From the Nature of the Mind to Personal Dignity: The Significance of Rosmini's Philosophy 0813214386, 9780813214382

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From the Nature of the Mind to Personal Dignity

From the Nature of the Mind to Personal Dignity    ’ 

n

Juan F. Franck

The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2006 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Franck, Juan Francisco, 1973– From the nature of the mind to personal dignity : the significance of Rosmini’s philosophy / Juan Francisco Franck.— 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8132-1438-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8132-1438-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Rosmini, Antonio, 1797–1855. I. Title. B3647.F73 2005 195—dc22 2005007885

Contents Introduction / Rosmini’s Life and Work / Toward an Ontological Foundation of Personhood / The Present Study /

 . Epistemological Foundations . The Nature of Knowledge / The Problem of Knowledge / Fundamental Difference between Sensation and Idea / Activity and Passivity in Sense Perception / The Subjective and the Extrasubjective in Sensation / Sensation and Idea Compared /

. Analysis of the Idea of the Thing: The Intellective Perception / The Judgment Contained in the Idea of the Thing / The Idea of Existence / Characteristics of This Idea / Innatism of the Idea of Existence / The Idea and Sensation Are Primitive Elements / The Idea as a Necessary Means of Knowledge /

 . Ontological Significance of the Idea . Ideas and Reality / The Idea of Being, Pure Mediator of Knowledge / The Knowledge of Existing Reality through the Idea / Kant’s A Priori Synthesis and Rosmini’s Primitive Synthesis / Kant, Innatism, and the lumen intellectuale / The Idea Is One Form of Being / Ideal Being Is the Knowability of Real Being / Ideal Being Is the Possibility of Things / Note on the Possibility and Necessity of Ideas /

vi ⁄ Contents . The Idea and the Mind / The Book about the Idea in the Teosofia / Essere per sè manifesto: Manifestato and manifestante / Objective Mode (or Form) of Being: Absolute and Relative Existence / Absolute and Relative Existence of Ideas and Ideal Being / Intelligibility Is an Attribute of Being Itself / The Intimate Bond between the Idea and the Intelligence / Note I: Objective Being and Plato’s Parmenides / Note II: Self-contradictory Objects /

. The Idea and the Dignity of the Person / Initial Being and the Place of Intelligences in the Whole of Being / Initial Being and the lumen intellectuale / The Divine in Nature / Individuality and Immortality / The Intelligent Will / Objective Being and Ethics / The Ultimate Root of Personal Dignity /

Conclusion / Appendix: Rosmini’s Own Account of the Problem of Knowledge / The Importance of the Criticism of Reid /

Bibliography / Index of Authors/ Index of Subjects/

Introduction n This book does not purport to exhaust the problem of the person in the philosophy of Antonio Rosmini, since that would demand a thorough survey of his complete works. Instead, as the title suggests, it attempts to show a line of reasoning that starts with the analysis of what a mind or an intellect is and ends with important considerations about the person. This has notably been Rosmini’s intention, but I will not simply analyze this aspect of his work in its historical and cultural context; I will rather draw upon his enormously rich thought, seeking an answer to the question “Why are personal beings endowed with the highest value, that is to say, with dignity?” My aim, therefore, remains ambitious enough and can be understood as a modern proof of Thomas Aquinas’s claim that “person signifies what is most perfect in all nature” (persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura).1

Rosmini’s Life and Work Antonio Rosmini’s relative obscurity among contemporary scholars calls for a brief summary of his life and a general description of his teaching. However, I prefer here not to join the discussion regarding where his philosophy is situated in relation to other philosophical schools, since it merits additional studies.2 Antonio Rosmini was born on March 24, 1797 in Rovereto (Trent), which was in Austrian territory at that time. He belonged to a wealthy noble family, whose fortune he administered after the death of his father, Pier Modesto, in 1820. The latter’s uprightness, the piety of his 1. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, 29, 3c. 2. The appendix will be of help concerning his epistemology.

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 ⁄ Introduction mother, Giovanna, and his uncle’s good example all helped form Rosmini’s composed and at the same time joyful spirit. He showed an early passion for studies and a deep capacity for friendship, too. His initial philosophical steps were guided by Father Pietro Orsi, to whom he dedicated his first fundamental philosophical work, which discussed the nature of knowledge. Still very young, he planned the edition of a Christian Encyclopaedia as a counterbalance to the French Enlightenment version and soon began to gather around him friends who were devoted to science and shared his love of the Christian religion. Simultaneously, he envisaged what he called the Society of Friends (Società degli Amici). But when both projects came to nothing, he formulated the principle of passivity, which would guide his subsequent steps, both in his contemplative and his active life. This principle demands that one not undertake anything unless there are reasonable grounds to think that it is God who desires it. Rosmini was ordained to the priesthood in 1821 after completing courses in theological studies and canon law in Padua. During his first trip to Rome in 1823, he received an unexpected personal confirmation from Pius VII that he should write philosophical works. Following the principle he had formulated, he saw in the pope’s desire a sign of God’s will. In the years that followed, he dedicated himself to the study of political questions. From his discussions with several eminent men of letters, among whom were Alessandro Manzoni and Nicolò Tommaseo, who would remain very close friends of his, the conviction grew in him that the restoration of philosophy was the most necessary task of his time. The moral and political renovation that society required depended on finding a more solid philosophical basis. For that reason, he devoted himself to renewing the epistemological foundations of science, since in his opinion the problem of knowledge was the most fundamental, the issue on which the rest of the philosophical edifice depends. The result of his efforts, A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas, was published in 1830 in Rome and constitutes a major philosophical work of no less importance than Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding or Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

Introduction ⁄  Intensive and extensive concentration on studying and writing did not prevent Rosmini from guiding the development of the Institute of Charity and of the Sisters of Providence, two religious orders he founded by following the signs of divine Providence in his life, as was his principle. He wrote literally thousands of letters to the members of both institutions, which constitute a sort of ascetical summa on their own.3 Although he enjoyed the support and approval of all the popes he knew personally, some cardinals at the Roman Curia were badly disposed toward him. Specifically, they mistrusted Rosmini’s ideal of the Church being as free as possible from temporal and worldly bonds. Rosmini had expanded on his opinions in a book, The Five Wounds of the Church, written mostly between 1832 and 1833.4 However, the work went to press only in 1848, and although he had wisely not published it under his name and distributed it only among his close friends, it was soon discovered who the author was. Without his consent, The Five Wounds were published in Brussels and in Naples. His adversaries had seized the occasion—they had actually provoked it—and managed to include the book in the Index librorum prohibitorum together with another of his writings—La costituzione secondo la giustizia sociale—in which he advanced some democratic ideas for Italy. This happened even though Pius IX did not disapprove of Rosmini’s ideas. A decree in 1854 (Dimittantur) removed the censure from both books and cleared up all doubts about the content of the rest of his works published thus far. It is noteworthy that The Five Wounds of the Church is considered by many a farsighted book whose insights remain relevant to the present day. After a failed political mission to obtain Italian unity peacefully under the moral authority of the pope, Rosmini retired to Stresa, in northern Italy, where he died in 1855 in the company of his brethren and friends. He left his spiritual testament with his faithful friend Alessandro Manzoni: “Adorare, tacere, godere” (Praise, be silent, rejoice). The sanctity of his life was almost unanimously recognized, even among many who did not share his views. 3. See Epistolario ascetico.

4. The Five Wounds of the Church.

 ⁄ Introduction In spite of the difficulties he would later experience with some Neothomists,5 Rosmini was one of the first Christian philosophers to draw directly from Aquinas’s works; he did not content himself with handbooks. In his early years he regularly met with other young priests and students of theology to read the Summa theologiae, and he began working on a new translation into Italian. Thomas was also supposed to figure at the summit of a collection of works by the Fathers of the Church, since Rosmini considered the Angelic Doctor the most important Christian philosopher and theologian as well as the noblest fruit of the Patristics and Scholasticism. He called Aquinas “the greatest Italian philosopher, and probably of the whole world.”6 However, Rosmini’s works do not consist of a commentary on or repetition of Thomas’s thought but are born from a meditation of Christian wisdom in constant dialogue with modern thinkers. In this respect, in spite of his sharp criticisms, he did not reject the whole of modernity but engaged in an in-depth confrontation with it. Rosmini accepted the new challenges posed by his time, challenges that had changed so noticeably in all senses since the end of the Middle Ages. His appreciation of the interiority of the human subject, a typically Augustinian attitude and topic, allowed him to encounter modernity at a depth that escaped many Scholastics. Simultaneously, however, he did not lack the power of analysis and acute reasoning. He managed to put together sharp observation and dialectic subtlety, historical erudition and systematic exactness. It can be said without exaggeration that Rosmini’s thought is for modernity what Augustine’s had been for ancient times and Aquinas’s for the Middle Ages. And insofar as the challenges of modernity are to a great extent our own, his thought is of the highest importance for the present world. Not all of Rosmini’s works went to press during his life. Quite a few of them were published in the years after his death. During the pontificate of Leo XIII, a number of Catholic thinkers resumed some of the polemics against Rosmini’s work, which had been common 5. See Malusa, Neotomismo e intransigentismo cattolico. 6. Teosofia, 12, 468. Cf. ibid., 15, 1619, 1692.

Introduction ⁄  during his life, and added heavy accusations, such as ontologism, pantheism, and so on. In 1888 the Congregation of the Holy Office issued a decree, the Post Obitum, which condemned forty propositions extracted from the recently published writings. The decree conditioned the understanding of Rosmini’s philosophy in a way that would be difficult to exaggerate. The excerpts from his work had been in fact translated into Latin and were not always thoroughly loyal to the original text. In addition, some of them were a composite of two different sentences or contained only half of the thought expressed in the corresponding context. In many cases, the content was also misunderstood, but still the influence of the condemnation has been determining for over a century. Nevertheless, recent popes have shown an increasing esteem for Rosmini, and John Paul II made an explicit and favorable mention of his thought as a “fruitful relationship between philosophy and the word of God.”7 An important event took place on July 1, 2001, when Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger signed a document clarifying some of the reasons that led the Congregation of the Holy Office to issue a condemnation of Rosmini’s thought. Both the document and the encyclical Fides et Ratio should certainly not be understood as an approval or endorsement of Rosmini’s thought, but as the acknowledgment of the legitimacy of his philosophy and theology, which are not in contrast with the Christian faith.8 It is up to philosophers and theologians to discuss the real meaning and worth of his many discoveries and original insights. In my opinion, the believer, educated or not, should not be disturbed by these hesitations in the Church’s pronouncements on Rosmini. Instead, one should see them as the result of a long process of clarification, in which the main actors are human prudence and divine Providence and in which there are also elements of jealousy and shortsightedness. 7. John Paul II, Letter Encyclical Fides et Ratio (1998), n. 74. The pope also opened his Cause of Beatification in 1994. 8. See on this point Hunt’s article “An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Antonio Rosmini.”

 ⁄ Introduction In his Introduction to Philosophy, Rosmini explained the four aims of the philosophy he had tried to develop. Firstly, it was necessary to fight errors, since these obscure the mind and are the cause of moral disorder in the human person and in society. He would make Aquinas’s assertion his own: “Error is a great part of misery” (error magna pars miseriae est).9 His second aim was to reduce philosophy to a system. He was not rationalist, nor did he pretend to exhaust human knowledge, but he tried to give philosophy a solid framework and to see each particular truth in light of the most general principles. In the third place, he also realized that recent scientific progress had made the reform of philosophy an unavoidable task. Although this aspect of philosophy is in constant need of revision, Rosmini’s contributions to the philosophical foundations of science, particularly of psychology and cosmology, remain treasures in their own right and still await the patient commitment of scholars. Finally, his philosophical system is far from being a form of rationalism and explicitly makes room for faith and revealed theology. In Rosmini’s words, true and sound philosophy “assists the mind by giving it a natural orientation towards, and a remote preparation for faith, the need of which it arouses in man.”10 His innermost desire was to regain a state of affairs in which man “felt deeply that theology was not a remote study. Although, by its origin and subject matter, it transcended the limits of nature, it seemed to be a continuation of man. He moved, it seemed, from reason to revelation as though from a lower to a higher floor in the same palace of the mind designed by God on his behalf.”1 1 The Rosminian renewal of philosophy answers therefore to the call to guide men to God by means of the intellect, a task that nobody can fail to consider of the greatest urgency for our time as well. Even his spirituality is explicitly grounded in a solid metaphysics of being.12 It would be difficult and unjust to pass a hasty judgment on Rosmi9. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, 39, 4. 10. Introduction to Philosophy, 18. 11. Ibid. 12. See Antonelli, L’ascesi cristiana in Antonio Rosmini.

Introduction ⁄  ni’s thought. Clarity and depth are found together in a unique synthesis, which, in order to be appreciated for its real worth, demands careful study and meditation, patience and acumen. He was a classical thinker, someone for whom the goal of scholarship is not the acquaintance with books and literature but the truth about reality. However much required, epistemological distinctions are also of secondary importance for him, and they should always serve the purpose of understanding reality better.13 His thought is a luminous example of the perennial vitality of Christian philosophy, of its capacity of enriching tradition with new discoveries without renouncing the past progress. Still, and in spite of all controversies, if we consider the depth of Rosmini’s spirit, the scope of his erudition, the penetration of his insight, and the detail of his analyses, his thought represents the most accomplished example in modern times of Leo XIII’s principle: “to strengthen and complete the old by aid of the new” (vetera novis augere et perficere).14 Of course, we must add that all scholarly work on the Italian philosopher, however precise and enlightening it may be, cannot replace the direct reading of his works.15

Toward an Ontological Foundation of Personhood The aim of the present study is to found personal dignity on the being of the person, in what is innermost to him; this will also make the reason for his inalienable dignity clear. Attributes and perfections such as understanding, will, freedom, and so on are frequently indicated as the distinguishing marks of personhood. In addition, most Christian philosophers see the reason for the excellence of the human being in that the spirit bears the image and likeness of God. The ra13. See Anthropology, introduction; and Psychology 1, I, introduction. 14. Leo XIII,, Aeterni Patris, n. 24. 15. The most complete biography is Pagani’s and Rossi’s Vita di Antonio Rosmini. For English-language readers the classical one is Claude Leetham’s Rosmini: Priest and Philosopher; a much shorter work that also serves the purpose of introducing his life and thought is Denis Cleary’s Antonio Rosmini. A study on Rosmini’s mission to Rome is Luciano Malusa’s Della missione a Roma di Antonio Rosmini.

 ⁄ Introduction tional creature (creatura rationalis) is thus a “bearer of a special dignity.”16 Augustine places the image and likeness of God in the mind, and Aquinas follows him on this point: “Augustine [says] in the sixth chapter of his Genesis ad litteram: ‘this excels in man, that God made him to His image, by giving him an intellective mind, through which he surpasses brutes. Thus those beings that do not possess intellect are not made to God’s image.’”17 In doing so, both thinkers proceed as theologians rather than as philosophers, since they search for an image of the God they know, or believe, to be in the soul. Even though their conclusions should not be underrated for that reason, the philosopher is allowed, and to a certain extent required, to tackle the problem in a different way. Although he has no need to ignore divine Revelation, he bases himself upon natural evidence and builds his arguments from there. His alternate procedure would consist, first, in showing what can be called the imago Dei in the human soul and why it is understood as such. Second, the question as to why that image bestows such a special dignity upon its bearer must be answered with the aid of natural arguments. The conclusions of theology and philosophy do not have to differ; quite the contrary, they should coincide if anything true can be expected from them.18 16. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, 29, 3 ad 2. He was actually recalling Peter Lombard’s sentence: “Persona est hypostasis distincta proprietate ad dignitatem pertinente.” Quoted by Aquinas, ibid. and in III, 2, 3c; see also In I Sent., d. 26. This thought also was echoed in St. Bonaventure and in St. Albert the Great. See Stephen A. Hipp’s recent lengthy and very rich study on the notion of personality in theological debates from the early Greek Fathers to St. Thomas Aquinas: “Person” in Christian Tradition and in the Conception of Saint Albert the Great: A Systematic Study of Its Concept as Illuminated by the Mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation (Münster: Aschendorff, 2001). 17. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, 93, 2 sed contra. Cf.: “It is clear that properly speaking only intellective creatures are made to God’s image” (I, 93, 2c). “God’s image is to be found in the rational creature itself only insofar it has a mind” (I, 93, 6c). “To the first objection it must be answered that man is said to be God’s image, not because he were essentially image, but because the image is imprinted in him due to the fact that he has mind” (I, 93, 6 ad 1). 18. The elevation of man to the supernatural order does not oppose natural dignity; it rather presupposes it, a thought in the line with the Scholastic sentence: gratia non destruit naturam, sed praesupponit et perficit eam.

Introduction ⁄  Now, even if many fundamental suggestions in this sense have been made by both Augustine and Aquinas, I think that the question of why the person is the most perfect being in nature has not received a satisfactory philosophical answer, if by philosophical we understand that the answer is based on reason and not on revelation. We can claim that freedom endows a person with such dignity, or the power of understanding, or the capacity to embrace universal good. In all these cases, however, another question can be raised, namely: why do freedom, understanding, or will account for that dignity? In the past century we have witnessed a considerable number of philosophical schools draw their attention to the human being, to the interiority of the spirit, and to the wide spectrum of personal phenomena. It would be daring to speak of a discovery of the person; however, it remains true that these developments provide in general a wider basis for metaphysical analyses of the person.19 The philosopher should not let himself be overwhelmed by the countless descriptions of situations in which the person is revealed, since contemporary literature and scholarship are full of them. Instead, he must bear in mind what the French philosopher Maurice Nédoncelle wrote half a century ago: “to describe the personal order is neither to explain it nor to offer an ontological justification for it.”20 It is precisely this that Rosmini offers: an ontological justification of the personal order. The present work, however, will discuss only the question formulated at the beginning. An important preliminary point is that we should avoid seeing person and system as opposed to one another; on the contrary, the system shows the dignity of the person, and the person can be considered, although not without further qualifications, the model of the system. This affirmation sounds very untimely but nonetheless must 19. Cf. William N. Clarke, “Thomism and Philosophical Pluralism,” in The Future of Thomism, ed. Deal W. Hudson and Dennis W. Moran (Notre Dame, Ind.: American Maritain Association, 1992), 99. The author refers specifically to phenomenology and Thomism. 20. Maurice Nédoncelle, Vers une philosophie de l’amour et de la personne (Paris: Aubier, 1957), 240.

 ⁄ Introduction be considered highly appropriate for our times, when reality, especially human reality, is frequently captured in a fragment, in its contingency and ephemeral significance, and thus deprived of consistency and value. On the contrary, it is the consideration of the place of personal dignity in the whole of being that will enhance the human person’s uniqueness. As Luigi Stefanini, an Italian personalist philosopher, puts it: “The philosophy of the person does not damage the systematic character of knowledge, neither does it break up the circle of dialectical inference; on the contrary, when such systematicity is concluded, the circle is closed and personal uniqueness, which is at the basis and at the pinnacle of being, is acknowledged.”21 In his own words, Rosmini’s system “begins with the divine and ends with God.”22 As we will presently see, this is also the itinerary of the person, whose existence is marked by the presence of something of infinite worth in his nature, which thrusts him toward God. We will therefore discuss ontological dignity, not moral. Whereas the latter can be gained, augmented, diminished, or lost through good or evil actions, the former always accompanies the nature of something, since it constitutes its substance; it comes and goes with its existence. A sinner acts against his call to virtue, but that call does not disappear because he does not follow it. If it did, the sinner would not be such a disgraceful being. Moral corruption is dreadful and disfiguring of the person because both his natural tendency toward virtue and the obligation to follow it persist. The person reveals a struggle within himself: his better part pushes him toward justice and goodness, but he acts against it. This conflict gradually destroys the person and installs hatred in him, a total rejection of the order of being. The first being that is harmed by moral evil is the wrongdoer himself, not his victim, who may or may not exist. 21. Luigi Stefanini, Personalismo filosofico (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1962), 18. The text was written in 1953 as a paper called “Il problema della filosofia oggi e il personalismo.” See Nédoncelle, Vers une philosophie, 267–68. 22. “Per dir tutto in una parola, il nostro sistema comincia col divino, e finisce con Dio.” Principi della scienza morale, 304.

Introduction ⁄  The condition of the possibility of both moral dignity and its opposite, moral corruption, is therefore some kind of ontological value. This value, which is usually called dignity, is given to personal beings as a permanent gift. A person faithful to the demands of that gift certainly enjoys and possesses his being in a deeper way, but nonetheless he can neither add nor subtract anything from his initial dignity. It is thus the road of ontological reasoning that we must take and, although it may be difficult, the price we must pay for not following it is to repeat together with the fox of the fable: “[These grapes] are not ripe” (o[myakev" eijs in), thus manifesting merely our own failure.23 In this context, we should mention Josef Seifert’s attempt to give the person his due place in the totality of being. Although a good part of his work is motivated by the formulation of a personalist metaphysics, this has been particularly developed in the third part of Essere e persona.24 In the introductory essay to the same book, Rocco Buttiglione suggests the possibility of establishing some convergences between Seifert and Rosmini. Both philosophers would in fact show that it is possible to develop a philosophy that is classical and modern at the same time—that is, a philosophy that supports the possibility of objective knowledge and of metaphysics and includes the human subject as the common starting point.25 In the particular problem of giving the person his right position in the whole of reality, both would affirm without hesitation that personal perfections belong to being in its highest form. Whereas Aristotle’s answer to the question “What possesses being properly speaking?” is “the substance,” Seifert argues convincingly that the criteria for determining what deserves the name of “authentic being” apply in a superior way to persons.26 Certainly not because the person would not be also a substance; on the con23. I am well aware of the reactions that this claim can prompt in the contemporary ethical and bioethical debates. I therefore beg the understanding of the reader if the topic is not directly addressed in the present study. 24. See Seifert, Essere e persona. 25. Buttiglione, “Saggio introduttivo,” 60–62. 26. See Seifert, Essere e persona, 307–25.

 ⁄ Introduction trary, substantiality is seen as a necessary requisite for the existence of the person, but in the sense that some basic properties of the substance can be found more perfectly realized in persons than, for example, in merely corporeal beings. The criteria of concreteness, autonomous existence, individuality, duration in being, and degree of value find a more perfect and complete exemplification in personal beings than in any other substance. Besides, some perfections, such as conscience and freedom, are proper only to persons and provide them with a higher participation in being. These add a higher value to the person and justify all efforts to formulate metaphysics in a personalistic way.27 However, in my opinion, such a reform must be complemented with a different approach, an approach that I have chosen for this work. If Seifert shows the higher value of the person, there is still another step to take: namely, to show that there cannot be a higher value than that of the person, which we express by speaking of personal dignity. As I have tried to illustrate in the analysis of this aspect of the Rosminian system, this can be done. In this sense, the title of chapter 9 of Seifert’s book, “L’essere è persona” (“Being Is Person”), would find its foundation in Rosmini’s philosophy, a natural consequence of which is that “person is an ontological condition of being.”28

The Present Study It has not always been acknowledged that Rosmini developed his thought in continuity with traditional philosophy and theology, particularly with Augustine and Aquinas.29 My study rests on the assumption that Michele Federico Sciacca’s discovery of the true meaning of Rosmini’s philosophy is correct.30 Although the full dimension of the 27. See ibid., 326–54. 28. Psychology, II, 876. 29. See Introduzione alla filosofia, 201. See also Franck, “I quattro fini della filosofia rosminiana.” Question 93 of the first part of the Summa theologiae, particularly if read in light of the developments of the present study, can easily convince us of the fundamental continuity and agreement between the three great thinkers. 30. See Sciacca, La filosofia morale di Antonio Rosmini. Sciacca was born in 1908 and

Introduction ⁄  significance of Rosmini’s thought, both in historical and in systematic perspectives, will keep scholars busy still for a long time, there is now a growing agreement about Sciacca’s interpretation. Rosmini’s theory of personhood presents many innovative aspects and requires the consideration of other parts of his philosophical system; however, he offers a basic analysis of his concept of person and a summary treatment of its elements in book 4 of Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science, written between 1831 and 1832 and published in 1838. Some key references are made in Principles of Ethics, and Psychology also includes important insights. Yet, in Rosmini’s philosophy each thesis supports the others, usually enlightening them and expanding their reach. For that reason, our present topic easily allowed, and even required, drawing from other works, mainly of an epistemological and ontological character. Even though the concept of person will not be at the center of the discussion, it will be of help to have a look at the simplest definition Rosmini employs and to the progression of ideas that lead into it.31 It may strike the reader that in his whole treatment of the person Rosmini does not refer to Boethius’s famous definition. The Italian philosopher was certainly well acquainted with the majority of classical sources, and he had certainly not failed to read Boethius’s writings. By no means, however, should this be interpreted as a sign of Rosmini’s detachment from a substantialist notion of person toward a more or less actualist one, but of a somewhat innovative approach. That he considers the person at the level of the substance appears clearly in died in 1975. He experienced the force and attraction of the dominating Italian idealism of his time, but also found it unsatisfactory as an explanation of the problems it raised, mainly the meaning and destiny of the individual. Giovanni Gentile, probably the most coherent idealist philosopher of all times and Sciacca’s teacher for many years, entrusted him with the edition of Rosmini’s Principles of Ethics. In his reading of this book, Sciacca found both the answer to many of the inner difficulties of idealism and its refutation. From that moment he moved toward an always deeper form of metaphysical personalism, which he called the philosophy of integrality. For a summary of his development see his La clessidra (Milan: Marzorati, 1963). 31. Rosmini provides several definitions of person. See De Lucia, Essere e soggetto, 76; and Pozzoli, The Philosophical Anthropology of Antonio Rosmini.

