is an infinite, or indefi¬ nite, concept because it includes in its extension all that is not man —“man” and “non-man,” together, embrace the whole of both the real and the conceptual orders.

We shall treat of negative concepts in greater detail in the next section where we take up contradictory, privative, and contrary concepts.

e. Classifications Based on Mutual Relationships

The following classifications are based on the various relationships that two concepts can have towards one another.

1. UNCONNECTED CONCEPTS are so related that the absence or presence of one in a subject neither implies nor excludes the presence of the other in the same subject; for instance, flat-footed and “bald,” “tall” and “cold,” “little” and “white.” A man can be both flat-footed and bald, neither flat-footed nor bald, flat-footed but not bald, or bald but not flat-footed. The absence or presence of flat-footedness in a man neither implies nor excludes baldness in the same man, and vice versa. There is simply no connection be¬ tween flat-footedness and baldness, tallness and coldness, littleness and whiteness.

2. CONNECTED CONCEPTS are so related that the absence or presence of one of them in a subject either implies or excludes the presence of the other in the same subject, and vice versa. In other words, connected concepts either must be, or cannot be, simultaneously realized in the same thing. Briefly, they either include one another or exclude one another.

a. Concepts That Include One Another are either convertible or non-convertible.

1-CONVERTIBLE CONCEPTS have the same comprehension and ex¬ tension; for instance, a concept and its definition (“man” and “rational animal”), a species and a specific property (“living organism” and “mortal”), and so on. Convertible concepts are also called reciprocal, interchangeable, or identical concepts. (You will recall that an A proposition whose subject and predicate have identical comprehension can be converted by a materially valid conversion.)

2-NON-CONVERTIBLE CONCEPTS are so related that the one includes the other in its comprehension but is not included in it. A genus and species, for instance, are non-convertible, as “animal” and “dog.” “Dog” has the entire comprehension of “animal” and, besides that, whatever attributes make a dog a dog rather than some other animal. Every dog is an animal; but it does not follow from this that every animal is a dog. Non-convertible concepts are also called non¬ reciprocal concepts.

A knowledge of convertible and non-convertible concepts is necessary for making materially valid conversions of propositions.

b. Concepts That Exclude One Another are relative, opposed in the strict sense, or disparate. The following classifications of concepts are of importance in obversion, contraposition, inversion, oppositional inference, and certain types of material eduction.

1-RELATIVE CONCEPTS are mutually exclusive and so related that neither of them can be thought of without reference to the other. Both of two relative concepts must be understood simultaneously, and each belongs to the definition of the other; for instance, “husband” and “wife,” “master” and “servant,” “subject” and “ruler,” and “cause” and “effect.” It is impossible for each of two relative concepts to be realized in the same subject, at least in the same respect. A parent, for instance, cannot be its own offspring—although a parent is offspring in relation to its own parent. Such concepts are often called “correlatives.”

Concepts like “big,” “small,” “heavy,” and so on, are relative in a different sense. Their very notion implies a reference, or comparison, to a standard. For instance, an elephant is a big or small elephant in comparison with the normal size of elephants; and a mouse is a big or small mouse in comparison with the normal size of mice. An elephant can be a small elephant and still be bigger than a big mouse.

2-STRICTLY OPPOSED CONCEPTS include contradictories, privative concepts (as opposed to the perfections whose absence they express), and the two kinds of contrary concepts.

a-Contradictory Concepts are so related that the one is the simple negation of the other; for instance, “man” and “non-man,” and “being” and “non-being.” Such concepts, taken together, include in their extension all beings of all orders (real and mental, possible and even impossible—for even impossible things are conceived of in imitation of what is or can be.) Absolutely everything is either the one or the other of two contradictory concepts. Thus, anything you can think of is either a man or a non-man. Whatever is not a man—whether it is a lion, a house, a number, or absolute nothing—is a non-man. [Note: Concepts like "non-man" depend on previous judgments. We get them by obverting a proposition (for instance, "A dog is not a man" to "A dog is a non-man") and then considering just the predicate.]

b-Privative Concepts include concepts like “dead,” “blind,” “deaf,” “defective,” and the corresponding abstract concepts, “death,” “blindness,” “deafness,” and “defect.” A concept is privative if it presents a thing to the mind according to what the thing was, or had, or would be expected to have, and without which the thing is defective; and, secondly, a concept is privative if it expresses such a defect in the abstract.