 ⁄ Introduction one of his definitions, which begins thus: “Person is a substantial, intelligent individual.”32 Moreover, he includes the person in the more general class of subjects, which, when referred to real things, are substances.33 At this point Rosmini joins the Thomist tradition, which emphasizes that, if applied to the concept of person, substance is to be taken as meaning a subsistence complete in itself, rather than as the subject of accidents, since otherwise God could not be thought of as a personal being. Rosmini underlines that the progress with respect to Aristotelian philosophy regarding the concept of person as well as that of subject is due to the “beneficial influence exercised over philosophy by the enlightened ideas of Christianity.”34 By seeing subject in conjunction with object, instead of with accident, the road was prepared to “express a subjective existence which is proper, internal and independent.”35 The concept of subject adds to that of substance the possession of feeling, be it merely sentient, like that of animals, or intelligent. Rosmini, in effect, considered that “intelligence has for its foundation a feeling proper to the soul.”36 The subject is properly defined as a “sentient individual in so far as it contains within itself a supreme, active principle.”37 With this definition Rosmini intends to signify that the subject, apart from being always an individual substance, is thus called because of its having a feeling activity, independent of and presupposing all passive feelings it may undergo. Its existence is therefore not pending on passive feelings but underlies them. Otherwise, the agent that produces them would create with its action the feeling subject itself, which does not make sense.38 Apart from being active, the subject must be a supreme principle, since “if it were subordinate to some other principle, it would depend on that principle and not have within itself the basis of its own existence.”39 32. Anthropology, 832. 33. Cf. ibid., 771. 34. Ibid., 777, fn. 350. 35. Ibid. See ibid., 775, 780. The distinction subject-object is a pale reflection of the distinction Father-Son in the Holy Trinity. 37. Ibid., 767. 36. Ibid., 789. 38. Cf. ibid., 779. 39. Ibid., 781.

Introduction ⁄  The notion of subject should not be confused with that of self, or myself, since the latter includes consciousness, awareness of itself,40 whereas the former requires only to be active and supreme. In the same sense, self and person are also distinct notions and should not be confused. A person is “an intelligent subject.”41 Under the light of the past discussion, a more complete definition would be “an intellective subject in so far as it contains a supreme, active principle.”42 Intellective and intelligent are clearly replaceable terms in both sentences. The following is an even more exact definition: “[a] substantial, intelligent individual in so far as the individual contains a supreme, active and incommunicable principle.”43 In spite of some slight differences, this last definition certainly joins Boethius’s, and we cannot possibly see it as favoring an act (consciousness), instead of the substance, as the defining element of personhood. It also includes persons of all possible natures. For this reason, Rosmini specifies the notion of subject as applied to the human being: “A human subject is ‘a subject that is simultaneously a principle of animality and of intelligence.’”44 This human subject is called a person because it possesses an intellective principle, “that which is supreme and most excellent in human nature.”45 The sensitive element in the human being does not constitute in fact a principle because there is something above it. Everything that exists in an individual is in close connection with the supreme principle that presides in that individual, but not everything is properly speaking this principle.46 Although this thought may seem to contradict the classic statement that “the notion of part is contrary to the notion of person” (ratio partis contrariatur rationi personae),47 in fact it is a way of reaffirming it, since it asserts that every40. Cf. ibid., 805–15. 41. Ibid., 832. 42. Ibid., 769. 43. Ibid., 832. 44. Ibid., 767. 45. Ibid., 838. 46. Cf. ibid., 833. 47. Thomas Aquinas uses it to express that the separated soul is not the human person (cf. In III Sent., 5, 3, 2c). Rosmini is not suggesting the opposite, but simply clarifying which principle in the human person allows calling him a person. This must certainly reside in the soul and be the intellective principle, which Thomas more frequently called reason.

 ⁄ Introduction thing that belongs to the person receives its unity under one and only one principle— namely, the intellective subject or person, which “express[es] the intrinsic order of being in a feeling individual.”48 Certainly, the human body, for example, receives its personal quality due to its depending on an intellective subject, not because of its being material or even sensitive. Rosmini’s definition does not imply an identification of the person with the intelligence, either, but simply speaks of the need to consider the intelligence first in order to elucidate the nature of the person. n

The line of reasoning I have chosen can secure the excellence of personal dignity without presupposing anything but a careful observation of human nature. The argument developed here is derived from a meditation on Rosmini’s works, and I do not claim it as my own acquisition. However, I have selected and displayed the different theses and claims in such a manner that the conclusion I sought is fully justified, both within and independently of Rosmini’s thought. It is not my goal to deal with every implication of the statements made here, neither within Rosmini’s system nor in themselves. That would lead to endless discussions that, while certainly not bereft of interest, would only blur the understanding of the main idea. I have thus two main reasons for the selection of this Italian philosopher: first, because I borrowed the argument from him; and second, because his philosophy is a very comprehensive and systematic effort to do justice to the place of the person as the center and summit of being. My contribution in the context of Rosminian scholarship consists in showing that careful observation and logic support the cogency of Rosmini’s conclusions. Everybody who has studied Rosmini recognizes that the divine in nature is ideal being, and also that it bestows on personal beings a unique and most high dignity. But there is little work that unifies these two claims in an argumentative way. I chose this way also because, given the lack of works available about Rosmi48. Anthropology, 833.

Introduction ⁄  ni in English, a detailed study and discussion of monographic works would be inappropriate. I faced the highly difficult task of dealing with a philosopher hardly known to English-speaking scholars.49 A general introduction to his thought would have probably not fulfilled the requirements of a doctoral dissertation, for which purpose a first version of this study had been originally written and submitted to the International Academy of Philosophy (Liechtenstein) in 2001. These reasons led me to write an argumentative work that would also serve the purpose of introducing Rosmini’s thought to a new audience.50 The present work is not primarily historical. Certainly, a few historical references will be made, but always for the sake of the argument. And I will also use these to a far lesser extent than would be possible, since Rosmini’s erudition in the history of philosophy is overwhelming. Although we cannot simply speak of influences or sources, if this means to cancel his own originality, he still has all the major philosophers in mind when making a claim. Sometimes he mentions them himself, but often they are assumed or implicit. In all cases, however, recalling the historical context of his thought can help appreciate the significance of his theses. This is not just a hermeneutic work, either, if this is to be understood as a clarification of what Rosmini said and what he did not say, which is normally accompanied by the discussion of other interpretations in search of the correct understanding of a philosophical system. Although I do not consider this kind of work devoid of value, particularly in the case of a profound philosopher like Rosmini, my intention is not polemical. I want to focus on the argument and the topic, not the text. Besides, the texts will speak for themselves when 49. See Pozzo’s recent article “The Philosophical Works of Antonio Rosmini in English Translation.” 50. Of great interest is Thomas Davidson’s translation of Rosmini’s Sistema filosofico [Philosophical System], which appeared in 1882. It is preceded by an introduction and a detailed and extensive bibliography. After each paragraph of the Philosophical System, Davidson makes lengthy comments and gives plenty of references to the rest of Rosmini’s works. They may be read with profit.

 ⁄ Introduction quoted, although I do not include all passages that would support each point but only insofar as it is necessary for the sake of the argument. Independently of the author studied in this work, the thoughts advanced here will hopefully stimulate and provoke other personalist schools to search for answers to the same question. They may also suggest in an unexpected manner the unity of philosophy. In fact, although the starting point is the analysis of knowledge, it will become evident as the work progresses that the problem of grounding objective knowledge cannot be separated from the consideration of the intrinsic structure of being itself. Natures gifted with intelligence take part in being in a very special way, so that no other higher or more perfect being can be found than those possessing the power of understanding. Rosmini’s philosophy invites us to think in an encyclopedic way51 and at the same time warns against what he called the love of system—the attempt to see the whole of reality from an arbitrarily chosen standpoint and to exclude everything that does not fall under the principles placed at its beginning. He defended something quite different, which he called the system of truth (il sistema della verità). It is an exigency of truth that more particular truths depend on higher and more universal ones, until the summit is reached and the first principle appears as crowning the whole system and actually giving birth to it.52 This task is of the highest philosophical importance but has been ignored in contemporary thought. So, just as a philosophical or cultural idea can be considered current, up-to-date, or fashionable because of its prevailing presence, another one can also be considered relevant at a given moment in history precisely because of its absence.53 Finally, the present study can be seen as a meditation on the Augus51. See Menke, Vernunft und Offenbarung nach Antonio Rosmini. 52. See “Degli studi dell’autore,” in Introduction to Philosophy, 19–28. 53. See Ottonello, Rosmini “inattuale.” The critical edition of Rosmini’s complete works can therefore be regarded as an important contribution to contemporary philosophy. They are edited by the Istituto di Studi Filosofici (Rome) and the Centro Inter-

Introduction ⁄  tinian thesis of the interior presence of truth to the mind—“Do not wander far and wide but return into yourself. Deep within man there dwells the truth” (Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas)—which cannot be separated from its complementary sentence: “[A]nd if you find your nature changeable, go beyond yourself ” (et si tuam naturam mutabilem inveneris, transcende et teipsum).54 Therefore, my intention is to show how far we can go by the attentive consideration of some fundamental facts of human nature. This work is divided into two parts. The first one is epistemological in nature and provides the elements for the developments in the second part. It is not intended to cover all aspects of human knowledge but rather to show a legitimate approach to it, which at the same time entails far-reaching consequences. The first chapter of the first part deals with the problem of knowledge and will simultaneously introduce the elements for the discussion in chapters 2 to 4. The second chapter analyzes the idea of a thing and the operation Rosmini calls “intellective perception”; its main goal is to show that the idea of being is present to the intellect since the first moment of its existence. A closer look at all the elements implied in any single act of knowledge does not only provide an epistemological basis for all further philosophical analysis, it also shows an ontologically relevant presence. Rosmini’s philosophy is sometimes reproached for being trapped in, or excessively tainted by, his epistemological principles. But those who make these charges fail to see that precisely his restoration of the theory of knowledge allows him not just to account for the fact of knowledge but also and mainly to give philosophy a new systematic form, right in itself and rich in original insights. Some of these insights make up the scope of the second part and belong to ontology, anthropology, and ethics. They highlight the unique position of man in the universe due to his personhood. This claim binds tonazionale di Studi Rosminiani (Stresa) and published by Città Nuova (Rome). The complete works will require between eighty and a hundred volumes, of which about forty have already been published. 54. See Augustine, On True Religion, chap. 39, 72.

 ⁄ Introduction gether some ideas on being in general as well as a thesis on the human being in particular. The third chapter deals with some important relations between ideas and reality, which ensure the former as a legitimate means of knowledge, as well as the metaphysical significance of the fact of knowledge. The fourth chapter can be considered the crux. It will be proved there that the idea and the intellect cannot be separated from one another and also that the presence of the idea of being to the mind forces us to admit the existence of an Infinite Mind. In the fifth and last chapter, we will see that the idea of being or ideal being accounts for the excellence of intelligent natures.

  

Epistemological Foundations n

In the first chapter we will consider the nature of the problem of knowledge, namely: “What does it mean to know?” Epistemology deals with this question and seeks to establish the different kinds of knowledge. My main interest here instead will be to attain the formal element of human knowledge: that is, what makes the mind capable of understanding. This is neither the act of knowledge as originating in the knowing subject nor the thing known, but rather what stands for the thing before the mind. The classical topic of the representation would come into play here, but our purpose will be to see its relevance just for the basic question posed at the beginning of the book and not for its own sake. Certainly, a distinction between thing and object will have to be drawn, so that the problem of knowledge can be formulated as that of the constitution of the objects of knowledge, and the main question is thus: “How does something come to the presence of the mind?” The search is therefore not to discover all possible objects of knowledge, but to find the formal element that makes thought possible. Even the elementary distinction between (mere) thought and knowledge—as the one between simply considering something and claiming with truth that something is this or that way—loses its relevance here, since it is asked in the most general way: “How can our mind perform any intellectual act at all?”



 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations Since the human way of knowing is the only one experimentally accessible to us, the analysis begins with our knowledge of material things. Although still full of mysteries for us, the knowledge of corporeal objects is a privileged source for our purpose. We are incarnate beings, and even our most abstract considerations are accompanied by some sensorial element. However difficult the task, it is therefore necessary to draw a careful distinction between what corresponds to sensorial perception and what to intellectual knowledge. These are offered to us together and a very refined power of internal observation is required to realize their difference and also to grasp the general characteristics of each of them. As Rosmini points out, the difference is so primitive that it can be perceived only individually by each person through the attentive auscultation of what takes place in his own spirit. After an analysis of some important general characteristics of sensations and ideas in the first chapter, the second chapter goes into how ideas are formed and into the consideration of the nature of our ideas. We will see that they consist of a very particular kind of judgment, which cannot be formed without the prior presence to the mind of the pure and simple idea of being or existence. This repeatedly misunderstood Rosminian teaching is of the highest importance both for epistemological reasons and for our topic, the dignity of the person. The latter point will occupy us in the second part of the work.

 

The Nature of Knowledge n

The Problem of Knowledge A good way to gain an adequate understanding of Rosmini’s work is to make clear the meaning of the terms object and objectivity. It is not merely a matter of words, since other words could be used, provided that the meaning remains unaltered. If what Rosmini calls object received another name in other thinkers, the only task would be to indicate the equivalence between the corresponding expressions. But if there is no or almost no equivalent in other philosophers, the clarification of this term takes on a high philosophical significance and not merely a philological or semantic one. It is in fact the key to enter Rosmini’s admirable thought. His whole philosophical system starts from the reflection upon the nature of objectivity, and it would not be too bold to say that the omission of a similar explanation indicates that the problem of knowledge has been overlooked.1 1. The term object (Greek antikeímenon, Latin obiectum) is actually given its original meaning by Rosmini: namely, that of something staying in front of a faculty of the subject. The difference is that according to Rosmini, only the intelligence has an object, whereas sensations cannot take place without some sort of physical contact, which necessarily suppresses the distance and distinction required by objectivity (see Teosofia, 15, 1587–88). In any case, although an object requires a subject, there is nothing in Rosmini like the suppression of the differences between both or the elevation of both terms to a higher unity, which would contain the identity of subject and object. This identity would be given only in the act of sensation, in which, as Aristotle and the Scholastics said, sensus in actu est sensibile in actu. For that reason, the senses do not have an object, but something we, together with Rosmini, may call a “term” (termine) (cf. Psychology, II, 1551–54). The subject could not objectify an object if the object were



 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations n

The first question in philosophy concerns the nature of the cognitive act. Philosophy is a kind of knowledge;2 even if we understand it as the knowledge of reality, it answers to logical laws valid for ideas, not to those applicable to reality as such. Let us assume that the result of our research is that it is not possible to escape the dominion of human thought, and that there is no sufficient reason to speak with certainty about something external to the mind; philosophy could not go beyond either the subjective categories of knowledge or its historical course; the attempt to speak about reality would be devoid of sense and condemned to failure. What sense could there be in philosophy as a search for truth or knowledge? Philosophy would have no other reference than its products: that is, philosophical investigation and philosophical systems. At best we could speak about a transcendental objectivity, which would turn out to be a kind of transcendental illusion. The analysis of the act of knowledge must therefore precede all other analysis if we want to avoid perpetual skepticism. All other sciences, philosophical or not, are waiting, so to speak, for these results. It is not possible to evade the question and proceed with the analysis or description of the different kinds of knowledge. What makes an act of knowledge what it is? This inquiry comes first and underlies every epistemological discussion. In a letter to Benedetto Monti, included in the critical edition of not present to it as something categorically different. Objectivity is a specific attribute of the intelligence and for that reason its act is called knowledge, whereas sensation, left to itself, does not possess objectivity. For the history of the term object, see Theo Kobusch, “Objekt,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (Basel and Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1984), 6:1026–52. Kobusch, however, does not mention Rosmini. The esse obiectivum of the Second Scholasticism, which helped to shape the discussion on objectivity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bears some resemblance to Rosmini’s own conception. 2. Speaking about the starting point of philosophy, Rosmini writes: “[T]he primal philosophical element of philosophy is . . . the ideological element. Because philosophy is certainly knowledge, it must begin from ideas; we are deluded if we think it can begin from any other point” (Preliminare alle opere ideologiche, no. 31 of the Nuovo saggio, translated as appendix 35 to An Historical Critique, no. 31. See also ibid., no. 29).

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  his Introduction to Philosophy, that bears the title “On the Essence of Knowledge” (“Sull’essenza del conoscere”), we find some clear words from Rosmini on this point: It is precisely knowledge that is always taken for granted and that is believed not to require any sort of explanation. On the contrary, I must repeat that the great problem of philosophy is all contained in this question: “What is knowledge?” A question that can be reduced to another one: “What is the idea?”, because ideas are just what produce knowledge. And note carefully that we do not have to explain this or that act of knowledge, but simply knowledge.3

Another way of posing the difficulty is to call attention to the fact that when we speak about knowledge we already assume its objects, and the question how a thing becomes an object of knowledge remains open. In the previous sentence, thing and object obviously do not have the same meaning. The thing is the reality mentioned, considered in its own real existence, and indicates the presence of the thing to the mind. In the same letter to Benedetto Monti Rosmini writes: [Philosophers] do not make a single speech without presupposing from the very beginning the objects of knowledge as given. Who takes the trouble to explain how objects of knowledge are given? And once objects of knowledge are given, knowledge itself is certainly given, because it is they that produce it. But we still have to see how a thing can be an object of knowledge.

By saying thing we are making use of an object. The very word thing is coined from a concept that stands for the thing and that at the same time is different from it. We cannot speak of any entity unless we previously know it. Language presupposes knowledge and is unable by 3. “Lettera a Benedetto Monti,” in Introduzione alla filosofia, 313. He even claims that this is “the problem that all philosophers, without exception, have discussed, and that in modern philosophy is considered the most important of all (and was so considered whenever philosophical schools flourished)” (Rinnovamento, 12). To reduce the problem of knowledge to the problem of ideas does not mean that the object is identified with the act of knowledge; rather, it means that the solution to one problem provides the solution to the other, in the sense that one can say that a faculty is specified by its (formal) object. The mere presence of ideas produces knowledge, without ideas being themselves knowledge.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations its own nature to supply the distinction between the real thing and the ideal object, because its natural and direct reference is always an object. The mind’s silent consideration is required to distinguish between the thing and what reveals the thing. What prevents us from understanding the problem is the very nature of language, which always presupposes knowledge and which is also a consequence and a product of knowledge; when language was formed, the objects of knowledge already existed. Language speaks of objects of knowledge already formed, so with its help it is not possible to explain how they are formed, but it is necessary to take recourse to the most silent meditation of the mind.

The example Rosmini suggests in order to explain this point makes use of the same distinction he is trying to make clear: that between thing and object: I will give an example. I said: the problem of philosophy lies in giving an account of how a thing can become an object of knowledge. Now, the imperfections of language did not help me either to express what I wanted to say in a precise way, since by saying thing I already said object; and if a thing is an object, there is obviously no difficulty to explain how an object can be an object. But I wanted to talk about a thing in that mode of being it has before becoming an object of knowledge, that is with no regard to its objectivity.

As soon as we think something, this thing has necessarily become an object of the mind; there could be no other way this takes place. Things are named according to the way they are perceived; and if they are not perceived, according to what we can know of them by means of reasoning, for example, the existence and nature of the unknown cause of a phenomenon we witness. But even in this case there is an object standing for the thing. Language is therefore incapable of supplying a word for the thing as it exists independently of its being known, since this goes per definitionem beyond its capacity. [T]o name the thing according to its non-objective way of existing no language supplies any word, as all words have been imposed to things after these had become objects of knowledge; it could be done in no other way. It follows then that only with the mind that meditates and finds that things must exist in a way other than the objective one, can it be understood how neces-

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  sary and difficult it is to explain how what is not itself an object of the mind can become one later.4

The difficulty is known to us because our mind grasps the difference between a really existing thing and something that is exclusively an object of our mind. If that were not the case, only ideal objects would exist for us, and the problem of whether we know things in themselves would be declared meaningless. The key point here is to realize that an object cannot be considered the same kind of entity that a thing is and that the coming of things into the presence of the understanding is possible thanks to what Rosmini calls the object: “Object of thought means that something is present to us in itself.”5 Later on we will see that the object has an essential relation to the intellect and that we need to distinguish between two radically different categories of being. But we can ask here: is it not a contradiction to say that a thing is “in itself ” “present to us”? For now, it is enough to indicate that the way the thing is present to our mind is such that we conceive it in itself, in the existence it has or it can have independently of us. If all we can know about something, say a horse, is reduced to the neigh we hear, to the sound of its hooves, the color of its hair, and so on, we could not think of a horse as an independently existing reality (“in itself ”). Actually, the existence of the horse does not include the impression it produces in our senses. All sensations are at least partially 4. “Lettera a Benedetto Monti,” in Introduzione alla filosofia, 313–14. Cf. also: “Because the question ‘Where does knowledge come from, and where do the objects of knowledge come from?’ is only one in our case, since there cannot exist objects of knowledge without knowledge and, once the former are given, the latter is also given, the same as the opposite is true. To the sensists we answer that they delude themselves taking nude sensations for objects. The true question is this one: ‘How are objects formed?’ since the sense supplies sensations and sensed things, which are not yet objects of knowledge, but become objects of knowledge later. They do this also after the entia, which as entia do not fall under the senses, but are still the first objects. Abstraction distinguishes in them the substance, to which sensations and sensorial qualities belong, which in turn divided from the substance, still through abstraction, finally become objects” (Logica, 742). 5. Certainty, 1093.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations relative to the feeling subject; on the contrary, the existence of the thing in itself is something absolute, independent of the subject that perceives or thinks about it. This faculty of thinking of a reality in itself is precisely the faculty of objectifying as opposed to that of feeling. Existence in itself is not felt by us. . . . In fact, the mere existence in itself of a thing does not require or imply a sensation produced in some other thing.6

It is a fact that we conceive things that way, as existing in themselves, independently of us. Yet, we have not said anything about the real existence of what we conceive mentally. The correspondence of reality to a concept or a representation is not at stake at this stage, but only if it is possible to conceive something as having its own existence. Actually, the claim is proved every time the question of the correspondence or not of reality to our concept is posed, since it presupposes that we already have a representation of something as having a real, independent existence, and we want to see if the correspondence truly occurs. If this way of conceiving things in our mind, that is, as they are in themselves, were only apparent because their existence was in fact relative to us, the argument would still be valid. But apparent or not, we would still have to explain the fact that things seem to be perceived in themselves, objectively. . . . We cannot deceive ourselves about the way we conceive an object in our mind: to say “I conceive the object in this way” means only that I conceive it in the way I do and nothing more. Whether the external thing corresponds to my concept or not, does not concern us here.7

To say object is the same as to say idea. In effect, the meaning of idea is precisely a “term of the mind,” the means by which we think. Without ideas the mere fact of thought is inconceivable. Reality is not thus reduced to an idea, quite the opposite: the mental term is clearly distinguished from the real thing. The idea makes the real thing known, but it is not identical with it.8 Even if the thing is no longer there, we 6. The Innate Light, 416. 7. Ibid., 415, fn. 4. 8. “But the mind knows things through their idea or species. The intellect, there-

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  can still consider it; it may not even exist any more, but the idea is not thereby destroyed. I think this suffices to show that there is a difference between the idea and the thing, and that this is the same distinction that applies to objects and things. What is the meaning of objective? It means that knowledge terminates in an object, that knowledge does not finish in itself or in an act of one who knows, but in some different entity. . . . the idea as such is per se an object distinct from the thinking subject and contrary to it.9

What makes a thing be present to the intellect? What constitutes knowledge as such? The idea, the object. Properly speaking, this is the formal part of knowledge. How we form the ideas of things is therefore the main problem for a theory of knowledge. The problem: “How is the object of thought formed?” where the object is subsequently to be the subject of judgments or, in a nutshell, “How are concepts formed?”, sums up the entire issue under discussion.10

Fundamental Difference between Sensation and Idea The intellectual knowledge of a thing cannot have its origin exclusively in the senses. If the idea is what supplies the knowledge of what something is or can be in itself, then sensations and all that derives from them are unable to provide the intellective subject with such knowledge. In other words, senses cannot fully account for the objects of the understanding. The many different ways in which things surrounding us are perceived sensorily do not concern us here, but only what is common to all of them. For that purpose the classical example of the color red will be used. We see the red apple because light reflected on it reaches our eyes with a particular intensity and produces a modification on the sight organ. That modification would not exist without the cooperation of the apple, the light, and the eye. The light alone did not produce it; fore, knows real things, but through ideas, which are the means of knowledge [non quod cognoscit, sed quo cognoscit].” Ibid., appendix 9. 9. Certainty, 1139, 1192. 10. An Historical Critique, 355. Cf. also ibid., 41.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations nor could the apple, if there were no light. But, and this is the fundamental point, sensation—that is, the modification—only exists in the eye. The perception of colors is based on this modification in the sight organ, without which it would never take place. If I close my eyes, or if the apple is removed, or if the apple is obscured by darkness, the sensation no longer takes place, only the remembrance of it.1 1 Sensation resides in the feeling subject, and it comes to being due to an action exercised on the sensory organ by the external thing or some other means (in this case, the light, which is also external to the feeling subject). However, all this is not yet enough to obtain sense perception, in our case the vision of red, since the brain is also a necessary condition for seeing colors. Without entering into details pertaining to the physiology of sight, we can safely distinguish between the sensation itself and sense perception. Although not identical with the subject, both sensation and sense perception remain within his sphere, that is, sensation inheres in him.12 Besides, the act of seeing or perceiving colors is immaterial, whereas the modification is part of a material body and therefore extended. The sensation that corresponds and gives rise to sense perception is a modification of the body. Rather, sense perception inheres in the soul. Both are, however, limited to subjectivity. If, therefore, sensation were the only source of knowledge, the subject would be forever restricted to his modifica11. There can remain a sort of residue that would explain this, e.g., the fatigue our eyes experience at the end of the day. 12. Cf. The Innate Light, 640: “Sensations happen in me (attention confirms this)....... if I did not exist or could not feel, I would not only be deprived of them but they would not even exist. I am speaking about all the sensations that I experience, which are quite different from those experienced by someone else. The sensations I have when smelling an onion, listening to a violin or tasting an orange would not exist at all if I did not sense them. But what I say about my own sensations can be said equally about anyone’s sensations: if they are sensations like those from which I draw the concept and understand the word ‘sensations,’ then certainly they would not exist if there were no one to experience them or the person were deprived of feeling or were not actually experiencing them at the present moment. There is no sensation, colour, taste, etc. that is not found in a human being, since every colour, odour, taste, etc. is a modification of the feeling of a sensitive being.”

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  tions; he would not be able to say anything about the thing that acts on him, and his behavior would be like that of animals, which react according to instinct.13 When we said that an element different from the subject himself took part in the phenomenon of sensation—that is, something by way of an external agent—we had in fact already transcended the sphere of the senses. In fact, it was a result of the analysis of sensation, which implies that the sensory level had been transcended and that we were thus able to distinguish between the subject and what does not belong to him, between the subject’s modifications and what is “exterior” and acts on him. In order to state that something exists independently of the subject, I need to possess the idea of existence. It is the aim of the present chapter to show the presence of this idea in the human spirit, an idea whose origin can be neither in the senses nor in any of the things that act on us. With this purpose in mind, I will consider first the differences between sensation and idea, which clarify the distinction between sense perception and intellective perception. This will clear the way for us to see the impossibility of obtaining the one from the other, since they possess completely different natures. The most important difficulty in detaching sensation from idea in order to study the former separately is that by reflecting on them at all, we make use of an idea. If we managed to separate them absolutely, sensation would become thoroughly dark, it would cease to be the object of a mind; it would be somehow annihilated, excluded from any possible consideration. Rosmini says clearly: It is difficult for us to separate sense-perception from intellective perception because, as reasoning beings, we habitually make the second follow immediately on the first; the two are naturally linked in us and taken as one so that very accurate observation is needed to distinguish them. . . . If we have no idea of a thing, we cannot know, think or talk about it. Hence we need an idea or intellectual perception of sensations which are of themselves unintelli13. “The instinct to pursue one thing and flee from another has its origin in the senses. This is not a judgment; it is a passive tendency, a spontaneous, involuntary fact.” An Historical Critique, 244, fn. 161.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations gible, objects neither of thought nor of reason. . . . This necessity of thinking about sensations by means of an idea makes it very difficult for us to understand the need to isolate a sensation from its idea in order to gain a clear concept of it.14

Sensations remain outside the intellect and are incapable of becoming an object of thought on their own. Since the intellect cannot consider anything without making use of an idea or concept, the difficulty of distinguishing between a sensation and an idea is analogous to that of separating a thing from an object. This is understandable, since sensation, being a modification of our bodily constitution, belongs to the real world, the same as the thing, whereas ideas, although we cannot reasonably say that they are nothing, are not real in the same way as real things that exist independently of our intellect. In a very specific sense, thus, there is a greater similarity between the subject and the thing external to it than between the thing and the idea that represents it: in the first case, both are real beings; in the latter case, the difference is categorical, since they have different forms of being. In the following we will see that even though all sensations reveal something different from the feeling subject, they are insufficient to constitute knowledge in the strict sense of the word—that is, to “place the thing in the universal class of existing entia.”15 We will do this considering three points: (1) activity and passivity in the act of sensation; (2) the subjective and the extrasubjective; and (3) opposite properties of sensation and idea. I will leave aside the problem of the fundamental corporeal feeling, which would be unavoidable in a detailed account of the nature of sense perception.16 14. The Innate Light, 418, 419. 15. An Historical Critique, 332. Cf. also An Historical Critique, 57. In spite of some freedom in the use of words, Rosmini is not suggesting here that the thought of something includes necessarily the thought that it exists in reality, but that every intellectual consideration of something presupposes that its object is. Even logical constructs are. Besides, in the present context, sensations are something real and produced by a real agent. 16.See Piemontese’s book La dottrina del sentimento fondamentale nella filosofia di Antonio Rosmini.

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  Activity and Passivity in Sense Perception Sensation is a passive phenomenon, that is, a modification produced by an agent external to the subject experiencing it. It lies beyond the power of the subject to experience or not to experience the sensation produced by the agent acting on our senses. We can be so deep in thought that we do not perceive a very soft sound coming from the treetops or a leaf brushing against our face, but the corresponding modifications did happen. We are passive with regard to them, even if the passivity is different for each kind of sensation. Sensation is produced as a result of a movement or an action whose origin is not in us. And the same is the case when this action takes place after another action whose origin is in ourselves: for example, when knocking at a door. It is the hardness of the door that somehow acts on the knuckles, since if we had hit a rubber wall, sensation would be utterly different. If sensations depended on our action, we would be able to avoid all painful ones and feel only what is pleasant; nothing would damage our health, and death itself would not take place. We have to recognize sensations as facts taking place in our spirit, which is mainly passive in their regard; it suffers but does not produce an action. . . . if I were not passive to sensations aroused in my body, I could get rid of all harmful ones, have only pleasant ones, and never suffer or die.17

Now, if we consider carefully what passivity is, we will notice that there can be no passivity without a corresponding activity,18 in the sense that the concept of passivity presupposes that of a prior activity. In fact, that a passivity has taken place implies that another being has performed an activity, so that the thought of the former leads toward the latter. Moreover, when a passivity occurs, it is one with the activity that produces it, only that the words passivity and activity indicate different relations to both beings involved. We refer here to transitive acts, which necessarily end in the effect they produce. These acts can17. The Innate Light, 664. 18. See the “Dialogo sulla vera natura del conoscere,” in Rinnovamento, 496–513.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations not “remain” in the acting subject, they cannot “cease” before entering into contact with the passive subject. Otherwise, the transitive act will not exist at all. This somewhat surprising idea that activity and passivity are two aspects of the same being requires close consideration. Indeed, the agent would not act if another subject did not receive its action; it is not possible to hit a void. Now, if the action is realized when the agent reaches the subject, then it coincides with the passivity. The passivity is properly speaking in the passive subject but it is an effect of the activity, which in turn belongs to the acting subject. If they were two different beings, no contact would have been established and, consequently, no activity performed. What is being experienced is the term of another being’s action. Now the passivity, purely as passivity, is in the passive being but is also term of the action. Considered as term of the action, it is in the active being. . . . Now, we are considering the being at the moment of its action. What for one being (which receives) is a passivity, is for the other, at that moment, a term of action; the same thing is joined and belongs to two beings in one act, having its own direct relation to each. It is a concept of two beings touching each other, as it were—a difficult, unique concept but nevertheless true.19

This analysis helps us understand sensation as a passive phenomenon. It may also become clear this way that a mere intellectual consideration of sensation is enough to prove the existence of bodies different to our own, which act on us. In other words: sensation itself, although it remains a modification of the subject, includes a necessary relation to something other than the subject. We could build the following syllogism: (1) all passive phenomena require the existence of an acting agent; (2) sensations are passive phenomena; (3) sensations require the existence of an acting agent. If we take this conclusion as the premise of a second syllogism, we have: (1) sensations require the existence of an acting agent; (2) a sensation has taken place; 19. The Innate Light, appendix 22. The emphasis is mine. I replaced the word experience with that of passivity to remain faithful to the original passione and to maintain continuity with the exposition. The first sentence is left unmodified so as not to change too much the structure of the translation.

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  (3) an agent exists, which is acting on us.20 The following text is clear enough: We have demonstrated two things: 1. Sensations are in us, not in external agents. . . . 2. Sensations are in us as the term of actions done by something other than ourselves. . . . In every sensation we experience a passive modification or disturbance within us, of which we are directly conscious, that expresses the term of an external action. By their nature, therefore, sensations, although in us, inform us of something outside ourselves.

In order to keep distinct activity and passivity, we must accept that the consciousness of an experience equals the consciousness of an agent different fr.om us acting on our makeup: We must either deny the difference between activity and passivity, or accept that to be conscious of an experience in us is to be conscious of an action done in us, but not by us.21

But is sensation capable of informing of the presence of an existing body? I mentioned that the intelligence needs the idea of existence in order to know a real existing thing and that no sensation is able to supply this idea. Although this claim still needs some clarification, has it not been made superfluous already? It is only apparently so, since I pointed out that it is not the passivity in our senses itself that supplies the knowledge of the existence of a given thing but the concept of passivity, which already implies the use of the intellectual power and 20. Rosmini uses this analysis to solve the problem of the existence of the external world. Cf.: “Sensations presuppose a cause different from ourselves. External sensations are facts towards which we are passive. Passive facts are actions done in us of which we are not the cause. Such actions suppose a cause different from ourselves because of the principle of cause. Consequently, sensations suppose a cause different from us. And this was what we had to show.” Ibid., 674. See also ibid., 708. 21. Ibid., 879. When Rosmini says that we are “directly conscious” of passive modifications in us, he is not implying that sensations cannot take place without us noticing them, but that our consciousness in any case has this modification as a direct term and not the external agent acting on us. “The essence of the body consists of an action done in us in such a way that we feel ourselves as passive relative to the energy perceived intellectually as a being at work in us but different from us. Experiencing two species of feeling, undergoing two kinds of action, and feeling two sorts of energy, we realize that there are two species of body, our own and external bodies.” Ibid., 708.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations therefore, as we will see, the application of the idea of existence.22 It is in the concept of passivity that we see that the passivity could not have taken place without an activity, which must reside in an agent. I want to emphasize that if sensations were to account for everything in human knowledge, we would be restricted to our own modifications. We would never know about other beings: only their relation to us would be perceived, although not even as a relation. That is: we could not consider them as existing in themselves. And memory and imagination are faculties that retain a sort of remnant of the sensation but are not better qualified to supply us with intellective knowledge; rather, as faculties of the human being they presuppose it. In fact sensations are only particular modifications or experiences in our own make-up; what is felt exists as such only relatively to us. Sensations therefore can make us feel only the relationship to us of external things. . . . a sensation . . . indicates only our experience and its term. . . . sensation means simply some modification in us, while idea means mental conception of something that exists, independently of any modification or experience in another being.23

The doubt may arise whether we can really have the idea of a sensation: would this comprise the conception of a thing that cannot take place independently of us as existing independently of us? Is that not contradictory? Not in the least, because when we think of a sensation—which is different from feeling it—we make it something of its own. There is no relation to us included in that idea, but the concept of a relation to some subject, whatever this may be. In fact, we can think about sensations other people have, and they can conceive of our own. But nobody can feel the same sensations another feels: the thought of sensation does not equal experiencing it. What we know in the idea of sensation is sensation itself; the experience of a concrete sensation, if it is accompanied by intellectual knowledge, adds to the 22. “The distinction [between the subjective element and the extrasubjective element] takes place when sensible perception is transformed into ‘intellective perception,’ that is, when being is attributed to the extrasubjective fact by means of the judgment.” Sciacca, Interpretazione rosminiane, 266. 23. The Innate Light, 416.

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  general idea of sensation precisely through that actual experience. In other words: we are not considering the pure idea of sensation any longer, but we are intellectively knowing this particular sensation we are experiencing. The agent that produces the sensation with its action is a different entity, although necessary for the existence of sensation. This leads us to the notion of extrasubjective.

The Subjective and the Extrasubjective in Sensation The subject and his sensory organs are always necessarily mixed up in sensation. Can we therefore call sensation subjective? Is the fact that sensations are in us and not in the exterior thing enough to deny the possibility of knowing something different from the subject himself ? A careful consideration of sensations showed that although they take place in the subject, they are produced by a force coming from a different thing. Consequently, the cause is always other than the feeling subject. In order to explain the nature of sensations, Rosmini, who was not inclined to introduce new words in philosophy unless absolutely necessary, coins the term extrasubjective because he is aware of pointing at a novel meaning. To call sensation “objective” would lead either to confusing it with the idea or to suppressing ideas altogether. There is one enlightening passage that will certainly clear the way to understanding his conception of these terms: To avoid confusion, we define our use of certain words: 1. a sensation is a modification of the feeling subject; 2. sense-perception is a sensation (or more generally any feeling) considered in so far as it is united to a real term; 3. an idea is being, or a possible being, intuited as object by the mind; 4. intellective perception is the act by which the mind apprehends a real thing (something feelable) as an object, that is, in the idea. Sensation therefore is subjective, sense-perception is extrasubjective; an idea is an object, intellective perception is objective.24

24. Ibid., 417.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations The first definition clearly results from what was already said. We will now analyze the second one. The third claim will be discussed when we examine the nature of ideas, and intellective perception will be explained in the next chapter. The term extrasubjective needs to be distinguished from subjective and objective. The object is the thing present to the mind as it is. The thing itself never stands before the mind, among other reasons because the mind is not a material entity and cannot therefore have something before it that is not of ideal nature. The object or idea, due to its very nature, exists in the mind that contemplates it. The question of whether it represents the thing adequately or not remains unanswered yet. If we considered sensations objective, there would be two kinds of objectivity—namely, that of the senses and that of the intellect. In this last case the word objectivity would become indistinct and it would be used to name two very different facts. Sensations are not objects of the understanding in their own right, that is, they do not constitute the means by which the understanding knows everything it knows. Since they are a modification of the subject, their nature is subjective, but, as we already argued, this does not prevent them from going in a specific way beyond the subject whose modification they are. What does it mean that sensation is subjective? It means that it remains within the subject’s reality. In the feeling of hardness, the subject experiences a passivity, the intellectual consideration of which reveals that there exists a source of the modification that cannot be identified with the feeling subject himself.25 To call sensation subjective does not result in its downgrading; we see on the contrary that it is a means (the only one possible) by which the subject has any contact with the real as such. There is only one “sensation” that occurs without an external cause producing it. Rosmini spoke of a funda25. When we say, e.g.: “A hard thing touched my hand” or “I am touching a hard thing with my hand,” we imply in fact that we feel hardness and that there is something that produces that feeling. It may seem too subtle and almost insignificant to affirm such a difference as relevant, but it comes from a careful description of the facts.

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  mental feeling with which we feel our own body; this underlies all sensations and all other feelings, which are in fact a modification of this feeling. He gave several reasons for the existence of such a feeling, both in the Nuovo saggio and in the Psychology. The term sensation is inexact and equivocal in order to describe its subtle nature, since it is not perceived until it is modified. In fact, sensations take place in a feeling subject; the permanent feeling this subject has explains that each one conceives his sensations as his own. This would not be possible if together with the action of an external agent, we did not feel the action of our own body upon us as feeling subjects. When I feel an external body, it is I who experiences something, and to experience is to be modified in some way. Now, if sensations are experienced as modifications, that of which they are the modifications must be of a different nature. However, it must also be felt, otherwise no modification would be experienced, but simply isolated happenings, which do not affect me at all. If the feeling of ourselves did not preexist sensations, we would have two possibilities: either (1) sensations would create the feeling, which is hard to believe, especially since sensations differ widely in nature; or (2) I would take my body to be one of the sensations I have, all of them, or a result of all of them. One would need to explain how light or sounds are able to excite in me the feeling of my own body; light can heat my body and produce colors in my eyesight. Sounds can pierce my ears, inform me about other people’s thoughts or wishes, or delight me with music. But my body is neither heat nor warmth, let alone just a pain in my ears, which I would not perceive until the music became too loud. What is then the meaning of extrasubjective? It expresses the necessity of admitting a cause for the modification of the subject that occurs in sensation. The experience of sensation as a passivity implies that there is an external thing as its source: that is, that the thing is never experienced in itself but in the modification it produces in us.26 Rosmini considered this to be enough to prove the existence of a thing outside the perceiving subject. Now, how do we distinguish be26. See The Innate Light, 674.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations tween what belongs to the subject and what belongs to the thing acting on him? This question is extremely important, because if there were no possibility to differentiate them, the senses would not be able to provide any sort of knowledge of the real thing. The principle for accurately distinguishing the subjective and extrasubjective elements in sensations is: “Everything contained in sensations considered in themselves (and not according to the way they are produced) is subjective; everything contained in the concept of our passivity, attested by consciousness, is extrasubjective.”27

In other words: the modification as such belongs to the subjective side of sensation. More exactly, the modification of its very nature is rooted in the modified being. This hardly needs any explanation. But, if we reflect upon sensation, our consciousness testifies that the phenomenon is of a passive nature—that is, that we are not the cause of that modification;28 thus we understand that sensation has an extrasubjective side. This is what is meant by the “concept of our passivity”: that the reflection that produces the concept attests to an existing passivity. Everything that is seen to come from an external agent, and is therefore included “in the concept of our passivity,” tells us about the external agent, even if without leaving the sphere of the subject. Without the present analysis, this aspect would have been ignored. Not that we would know nothing about the external agent, since the mind performs this operation without the help of philosophers. But without this aspect, an explanation of why knowledge of external things is possible, how it takes place, to what extent and with what limitations, would certainly not be reached. Rosmini speaks more concretely. He points out three features of bodies perceived as extrasubjective. Those are: (1) the force; (2) the multiplicity of bodies; and (3) continuous extension. It should be recalled that, although the subject is implicated in sensation, it is not less true that the other thing is also necessary for the coming to be of sen27. Ibid., 881. 28. This refers to the efficient cause, since the material one, which is actually a condition, is the fundamental feeling noted above.

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  sation. The only exception to this is the way the subject feels himself, which is discovered after a long exercise of internal observation. [A]ll our sensations (colour, taste, sound, odour, etc.), although subjective, necessarily contain an extrasubjective part. . . . 1. Consciousness tells us we are passive in sensations, that is, we perceive a force in act. Our understanding then sees in this action a being different from itself, that is, a body. Force then is the first part of the extrasubjective perception of bodies. 2. Consciousness attests that the disturbances and forces we feel are multiple. Multiplicity of bodies therefore is the second part of our extrasubjective perception of bodies. 3. Consciousness again, and reason, tell us that a force is actively present in every point of a sensation without exception. We are thus led to the conviction that there is a continuous extension. This is the third part of the extrasubjective perception of bodies.29

All sensations, although they do not belong to the thing, also tell us about something present in the thing.30 So we are not the least hampered from knowing the thing as it is in itself, since we have grasped a real property residing in it and independent of the subject, which is passive with respect to it. The extrasubjective element—the element of sensation that refers to the perceived thing and not to the subject— is always mixed with the subjective component, so that there would be no sensation—and, therefore, no sense perception—without the activity of the external thing on the sense organs. Let us reflect on the fact that we experience multiple sensations: we hear a dog barking, a cat meowing, and a woman yelling at both animals. According to the previous statement, these sounds take place 29. The Innate Light, appendix 30, 882. Other properties of bodies are derived from these three in ibid., 883–85. See also ibid., 914: “[C]olour, as such, is the subjective part of sensation, as we have seen. The size and proportion of the different coloured spaces is the extrasubjective part, which indicates the size of exterior things. It offers a true likeness of them: a small triangle or square truly resembles a large triangle or square.” 30. For the problem of primary qualities, which refers to properties of the thing independent of the way they appear to us, cf.: “Our eye perceives light directly and light informs us about external things. . . . It is false to say that the first qualities, when perceived, are sensations; they are only a part of sensations, the extrasubjective part” (ibid., 901; and appendix 34). See also ibid., 885–86. A good discussion of this issue in general can be found in R. J. Hirst, “Primary and Secondary Qualities,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York and London: Macmillan, 1967) 6:455–57.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations in ourselves, and although we cannot say: “Listen! There is a meowing and a barking and a very loud scream!” still, judging from the sounds we perceive and only from them, without any further consideration based on our previous experience or on our knowledge of animals or of the woman involved; judging from that mere information, I repeat, we could positively say: (1) “There is something able to produce these different sounds, otherwise I would not hear anything”; and (2) “Since the sounds are different, their source must be multiple.” In this way sensations provided us with some facts about the external world: namely, that there is something able to produce sounds and that it is also multiple. These two pieces of information correspond to the first and the second aspects mentioned in the text quoted above. Thanks to their extrasubjective aspect, sensations bear some resemblance to the thing, which is in no way to be confused with the likeness found in the idea; its subjective side would serve only as a sign of the thing. In other words, the sound would suggest the presence of a source producing it, but there is nothing similar to the sound itself in the thing. Sensations, therefore, as subjective can be a sign, but not a likeness of external things; as extrasubjective, it is a sign bearing a resemblance to things.31

These clarifications always imply the distinction between extrasubjectivity and objectivity. Sensations are capable of supplying information about the thing but always remain within the subject. In fact, sense perception informs us only about external things relative to us. There is no absolute consideration of the thing that could start in the senses. Senses are unable to grasp how things are in themselves without any sort of relationship with the passive subject. On the contrary, to have an idea means to understand something as it is in itself, independently of the modification it produces in other subjects, and objectivity consists precisely in this: leaving the thing, so to speak, untouched; whereas the senses are restricted to a particular connection with the thing. 31. The Innate Light, 914, fn. 196.

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  The experience we undergo in a sensation has two aspects: from the point of view of the term, ourselves, it is experience; from the point of view of its principle, it is action. Action and experience indicate the same thing under two different, opposite aspects.32

These are the two aspects we have several times referred to: the absolute and the relative consideration of the thing. The former has its origin in the understanding, the latter in sense perception. Extrasubjectivity remains one side of sense perception and does not go beyond the sensations in which it exists. The understanding, or intellect, rises above and goes beyond this consideration of things relative to us. Feeling perceives what we are talking about simply as experience and the expectation of new experiences; only the understanding is able to perceive it as action, while adding nothing to it. The understanding considers the thing absolutely; sense perceives it in a particular respect, that is, relatively. Understanding originates in us, particular beings, but directs its attention to things in themselves; sense never moves from the particular subject, ourselves, to which it belongs.33

Thus extrasubjectivity is not enough to explain the awareness of reality as independent from a particular subject. We can explain what happens in sensation by saying that, based on the fact that a sensation is experienced as a passive phenomenon, it could not take place if no agent existed and produced such a modification. Although sensation cannot take place without the external thing, this thing is considered only under a limited and relative aspect. The perception of its absolute, independent existence does not fall within the capacity of sensations; for that purpose a power of a different nature is required. The existent thing is detached from the subject that experiences it, since it does not actually imply any activity upon any organ, a fact that no sensitive power is able to grasp.34 32. Ibid., 964. 33. Ibid. 34. A doubt could arise as to whether this is the case with the individual organ or if the thing is also absolutely independent from any sensitivity in general. Of course, the thing I hear does not exist because I hear it. But the sound is not the thing; quite the opposite, it exists in intimate dependence on the sense organ. The question, however,

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations Nonetheless, this analysis of sensations does not conclude that the subject is locked up within itself and its modifications, because sensation is a passive phenomenon. We can say that sense perception contains both elements, the subjective and the extrasubjective, and also that our senses do perceive the external thing, but this perception is inseparable from the modification that the thing produces, either directly or through some particular means, in our bodily constitution. Therefore, sense perception must be carefully distinguished from the intellective perception, which contains an element in no way reducible to the senses, since it is able to understand existence independent of the perceiving subject.

Sensation and Idea Compared Now that we have argued that sensation and idea differ in nature, let us see in more detail in what this difference consists. We also said that they hold opposite natures, the former being some modification in us and the latter the conception of the thing independently of the modifications it can produce in other beings. All this will become plain after a summary review of each of their characteristics. Based on Rosmini’s texts, I will comment on some of these attributes. It can be said in advance that these characteristics are assigned by Rosmini to the idea of being—or to possible being—in which all other ideas participate. Understood such a way, the disparity between ideas and sensations is not reduced or weakened, as if it applied only to the idea of being and not to the other ideas, whose content is undoubtedly more closely related to sense experience. On the contrary, the difference becomes even clearer, since the formal constituent of ideas has a completely different nature from that of sensations. 1. The idea is simple, and sensation has extension. Whereas sensation, due to its necessary inherence in the bodily organ, always has a determined extension, an idea has no material parts. Devoid of all physical seeks to elucidate whether a thing that is not felt by some subject is intelligible at all, that is, if the reality of the thing entails necessarily a feeling subject or not. See Rosmini’s opinion in Principles of Ethics, chap. 2, art. 1: “The Nature of Good,” 21–42.