The word “privative” is derived from the Latin word privo, which means “I deprive.” Now, a thing can be deprived only of what it has or ought to have. Thus, blindness is the lack of sight in a subject that ought to have it; deafness is the lack of hearing in a subject that ought to be able to hear; and dumbness is the lack of the ability to speak in a subject that is defective if it lacks this ability. A stone can neither see nor hear nor speak, but is not therefore blind, deaf, and dumb. The reason for this is that to lack the power to see, hear, and speak is not a defect in a stone. Similarly, a mole is not blind but sightless, because nature does not endow this animal with the power to see. A mole can have all that a mole is supposed to have and still be unable to see.

In inference, the relationship of a privative concept and the corresponding perfection is similar to the relationship of immediately opposed contraries to one another. We shall study immediately opposed contraries in the next few paragraphs.

c-Contrary Concepts belong to the same genus but differ from one another as much as possible within that genus. For instance, "hot" and "cold" are at the extremes of the genus of temperature; “expensive” and “cheap” are at the extremes of the genus of price; and “first” and “last” are the extremes of every series within the genus of both spatial and temporal order.

If one of two contraries is in a subject, the other is excluded; for instance, a thing cannot be both hot and cold, expensive and cheap, first and last, white and black, and so on, in the same respect.

Contrary concepts are IMMEDIATELY OPPOSED if there is no middle ground between them and if collectively they embrace the entire extension of the genus to which they belong. For instance, “mortal” and “immortal” are immediately opposed contraries belonging to the genus of “living being.” Every living being is either mortal or immortal: if a living being is mortal, it is not immortal; and if it is not mortal, it is immortal. Non-living beings, however, are neither mortal nor immortal, for they do not belong to the genus of things of which mortality and immortality can be predicated. “Mortal” means “having life that is subject to death”; “immortal” means “having life that is not subject to death.” A stone, since it does not have life, is neither mortal nor immortal. The use of immediately opposed contraries in inference is similar in many ways to that of contradictories.

Contrary concepts are MEDIATELY OPPOSED if there is a middle ground between them. In the genus of color, for instance, various shades of gray intervene between black and white; and in the genus of both spatial and temporal order an indefinite number of units may intervene between the first and the last of a series. Both of two mediately opposed contraries can be absent from a subject even if the subject belongs to the genus of things in which they are sometimes found. For instance, it is possible for a colored thing to be neither black nor white, but gray; for a unit in a series to be neither the first nor the last, but somewhere in between; for a thing susceptible of heat to be neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm.

Some concepts that on first consideration might seem to be privative are generally regarded as contraries; for they are not looked upon as mere negations of perfections that ought to be present, but as expressions of something positive at the opposite extreme of the same genus as the perfection that they negate. “Sickness,” for instance, is generally not looked upon as a mere negation of health in a subject that ought to have health but as something that positively interferes with health. Similarly, “insanity” is not considered a mere negation of sanity but a positive force within an insane person.

Some concepts that from their verbal expression might seem to be contradictories are actually contraries; for the one is not the mere negation of the other, but each is something positive at the opposite extreme of the same genus—for instance, “kind” and “unkind, holy and “unholy,” “just” and “unjust.” “Unkind” is not the same as not kind.” A stone is not kind, but it cannot be unkind.

3-DISPARATE CONCEPTS are incompatible and simply diverse. They are concepts of things that belong to the same genus (either proximate or remote) but differ at least specifically, yet not as contraries; for instance, “square” and “circle,” both of which belong to the genus of plane figure; “dog” and “cat,” both of which belong to the genus of animal; and “apple” and “peach, both of which belong to the genus of fruit.

In inference disparate concepts are similar to contraries and for this reason are sometimes called contrary concepts.