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  properties, it is absolutely simple. The fact that an idea can be analyzed does not contradict this affirmation, because after the analysis we are not left with pieces, as it were, which made up the full idea. Nor will we have the original idea again by putting these resulting new ideas back together, for the very simple reason that this logic does not apply to nonphysical entities. The way some ideas can be obtained from others by way of analysis is a completely sui generis process, but we do not have to deal with it here. I will note only that simplicity must be taken to mean an “absence of parts.” Every organic sensation, with its root in an extended organ, will be found to have some extension. On the contrary, every possible being intuited by the mind is perfectly simple.35

2. The idea is one and identical; sensations can be multiple. If we see a red apple a hundred times, we experience a hundred times the sensation of red. Each one of them is completely separated from the rest and takes place at a different moment. Many people can be looking at the apple at the same time, and each will experience a distinct sensation. Sensation red1 takes place in the first person, red2 in the second, and so on. But the idea of red is one and the same for all sensations; ideas have no place or space limitations. While real things can be many, an idea is necessarily one; there are not a hundred ideas of the apple or the color red. We use the same idea to think about all real and even possible things of the same kind. Real bodies are multiple, while the concept or idea of body remains constantly one. . . . The nature of real things, therefore, to which sensations belong, and the nature of the simple idea are opposed to one another. The latter cannot be found in the former, nor can it be produced by them.36

We might also consider that the mere fact that we speak of a plurality, be it of sensations or of anything else, reveals that a unitary no35. The Innate Light, 426. 36. Ibid., 427. This inclusion of sensations in the class of real things is significant, as it shows that Rosmini had in mind a distinct ontology already in his early works. In fact, this distinction between the real and the ideal, the ultimate foundation of which is given in the Teosofia, is a key to understanding many paragraphs of the Nuovo saggio.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations tion must be present to the mind in order to count the number of things that match it. Who could count a hundred things if he did not know the what of which he is counting a hundred? Even if he counted a hundred different things, he would need some unity: the most general idea of something, at least. And it cannot be argued that he needs only a hundred things to count and no idea, because the problem lies exactly in determining how we reached that number. Individual things cannot serve as paradigm or as the idea that serves as a model. We do not take the first thing and then compare the rest with it, because what we are looking for is a pattern that all of them match, not all but the first one. Already when counting the first thing we must be in possession of that pattern. This is necessarily so, otherwise we must require that the ninety-nine things that follow be exactly equal to the first one, which is obviously not possible. The unity must be something different from the thing, allowing the intellect at the same time to recognize it.37 For Rosmini intelligibility lies in the ideas, since things would not be understood without the presence of the idea to the mind. Ideas are known in themselves and make the real thing known; they do not need anything else to constitute knowledge. The act of knowledge receives from the idea its own character of an act of knowledge. Without them, sensations would remain dark, too, and the universe would be unknown, absolutely speaking, at least for finite subjects, who would therefore not exist as knowing. That is the reason why they play such an important role in Rosmini’s ontology as well as in his philosophy of knowledge. 3. The idea is universal, and sensation is particular. I think it is helpful here to quote very brief excerpts from the Nuovo saggio:

Rosmini’s initial contribution to the theory of knowledge is precisely the recovery of the true nature of objectivity—i.e., of ideas—which, without being real things themselves, constitute the necessary means of the act of knowledge. 37. Referring back to Plato, Thomas Aquinas wrote: “Unde et Plato dixit quod necesse est ante omnem multitudinem ponere unitatem” (Summa theologiae I, 44, 1c).

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  Every being, considered in its logical possibility, is universal and necessary. . . . On the other hand, every single sensation is particular: everything I feel in it is limited to that sensation.38

The logical possibility of a being is for Rosmini its idea. In fact, by thinking the idea, we do not have the thing yet—that is, the idea is the presence in the mind of a possibly existing being, not the thing itself. The thing in question could have or not have real existence, the idea remaining exactly the same in both cases. In principle, we can have an idea without knowing with certainty whether its corresponding thing exists or not. And if it exists, the intuition of the idea alone is not enough to grasp its real existence. Another operation of the mind is required to persuade us that the thing exists.39 Consequently, the idea expresses only that a thing is possible. The fact that we find it extremely arduous to distinguish between these two acts of the understanding—the intuition of the idea and the judgment about the real existence of the thing meant—obviously does not represent an objection. We could thus reformulate the first sentence in this way: “The idea is universal and necessary.” Why are all ideas universal? An idea can be applied to an indefinite number of things: with the idea of horse, I know all horses. If we consider it carefully, we will see that this property of ideas lies in the fact that they express the possibility of the thing but not its reality. Even the idea of a particular thing is universal, because it can be predicated of an indefinite number of individuals. A real thing cannot be a predicate, because a predicate is of itself universal in nature. The fact that all but one of the resulting judgments would be false does not contradict the possibility of forming them.40 The idea remains always distinct from the thing it makes known. 38. The Innate Light, 428. Cf.: “On the contrary, all ideas possess immutability as well as universality, because the idea is, as we have said so many times, the logical possibility, that is, the cognoscibility of being” (Rinnovamento, 445). 39. Cf. The Innate Light, 402–5. 40. Cf. Anthropology, 786. Rosmini called the perfect idea of the individual a full species (specie piena). See The Innate Light, 589–94.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations To understand the idea as another thing would be equal to postponing the problem indefinitely. Seen from this point of view, the idea is not at all a thing; it enjoys a completely unique mode of being. This mode of being is marked by universality, by means of which an indefinite plurality of things is made known. No particular thing could represent another thing without the aid of an idea, because it is restricted by its own limits. A portrait, Rosmini explains, cannot be representative of the many people it resembles, but the intellect has a unique idea with which it compares both the portrait and the people and finds a likeness between them. The case is similar to that of counting individuals. In fact, a portrait and people are all individual beings. The resemblance—that is, what is one and can also be present in many—is neither in the person nor in the portrait, but in the intellect. Universality consists thus in a relationship, a rapport, that cannot take place except in a mind, and that constitutes a basic feature of all ideas. Rosmini expresses this as follows: A universal, therefore, is something through which many things, or rather an indefinite number of things, can be known. Universality is a mere relationship found only in ideas which, as we have seen, are things with which we know an indefinite number of other things. From this point of view, we call an idea a “species.”41

4. The idea is necessary, and sensation is contingent. In the text quoted above, it was said that ideas are necessary. Although it may seem strange, their necessity lies in their possibility. The thing itself is not 41. The Innate Light, 1020, fn. 247. The text continues as follows: “It is true that at first sight there appears to be something besides ideas that can be called ‘universal’ and in this sense a portrait perhaps seems universal because it represents all its look-alikes. But this is misleading: the portrait is universal only in so far it is joined to an idea. It is only through the idea of the portrait that the mind is able to compare the portrait and the people it resembles, and to find the likeness which does not exist in the portrait but in the single idea with which the portrait and persons resembling it are thought. It is the unity of the idea which constitutes the likeness between similar things, as we see in our example of the portrait and the persons resembling it.” This brief definition is taken from the Rinnovamento: “Which is therefore the true concept of the universality of ideas? We say it is ‘the capacity that just one of them has to make us know even an infinite number of individuals’” (444).

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  necessary because it is possible, that is, it will not exist just because it can be thought by an intellect. And sensations, insofar as they exist as real things, are also not necessary. But the idea expresses the possibility of the thing, and it is absurd to say that the possibility is contingent. The possibility as such has an inner necessity that withstands the fact that it will never be realized. If something is possible, it has always been so and it will always be so. What is possible has never been impossible. This kind of necessity applies to all ideas; they are not only independent of the thing they represent but are also independent of the mind that thinks them. Therefore, to call them objective is fully justified, because the possibility of a thing does not depend on its being thought by us, but stands in itself.42 We can conceive of the nonexistence of a possible thing, but we cannot think that the possibility itself could cease to exist. On the contrary, no sensation must take place; its existence is absolutely contingent, as are all real finite things. What I contemplate as possible is also necessary, because it is impossible to think that what is possible could ever be impossible. Real sensations, however, can be or not be. They are accidental, contingent, and without any element which would prompt the mind to think of some absolute necessity.43

5. The idea is immutable and eternal; sensation is mutable and perishable. If the possibility of a thing—that is, the idea—is necessary, we have to conclude that it has a timeless existence and that it cannot be subject to change. Necessity cannot hold for a moment or for a period of time: what is necessary must always be so. Likewise, some ideas can be similar, wider, or more restricted than others. We can join two or more ideas and separate them again. For example, we consider now a horse with wings and afterward the 42. This point, that the possibility is necessary per se and that reality, except for Absolute Being, is contingent, constitutes a proof that the logical and the metaphysical orders are not equivalent and do not have the same rules. We can notice the superiority of ideas over things on the finite level (the former are necessary, the latter are not) and we can also have a glimpse of the reasons why Rosmini deals so extensively with ideas, since he saw in them, as did Plato, a superior way of being than in contingent reality. 43. The Innate Light, 429.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations horse without them. We go from the consideration of one idea to the other, but is it right to say that we transform ideas, that they change? If that were the case, we would have the tremendous power to make what is possible cease to be so. Therefore, our attention can be focused on different ideas in different moments, but ideas remain the same, without modification of any sort. If I thought that it was proper to a lion to bark—which, despite the fact that lions do not bark but bellow, does not include any contradiction in itself—and then realized my error by watching them more carefully, I did not change my previous idea of a lion, but simply recognized that what is normally called “lion” bellows but does not bark. Still, the previous idea of lion I had remains the same, otherwise I could not even realize my mistake. I do not have to wait until I see a lion barking to think of that possibility again. What happened in this hypothetical case was that a word was wrongly applied to a concept or idea, and thus its meaning had to be changed. We do not feel the need to call a barking lion with any new word, because apparently no such creatures exist. Nonetheless, we still understand this fictitious idea. Thus we see that an idea cannot change, however insignificant it may be. Its content is necessary and not subject to any sort of change. Essences possess an essentially unchangeable nature. If we thought that they could be altered, that would not be a true modification, but the substitution of one essence by another. . . . However small the change is, the thing being thought is another one. . . . for that reason Aristotle himself compared essences to numbers.44

In this text Rosmini says essences, instead of ideas. Without dealing in detail with this important difference, I will note only that he defines it the following way: 44. Rinnovamento, 509. This property of immutability is based in the unity and simplicity of ideas, in the fact that they are always one and the same: “Let’s consider simplicity first, or unity. I see that every idea is simple and that I can neither add to nor take away anything from one without changing it into a different one, whereas it nonetheless remains the same as it was. Therefore, I can go with my attention only from one idea to the other, without ever producing the least alteration in them” (523).

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  I define essence as that which is understood in any idea. An idea is the thing thought by me as simply possible. But this possible thing, considered in itself and independently of the mind that thinks it, is the essence. Essence therefore is everything I think in any idea whatsoever.45

We see, therefore, that the change of the word does not affect the meaning of the text. The failure to appreciate this important point leads to reducing an idea to a kind of thing and, therefore, to overlook the difference between what is real and what is ideal. The thing can change, be modified, and so on, but not the idea: that is, the means by which we recognize an existing thing and we know it. If the idea could become different, we would be puzzled and would have no way to know with certainty any sort of thing. On the contrary, sensations are limited only to the moment in which they occur; the same sensation cannot take place again. The joy I am feeling now will never repeat itself again. Although the concrete joy could vary in intensity during its happening, the idea of joy, which allows me to recognize it as a joy, remains the same, without variations of any kind. The mind cannot think of any time in which a possible being might not have been what it is now and always will be . . . what we call the immutability and eternity of possible being. Changeable and passing sensations offer no sign of such characteristics, and cannot therefore enable the mind to think of them.46

6. The idea is “cold”; sensations produce an inclination. Whatever sensation we experience will stimulate in us some kind of motion, either an inclination toward the thing or an aversion to the thing felt. A light breeze is always agreeable, but a strong wind becomes unpleasant. 45. The Innate Light, 646. This notion perfectly agrees with the consideration of finite things as contingent, i.e., whose essence does not include their existence and therefore remains possible. 46. Ibid., 433. St. Augustine wrote in his book on the eighty-three questions: “Not only ideas are true, but they are truth itself, because they are eternal, and they remain so and also immutable; through their participation whatever is, is the way it is” (Eightythree Different Questions, question 46). The text is quoted by Rosmini in the Rinnovamento, 461.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations The idea, in contrast, reveals only a possibility; it cannot satisfy or produce any prolonged feeling of attraction or rejection. Sensation produces in us an instinctive inclination towards or aversion from the objects we feel; ideas, on the contrary, are universal by nature and frigid, and produce only an incipient, uniform delight which would cease immediately without the intervention of willing reflection.47

This difference strengthens the former statement that sensations can be classified among real things; the power they have to move us toward the object or to drive us back from it cannot take place if they have no real existence. Sharp though our ideas may be, however many details of a thing we get to know, their mode of existence remains different from the things they make known. 7. By the idea we become aware of sensation, but sensation includes no awareness of itself. Let us specify from the very beginning that the awareness of sensations that takes place in sense perception is of a different nature from that of the intellectual awareness, which includes the thought of something existing independently of us. This certainly animals cannot do, although the existence of an external cause of the modification they undergo is given to them as the extrasubjective part of sensation. Sense perception in animals includes this sort of sensitive awareness, but in no way an intellectual one. Otherwise, ideas, and the intellect with them, would be a by-product of the senses. The extrasubjective aspect of sensation consists in its relationship with the external thing, but in no way entails an intellectual awareness of it. There is a big difference between feeling and becoming aware of a feeling. The former obviously precedes the latter, since there is no possibility of reflecting on something that did not take place. But the existence of sensation itself, that is, the act by which it is what it is, differs from the act by which the intellect considers it. When the light coming from the apple hits my eyes, all this happens without me necessarily becoming aware of it.48 In order for us to become aware of 47. Principles of Ethics, 141. 48. For a discussion on how the attention, which belongs to the faculty of reflec-

The Nature of Knowledge ⁄  the red we see, another act is needed: namely, the act of the intellect that reflects on the act of sensation. Only then do we have an intellectual perception of the seen color. Before—that is, without the intervention of the intellect—sensations were unaware of themselves. Even if an awareness of sensation were to follow it immediately and necessarily, awareness and sensation would constitute different acts. When perceived as such, sensation acquires a new form, which is determined by its being present to the intellect. The operation by means of which a sensation is elevated to this new state is called by Rosmini intellective perception: First, it is necessary (and we cannot insist sufficiently on this) to distinguish the existence of a feeling within us from our awareness of it. . . . But if people have not been able to distinguish between feeling and noticing feeling, they are certainly ignorant of the essential difference between sensation and idea. Sensation can never be aware of itself; the understanding alone is aware of sensation because such awareness is either intellective perception of sensation, or reflection upon intellective perception. The act by which we understand sensation is altogether different from the act of sensation itself, that is, from the act with which we feel.49 tion, allows us to distinguish all the details given with perception, see An Historical Critique, 288–92. 49. The Innate Light, 710. Cf. the following text: “Sensations, once separated from the ideas with which they are conceived, are unknown, as I said. But this fact is very hard to accept. Because sensations, as modifications felt essentially by our spirit, are always accompanied by pleasure or pain, it seems impossible for them to be unknown. This great difficulty comes precisely from what we said earlier about our habit of perceiving sensations intellectually as soon as we have them; we are entia endowed with intellect and reason, and what we feel is also apprehended intellectively. Furthermore, even if we were to have a pure sensation without any accompanying idea—as seems to happen when we feel something without being aware of it because our mind is occupied with other things—such a sensation could not help us form an exact concept of itself because we would have neither understood it nor considered it; relative to our understanding it would not exist at all, and could not, therefore, be thought or reasoned about” (ibid., 421).

 

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing The Intellective Perception

n We have seen in the previous chapter that the first and most important problem of philosophy is the problem of knowledge. To establish the nature and reach of our ideas, which make knowledge possible, is philosophy’s first task. The question of how a thing becomes an object of knowledge is another way of formulating the same problem. Sensations constitute our direct contact with the real material world, but due to their characteristics, they cannot be called objects of thought, they cannot explain the presence of a thing to the intellect. If we were restricted to sensations, no intellectual knowledge would be achieved and objectivity would be an illusion, since all sensations are mixed up with some subjective element and cannot provide the understanding of a thing as it is in itself, but only relatively to us. To accept sensation as the only source of knowledge is tantamount to leaving unexplained a basic fact of experience, such as the existence of universal ideas. Now that we know that ideas are not sensations and that their existence illuminates intelligence, let us proceed to analyze the ideas of things. The primary point of this chapter is the discovery that there is a first idea presupposed by all others, which must be present to the intelligence before any other act of knowledge. This is the idea of being, the innatism of which results from its characteristics. The existence of such an idea, and even more its innatism, has been repeatedly questioned, particularly by Aristotelian Thomists.1 It is not my inten1. The most prominent of these is probably Matteo Liberatore, who criticized



Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  tion to enter into this discussion, since excellent work on this issue has already been done and since Rosmini himself answered his critics on several occasions. In fact, most of the objections to his work came and still come from a very superficial reading of the Nuovo saggio. Rosmini represents a real continuity with the thought of Thomas Aquinas. This line of interpretation, which goes back to Rosmini himself and should be quite free of surprises for anybody well versed in Thomism and modern philosophy who seriously meditates on Rosmini’s philosophy, has been supported by a good number of scholars between the 1950s and the 1970s.2 My sole purpose here is to explain Rosmini’s position, since I consider it a crucial point in the argument of the present work.

The Judgment Contained in the Idea of the Thing At this point, we have established that in order to know something we need the idea of that thing. The thought of something does not imply that the mind goes out of itself to seize the thing in its reality, but it does not follow from this that knowledge of reality is not possible. The nature of cognitive acts requires the existence of an immanent object, which remains within the intellect. This object, the idea, is the possibility of the thing. It is not an intermediate thing, but the Rosmini’s philosophy in many of his works, notably in Della conoscenza intellettuale, 2 vols. (Naples, 1855). 2. Cf. Muzio, Dal tomismo essenziale al tomismo Rosminiano; idem, La dottrina della conoscenza in S. Tommaso e in Antonio Rosmini; idem, Il senso ortodosso e tomistico delle quaranta proposizioni rosminiane; Honan, Agostino, Tommaso, Rosmini. More recent are: Giannini, “La metafisica di Rosmini”; Petrini, “Rosmini e S. Tommaso: Divergenze e convergenze”; Franco Percivale, “Tommaso rivisitato.” Percivale has recently published the final result of his research (Da Tommaso a Rosmini), in which he gathers an enormous amount of evidence for the thesis of the continuity between Thomas and Rosmini on the question of innatism. No serious discussion on this topic can avoid dealing with Percivale’s arguments, which are supported by literally hundreds of texts. For a different perspective, see Pietro Prini, “La linea ontologica della filosofia moderna,” and Vittorio Mathieu, “Cartesio: Verso Hegel o verso Rosmini?” in 197–225., Le due linee della filosofia moderna,45–66 and 39–44. In French see Jolivet, De Rosmini à Lachelier and his introduction to Antonio Rosmini. All these studies certainly represent a major contribution to assigning Rosmini a clearer position in the history of philosophy and also to a better understanding of Aquinas himself.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations necessary means of knowledge. If we consider it attentively, we will convince ourselves that to be merely an object of the intellect—that is, to be thought without existing in reality—is synonymous with being a possibility. The understanding of ideas as the possibility of things does not push the problem to the infinite, as if we had to explain how we get to know that possibility; on the contrary, it clearly establishes the difference between idea and thing. The intellect can consider the thing after it no longer exists and even before it comes into existence, precisely because the possibility is timeless and is in itself something necessary. Even when considering the concretely existing thing, the intellect understands its possibility, since the thought of that thing certainly presupposes that it is possible. If it were not possible, neither could we think it nor it would exist. Now, our task is to examine the nature of ideas. We mean ideas of finite things, since there is no positive idea of the infinite. We can notice that it would be impossible to conceive anything without thinking at the same time being. Together with the essence or nature itself, and underlying it, there is the understanding of what it means to be. If this thought were not present, if it were canceled, nothing else could be known. Moreover, as a strict consequence of this, our intellect sees the particular essence as a less extended realization of being. They are not two separated ideas: that of being and that of, say, horse. Being can never be totally abstracted from horse without the latter ceasing to be thinkable. It is clear that by thinking being in general we do not grasp horse, but there is no possible understanding of horse without the thought of being. Horse is a way of being. This is simply a fact, independent of the explanation we give of it. As a finite idea, horse includes, then, an intrinsic composition in which the first element is being, common for all essences, and the other is precisely what is proper to horse. Such a composition is a kind of relationship, because we see the nature of being as transcending the finite nature considered, and containing it. There is no possible essence that could be thought independently of being. The potentiali-

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  ty of universal general being is revealed by the essences of particular things, but these in turn receive all their intelligibility from being. If being is withdrawn, everything becomes dark and no thought is possible any more. But if we had no knowledge of any singular essence, although being will not be therefore wiped out, it would remain like a void, silent and empty. We will deal first with the relationship present in each idea and then with the characteristics of the idea of being. n

In what kind of relationship do ideas consist? We could call it a sort of partial identity. The idea of horse is made up of two elements: being and the proper constituents of the essence of a horse. Being goes well beyond horses, but the idea of horse is all contained in being. Therefore, we understand horse as it is inscribed, drawn in being. Now, this relation of partial identity is exactly the one that exists in judgments, where the more extended term is the predicate and the less extended, the subject. In fact, the judgment “Animals are horses” is false, not because no animals are indeed horses, but because the subject has more extension than the predicate. On the contrary, the sentence “Horses are animals” is true, because the whole extension of the subject is contained in the extension of the predicate. Rosmini says: Two terms are required for a judgment, one more extensive, the other less. In the concept of a horse, we have in fact found the universal idea of ens, the more extensive term, and the idea of the constitutive of the horse, the less extensive term. A further requirement is that the less extensive term be conceived in the more extensive. We have seen, in fact, that we conceive the nature of the horse, the less extensive idea, in the idea of ens, the more extensive.3

These observations obtain for the simple idea of the thing, without consideration of its real existence. Now, the question arises, “How was the idea formed?” “How did it happen that a particular essence, for example, horse, came to the understanding of the subject?” There are a number of sensations that occasion in us an idea of the thing, 3. An Historical Critique, 132.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations but these sensations cannot take the form of an idea of themselves. Moreover, we also know now that an idea includes a relationship between being and some other essence, which coincides partially with it; not because it would have something that escapes being, but because being surpasses it. Traditionally, the order of the operations of the understanding is thought to be simple apprehension, judgment, and reasoning. In this sequence, simple apprehension is supposed to supply the idea of the thing. The erroneous presupposition is that the idea is found just as it is and is intuited by the intellect. Now, this is equal to postulating the existence of universal ideas outside our mind. Rosmini clearly saw this problem and realized that many of the traditional explanations of the classical theory of abstraction did not solve it.4 He therefore reversed the order of the first two operations, since for him ideas are formed in the intellect on the occasion of sensations or feelings. Relying on the previous results—namely, that ideas contain a judgment— he is justified in placing judgment before simple apprehension. Here, perplexity can take hold of us. The consideration of an idea, that is, of a thing in its possibility, did not carry with it the persuasion of its existence. And now it has become clear that ideas are judgments that have as a predicate the idea of being, or existence. So, having an idea is equal to saying: “Something is or exists.” How can we make sense of both claims together? It would be easier to reject the second claim, since its truth is less evident. It will therefore be our task to see why it can still be held without contradiction. n

4. To say that universals or ideas are in potency in things or in sensations does not add much light to the question. If everything that is in real things in act is individual, and the intellect itself is an individual being, there is no possible way of producing a universal out of an individual or a series of individuals, however large. Even if the idea of the thing is not already in the intellect—as Plato’s innatism suggests—before the encounter with the real thing of which it is the idea, a first universal form must be in the mind, unless we want to leave the problem of universality unsolved. As we will see, the conclusion that there is in the human mind a first innate idea, the light of reason, is a natural consequence of sound and, in my opinion, flawless reasoning.

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  The operation that produces ideas is called by Rosmini primitive synthesis or primitive judgment. In order to formulate this judgment the intellect must be already in possession of the predicate, which we saw to be the idea of being in general. If we were to explain by another operation of the mind how that idea entered the mind, we would necessarily have to presuppose another idea, with the aid of which it had to be formed. There is therefore one exception, precisely the idea of being, the first idea, which enters the composition of all the rest. The primitive judgment consists in the union of the idea with the sensations felt. There is a certain identity between sensation and the idea of existence that allows us to judge: “What I feel (see, hear, touch, smell, taste) exists.”5 The intellect recognizes that what impresses the senses is some particular being that ties in with the universal notion of being it possesses. Therefore, at least a partial identity between both has to be perceived in order to form the corresponding idea of the thing. It is still true that I am aware of a relationship of identity between what is sensible and existence. But feeling a relationship is the same as feeling a judgment, and feeling internally a judgment is equivalent to forming a judgment.6

The judgment can be defined as “an operation of the spirit by which we attribute a predicate to a subject.”7 It is not necessarily a relationship between ideas but can also consist in the relationship between an idea and a sensation, which becomes the subject of the judgment. If we demanded an idea in the place of the subject, we would 5. “Whatever the external reality may be, when we perceive it we say to ourselves that it is, we apply to it the predicate of being. This is the intuition—better, the perception—of external subsisting things. This intuition, therefore, or perception, is not a simple fact. In order to take place it requires the previous presence of the idea of being, which is applied to the felt thing, when man says internally: ‘This that I felt, is.’ The philosopher who promises the demonstration of the knowable is thus not allowed to leave without examination of this aspect of knowledge. He cannot begin with the intuition as the first source of knowledge without examining the means of the intuition, which precedes the intuition itself ” (Rinnovamento, 53). 6. An Historical Critique, 119. 7. Ibid., appendix 3.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations have to explain how we obtained that idea. Either it was already in our mind, which would be equal to claiming that all ideas are innate, or we have to account for its origin. If we repeat this argument for the idea that functions as a predicate, saying that it must also have been formed somehow, we simply postpone the solution of the difficulty. That would be justified if the idea in the predicate were composite, that is, if it expressed a finite nature. Again, this would bring us only to the necessity of admitting that there is one primary, nonfactitious idea, which cannot be other than the idea of being or existence. The judgment contained in the idea does not entail an affirmation or a negation, in the sense that a possible quality or perfection is predicated of the thing known. It is simply the affirmation that an impression in the senses has taken place. Now, this involves both a subjective and an extrasubjective aspect, which means that the existence of an external agent is thus unveiled to the thinking subject. But after sensation ceases the idea can continue to be present to the mind, for the reasons already given. The external agent may have perished, but the idea has not. Therefore, the primitive judgment is a particular judgment and also a judgment of existence, but it is pronounced when sensation occurs and is noticed by the intellect. Through it we make a judgment about the existence of something, but not in the same way we know that something exists whose nature is already known to us. Looking for a lost coin implies the idea of the coin, which has been formed after the different sensations the coin occasioned in us. In this case, the primitive judgment with which we took notice of this coin did not presuppose the idea of the thing, but this idea resulted from the primitive judgment. Further judgments of existence, including the one we pronounce when we find the coin under the bed, imply this primitive synthesis proper to our nature, which is both sensitive and intellective. This claim has an important consequence, which coincides with the analysis of the extrasubjective aspect of sensations: namely, that the mere fact that we have ideas of particular things implies the existence of things other than ourselves. If real things did not exist, and if they did not affect our senses, we would have no ideas.

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  Let us, then, resume the operations described so far in their natural order: (1) being is intuited by the mind;8 (2) a sensation is felt; (3) it is seen as a realization of being (primitive judgment); (4) the thing is considered independently of its real existence (simple apprehension); and (5) judgments of existence are (or can be) formulated. The primitive judgment is thus characterized by Rosmini: Unlike all other judgments, judgment about the existence of things produces its own object. It has a dynamic of its own, almost a creative drive which requires the philosopher’s deepest intellectual meditation. This object, which does not exist prior to such a judgment about it, exists in virtue of, and at least simultaneously with, the judgment itself. Such a judgment is a singular power of our understanding which focuses on something currently existing.9

Until the idea has been formed, the intellect has not perceived anything. “The primitive synthesis is the judgment with which reason acquires intellective perception.”10 The intellective perception takes place when ideas are formed. So, what is the result of the operation classically called simple apprehension? It is also the idea of the thing but seen without persuasion of its real existence—that is, only as possible. Universal general being underlies both the conception of the mind and the judgment of existence, of the first or of the second kind. Sensation is only present when the judgment is made, whereas the understanding of possibilities itself can take place without it. If my mind possessed only pure ideas or species, it would intuit only pure possibility without affirming anything or saying anything. External language, as well as the internal language of the mind, begins only when the mind notes some subsistent ens. As long as the mind does not think of an ens as subsistent, it says nothing and pronounces no word; it contemplates in perfect silence, still totally dumb. Only the impulse of internal and external sensations draws the mind out of its silence to say that something subsists. That which is conceived only as possible by the idea is pronounced as subsistent by the word.1 1 8. This intuition of being is an act of the intellect and precedes logically all other operations of the mind, which are called acts of reason, as they involve already some composition. 9. An Historical Critique, 124. 10. The Innate Light, 1026. See An Historical Critique, 64, 359. 11. The Innate Light, 533–34.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations This important quotation brings together several points that have already been made: 1. Ideas are called again possibilities. 2. We must note that, with the exception of the idea of being, ideas are the result of a judgment. That judgment is made on the occasion of sensations, which supply both the material part of the idea and the persuasion of its existence. 3. In accordance with what has already been said, we would not know a single real existence if we were endowed with the idea of existence in general and were devoid of sensations, external or internal. 4. That silence and quiet of the mind, which can be attributed to the sole contemplation of being, is broken by sensations themselves. Ideas of particular things are formed by a primitive judgment that has sensations as its subject. 5. Real existence (subsistence) can be affirmed even after the actual perception ceases, because the idea of the thing remains in the mind as its possibility. 6. Although the idea contains a judgment of existence, the existence itself is not contained in the idea. We can point out again here that the idea can be thought independently of the persuasion of the existence of the corresponding thing.12 7. Every time we pronounce the existence of the thing, we produce a word, independently of the truth of our statement. The classical teaching of the verbum mentis (word) is here brought forward to signify the activity of the mind in knowledge. If it were absolutely passive, all cognitions would have to be infused in it, or they would be innate. Human knowledge shows, however, a close relation12. See Rinnovamento, 544. The consideration of the idea independently of the subsistence of the thing is due to an abstraction. The operation by which we form our ideas is not therefore abstraction, but we can call by that name only the capacity to consider the nature of the thing without reference to its real existence, or to consider one aspect separated from the rest. Thus Rosmini distinguishes between universalization and abstraction. See how he comments on this in The Innate Light, 494–98.

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  ship to sensations and feelings in general, which awaken the mind, so to speak, from its tranquility.13 The reason why the idea of being and sensation are spontaneously put together and compared, allowing us to realize that the latter has a partial identity with the former, is the unity of the human subject. The primitive judgment is made immediately after sensation is felt: no deliberation is needed. In fact, we are not aware of the formation of the objects of knowledge (ideas). It is only thanks to careful reflection that we come to an awareness of the process that has taken place. This not only proves the unity of body and soul in the human subject, it also shows that there is no need to claim that the intelligence makes the first judgment after it is in possession of its object. If that were the case, the demand that the subject should be already known before actually performing the judgment (Locke) would be justified. On the contrary, the intelligence sees the object for the first time after it was formed, relying on the judgment that produces the object. The text from An Historical Critique quoted in this chapter states this position, but a paragraph in Rosmini’s Philosophical System clarifies the difficulty even more: Why do we say that subject and predicate cannot be united in the judgment unless both are previously known? Because it is supposed that the principle which brings them into union is the intelligence or the intelligent will, as in the majority of judgments; and it is obvious that the intelligence does not unite two terms without previously knowing them. But might it not be that what unites the terms is not the intelligence at all, but nature itself ? This is precisely what happens in the case in question; for the essence of being and the felt activity are brought into union, not by our intelligence, but by our nature, as we have said. That union has its origin in the unity of the subject, and in the identity which exists between being as known and being as felt (active).14 13. Cf. The Innate Light, 531–34. 14. Philosophical System, 45. Cf. also The Innate Light, 513. It should be recalled that the identity mentioned is partial, i.e., our knowledge of being is not limited to the things that act on our sensitivity. In order to clarify Rosmini’s position on this point it is worthwhile quoting the following long passage: “The supposition that man first has the feeling, separated from being, and that he then unites it to being, thus perceiving it, is false. Because man perceives the feeling he has [of himself] by nature, as we saw

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations If it is true that we, human beings, acquire our ideas during the occurrence of sensations, it is false that ideas depend on sensations to exist,15 which contradicts the above analysis of ideas, where we opposed them to sensations. The question of the origin of ideas should not be confused with the question of their nature. The reason for this is that Rosmini states the existence of the idea of being first—Scholastics would say an sit—after that, he analyzes its nature—quid sit—and only then does he proceed to discuss its origin. The same reasoning, however, can be applied to all ideas. First of all, their existence must be accepted as a fact, since our own thoughts are evident to us. Secondly, we find an essential composition in them, which is the result of a judgment. Thirdly, although formed on the occasion of sensations and feelings, we realize that the formal element that makes ideas what they are is the idea of being present in them and necessary for their formation.16 Thus, there is no idea without a judgment, a primitive in the psychological books, and therefore the feeling is always united with the act of being that makes up the object of intuition.—But why then do you say that ‘man unites feeling to being,’ calling this first operation of the soul primitive synthesis or perception?—The reason for that way of speaking is the following. Although the feeling experienced by man is always intellectively perceived, and though it is never separated from the act of being, which is known per se, however, the act of being, light and form of the intellect, stands before the human soul, before it receives the many particular and accidental feelings. These feelings consequently take place in a person who already has the intuition of being. They are seen as not necessary to being, which was there without them, and that is why they seem to be entities separated from being and external to it, as it were. But in fact, as soon as man experiences these feelings, as soon as they occur in him, they are already perceived, even if without a conscious attention, certainly with the primitive and unconscious perception, by means of which man perceives in an intellective way his own feeling, in all its extension. Thus, when we speak of the primitive synthesis, of the primitive judgment of perception, we speak of an operation man performs by nature, instantaneously, at the same time new feelings come to existence. Consequently, to have a new feeling and to perceive it intellectively is, in man, just one act, upon which analysis and abstraction are later performed” (Teosofia, 14, 801). Reid differs from Rosmini in this point insofar as he does not accept any idea by means of which the subject would know the thing; nature operates blindly, whereas in Rosmini it is guided by the intuition of the idea. See appendix. 15. “I distinguish two moments, the one in which the idea is produced in me, and the one in which it is already produced” (Rinnovamento, 109). 16. “To think being in a general way means that we have the idea of being in gen-

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  judgment. The only exception that has to be made is the first idea, which is not formed by us but is found present in our minds. Amongst the ideas we possess, only one, the idea of being, has the unique characteristic of utter simplicity. Not composed of predicate and subject, it is the one idea needing no judgment in order to be conceived mentally. It cannot, therefore, be formed by means of some mental operation, but only intuited. Equally, it cannot be intuited unless present to our spirit. Thus we have a new, very clear demonstration that the idea of being is given to human beings by nature.17

Let us move on now to the consideration of the idea of being or existence.

The Idea of Existence After taking a long path across the history of philosophy, Rosmini begins a systematic exposition of his theory of ideas by stating as a fact that we think being. He believes his claim to be uncontroversial, since it follows from the most common observation. Nevertheless, he did not spare words to make it understandable. At the beginning of the systematic explanation of his theory of knowledge, he says clearly: I begin with a simple, very obvious fact, the study of which forms the whole theory of this book: we think of being in a general way. This fact, no matter how we explain it, cannot be called into doubt. . . . When I say: reason is proper to human beings, who have feeling in common with animals and vegetable life in common with plants, I am thinking this common being independently of everything else. If human beings did not have the ability to think being separately from everything else, this statement would be impossible.18

eral, or at least presupposes that we have it; without the idea of being, we cannot think being. Our task, then, is to identify the origin of this idea. But if we are to discover its source, we must first examine its nature and character” (The Innate Light, 399). 17. Ibid., 541. 18. Ibid., 398. The translation here is mine. Other texts could be quoted as well, requiring only an attentive consideration: “Most obviously of all, we see on reflection that the idea of being must be present in all our ideas, and therefore in all our judgments” (ibid., 455). “Now the analysis of any cognitions we have always gives the same

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations Based on the ordinary use of the word idea, he feels authorized to draw the following conclusion: “To think being in a general way means that we have the idea of being in general, or at least presupposes that we have it; without the idea of being, we cannot think being.”19 The thought of universal being does not entail the persuasion about the existence of any particular thing, nor does it say of itself that the only thinkable being is a real one. Mathematical entities, logical objects, moral values, and so on are all made known by the idea of being, for the simple fact that they are, whatever kind of existence they have. Even the future can be thought, although it cannot be said to be real when it is thought. An important consequence of this point for ontology is that nothingness is not strictly opposed to reality, but to being. This [interior observation] tells us that our spirit thinks merely possible things, and that merely possible things are not nothingness, but they are rather what makes us know subsisting things: they are their intelligibility. They are mental lights, which if they could be turned off, the entire universe would be in darkness. Now, light is certainly not nothingness.20

These last words require an attentive consideration, and their reach can hardly be exaggerated. Of specific relevance for the present work is to highlight that ideas have a specific mode of being, that they are not marginal in a theory of being. Certainly, they are a means of knowledge and in this sense they point at something else, but the fact of “pointing at,” the fact of “being able to point at,” should be the subject of more careful consideration. In fact, who could seriously disregard ideas in a complete consideration of being, simply because they do not enjoy the same kind of existence as substances? And to reresult: ‘We cannot think of anything without the idea of being.’ . . . if you finally take away being, the most universal of all qualities, nothing is left in your mind; all thought has disappeared and along with it any idea of the ens” (ibid., 411). “It is an evident fact that man thinks universal being. Otherwise we could not speak about it; yet one speaks about it and there are many discussions about it” (Teosofia, 15, 1590). 19. The Innate Light, 399. 20. Rinnovamento, 366.

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  duce universal ideas to accidents of the mind is absurd. Now, among all ideas, one must be considered the mother of them all. Indeed, this idea stands in relation to all others as the sine qua non element.

Characteristics of This Idea The passages quoted in the section comparing ideas with sensations referred to the idea of being in particular. They could be equally applied to all ideas because the idea of being is the formal element in all others, which actually do not properly receive the name of “ideas” but rather of “concepts.”21 However, we shall still call them ideas, using the plural form to indicate this relationship with the idea of being. All ideas take part in the latter, from which they receive their formal properties. These are, according to the Nuovo saggio: objectivity, possibility, simplicity, unity, identity, universality, necessity, immutability, eternity, and indetermination. I will focus on possibility and indetermination. All ideas express a possibility, however detailed they may be. The idea of a concrete existing horse with all its characteristics remains a possibility even if the horse exists. The actual horse is not an idea, and 21. “Since real beings are many, and each of them has a relation to possible being, possible being, considered merely in relation to the various real or realizable beings, becomes their idea, or, more correctly, their concept. For this reason we say that concepts, ideas, ideal beings, and possible beings are many, because they are as numerous as the modes in which the essence of being can be realized” (Philosophical System, 38). See Capone Braga, Saggio su Rosmini. The author understands correctly that there is no real unity, which would entail pantheism, but only an ideal one. However, he then takes the idea of being to be the idea of the possible. He does not see that the idea is the possibility of the thing. The idea of the possible is obtained after a reflection on ideas, once we have seen that ideas express the possibility of something. We do not need an idea of the real thing and another of its possibility, because the idea is already the possibility of the thing. He also misses the importance of the law of synthesism when he reproaches Rosmini for not inferring the real existence of things from the idea, but only that of a thinking subject. In fact, Rosmini does both, as the analysis of the primitive judgment makes clear. The problem lies in accepting that ideal being is another categorically different mode of being, which consists in the possibility, i.e., intelligibility of things.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations to be thought by a mind it requires the formation of an intellective object, which is bereft of subsistence. When the horse dies, it can still be thought; in other words, the possibility of the horse outlives it and, in fact, existed before the real horse; it cannot be destroyed or eliminated—rather, it exists with absolute independence of the actual horse. The idea of being expresses the possibility not just of a given thing, but of all things. The process of abstraction from ideas (never from sensations or from real things, since they do not yet constitute as such an object of the intelligence)22 can go as far as we are able to take it, but at the end being cannot be abstracted. During the entire process we were always thinking something, which could not be possible if we did not understand being—that is, the act by which something exists. If we remove the idea of being, we are left without thought, since the thought of nothingness is no thought at all. The act of thought without an object is a sheer fantasy.23 The idea of being expresses the possibility of all things and is determined later by means of the sensations. In this way it shows the possibility of more determined realities. The most universal idea of all, therefore, which remains after every other abstraction, is possible being; we can call it simply the idea of being.24

22. Cf. The Innate Light, 436. 23. Cf. ibid., 411, where Rosmini starts from the idea of a particular person and ends with the idea of being. Prini’s criticism of this procedure is not convincing. He claims that it ends in a mere flatus vocis, a verbal fiction, devoid of content. But he also accepts that it consists in a regressive procedure in which the idea is found and not produced. Now, this recognition invalidates his own criticism, despite how sketchy Rosmini’s metaphysics were when he wrote the Nuovo saggio. Curiously enough, this is also accepted by Prini. See his Introduzione alla metafisica di Antonio Rosmini, 12–21. 24. The Innate Light, 409. Cf. “‘Idea of being’ does not mean the thought of some subsistent being whose qualities, apart from actual existence, are unknown or abstract, like x, y and z in algebra. Nor does it mean judgment or persuasion about the subsistence even of an indetermined being; it simply means idea of being, mere possibility. . . . If we think of a subsistent being without knowing its qualities, we can still abstract from it the persuasion of its subsistence while retaining the thought of its possibility” (ibid., 408).

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  But the idea of being, and we thus come to the second point, does not possess any sort of determination. In that case, our first thought would be restricted to a particular nature and would not be open to the knowledge of all things. Moreover, that first determined intuition would in turn consist of two elements, one of them necessarily the idea of being. The first intuition must therefore precede all thoughts; it must be their possibility and be completely indeterminate. This does not mean, however, that being as such is indeterminate, but rather that our own knowledge of being is from the beginning indeterminate and requires determination. If we knew being in all its fullness, we would not see it as indeterminate but as the complete realization of perfection.25 The fact is that we understand being, but not in its full completion, which is another reason for distinguishing between real and ideal being. Although the thought of being is necessarily included in any other thought, this does not imply that there is an implicit or explicit judgment of subsistence contained, as it were, in all our ideas, so that the mere thought of a possible thing comes along with the conviction of its real existence. The judgment and the intuition of ideas are two different operations of the mind. The primitive judgment takes place before the simple apprehension of ideas. However, although the thought of being is required in it, the intellective perception requires the actual presence of the thing acting somehow on our sensitivity, whereas the judgment of subsistence has an idea as its subject and can be made also in the absence of the thing. It can involve beings with which we have no sensitive contact, but which we get to know as a result of reasoning or of faith, which includes some sort of reasoning. If the presence of the thing were required, we could not be persuaded of the existence of things outside the reach of our sensitivity. What I do not see 25. “[W]e note that indetermination is the effect of our imperfect vision of being; it is not something inherent in being itself” (ibid., 436, fn. 6). “Considering the nature of ideal being, one finds that it is in fact being, but imperfectly seen, without its terms, and only in its principle” (“Come si possano condurre gli studi della filosofia,” in Introduzione alla filosofia, 324).

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations or hear or touch would be for me as nonexistent; causes, as long as they are not perceived, would merely be a product of my imagination. The mere notion of cause as some real being exerting an influence on another being would have no meaning. Finally, ideas would be reduced to sensations and existence to empirical verification. Before ending this section, I would like to point out something that will be developed later. Although it is merely mentioned in the Nuovo saggio, it is of the highest importance for Rosminian ontology. Rosmini expounds on this problem in the fourth book of the Teosofia, dedicated to the Idea. If the idea of being remains in the understanding after all abstractions have been made, the consequence follows that: “Able to be intuited and known of itself, it needs no other idea for its intuition.”26 It lights up the mind by its mere presence; it is evident in itself.

Innatism of the Idea of Existence We must now delve more deeply into the difficult investigation and try to find the golden mean between these two extremes. Nothing innate must be granted without necessity; nor must we allow any preconceived antipathy, perhaps to the simple word “innate,” to cause us to reject the little that has been established as the necessary condition for the fact of our ideas.27

This quotation introduces the topic very appropriately. Although the main point has already been mentioned above, I will now examine the possibility of another explanation for the presence of this idea to the mind. That sensations cannot provide us with such an idea has been made clear. The same conclusion can be drawn for everything that shares the main features of sensations, which are essentially different from ideas. Since sensations are singular or particular, and nothing particular can produce something universal, then no individual reality that impresses our senses can explain the presence of the idea. This is also true of the feeling we have of our own existence, however special and permanent this feeling may be. An intellective perception of the 26. The Innate Light, 412.

27. Ibid., 385.

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  self is required if we are to know ourselves; but this demands the previous intuition of being to be performed. The feeling of “myself ” gives me, therefore, the sensation of my existence, but not the idea of existence in general. This feeling is indeed my own existence, but not therefore the intellective perception of my existence. This [the intellective perception of my own existence] arises early within me, but comes about through an act by which I consider my own feeling as a being with the same impartiality with which I would consider anything else.28

We include ourselves in a way in the class of beings, as something distinct from the rest. And it is precisely the specific feeling of myself that constitutes that difference. If the I were known before everything else—that is, if it were the first known (primum cognitum)—everything else would have to be understood as a determination of ourselves, which results in too many absurdities. The intellective perception of our existence takes place the same way as with the other realities. Obviously, the feeling of the I is different and unique, but, although it is constantly present to us, it is still particular and in need of illumination to become an object of intellectual knowledge. In the order of ideas, therefore, the idea of being precedes the idea of “myself.” The former is necessary for the production of the latter. This is a corollary following immediately from what was established when we showed that the first thing understood by our intellect in any object is being.29

The reflection on our sensations cannot produce ideas, either, if the spirit did not have a previous idea. All it can do is show what sensations already contain, which in no way can be something universal. If there is no innate idea or principle in the human spirit, reflection, without adding anything to sensations, can only fix its attention on them to discover what they contain.30

Since they are also particular, external things cannot produce the idea of being in us. We are not conscious of producing it, either, but 28. Ibid., 440. 29. Ibid., 442; Rosmini’s position regarding Descartes’s cogito is obvious. See also footnote 45 below. 30. Ibid., 446. See also ibid., 464.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations only of making use of the idea. Besides, the subject and the object have completely opposite properties, and one cannot produce the other. We can conclude that it is placed in our spirit by nature. We are not conscious of a time when the idea was not present to us and a time when it started to be in us. Thus, it is not possible to say that it is created in us during the act of perception or at any other given moment.31 Intellective perception presupposes the thought of being. The only possible solution is that the idea was always in our soul—that it is innate. As a matter of fact, all we have done so far is comment on the proof by exclusion that Rosmini develops in the Nuovo saggio. In my opinion, this proof is definitive for his position, provided it is considered carefully. Let us do so here: The fact to be explained is the existence of the idea of being in general; if it exists, then either it was given to us by nature or was produced later; there is no middle term; if it was produced later, either we produced it or something else did; again there is no middle term. Production by us is excluded; anything else producing it must be either feelable (the action of bodies) or unfeelable (an intelligent being, different from us, God, for example, and so on), and again there is no middle term. But these two cases are excluded. The list of possible cases therefore is complete because it has been reduced to alternatives with a middle term excluded as absurd. But if all the cases which consider the idea of being as given to us after we come into existence are impossible, it remains that the idea of being is innate and not produced. This is what we had to prove.32

That it is difficult to become aware of the innate presence of this idea is not a valid argument against it. In that case, we would have to eliminate all habitual knowledge, which consists of the knowledge we do have, but which we do not actually consider. Besides, if the analysis 31. See ibid., 451–63. 32. Ibid., 468. Cf.: “It is neither absurd nor strange, therefore, that the idea of being itself lies in our soul unobserved and unenunciated in the first moments of our existence. It cannot be otherwise, for what in fact do we observe about ourselves when we are born? So even the idea of being remains unnoticed until our reflection is stimulated to find it and contemplate it. But after reflection has sufficiently distinguished it, the idea can be enunciated and stated without hesitation” (ibid., 469).

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  was correct and if it relied on commonly observed facts, there is no reason why the conclusion should be rejected. To sum up, no matter how strange it may seem, observation forces us to conclude that an idea may exist in our mind without conscious advertence, awareness, affirmation or declaration on our part, we could be unaware of it and unable to affirm it to ourselves or others.33

Why is innatism such an important thesis? What would happen if we did not admit anything innate in our spirit? Is it really necessary to acknowledge the innatism of the idea of being to prove the objectivity of knowledge? First of all, the question here is whether the conclusion about the innate character of the idea of being is legitimate or not. As regards the possibility of objective knowledge, I am not claiming that its defense is not possible without taking into account these considerations about the idea of being. It is enough to understand what is meant by the principle of contradiction—for example, to be assured of our ability to grasp truth. Anyone denying the validity of the principle thereby admits its force. Therefore, we cannot be deceived about its truth. But, as Rosmini also showed, the value of this principle rests upon the knowledge of being, which is presupposed in the formulation of the principle.34 No one can be convinced of the value of the principle of contradiction without assuming the understanding of being, which is seen to exclude its opposite, that is, nonbeing. It is not possible, however, to go beyond the intuition of being. Nothing can precede being in our understanding, because it would have to be known somehow, and nothing can be known without reference to being. Even the concept of nothingness, representing the complete negation of being, requires the idea of being to be formed. For these reasons, the intuition of being is the fundamental start33. Ibid., 470. Although this paragraph is placed just at this point of the Nuovo saggio, it would be tedious to quote every single text where Rosmini is able to draw the same conclusion, both dealing with the theories of individual philosophers and presenting results of simple observation. 34. See Ibid., 559–66.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations ing point of any consistent theory of knowledge, which cannot receive ultimate coherence without it. All other truths and all certainty rely on this idea. No matter how we get to acknowledge its presence (in our case, through the analysis of the perception of physical bodies), the mere consideration of its nature persuades us that we have reached some final point, beyond which our understanding cannot go without exiting the boundaries of human nature, to borrow Vico’s expression.35 The main consequence that follows from denying that this primary intuition explains knowledge is the admission that nothingness as such could be known, and in fact would be known “until” being is understood. But, this has no possible explanation. In fact, if being were not grasped by the primary intuition, but at some later time or in a different way, then nothingness would be grasped. No other alternative is possible. But can we imagine an intelligence having nothingness as its object and then suddenly beginning to understand that there is something? Would this not amount to denying that there is an intelligence? It is not possible to say that beings deprived of intelligence understand “nothingness” until they are granted the intuition of being; it simply makes no sense. It should be out of the question, then, that there could exist an intelligence without the intuition of being.36 As a consequence, it would be incorrect to say that this idea is formed in our understanding. For that reason, it cannot be called a concept, if a concept involves an activity of the mind that generates, at least partially, the intuited object. Its presence logically precedes the act of thought, which cannot exist without the knowledge of being.37 Clearly, Rosmini would not agree with a literal interpretation of 35. Cf. Giambattista Vico, Principi di Scienza Nuova d’intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni (1744), no. 360, in Opere, ed. Andrea Battistini (Milan: Mondadori, 1990), 2:555. 36. This is implied in the Scholastic principle quod primo cadit in intellectu est ens. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, 55, 4 ad 1; I, 11, 2 and passim; St. Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God, , chap. V, 3. 37. “More properly speaking, the word concept is used to indicate the idea with some kind of determination, reserving the word idea to indicate fully indetermined being. In this sense, there is only one idea, and the rest are concepts” (Teosofia, 15, 1601).

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  the well-known saying, which goes back to Aristotle: “There is nothing in the understanding that did not first exist in the sense” (nihil est in intellectu quin prius fuerit in sensu). Without excluding sensation as a necessary element of human knowledge, Rosmini also rejects the literal meaning of the Scholastic axiom, suggesting a different reading, faithful to its true sense: “Everything material in human knowledge has its source in the senses.”38

The Idea and Sensation Are Primitive Elements A corollary of this investigation is that human knowledge requires both ideas and sensations. There is a primary idea at the root of all others and, albeit briefly, we have seen that there is also a primary feeling at the root of all sensations. This prompted Rosmini to call sensations and ideas the primitive elements of knowledge. Primitive is meant here in the sense of irreducible, something that cannot be obtained from anything else. Nor can ideas and sensations be obtained from each other. We can have an infinite number of sensations without a single idea and, conversely, the mere thought of a thing does not provide us with any sort of sensation. Sensation cannot take place without an agent different from ourselves acting on us; the actual existence of a thing is thus required for sensation to be produced in a feeling subject. On the contrary, the idea expresses only the possibility of the thing, without either including or informing us of the actual existence of the thing it signifies. Rosmini comes back to this thought in the book called Il rinnovamento della filosofia in Italia (1836). There he answers in outstanding detail and accuracy a criticism published by Terenzio Mamiani two years earlier, in which he points out many contradictions as well as a probable omission of a complete reading of the Nuovo saggio. Rosmini replies to Mamiani explaining some of his own affirmations, which had been obviously misunderstood or read 38. The Innate Light, 478. Both the five external senses and the internal feeling the soul has of itself are included here. Cf. the whole paragraph. For Rosmini’s agreement with Thomas Aquinas in this point, notwithstanding all apparent divergence, cf. ibid., 477–79, where Summa theologiae I, 84, 4c is quoted.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations very lightly. In addition, he develops several aspects present in his first work, among them a deep discussion about the nature of ideas (book IV, chaps. 1–8) and a closer dialogue with St. Thomas’s texts (book IV, chap. 9).39 Sensations and ideas differ in nature in such a way that one cannot be derived from the other. However, according to the analysis of the phenomenon of sensation, an agent different from the feeling subject was needed in order to explain the mere existence of a sensation. Does this imply that sensations are closer in nature to judgments than ideas themselves? It has been suggested, and explained in some detail, too, that it is the analysis of sensation that highlights the need of the external agent, whose existence can in no way be known by sensations. Since the intellect is already implied in the analysis, this knowledge cannot be attributed to the senses. However, it is true that the problem of how we form our ideas—and, together with it, the question of how we know the real existence of a thing—still needs to be cleared up. Although Rosmini frequently refers to ancient philosophers to support his affirmations, he was actually giving birth to a very original philosophical system. However, in his eyes, his use of the term idea did not entail the introduction of an original concept in philosophy, but rather a deeper understanding of what has always been called idea, both in ordinary speech and in philosophical schools. The following quotation leaves no doubts about his intention: The name imposed on that which represents to the mind the thing without producing the persuasion of its existence, both by the ordinary use of language and by the schools, was that of idea, and from Greece this word was communicated to all nations. From Latin it was translated into species, forma, exemplar: words that in fact do not express anything about the real subsistence of a given thing, but only indicate the ideal representation, or notification of a thing in its essence, that is in its possibility. . . . idea . . . a word given by me to the knowable essence of the thing.40 39. See Prini, Introduzione a Rosmini, 59–60. 40. Rinnovamento, 89, 545. Cf. 506: “the intuition of the essences . . . is nothing else but the intuition of a possible thing.”

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  A question that kept philosophers busy in all times, especially after it was formulated by Plato, is that of the nature of ideas. The right approach to this problem is certainly not expressed in the question: “What did Plato call an idea?” or “What did Rosmini call an idea?” The answer would evidently be something different in either case, and in as many cases as philosophers we consider, notwithstanding all real similarities. The right way to pose the problem is: “What are ideas?” By expressing the difficulty in these terms, a general understanding of the word is assumed; this general understanding is, however, subject to further clarifications. This is, in my opinion, the way philosophy proceeds and makes real progress, and whenever the stress is set upon terminologies or a very particular use of words, philosophers isolate themselves from each other, cannot communicate with the rest of society, and philosophical science becomes barren.41 41. Rosmini’s position about the use of language by philosophy is clearly contained in the following paragraph: “Consider now that ideas, which we have received with tradition from the human society we have been born and have grown up in, are each of them attached to ordinary language; we think with them, like instruments, they are the matter, beyond which our thoughts finally cannot go, and therefore they constitute the background of philosophy. As a result, the philosopher analyzes only big and fundamental truths, he brings them to a greater light. But these truths are not known to the world for the first time thanks to the books written by philosophers, since they are deposited in the traditions and languages, and philosophers take them from the treasure common to all. I challenge any philosopher, German, Italian, or from any other nation, to show me that he has produced in his writings one single truly new fundamental truth, unknown before him. One thing are their words, another thing is what these philosophers, always eager to innovate everything, actually do; one thing is what they promise, another thing, what they give. . . . It becomes clear, then, that I was not rightly understood, when I declared that I did not intend that my work on ideas was ‘not about philosophy in its search for new truths but about its attempts to clarify and develop truths known to all.’ With such way of talking I wanted to express the little faith I have in any new philosophy, which would be the invention of one individual. The only true, authoritative, and salutary teaching I recognize is the one that has its roots—i.e., its first principles—in the common sense of mankind and in the deposit of inherited wisdom always contained in it, to which only the result of analysis and reflection can be added, a higher measure of light, new consequences or applications. I wanted to say that nobody could do something else, neither I nor any mortal man, and the explanation and proof of my claim is spread in all that work.” “Lettera a P. Orsi sulla lingua filosofica,” in Introduzione alla filosofia, 370–71. See Cirillo Bergamaschi,

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations The idea of a horse expresses only the possibility of a horse; it does not exist because we think it. Even if we affirm the existence of a horse that corresponds to the idea, we might still be wrong. The idea has its own mode of existence,42 incompatible with that of the real thing, though the connection is evident. The idea is the possibility of the thing, and the actually existing thing realizes the essence expressed in the idea. So, to see a being in the idea, or in its design, what else does it mean other than to see a being in its principle, in its mere possibility? However, if I think this being already actualized, it remains the same, but not in an initial way anymore, but complete.43

The peculiarity of the idea of being is that it expresses the possibility of all things. Everything that is, is contained potentially in the idea of being—that is, in its possibility. The actuality, the real existence of the thing, cannot be enclosed in the idea, because their modes of existence are different, but it can be made known by it. The order of ideas is different from the order of things. For example, the genus “animal” cannot subsist in itself but requires the individuals of different species to be known in reality. In other words: without particular animals, such as horses, there will be no really existing instantiation of “animal.” At the same time, it is impossible to understand what a horse is without assuming a comprehension of “animal.” There is something else in the specific difference that is not contained in the genus, and by looking at “animal” we will never find “horse,” but for the understanding of “horse,” the understanding of “animal” is necessary. This thought can be summarized by saying that more universal ideas contain less universal ones: “Le langage philosophique de A. Rosmini dans l’histoire de la philosophie.” However, there is in philosophy the possibility of giving different names to the same reality according to the level at which the discussion is taking place (anthropology, metaphysics, etc.). “There is a diversity of language that freshens thought” (idem, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 65). 42. “For me all ideas exist, if we consider them in their own entity; but they are the possibility of real things” (Rinnovamento, 94). 43. Ibid., 557.

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  [L]ess universal [ideas] are comprised in more universal ones, more determinate in less determinate. . . . If somebody has made these reflections and has grasped their weight, he is already on his way to find the criterion of certainty, which is no other than the first idea, knowable per se, from which all others receive their cognoscibility, nothing else than pure light.44

The mere consideration of the first idea provides no knowledge of any other thing or restricted idea, since it is completely indeterminate and universal: it is but the possibility of all things. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to find some other principle to explain the way we come to know any particular thing. Even the knowledge of our own I, although it, too, requires the idea of being to be attained, needs some feeling or sensation to release the mind from its indetermination. This is the fundamental feeling, which we already mentioned but will not discuss further in this work.45 The way we perceive actually existing reality is different from the way ideas are present to our intellect. 44. Ibid., 363–64. See also ibid., 366. 45. For the problem of the knowledge of ourselves and Rosmini’s criticism of Descartes on this point, the following text can be the starting point of discussion: “Descartes was correctly taxed with begging the question when he established his criterion of certainty. He first says: ‘Clear perception is the criterion of certainty,’ and uses this criterion to arrive at the existence of God. But he then says: ‘Clear perception could deceive me, but the existence of God is the reason why the perception cannot deceive me. It comes from God who cannot deceive me.’ It seems impossible that his brilliant mind did not see the vicious circle here. But as his error becomes more obvious and necessary, the claim that his system is erroneous acquires greater validity. He knew that the perception of himself as subject needed something else for the perception to be authoritative, because in itself the perception was not necessarily infallible. What was needed was the idea of being, which contains objectivity and necessity. However, because he did not know this truth, he had recourse to the idea of God. He erred therefore in two ways: 1. he argued in a vicious circle because he deduced from perception the very thing necessary to prove perception; and 2. he precluded recourse to common being because he had recourse to the idea of first, subsistent being. The second error set him on the way to his a priori proof of the divine existence. His argument, in the way he presented it, was erroneous: he equivocated by taking the idea of being as subsistent being. However, his efforts and errors prove the necessity of the idea of being (a necessity which I accept), just as much as his authority would have proved this necessity if he had clearly asserted it” (The Innate Light, appendix 45). See Paolo Gomarasca, “La presenza di Descartes nell’opera di Rosmini,” Rivista rosminiana 94 (1999): 55–75. Cf. Certainty, 1194–1202.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations [T]hat reality or subsistence, I say, that is perceived by us with the sense, to which the judgment is then added; never with the idea, that is only representative of what is common or (what here is the same) of what is possible.46

The reduction of knowledge to sense perception results in the absolute darkness of the spirit, but if sensations were suppressed, knowledge could not escape utter vagueness. Human knowledge is explained by both elements or else it becomes impossible. The intuition of being and sensation are two thoroughly diverse and at the same time primitive elements. As regards sensations, they cannot be produced by ideas, nor can they be argued; they are felt independently. The rudiments of all human cognitions are feeling and intuited being. . . . When asked: “What is the source of your knowledge of being?” or “What is the source of your feeling?” human beings can only reply: “I intuit being, I do not deduce it. I feel; feeling is not the consequence of any reasoning, nor indeed of any cognition.”47

Sensations are not undervalued, and ideas are not deprived of their nobility, either; on the contrary, each element is given its rightful place.48 Everything we feel and everything we think is contained in being; that is the main reason why intellective perception, as we will see, can possess certainty. Being does not exist only as an idea, but it is certainly made known by its ideal form: being itself takes the form of an idea, revealing its essentially intelligible nature. A confirmation that the sensation and the idea, although different, both possess ontological importance can be found in Rosmini’s letter to Benedetto Monti: 46. Rinnovamento, 106. 47. Psychology, I, 12 and 16. “In short, between sensations and ideas there is not merely a difference in gradation but in essence; a gradual transition from one to the other is impossible” (An Historical Critique, appendix 21). See also Anthropology, 14–20. 48. “It was, therefore, an error on the part of Plato to look upon the body as a hindrance to the flight of the soul. The truth is that, considered in itself, it is the instrument whereby the soul develops and perfects itself. But Plato’s view has its justification if, instead of applying it to the nature of body, we apply it to the corruption entailed upon the animal nature by the first sin” (Philosophical System, 126). Needless to say, the discussion of all philosophical problems involved in this paragraph greatly exceeds the present study.

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  [A]ccording to me, being, insofar as it shines before the human mind, receives the name of idea, and insofar as it acts in the feeling, receives the name of reality, or of thing in the strict sense, if you want.49

The Idea as a Necessary Means of Knowledge In the Introduzione alla filosofia Rosmini wrote that all philosophers can distinguish very well between an idea and the thing it represents; nobody would confuse bread with the idea of bread. But afterward, in their discussions, they frequently confuse the properties of one with those of the other, resulting in a lack of clarity.50 Rosmini’s point in the Nuovo saggio is that there is no possible speech about anything without presupposing that the mind already possesses ideas. Even when we speak about things as such, not as they are or can be present to our understanding, ideas are involved. There is no possible reference to things as they exist in themselves without making use of ideas. This is why he called the problem of knowledge all-important. If our ideas are not able to provide an objective knowledge absolutely speaking, then there can be no objective knowledge at all. It would be meaningless to develop a philosophy about the real world without the positive solution to this problem. We are not suggesting that we first know ideas, and then reality and knowledge result when we compare them.51 This position would completely contradict what has been said about the problem of knowledge, for it assumes that the real thing can be the object of the intellect in the same way as the idea that represents it can be. The particular existing thing is not a direct object of the understanding; the senses are required as the second indispensable means of human knowledge. The senses in turn do not have, properly speaking, an object, but become one with the felt thing at the moment of sensation. The intellect can afterward separate what belongs to the thing from what belongs to the senses. The intellect and the object never become 49. Introduzione alla filosofia, 310–11. 50. Cf. The Concept of Wisdom, in Introduction to Philosophy, 111–210. 51. See Teosofia, 15, 1734.

 ⁄ Epistemological Foundations one because they possess completely different natures; therefore, no immanentism can be derived from this understanding of the idea. The idea explains the possibility of knowing something; its presence to the knowing subject is of a kind other than that of the real thing known by it. The former presence is interior, and the real thing could not be present to the intelligence without its mediation. The confusion of this theory with a certain kind of Bildertheorie or Zeichentheorie, criticized by Husserl,52 also entails a misinterpretation, since we made clear that the idea is seen as such only after reflection. It is both an object and a means of knowledge, since nothing can make something else known if it is not itself known; but there is no need that such knowledge be accompanied by consciousness, it can very well come to the presence of a conscious subject after an act of reflection. The idea of being is present in the idea of the thing as a means of knowledge, and is afterward made an object of consciousness by reflection.53 This corresponds to the capacity of ideas to show 52. See Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, A396–97, B421–22. It cannot remain unnoticed that Husserl’s formulation would entail the complete elimination of any sense of idea as a means of knowledge, drawing very close to the Reidian position. His affirmation that “the transcendental object would in no way be object of this representation, were it not ist intentional object. Obviously, that is a merely analytical proposition” is subject to Rosmini’s criticism in the first and second paragraphs quoted in the present work. Still, Husserl’s distinction between Intention and Gegenstand—used in the same place—could save him from such criticism, had he not dismissed the possibility that the Intention is the necessary means of knowing a Gegenstand, not in the sense that the Intention would be the act of knowing the Gegenstand, since that would be simply tautological, but in the sense that the act, in order to attain a knowledge of the Gegenstand, would need some representative element, without which it could not take place. Again, what Husserl calls Gegenstand should be rather called thing, and there is no place for the idea (object) in the act of Meinen (= Intention). Another consequence of that position would be the elimination of the judgment of existence, replaced by the direct intuition of the existing particular (Gegenstand). 53. See Logica, 705. Cf. this passage taken from his examination of Aristotle: “And ideal being, that is the possible, tò dunatón, is certainly principium quod, term of the intellection, as well as principium quo, means of knowing the other things. But Aristotle accepted it only as means, without recognizing it as object, since as such it remains at first hidden to human consciousness and it is not discovered until the reflection man performs on his own rational operations, for which it is used as means. He [Aristotle]

Analysis of the Idea of the Thing ⁄  the thing and also themselves, since they are intelligible per se. Consequently, there is no resemblance to any theory of ideas as a copy or an image. All operations of the mind—knowledge of an actually present thing, abstraction, analysis, reflection, thinking about mere possibilities or about the really existing world, giving an opinion, pronouncing judgments (true or false, it makes no difference), reasoning (validly or invalidly), and so on—presuppose that ideas are already present to it. It is not correct to say that, according to this position, only an idea of the thing is present to the mind, if by such a reproach it is meant that the thing would never be revealed to the subject. Even if it is true that the proper object of the human (finite) understanding is a concept or idea, the whole point here lies in determining whether the idea is reliable or not, that is, whether or not there can be an objective knowledge based on it. Again, no immanentism follows. Besides, it was shown that ideas are a valid and adequate means of knowledge, not only of themselves but also of things, material and immaterial. acknowledged it as a light capable of highlighting the various colours of things, but did not realize that the light itself must be seen before it makes colors visible” (Aristotele esposto ed esaminato, 107).

   

Ontological Significance of the Idea n

 

Ideas and Reality n The Idea of Being, Pure Mediator of Knowledge An important question that needs to be answered is whether the idea of being allows us to know things as they are without imposing an alien form on them. When a thing becomes an object of thought, does it receive a form it did not have before? Does this form alter the thing? In other words: can we rely on the idea of being as a means of objective knowledge? Before giving a direct answer to these questions, which clearly represent the same difficulty, I want to warn the reader against a misunderstanding. The idea of being does not enter into contact with the thing itself, because it is not a real thing that could interact with other real things as, for example, our hand could. According to its own nature, the idea exists only as term of a mind; if it were a thing, the problem of knowledge would have no solution, as we would have to explain how that idea—considered as a thing—entered our spirit. Sensations have a subjective and an extrasubjective element. Therefore, they cannot be called objective because the subject and its constitution is always mixed up in them. If what we join in the intellective perception is not the thing and the idea, but the sensations we perceive and the idea of being, the question must be then formulated in a different manner: Does the idea of being alter sensations? Can we say that we know what we feel and perceive? The answer to this difficulty becomes easy if we understand that by thinking being we cannot be deceived. If the first idea were that of a body, so that every object had to be thought of as being corporeal, we



 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea would be justified in suspecting our understanding. But even in this case such a suspicion would be impossible, since the mere thought of something noncorporeal could not take place. In other words: we cannot stand behind the primary idea, as it were, and this is so per definitionem. The primary intuition cannot be deceitful, because in that case, it would not be primary. There is no circularity in this affirmation but only an appeal for attentive consideration to what is required to become aware of a deception. Just as a mistake cannot be realized without grasping some truth, so a deception could not be discovered if there was no trustworthy element to uncover it. The suspicion that this element can deceive us as well would lead to perpetual doubt, which would include doubt itself. On this point we must agree with Augustine and Descartes when they discover that absolute uncertainty is contradictory and consequently intrinsically impossible.1 n

The primary intuition is that of being. Can we think something beyond being? Would it be possible that the thought of being were a partial window—for example, like the idea of body—through which we see everything in the universe? Does this doubt have any sense at all? Have we not reached here a final stage, beyond which it is absolutely impossible to go? The main point here is that the idea of being is absolutely indeterminate, because, again, if it were determined, it would not be primary. In effect, any idea of a particular thing consists of two elements: namely, being and the essence of the thing thought, which is not being, although it has or takes part in being. Therefore, being does not change or transform a thing into something different, but rather makes it be what it is and reveals it as it is. What representation of the horse do we have before our intellect attributes the idea of being to it? Absolutely none; the horse did not exist for our understanding until being was attributed to the sensations or groups of sensations through 1. Cf. St. Augustine, The Trinity, XV, 12, 21; The City of God XI, 26; Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy, second meditation. See Certainty, 1132f.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  which we established contact with the horse. Someone might respond that we had a sensitive, though not yet intellective, knowledge. But unless we want to take a term under two different meanings, we cannot call sensation knowledge, precisely because the formal element of knowledge is missing. Sensations do not provide us with an object, that is, with the consideration of something as it is in itself and not merely relative to us. For this purpose the thought of being is required.2 Here lies the authentic meaning of objectivity: being can be present to the mind by adopting, as it were, the form of an idea.3 If being is the first act of all things, penetrating all perfections from the lowest to the highest, the guarantee for an objective knowledge is that being can also be thought and that it is in fact what makes thought possible. Let me cite a paragraph from the Nuovo saggio, where the core of Rosmini’s teaching on the mediating character of the idea of being is articulated: The fact is that we perceive external things, as it were by means of an instrument suitable for the purpose, by the idea of existence. When we form the judgment: “Such and such a real entity exists,” we apply the universal predicate of existence to the particular subject, that is, to the sensible action we experience. However, it does not follow from this that with our activity we introduce universal existence into the thing perceived.4

Universal existence does not become an element of the thing we perceive, but is the intelligibility of being that makes it possible for us to “find” particular existence. The orders of real and logical, possible or ideal existence are kept distinct, and each of them recognized in its specific nature. We merely find in it its own particular existence and introduce the latter— which we have not created but recognised—into universal existence. In other words, we place the thing in the universal class of existing entia; we know them. If the existence which we perceive in affirming a given real thing were 2. Cf. Teosofia, 15, 1666. 3. See Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 31, fn. 41. 4. An Historical Critique, 332.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea exactly the same as that which we have in our intellect when we perceive a real entity, we would have to introduce into the perceived real thing a universal existence because existence is universal in our intellect. However, this is not the case. We do not introduce a particular existence into a real thing determined to the thing alone. We already see it there because we know its own subjective existence by means of its objective existence.5

Without the intuition of being, our spirit would be in deep darkness; in this case, in which sense would it then be able to speak of objectivity of knowledge? The dignity of ideas and of intelligent natures, such as the human being, resides precisely in this fact. Firstly, our attention is focused on the thing; later, reflection tells us that an idea was necessary to gain knowledge of it. But if we know the thing through the sensations produced by it on our bodily organs, is it the thing or the sensations that we get to know? The question is justified because the idea of being never becomes mixed up with the thing, but is attached to the sensations.6 Our original question now receives a different—though anticipated—form: Can we say that we know what our senses perceive? The answer is a decisive yes, owing to the indetermination of the idea of being. We do not alter sensation when we make it an object of the understanding. We become cognitively aware of the red we see, not of something different. But there is a second, more important point here: namely, that it might still seem that the thing itself remains beyond our knowledge and that its place is taken by sensation. As we noted above, sensation results from the composition of three elements: an action by the thing, a disposition in the organ that perceives, and a means through which the action is performed. This analysis is made by the intellect that recognizes an active subject as a necessary correlate of the passion we experience. If on the one hand the objectifying of sensation leaves it unmodified, and on the other hand the intellect tells us that an exterior agent must have produced it, 5. Ibid. 6. Attach here is an image that takes the place of the particular way in which intellective perception occurs.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  we can conclude that we obtain truthful knowledge of the existence of a thing different from us. By separating the subjective and the extrasubjective elements in sense perception we gain knowledge about the real thing and not only about our sensations. Based on the extrasubjective part we conclude that something exists that has the power to effect such a sensation in us,7 in addition to possessing other properties also proper to the real thing. Therefore, Rosmini’s description of intellective perception conforms perfectly well to the limitations of the human intellect, while accounting for its objectivity. It is grounded in the observation of human nature, which supports these two conclusions: (1) although sensations are not enough to explain any single act of knowledge, they put us in contact with reality; and (2) although the idea of being is necessary to form the objects of knowledge, it cannot of itself inform us about any existing reality, because it is completely indeterminate.8 There is one last question to address related to the mediation of the idea. Although perfect knowledge of the thing is not attainable by the human understanding, is error still possible? If there is no deception in the way we come to grasp objects, how can error be explained in terms of Rosminian philosophy? I will not deal in detail with the problem; I will merely indicate that his solution follows the classical direction, in which the nature of error is neither in the intuition of an essence nor in perception—which presents an object to the understanding for the first time—but in the erroneous uniting of predicate and subject in the judgment.9 We 7. “[The intellective perception] is a judgment through which the spirit affirms as subsistent something perceived by the senses” (An Historical Critique, 338). 8. “[T]he determined essences of things, which are given to be known to man, do not contain all the entity of an ens, but only that portion of its activity that the ens exerts upon man. And since the definition of things are propositions expressing the essence, for that reason too definitions do not express anything else but the perceptible essences knowable to man, which do not contain all the ens, but just the ens acting on man” (Teosofia, 15, 1665). 9. Cf. Certainty, 1249–51.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea know that this cannot occur in the intellective perception, because the predicate is the most general one, being—which cannot be wrongly predicated of anything. In effect, by predicating general being we take cognizance of something for the first time, without affirming or denying anything of it. Thus, following Malebranche’s teaching, Rosmini says that the possibility of error must be placed in the will.10 n

The greatest difficulty concerning the idea as a means of knowledge arises from the risk of understanding it in the sense that our mind would grasp not the thing but something between the thing and the knowing subject. In this case, the real thing would remain forever beyond the reach of our understanding and could be only, at the most, a matter of conjecture. The sentence “The object of our intellect is the idea” could easily lead to misunderstandings.1 1 However, Rosmini’s clear distinction between thing and object, and his characterization of both, helps us avoid such confusion and secure an adequate conception of objectivity.12 Now, does the question of whether the idea of being can serve as a truthful mediator in knowledge have a positive answer? It does, provided we keep in mind the specifications made throughout this section concerning the necessary cooperation of the senses for knowledge of a really existing thing. Quoting Aquinas, Rosmini notes that the idea is not the unique and total means of knowledge. Bodies can be known only through a corporeal sense, so that “the two elements of our perception and knowledge of bodies are the sensation of the bodies joined with the idea.” In the same text, Rosmini demonstrates his awareness of this difficulty and also his understanding of why the 10. Cf. ibid., 1280–84. 11. In Malebranche we find the following claim: “Il faut bien remarquer qu’a fin que l’esprit apperçoise quelque objet, il est absolument nécessaire que l’idée de cet objet lui soit actuellement présent, il n’est pas possible d’en douter: mais il n’est pas nécessaire qu’il y ait au-dehors quelque chose de semblable à cette idée” (Recherches de la vérité, ed. Geneviève Rodis-Lewis [Paris: Vrin, 1962], 1:432. 12. Cf. “Lettera a Benedetto Monti,” in Introduzione alla filosofia..

Ideas and Reality ⁄  Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid did not want to accept the existence of ideas: Nevertheless, I give Reid some merit for saying that to call the idea a means of knowing things is somewhat equivocal. In fact, like Reid, I say that the intellectual perception of bodies is direct (that is, reasoning is not a means of perception, as he says) (Essay on the Powers, etc., Essay 2, p. 100). As soon as our sense perceives a body, our understanding also perceives it directly and makes a first judgment without any intermediary. Sense and understanding are therefore two powers which directly and, as it were, pari passu co-operate in the perception of a body. The pure idea of a body follows on the perception insofar as in the idea we abstract from the actual existence of the body. On the other hand, in perception we still think of the presence or subsistence of a body as an agent acting on us. In this sense, the idea of a body is not a means but an element of the perception of bodies.13

The Knowledge of Existing Reality through the Idea Being as an idea is not enough to make us know a particular thing; we require sensations in order to determine it. Without the union of both elements intellective perception does not take place. Besides, the consideration of the idea cannot convince us of the existence of the thing it makes known. Sensations alone provide us with the occasion for a justified judgment of existence. What role, then, do ideas play in the knowledge of existing reality? Would it not be better to do away with them entirely? The analysis of sensations resulted in the need to accept that an external agent acts on us. We also noted, regarding the intellective perception, that it consisted in a primitive judgment having sensations as subject. We become aware of the perception of our senses when the idea of being is joined to them; before that, they represented nothing to the spirit. Let us now apply the conclusions of the previous section to the perception of bodies. The question of the existence of external reality is sometimes called “the problem of the bridge.” But this expression assumes a material understanding of the spirit, which would have to go outside it13. The Innate Light, appendix 41. Cf. An Historical Critique, 178.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea self or establish some sort of communication between itself and other things. In this case the problem would have no solution, because the question is not posed correctly. Material analogies are not appropriate for an understanding of spiritual realities. As Rosmini says: “We cannot go outside ourselves,”14 which must be understood in the sense that outside and inside only have meaning, properly speaking, in relation to material reality. The question remains, however, and can be formulated in the following terms: How can the idea of being be predicated of real subsisting things? We know now that between sensation and the idea of being there is a partial identity, which is described in the Nuovo saggio by Rosmini as an equation: The universal principle governing every application of the form of reason to facts provided by feeling is the following: “The known fact must form an equation with the form of reason.”15

Facts provided by feeling include all sensations as well as the feeling we have of our own self. The form of reason is the idea of being. If we keep in mind that a judgment of existence is expressed during the experience of sensations, knowledge of reality can be reflected by the following formula: [T]here is a feeling; therefore there exists a being . . . such that there cannot be any feeling without a real being; in other words, that in some way or other the essence of being, which we previously knew only universally, is found realized in feeling.16

In any universal assertion, an indefinite number of particular propositions is contained virtually. If we say, for example, “Every human being possesses reason,” we can predicate rationality of all individuals that fulfill the requirement “human being.” The proposition “John possesses reason” is thus implicitly comprised in the universal one. Rosmini calls this an equation, in the sense that what was known universally is now recognized in the particular instance. There is a sort of syllogism involved every time we pronounce a particular judgment. 14. Certainty, 1082. 16. Philosophical System, 19–20.

15. Ibid., 1169.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  In this case, for instance, it would take the following form: “Every human being possesses reason; John is a human being; John possesses reason.”17 Something analogous happens when a judgment is passed on the real existence of a particular thing: what was previously known universally (being) is perceived to be instantiated. Logical and barely mental entities, though not real beings, are nonetheless something. They are not the cause of a feeling or sensation, but they are present to the mind and therefore include universal being in their essence. They also make an equation with being, only not the same kind of equation really existing things make, through feeling and sensation. This observation supports two conclusions: (1) there is a mode of being, different from that of really existing things, that is undoubtedly given to us; and (2) real being, as we perceive it, is the being given to our sensitive powers.18 If we reflect carefully, what we call a real body is something that affects our sensitivity and is different from the idea of the body precisely because we experience it active on us. We know the water we drink is real because it quenches our thirst, because it produces a sensation of freshness in us, or of warmth, and so on. The idea of cool water, however perfect in its details it might be, cannot do this. We can say that the intellective perception is enough to be sure of the real existence of things, and it remains true that there is no need to prove that an external world exists, but nothing prevents us from explaining how the perception of the external world, as well as the conviction of its existence, takes place. In fact, the aim of the Nuovo saggio was, as stated in the preface to that work, to illustrate an already well-known teaching of common sense and traditional philosophical schools, which was attacked by the skeptics of his time (Locke, Hume, Kant), but is solidly rooted in human nature: namely, that the human being is capable of truth and not condemned to error and deception. Rosmini says: “Common sense is indeed immune from the assaults of sophists 17. Cf. Certainty, 1171–72. 18. See Clemente Riva, Il problema dell’orgine dell’anima intellettiva, 76–81.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea who, although they think they are attacking it, do not even direct their blows against it.”19 The intellective perception, which is not consciously performed by us, but by our nature in a spontaneous way, is one of those operations of our nature that are free from error, because they derive their certainty directly from the intuition of being, which cannot be misleading.20 The explanation proceeds as follows. A sensation necessarily includes an experience we have undergone. Thus the concept of an undergone experience contains that of an action; nobody can understand the meaning of “experience” without knowing that an action must have caused it. Now, a passion—and an experience undergone is a kind of passion—entails some action, so that in the analysis of its concept the notion of action must be introduced. The thought of an action, in turn, includes the agent that performed the action, since the action is a second act with respect to the agent, that is, the agent must be the subject of the action, or else we fall into an infinite regress. A first act, which constitutes the agent as subsistent, is then required to be coherent with the very notion of experience.21 We cannot reach the first act of the agent in itself, because this belongs exclusively to the particular thing and cannot be communicated. Our mind supplies, then, in an ideal way this first act of the thing (being) and recognizes that “an agent must exist that operates on the senses.”22 By doing so the mind does not create the thing in its real existence, but takes cog19. Certainty, 1063. Then follows a fictitious dialogue between a skeptic and a supporter of common sense that contains precious observations about the arguments skepticism employs. 20. “We therefore either have or do not have perceptions, but when we have them, we are never mistaken. This is also true of the ideas of things contained in perceptions” (Certainty, 1257). With this last clarification it becomes clear that he refers to intellective perception and not to sense perception. Cf. also ibid., 1246 and 1149–52. 21. Cf. ibid., 1205–7. “[W]hatever acts must have the first act constituting it a being; an act performed on another is a second act rooted in a first act. The fact that the second act entails the first is seen in being, because it is a truth belonging to the intrinsic order of being” (ibid., 1204). 22. Cf. The Innate Light, 623: “Our perception of a substance and our conception of a cause is simply ‘perception of a being possessing feelable qualities, to which we at-

Ideas and Reality ⁄  nizance of an existing agent; it creates the object for itself. The thing starts to exist for the mind, but since the idea of being is of an indeterminate nature, it does not modify or add anything to the thing in order to have it as an object. Nor does the mind weave the object inside itself like a spider producing its web; it is in possession of an objective notion, that of being, by means of which it is able to recognize—or better, take cognizance of—the existence of the thing, and by means of the extrasubjective side of sensations, of some of its properties. To claim that intellective perception is deceptive would therefore be equal to claiming that the intuition of being is deceptive as well. But the intuition of being establishes only that being is possible, not that there exists this or that particular being. If being were impossible, it would contain its opposite within itself. Being, however, absolutely excludes nonbeing, which cannot be found in its essence, but rather in the negation of its essence. Only an attentive consideration of being can convince us of this. “What is the principle by which the human spirit knows with certainty what is different from itself and really subsisting?” As we have said, this principle consists in the link or bond of identity between the real subsistence of things and ideal being so that the real subsistence shares in the necessity of ideal being. This happens in such a way that the necessity of being contains, supposes and requires the external reality which it judges to be present through a necessary deduction of identification.23

tribute the action that we experience or perceive in ourselves.’” The concept of body provides a similar proof: “The name ‘body’ itself was invented as a result of intellective perception” (ibid., 536). Cf. also ibid., 752 and 754. 23. Certainty, 1160. “In this summary of my demonstration, I speak of feelings in general, with the aid of which the sensitive-intellective subject persuades itself of [the existence of] a real world. Shall we be specific about these feelings? That can easily be done. There is a feeling of the self, which immediately proves the reality of the soul. There is a feeling of our own body. This proves the reality of our body by means of an argument in which the idea of being becomes the principle of cause. There is an acquired feeling, which is a modification of the feeling of our body. This proves the reality of bodies external to our own, arguing in such a way that we make use of the idea of being under the form of principle of cause, and also under the form of principle of

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea The claim that something found in us must be a part of our subjective constitution, unable to account for objective knowledge—that is, for knowledge of something different from the knowing subject—is based not on the observation of human nature but on a certain pretension to dictate laws to it: We also showed that while all this is accomplished within us, the nature of experience [passione in the original text] also shows that not everything within us appertains to us. It is possible for an element essentially foreign to us to be in us, and this is precisely what occurs in perception. In the fact of intuition there is no contradiction present in our knowing something different from us (that which is ideal). Equally in the fact of perception there is no contradiction in our knowing something different from us (that which is real).24

This is Rosmini’s position about the so-called problem of the bridge.

Kant’s A Priori Synthesis and Rosmini’s Primitive Synthesis It is not my purpose here to make an exhaustive comparison or parallelism between the concept of synthesis a priori in Kant and that of primitive judgment in Rosmini. Instead, and assuming that the Kantian synthesis a priori is already well known, I would like to point out the main differences with Rosmini’s theory of the primitive judgment. substance. How do we justify the principle of substance? Demonstrating that denying its external efficacy is equal to denying the possibility of being (The Innate Light 583ff.). How do we justify the principle of cause? Proving that denying its truth and its (external) value is equal to denying the possibility of being (The Innate Light 615ff.). To what are all these demonstrations reduced? To this ultimate principle: ‘Being is possible’; this is what I call the principle of cognition. Only those who deny ‘the possibility of being’ can therefore refute our reasoning, which starts from the most obvious of facts, from the most evident one, from the only evident fact, previous to all facts in the logical order” (Rinnovamento, 596). In this last text Rosmini makes use of the principles of substance and cause to explain how we acquire certainty about the existence of an external word. In the Nuovo saggio he refrained from using explicitly the principle of substance, based on the truthfulness of intellective perception. Both procedures are correct, in my opinion, and make the difference between direct and reflective knowledge more explicit. 24. Certainty, 1173.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  Rosmini thought that Kant was right to affirm that to think is to judge.25 He observed that the first operation could not be a judgment, but the intuition of being, which is a necessary act of the intelligence. Kant understood judgment as the attribution of a predicate to a subject, but for him a concept always took the place of the subject. And concepts possess universality and necessity (because they express a possibility). Things, in order to be known, are judged by the intelligence, and the result of such judgment is the concept or idea. Without the categories of the intelligence there would be no object of thought. But Kant went too far in saying that his categories were a necessary condition for the knowledge of things. He demanded too much; only one “category” is needed to form a concept: namely, the idea of being; the material element in ideas comes from the side of the thing and is perceived by the senses.26 After we perceive the existence of the thing, we can analyze its properties and judge its quality, quantity, and so on by making use of these concepts, which in turn have been taken from an object already present to the mind. But without the primitive judgment there would be no object to analyze. The idea of a quality—whiteness, for example—differs from the perception of white but makes us know it. The first time we perceived white, the idea of existence and the corresponding sensation were joined in the perceiving subject, and consequently white was seen as a possible perfection of things. Now that we are in possession of that idea, we can recognize the same perfection in other things. There is, then, a clear distinction between the concept and the thing. Kant said that concepts without perception were empty and that perception without concepts was blind.27 If “empty” means that they only show the possibility of something being white, to follow the same example, 25. Cf. An Historical Critique, 341. 26. “However, the mind does not need to pronounce similar judgments on the quantity, quality, and relations of a thing in order to perceive it, still less to conceive it. . . . But it cannot perceive them without the use of the idea of existence” (ibid., 335). 27. “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 93 (B75).

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea that would agree with the Rosminian understanding of concepts; but if it means that they show nothing, then this must be false. “White” certainly means something, independently of how many white things there are in the world and whether we know them or not. On the other hand, sensations are indeed blind, if that means that of themselves they cannot account for knowledge; they are not per se objects of the intelligence, but have to become such. But if by blind we mean that they have no perfection of their own, that they await the categories of the intellect for perception to occur at all, that would imply that there is no such thing as white in reality (be it a white thing, the modification in our sight organ, or the sense perception we call white), but that it only starts to exist as a combination of the intuition and the concept of the understanding. This is clearly the Kantian position. For Kant, the intelligent subject cannot think about anything without attributing to things the categories he already possesses in himself. He is not able to recognize any perfection in things because there is no such perfection that has not been previously mediated by the categories of his understanding. There is no pure mediator in knowledge. If our first idea were that of body, everything that we perceive would have corporeal qualities; the same would happen if our mind were bound to think everything under its twelve categories (plus the two of the sensibility). For these reasons, Rosmini said that “Kant admitted at the same time too little and too much innate in the human mind.” Too little because, as Kant puts it at the beginning of the Critique of Pure Reason, “all our knowledge begins with experience.”28 And too much, because it is not necessary to presuppose fourteen (twelve plus two) categories or pure forms in order to explain the formation of concepts; only one is necessary.29 The categories build the world the subject lives in; they do not show him an already existing world. Therefore, the Kantian subject is forever enclosed within his own creation and falls prey to a perpetual 28. Ibid., 41 (B1). 29. Cf. An Historical Critique, 364: “Kant admits too little and too much that is innate in the human mind.”

Ideas and Reality ⁄  illusion. It would be enough to draw the example of whiteness to show that its concept is different from the real whiteness that our senses perceive. But because in all sense perception there is a subjective element involved, and because all ideas have a composite structure, showing a relationship between a particular limited perfection and being, only the idea of being offers, from a logical point view, the ultimate criterion for the objectivity of knowledge. It guarantees not only that our ideas can be truthful, but also that sensation can be, too, as we concluded from the analysis of the intellective perception. It is precisely this point that reveals how far Kant and Rosmini’s thoughts are from each other. Kant confuses the subject (of a judgment) with the concept of the subject. This is coherent with his opinion that our knowledge is of the phenomenon, since the subject, whatever it is, should have already gone, according to him, through some kind of elaboration by both the sense and the intellect. At this point it is of great importance to recall that the subject in the primitive judgment is not yet a concept, but becomes one when the predicate of existence is adjoined to it. Every concept, therefore, is the result of a synthesis, which includes sensation as a subject and existence as a predicate. To assume the concept already formed overlooks the main problem of knowledge, which is not that of synthetic a priori judgments in the Kantian sense. Rosmini comments on Kant’s position in the following terms: “How are synthetical a priori propositions possible . . . ?” The problem could also be expressed in this way: “How is it possible for us to occasionally attribute to a given subject a predicate which does not come from experience [because it is a priori], and which is not contained in its concept [because it is not analytic]?”30

As one can see, Kant’s way of posing the problem—and I think there can be no doubt that Rosmini interprets him correctly here— presupposes a given understanding of the nature of a concept, which is exactly where Rosmini is innovating. 30. Ibid., 353.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea In formulating the problem in this way, it would seem that if we could find the predicate either in the concept of the subject or in experience, the difficulty would be solved. First, if we could find the predicate in the concept of the subject, we would by implication already possess the concept. The pity is that the problem lies precisely in our forming the concept of subject, in thinking things as existing, in transforming them into objects of the mind and therefore subjects of our judgments. If we assume that we have formed the concepts of things, there is no difficulty in analysing and connecting them in any way whatsoever.31

After the explanations we have seen of intellective perception and the primitive synthesis, nobody can claim that Rosmini is begging the question or incurring a circle. On the contrary, his observations are able to enlighten Kant’s difficulty and provide also the reason why it is not so easily perceived. Second, Kant’s way of presenting the ideological [epistemological] problem implies that there is no problem if we can find the predicate through sense experience. It is certainly true that sense experience can, in a certain way, provide us with a predicate. Thus, when I judge a wall to be white, I am prompted by sense experience to apply the predicate white to it. Nevertheless, I must first have the concept of this particular subject to which I attribute whiteness, that is, I must have thought it as something existent. The difficulty, therefore, reappears: “How can I think an ens, that is, conceive something real as existing?”32

As we can see, the right formulation of the problem eliminates false difficulties. Besides, the source of a priori knowledge is in the intuition of being, whose innate presence in the intelligence guarantees objectivity, as well as universality and necessity, as characteristics of a priori knowledge.33 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 354. 33. “The two characteristics of universality and necessity . . . are not the ultimate criteria of a priori knowledge. They are partial criteria, derived from an exact analysis of the idea of being, the unique form of knowledge and the source of all a priori knowledge” (The Innate Light, 430). About Kant and a priori knowledge, see Certainty, 1383–87. A priori knowledge means for Rosmini knowledge of the first principles, of some transcendental properties of being, and of an Infinite Being (God). See Certainty, 1450–53.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  Both Kant and Rosmini admit that there are some judgments that are synthetic and a priori. Kant calls synthetic that judgment in which the predicate is not included in the concept of the subject. Here lies the main difference with Rosmini’s primitive synthesis, in that for the Italian philosopher the subject (sensation) does not contain the predicate (idea of being), but the concept of the subject does already. Allow me to end this section by quoting another extensive passage that testifies to Rosmini’s own awareness of the similarities as well as the differences between his primitive synthesis and Kant’s a priori synthesis. Accordingly, I call the primal judgment of our spirit, which gives rise to intellectual perception, synthetical and a priori because a spiritual union is formed between one thing given by the senses, which becomes subject, and another which does not enter the subject in so far as the subject is furnished by the senses. It is found only in the intellect, and is the predicate. Note that while I say that this predicate does not exist in the subject furnished by the senses (that which is felt) I do not say, as Kant does, that it does not exist in the concept of the subject. . . . The judgments, therefore, which enable us to form concepts or the ideas of things are primal, that is, the first we form of those things. They are synthetical because we add to the subject something which is not in it or, more precisely, we consider the subject in relationship to something external to it, that is, an idea in our intellect. Such judgments can still be rightly called a priori in that, although we need the matter of such judgments to be furnished by the senses, we find the form of the judgments in our intellect alone. In these synthetical a priori judgments lies the ideological problem, the first problem in philosophy.34

The expression “idea in our intellect” does not take on a subjectivist meaning, it simply refers to the idea of being that is present to the intellect and is not obtained from the real thing, as has already been explained. The twentieth-century philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand offers a different solution to the problem of the synthetic a priori.35 In von Hildebrand’s interpretation, there can be synthetic a priori judgments 34. An Historical Critique, 359–60. 35. See Hildebrand, What Is Philosophy? chap. 4; John R. White, “Kant and von Hildebrand on the Synthetic A Priori: A Contrast,” Aletheia 5 (1992): 290–320.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea because their object is of a necessary nature (= it could not be other as it is), and the predicate is not contained in the subject-concept with which we refer to it. Therefore, such judgments are informative and not tautological. His epistemology relies on the So-sein-Erfahrung, on the experience of such-being, which does not have a sensible particular as its content, but a necessary nature or essence. According to von Hildebrand, knowledge of such essences can be called a priori not because it is independent of experience (Kant), but because its object does not require an instantiation or a particular in order to be what it is. The nature of such essences is a priori. Von Hildebrand says, “We go so far as to say that the question which asks whether a priori knowledge exists, in the sense of an absolutely certain knowledge of highly intelligible and essentially necessary facts, is the epistemological question.”36 Now, for Rosmini there is a more fundamental problem: the general problem of how something can become an object of the mind. In the present work we have discussed this question only in the context of the knowledge of the sensible particular. Nonetheless, if it is true that the idea of being precedes all knowledge and is the light and form of the mind, then it should be able to account also for the knowledge of necessary essences in the sense of von Hildebrand. Rosmini’s position is that all essences are necessary in von Hildebrand’s sense, because they all express a possibility that cannot be other than it is, and none of them requires any instantiation, since they are independent of any particular existence. For Rosmini, the root and principle of a priori knowledge is not to be found in another kind of experience, but in the idea of being, which is given by nature. Of course, the knowledge of spiritual reality and spiritual acts is mediated by a “ nonphysical experience,” but this is different only due to its content, not to the way experience takes place. If Hildebrand’s necessary facts exist without instantiation, I do not think they could have any other mode of existence than possibility. 36. Hildebrand, What Is Philosophy? 89.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  Kant, Innatism, and the lumen intellectuale Rosmini himself helps us to understand his position regarding innatism, since he places it in historical context and carefully explains what characterizes his own innatism. His theory bears little resemblance to previous forms of innatism and deserves careful consideration.37 Rosmini’s suggestion should alleviate our fears of subjectivism, since the idea of being, the only innate one, is certainly an a priori, but of an objective nature. It is remarkable that until Kant innatism was always associated with the possibility of objective knowledge (Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, and others). From the disputes caused by Cartesianism, both in England and in continental Europe, we can affirm in general terms that those who defended the possibility of knowledge of God and of eternal truths, and who argued that the immortality of the soul could be proved and that there was an objective criterion for morality, defended also the presence of innate ideas in the soul. In contrast, those who rejected innate ideas advocated an empirical approach which denied that anything transcending sense experience could be attained with certainty.38 Kant, although very much in debt to the post-Cartesian tradition, particularly to Leibniz, rejects innatism, precisely because innatism 37. A study of the problem in Descartes, Leibniz, and Malebranche is offered by Nicholas Jolley, The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). 38. For a detailed account of the attacks on innatism by materialists and atheists in France during the eighteenth century, see Schøsler, John Locke et les philosophes français. Other useful references can be found in J. O. Nelson, “Innate Ideas,” B. Williams, “Rationalism,” and D. W. Hamlyn, “Empiricism,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York and London: Macmillan, 1967), 4:196–99, 7:69–75, and 2 499–505. Still, I find it ambiguous to call the supporters of objective knowledge rationalists, as if empiricists were open to experience and the others adopted a dogmatic position. Exactly the opposite is true. Empiricism starts from a dogmatic standpoint: “We are bound to what our senses can experience.” So-called rationalism accepts that we have knowledge of something that cannot be reduced to the senses or to matter. The inability of the empiricists to see the nature of spiritual acts resides precisely in the fact that they reject internal observation as a valid method in philosophy.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea presupposed that the mind received such knowledge from outside itself, and therefore, it could not grant any universal and necessary knowledge. As we know, for Kant nothing received from outside the mind can provide certainty and necessity. Only the possibility of representations is innate, and a priori truth is not given to the subject but rather produced by him making use of his categories. It is noteworthy that he thought innatism led to subjectivism, whereas his philosophy of knowledge encloses the subject within himself more than any other prior system.39 However strange it will always sound, Kant’s Copernican revolution obliged him to place the source of objective knowledge, which he actually did not intend to renounce, in the subject. Whether they agreed with Kant or not, philosophers after him accepted this turn and presumed that innatism and subjectivism imply one another. Rosmini would also look for the source of objective knowledge in the subject, but he would put in evidence the need of an objective element for the coming to be of the subject; for this reason the subject is from the beginning referred to something else, which is precisely the object, the source of truth and knowledge. Therefore, instead of freeing innatism from its deficiencies, as Rosmini did, many prefer to do away with or at least ignore the Augustinian, illuminative aspect of intellective knowledge and refer themselves exclusively to experience. This may also account for Rosmini’s observation: I do not want to believe either that the word innate, which I added to the idea, has been for some the same as a witch or a scarecrow can be to small children; because the word “innate” means nothing else than that the idea has not been formed by us, but is given to us by nature, placed before our spirit in order to be immediately intuited.40 39. See Zoeller, “From Innate to A Priori: Kant’s Radical Transformation of a Cartesian-Leibnizian Legacy” for an analysis of Kant’s position towards innatism. “Whereas for Leibniz the apodictic status of certain truths was considered an argument for them being innate, for Kant, the very fact that a principle is innate would exclude its holding with strict necessity and universality”(231). 40. Rinnovamento, 87. Also, Rosmini had rejected innatism in his young years. See his Pneumallogica ovvero Psicoallogica, nos. 25–34, in Saggi inediti giovanili, vol. 11/A,

Ideas and Reality ⁄  We demonstrated the objectivity of this idea above, including its ability to give us certain knowledge as well. We also clearly established that it does not represent any particular nature, precluding divine prearrangement, or anything of the sort. Therefore, the fact that the idea has not been formed or produced by us should not be a hindrance, as Kant thought, for objectivity; quite the opposite, it opens the way to founding objective knowledge. Rosmini’s innatism should rather be considered along the tradition of the lumen intellectuale (the light of the intellectus agens), the human spirit’s participation in divine light. This always seemed to suggest some sort of innatism to many Christian medieval philosophers.41 Thomas Aquinas himself can be added to the list of innatists, since the notion and words related to innatism (innatum, inditum,and so on) frequently occur in his works in the context of certain and indubitable knowledge. There are a large number of texts that confirm this.42 Rosmini’s contribution to the problem is to be found in his determination of the innate principle in knowledge, or lumen intellectuale, as the idea of being. There is a priori only one element in knowledge and it is essentially objective, guaranteeing that knowledge can attain objectivity as well. It should be clear by now that this should not be considered a concession to Kant, but a profound correction of Kantianism in light of the classical theory of knowledge. His solution shows a clear way by which the philosophies of knowledge, metaphysics, anthropology, and ethics are related to each other. Certainly, the affirmation of innatism tout court does not guarantee objectivity, but Rosminian in205–11. According to the editor, this short work was probably written between 1817 and 1823, in two different moments (14). 41. See, e.g., St. Bonaventure, Collationes de septem donis Spritus Sancti, 4:2 and 8:13, in Les sept dons du Saint-Esprit, ed. Marc Ozilou (Paris: Cerf, 1997), 90 and 172–73. See also Giulio Bonafede, Le ragioni dell’ontologismo (Palermo: Siciliana, 1941). 42. He claimed the presence of innate principles to the intellect in several places. See, e.g., In II sententiarum, 39, 3, 1, corpus; In III sententiarum, 33, 2B, corpus and 33, 2, 4D, corpus; De veritate, 10, 6c et ad 6 and 22, 7c; In Boethii de Trinitate, I, 1, 3 ad 6 and II, 3, 1 ad 2; Summa contra gentiles, I, 7, 3; Summa theologiae, I, 79, 12c.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea natism does guarantee it, as this work tries to show. In him, as in Thomas Aquinas,43 the theory of illumination and innatism meet without contradiction. The intellect’s characteristic kind of existence requires the object, that is, the idea of being, which is not a production of the intellect itself, but is inseparably united to it. This understanding of innatism is fully compatible with an affirmation of the objectivity of truth. Von Hildebrand is correct to ask: “Why should our knowledge of a state of facts rooted in a being possess the character of absolute certainty by reason of our being born with this knowledge?” Yet the implication of his question does not affect Rosmini’s innatism, because the innate character of the idea of being was inferred after the ability of the idea to guarantee objective knowledge. So, he did not simply claim that because an idea is innate it is a source of objective knowledge, but that the idea that is presupposed by all others must be innate. In other words, even though we can prove that the idea is necessarily innate, we need not have recourse to this characteristic in order to ground objective knowledge. Besides, Rosmini’s position excludes that we are “born” with the knowledge of a given state of facts. Therefore, von Hildebrand’s other claim, “No form of innatism can in any way explain the possibility of apriori knowledge,” would find an exception in the theory developed in this work. A third claim, that “the innate character could also be linked to a human insufficiency and thus be invalid,”44 has in my opinion a true side and a less accurate one. We already mentioned the true side, that innatism in many of its historical forms could very well be unable to resist the criticism of responding to a deficient human power of thought.45 The less accurate side is that it identifies “innate” with “an element in our nature.” But 43. Cf., e.g.: “So, the same as the knowledge of principles is received from the senses, and nevertheless the light with which principles are known is innate, faith comes from hearing, and nevertheless the habit of faith is infused” (In Boethii de Trinitate, 2, 3, 1 ad 4). “The light of reason, with which these principles are known to us, is infused in us by God as a sort of likeness of uncreated truth in us” (De veritate, 11, 1c). 44. Hildebrand, What Is Philosophy? 90. 45. In Plato’s case, the theory of reminiscence—although I agree with von Hilde-

Ideas and Reality ⁄  we have seen here that not everything that is in our nature must be considered a part of it, that it can be an objective element indissolubly united to it and of a different kind, so that there would be no possible human insufficiency mixed up in it. Furthermore, if the very power of thought is constituted by the intuition of such an objective element and cannot subsist without it, then its innate character (= we are born with it) is not only plausible but also necessary. It is possible that Kant introduced a far-reaching confusion in philosophy when he identified everything that does not come from sense experience with a subjective element. Rosmini reproaches him thus: Subjective, that is, introduced by the intelligent subject and therefore innate in the intelligent subject, at least virtually. However, the expression subjective, is not accurate. As we shall see, this inaccuracy led to error in Kant’s philosophy. The fact is that the spirit may have within itself innate common notions without its having derived them from within itself, but by receiving them from outside itself. This remark is highly important for a clear understanding of the theory I shall be expounding in its proper place.46

The gratuitous claim in Kant’s system is that everything in the subject has its origin in the subject or is a part or a modification of the subject. Kant also speaks of sensible intuition, thus corrupting the legitimate meaning of the word intuition, which means an act of the spirit, not of the senses. Von Hildebrand’s notion of experience as such-being (So-sein-Erfahrung) remedies this Kantian arbitrary restriction,47 but in my opinion moves the problem back one step, since now the capacity to have such an experience has to be explained. This, to my knowledge, is assumed in Hildebrand’s work but not developed. It is at this point of the discussion that Rosmini’s philosophy of knowledge reveals the extent of its relevance.48 In his introductory essay to brand’s remark that it does not solve the problem of a priori knowledge, but simply postpones it—is a separate claim, not required by Plato’s innatism, which is not convincing either. 46. An Historical Critique, 64, n. 55. 47. See Schwarz, “Dietrich von Hildebrands Lehre von der Soseinserfahrung in ihren philosophiegeschichtlichen Zusammenhängen.” 48. “[A] faculty for thought, shorn completely of any notion, was inevitably a con-

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea von Hildebrand’s What Is Philosophy? Seifert seems to recognize the possibility of an innate element in knowledge but then rejects it, since it would contradict receptivity, a basic characteristic of knowledge: There may be some examples, such as “consciousness” or “being,” which are “inborn cognitions” in the sense that I know them with my first experience of anything and do not require some special experience of something being-soand-so, an experience which not every man possesses. The third sense of “a priori” then indicates cognitions which are prior to all experience (as a priori forms, die im Gemüthe bereitliegen [“inborn” ideas]). In its strict sense, this third sense of a priori contradicts the receptive nature of knowledge. No content of knowledge can just be “in” the mind without having disclosed itself to us in some form of experience or inference.49

Rosmini’s philosophy of knowledge, on the contrary, explains that the intellect is receptive from the very beginning of its existence, since its first act presupposes that something has been given to it—namely, the idea of being—that makes all other knowledge possible. Therefore, receptivity does not stand against innatism, but is a requisite for it. Although explicitly opposite to Kant’s epistemology, one can still see in von Hildebrand’s and Seifert’s position the trace of the Copernican revolution. In fact, both approaches miss the basic Rosminian insight about the constitution of the mind. Whereas for Kant the mind’s receptivity would provide Skeptics with an argument, since it would condition that mind to think only in a particular way, von Hildebrand and Seifert do not consider the possibility that what is intradiction. It would mean speaking of a faculty without a faculty, of a potency that is not a potency. The simple acceptance of an innate potency of thought in an innate intellect (he [Leibniz] says to Locke) means acceptance of some innate notion or idea through which the intellective soul can exert its power on the sensations it has received and on itself ” (An Historical Critique, 279). The identification of the lumen intellectuale with the intellectus agens by many Thomists reveals the same difficulty. Aquinas himself speaks rather of lumen intellectus agentis (light of the intellect) and when he refers to Aristotle he says that the active intellect is the light with which we understand, since indeed Aristotle sometimes spoke as if they were the same. Rosmini’s epistemology goes beyond Thomism in this point, but does not contradict it. 49. Josef Seifert, introduction to Hildebrand, What Is Philosophy? xxxv; see also xlvii.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  nate, or inborn, has also been received and is of objective nature. The argument surely deserves a longer treatment, but these few comments already show how significant Rosmini’s position is for contemporary thought. Instead of disproving innatism, the last sentence of Seifert’s quotation actually reinforces it, at least the way Rosmini understands it, since the innate character of the idea of being does not contradict the receptive nature of knowledge but intrinsically constitutes it. Obviously, provided that we do not forget that this “disclosing” cannot take place by way of a conscious experience.50

The Idea Is One Form of Being For one who knows Rosmini, to start with a heading like this would imply the discussion of a whole world of ontological discoveries and original theses, not only as contained in the latest works—particularly the Teosofia—but also in his early writings. In fact, the Nuovo saggio shows the development of a new ontology at its commencement. The central ontological thesis of the Rosminian system, which we will only mention here, is that being has three forms, which are also called supreme categories: reality, ideality, and morality. The first two are frequently given other names (such as subjectivity and objectivity, subsistence and essence,and so on), depending on the kind of analysis. The three forms are perfectly identical only in Absolute Being (God), in which they constitute a unity without losing their respective peculiarities. We do not find, however, among finite beings any realization of such a unity—rather, we discern a distinction. Rosmini’s law of synthesism (legge del sintesismo) states that being cannot exist in only one of 50. “Thus I say that the human intelligence is born . . . by means of an operation made from outside the human subject, with a force that man cannot resist; he hands over to it, thus receiving what forms and creates what is most eminent and sublime in him” (“Lettera a P. Orsi sulla lingua filosofica,” in Introduzione alla filosofia, 383). “It [the idea of being] cannot, therefore, be formed by means of some mental operation, but only intuited. Equally, it cannot be intuited unless present to our spirit. Thus we have a new, very clear demonstration that the idea of being is given to human beings by nature.” (The Innate Light, 541). Many other texts could be quoted as well.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea the three forms. One form requires the other two, in such a way that, for example, ideal being could not exist without reality and morality; reality, on the other hand, would be inconsistent without ideal and moral being; and morality would be impossible without real and ideal being. Wherever there is one form we can find the other two, without their necessarily coinciding, which would be the case with infinite being alone. The systematic study of the supreme categories and the intrinsic relationships among them is the purpose of the unconcluded Teosofia.51 One short but sure proof that the idea and the real thing are never identical in the realm of finite beings is the fact that, in the mere thought of a thing, the latter’s real subsistence is not found and, on the other hand, the real thing needs to be adjoined to the idea by an intelligent subject in order to be known, as it cannot by its own means produce such knowledge of itself. In turn, a proof of the relationship between both is given by the fact that the universal idea of existence makes us know particular existence, just as the idea of the horse makes us know a real horse. Besides, without the horse acting in different ways on our bodily organs, we would not have the idea of a horse. And what of the idea of existence? We already concluded that it is innate. We do not see the reality that properly corresponds to it because real being without limitations can only be Absolute Being. The proper term of the idea of being remains hidden from us, although 51. For the forms of being as supreme categories, see book I of the Teosofia (13, 123–203). A general introduction to Rosmini’s ontology can be found in Prini, Introduzione alla metafisica di Rosmini; Franchi, Saggio sul sistema ontologico di Antonio Rosmini. The consequences of an insufficient distinction between the real and the ideal modes of being in the history of philosophy is supplied by Rosmini himself in the preface to the Aristotele esposto ed esaminato. See Raschini, Prospettive rosminiane, 179–85. Pier Paolo Ottonello comments on this text, saying that “the axis of Rosmini’s diagnosis is the relationship between the divine and God” (“Il divino e Dio,” in Rosmini: L’ideale e il reale, 102. If, as we are going to see later, God is real being, whereas everything else is not but takes part in being, and if what is called the divine is the idea, then the distinction ideal-real assumes an undeniable importance, from both a theoretical and a historical point of view.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  revealed preliminarily, from afar, as it were. Even if how it took place still represents a mystery for finite minds, we can argue that only God (Absolute Real Being) can be the origin of the idea of being. No finite reality could cause such an effect, in which the possibility of all things is comprised. Even the possibility that Absolute Being exists is understood by us thanks to the idea of being, which is another indication of its dignity; and the possibility of other natures provided with the intuition of it is also included.52 I will insist now on the thought that, far from being nothing, the idea of being constitutes a different form of being in addition to reality, with its own proper features. If we identify being with reality—that is, if we claim that if and only if something has real existence it can be said to be at all—a whole series of facts will contradict us. Fictions, numbers, thoughts about the future, logical entities, and so on would consequently have to be considered thoughts of nothingness. In other words: we would be thinking nothing, which is equal to abolishing thought. Notice that this inference is necessary.53 Rosmini concludes: From what we have said, it can easily be seen that besides the form of being possessed by subsisting things ( being, as we have called it) there is another, entirely distinct form, constituting the foundation of the possibility of things (the  form).   is an entity of such a nature that it cannot be confused with either our spirit, or with bodies, or with anything belonging to  . It is a serious error to believe that   or the  is nothing because it does not belong to the category of things common to our feelings. On the contrary, ideal being, the idea, is an authentic, sub52. “The object, that is, the form of the intelligence, cannot therefore be generated. God himself unveils it to the soul which is thus made intelligent” (Psychology, I, 652). However, God is not possible, but necessarily real; cf. Psychology, II, 1344–45; Teosofia, 15, 1561. 53. Rosmini is quite strong and resolute in the following passage of the Psychology: “Thinkers who consider what is ideal as nothingness, claiming that the human mind would not have a true object unless it had something real as its term, show how little they have progressed in philosophical investigation. In fact, the opposite is true: only ideal being, the essence of an ens, is . Outside of or apart from this, there is no object. If what is real is to be thought, it must first be , that is, contemplated in the idea, in the essence” (Psychology, II, 1342).

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea lime entity, as we saw when we examined the noble characteristics with which it is furnished. It is true that it cannot be defined, but it can be analysed, or rather we can express our experience of it and call it the  of our spirit. What could be clearer than light? Extinguish it, and only darkness remains.54

Subsistence is thus an attribute of real things; ideas cannot subsist in themselves as real things do, but are the term of an intellect. “Consequently, if every mind were removed, being would no longer be conceived,”55 that is, ideal being would not exist.56 But ideas should not be considered accidents or modifications of the subject. In that case we would have the same problem as in the beginning: How does a thing become an object of the mind? And I do not think the materialist opinion that ideas are modifications of our brain or made of a subtle material is worth considering. However striking it may seem, the fact is that Rosmini’s understanding of objectivity (ideality) is mostly based on observation, on interior observation. If somebody has not acquired the habit of reflecting on himself, he will certainly find the whole theory difficult to grasp. The metaphorical meaning of the word “light” to indicate a fact of spiritual life, proper to the whole Western philosophical tradition, will be inaccessible to him. To a certain extent, however much we multiply words, an unreflective person cannot comprehend them. Rosmini was clearly aware of that. Rosmini was convinced that we should multiply our efforts to explain the difficult problems of philosophy to others, especially when some important truth was at stake—“without sparing words”57—but he was also conscious that such efforts would be rewarded “not by infusing truth, which is impossible, but by helping others on the way to truth.”58 54. The Innate Light, 555–56. 55. Certainty, 1442. 56. Cf. Teosofia. 15, 1527. 57. “Try to dissect the problems, in order to adapt them as much as possible to the common understanding and to make them look evident, without sparing words” (letter to Alessandro Pestalozza, January 21, 1844, Epistolario filosofico, 455). 58. The Innate Light, 1039.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  It is not easy to grasp the theory we have developed about the origin of ideas. Reading about the theory is certainly insufficient; careful observation of one’s own human nature is also required. Without such observation, it is possible to be misled about one’s understanding of the book and to form a very mistaken view of what has been said.59

I know that this brief sketch cannot satisfy even a minimal part of the curiosity it naturally gives rise to. My aim in bringing up the basic terms of Rosminian ontology is simply to introduce those texts of the Nuovo saggio and the Rinnovamento that are meant to secure for ideal being a peculiar form of existence, independent from the finite reality we perceive, though in close relationship with it. My fear, if I may express it so, is that the reader will make a constant effort to think of the idea as one sort of real thing, which would possess actually the same properties, though maybe in a different way. This thought would blur the correct understanding of the nature of ideas. In the next chapter I will discuss other properties of the ideal form or mode of being in more detail. I will now focus briefly on two important characteristics of the ideal form of being with respect to the real form. The first can be called epistemological and the second metaphysical. Of course, the connections between both forms of being are not thus exhausted.

Ideal Being Is the Knowability of Real Being It is not necessary to look for something to make ideas known to us. Ideas, which cannot subsist on their own, make themselves known; we need only direct our attention to them. If another idea were needed to be aware of its existence, we would have to repeat the same operation an infinite number of times in order to achieve the awareness of a single idea. But an infinite number of operations would imply either an actual infinity, which is not possible for finite beings, or an indefinite period of time, which is also contradicted by our experience: we can easily distinguish between idea and reality without needing to 59. Ibid., 1038. I give my own translation of this paragraph because I think its original force has been slightly lost in the English version.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea wait till Judgment Day, or even later. The problem is solved by acknowledging the true nature of ideas: they are the knowability of things, they are their intelligibility, because they are intelligible in themselves. [R]eality is dark and blind of itself, whereas truth is a spiritual light. Reality needs to be known, but truth is what makes things known. Reality is of itself alien to a mind, but truth is in the mind. In a word, the former is a form of being totally different from the latter, and I called them the real form and the ideal form of being, following the need to separate them. One of them, the latter, is known per se, but the other, the former, is only known by means of its union with the latter. . . . I admit an incredible distance and difference between ideas and things, between ideal being and real being, acknowledging in the former the principle and the cognoscibility of the latter, and in the latter the end and the matter of that cognoscibility.60

We should recall that to say that ideas are the object of knowledge is not equal to saying that what we know in the first place are ideas. The answer to the question: “If ideas are the knowability of things, how do we know them?” or better, “How can we know them at all?” is also contained in the nature of ideas and can be answered with another question: “How could something that is not known per se make anything else known?” Thus ideas must be known in themselves and make everything else known. This will become clearer in the next chapter, when the problem of the per sè manifesto will be discussed. The concept of likeness (similitudo), usually employed to signify the resemblance between the thing and its idea or species, is consistent with the distinction of the forms of being. It is actually a consequence of it, not the other way round, since it already implies the existence of two entities that are alike. The idea of any thing is the thing itself devoid of the act which makes it subsist. . . . This twofold mode of being which things possess (in the mind and in themselves) is the source of the concept of likeness.61

60. Rinnovamento, 239 and 196. I emphasized “of itself ” to highlight that the real mode of being is categorically different from the ideal one. Without ideal being, however, even real being would not exist, i.e., there would be no real thing(s). 61. Certainty, 1182.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  Ideal Being Is the Possibility of Things Aristotle conceived act and potency as two states of the same thing.62 I would not go so far as to consider this a source of Rosmini’s distinction of the forms of being, but I do think it helps to understand the metaphysical implications of the ideal form. In the following text we see the above-mentioned teaching about the verbum points to an important consequence: the similarity of the act of knowledge with the act of creation, which suggests its opposite formulation—that the act of creation is an intelligent act. That which is conceived only as possible by the idea is pronounced as subsistent by the word. The thing as thought (idea) stands in relationship to the real as thing (expressed by the word) as potency to act. This is why I said that the ideal object and the real agent are reduced to one, single nature (cf. 530). The subsistent ens is the first action conceived by us (with the idea). This action, however, needs to pronounce it in its real mode.63

To understand this text correctly, we have to keep in mind two things: (1) although normally sense perception precedes our knowledge of things, it is still possible that we have the idea of something without knowing if it exists or not (for example, the horse we saw could have died); and (2) both, sensation and the thing known, are particular and contingent, whereas the idea is universal and necessary (because it expresses a possibility). The knowledge we have of things is mediated by sense perception, but the idea is not dependent on sensations in se but only in its origin in us, that is, we are in need of the senses to be supplied with the material part of ideas, whereas their formal element is independent of experience, it is a priori in the mind. The possibility shown by the idea always existed; it was not generated, as sensation was by the contact of the thing with our bodily organs. The possibility is thus previous to 62. “The potential and the actual are in a sense one” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1045b21). I quote Hugh Tredennick’s translation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975). 63. The Innate Light, 534.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea the existence of the thing, continues while the thing exists, and remains when the thing ceases to exist, simply because it is atemporal. We can say that if the thing had not been possible, it would have never existed. The absolute possibility of things (their noncontradiction) precedes their existence. The fact that our knowledge of the thing is limited does not contradict this conclusion. To grasp the full possibility of the thing, that is, the full idea of the thing, certainly demands an exhaustive knowledge beyond finite intelligences. Nonetheless, all necessary knowledge includes the understanding of the possibility of the thing, at least in the way the thing is given to us. This possibility also shares in the necessity, eternity, immutability, and so on we described above. The fact that the idea is necessary makes it a nobler entity than any contingent thing, even the thing it makes known. However paradoxical this may seem, it follows. So, if we say that the possibility of the thing is grasped by us, the act of knowledge places us (as knowing subjects, as persons) in a position above all real things, so to speak. Even those natures that are more perfect than us and whose power of understanding is superior are in this respect equal to us in dignity insofar as there is nothing that can supersede what is necessary. Only a necessary reality can be above all natures that possess knowledge, because in it everything would be necessary, not only the Idea it sees, but also the reality it is. That would be the case with God, the Absolute and Necessary Being. We see here a meeting point of three philosophical sciences: philosophy of knowledge, natural theology, and anthropology.64 The dignity conferred by the Idea to intelligent subjects will be the argument of chapter 5. A question may be raised: Is it the possibility of the thing or the possibility of sensation? The answer is, in fact, both. We have only to call to mind the subjective and extrasubjective elements that constitute sensations. Real existence, the power to cause certain sensations 64. For the different ways in which the ideal and the real modes of being are present in us and in God, cf. Rinnovamento, 557.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  in us, extension, and so on certainly belong to the thing and not to our sensations. However, the act of knowledge bears a likeness with the act of creation in the sense that the knower gives a new existence to a thing according to a certain relationship he has with it. The finite knowing subject does not create a universe for himself, so to speak, but understands the universe in a way that, notwithstanding its objectivity, can only be given to him (because sensations take place only once); and although sensations may be similar, they are never exactly the same in any two feeling subjects.

Note on the Possibility and Necessity of Ideas The very simple claim made by Rosmini is that however insignificant the content of an idea is, however low or poor the perfection it shows, the fact that its elements can be put together—that is, its noncontradictory character—gives it a stability that no mind can destroy. It is enough to see that its elements do not exclude each other to understand that this is always (better, timelessly) the case. In other words: possibility is not a possible, but a necessary predicate of all ideas. If idea X contains the features a, b, and c, and these do not exclude each other, then the necessity of X that is based on its being a possible object of thought does not imply that a must necessarily be together with b and c; it simply refers to the fact that X expresses a possible way of being that cannot be modified in any way whatsoever, even if it will never be instantiated. This is the type of necessity we refer to here. Therefore, it is not based on the importance or the excellence of its essence, but simply on the nonmutual repugnancy of the elements it contains. An attentive observation reveals to us that a possibility is timelessly necessary as a possibility. Even the possibilities that take place in time have a timeless necessity. Let us take the example of man’s actual power of flying. To say that flying was at some time impossible without any qualifications would be equal to stating that it was inconceivable, absolutely speaking. But only what is contradictory is inconceivable; and what is con-

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea tradictory can never be realized, neither now nor at any possible moment. The reason why we say that flying was impossible for man, say a thousand years ago, is because it is contradictory to fly without the necessary equipment and conditions. And this impossibility is absolute in se. But it is absolutely possible, also in se, that with the necessary equipment and conditions, man can fly. So, in the first case: “Flying was impossible for man a thousand years ago,” flying means something different than in the second case, namely today. First it means: “flying without the necessary equipment and conditions,” then it means “flying with the necessary equipment and conditions.” Of course, this depends on the discovery and development of the necessary equipment and conditions, but this does not constitute an objection. Flying, given the proper requirements, was always possible for man. Otherwise, we would now be violating not only the laws of logic but also those of metaphysics. The meaning of necessity used here does not contradict von Hildebrand’s attribution of necessity only to essences of a certain kind. Now, the concept of necessity used by von Hildebrand with regard to essences could be described as that of “necessarily constituting one and the same entity,” for example, it is essential to moral values that they require a person as bearer, so that if we conceive a moral value without reference to a person, we are actually thinking about something else. Von Hildebrand’s three types of essences (chaotic, morphic, and necessary) differ in the degree of unity among their elements. Although essences of the first and second types have a lesser unity than those of the third type and are therefore called contingent, one must still recognize in them an immutability of their own, which is of a different kind than that of von Hildebrand’s third type of necessary essential unities. Besides, some examples he gives resemble better a necessary judgment (So-sein-müssen) than an idea.65 In this sense, however much ideas or essences might differ, I think we can agree with Parmenides’ fatherly observation to Socrates (Parmenides 130d). Without attempting to close once and for all the discussion on this di65. See Hildebrand, What Is Philosophy? chap. 4.

Ideas and Reality ⁄  alogue, I believe that Parmenides’ words reflect Plato’s last position on the nature (mode of being) of ideas, whereas Socrates reproduces the objections voiced within the Platonic school.66 Josef Seifert is of a different opinion.67 His theory of ideal entities justifies the opposite interpretation of this passage of the Parmenides.68 Although he admits that possibilities have an ideal ontological status, he would not accept that all ideal entities as such are possibilities. Wesen, Ideen, Eide, Wesenspläne, ideale Gesetze, and so on would be more than “mere possibilities.” I believe there is a confusion hidden behind such a qualification, because if something is more than possible, it cannot but be real, and we would face many important ontological problems if we accepted a really subsisting universal essence, which is not God or reducible to an object in God’s mind. Seifert alludes to this difficulty, too. The status of possibility qualifies the proper mode of being of ideas from a certain point of view. Of course, we are not speaking here of divine ideas, which must be identified with God’s essence, but of our own: that is, I refer to the ideas we intuit, which are the necessary means of human knowledge. Essential entities, until they are realized—that is, until there is nothing that corresponds to them—remain possibilities, however elevated their content (love, moral values, and the like). This in no way implies their devaluation. Of course, the use of “until” here is figurative, since ideas are timeless, and, as a result, their relation with the real world is such as well.69 I think that we must hold the thesis that possibility is an essential characteristic of the ideal world, and that the distinction between two modes of being (real and ideal) advanced by Rosmini assigns to each mode its correct place, without excluding a further differentiation in the ideal world, like the one carried out by Seifert and also by Rosmini in several works. 66. See Giovanni Reale, Per una nuova interpretazione di Platone, chap. 10, secs. I and II. 67. See Seifert, Sein und Wesen, 42. 68. Cf. ibid., chap. 1. 69. See ibid., passim, but particularly 263–65.

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The Idea and the Mind n The Book about the Idea in the Teosofia

In the Nuovo saggio Rosmini speaks about the “idea of being” (idea dell’essere), but in his ontological writings he prefers the expression “ideal being.”1 This does not follow any change in his theory of being; it just reflects a different approach. In fact, he had already concluded in his philosophy of knowledge that there was another form of being, apart from the real one: namely, ideal being.2 His aim there, however, was not to develop an ontological teaching.3 How can we characterize this mode of existence, which is called ideal or objective? Although Rosmini dedicated many pages to the objective mode of being at the very beginning of the Teosofia, he discussed it there only as one of the supreme categories, not in itself, which he postponed until the fourth book. I will focus on two points of his lengthy discussion: (1) the concept of per se manifest; and (2) the characterization of the objective mode of existence. In both cases I will restrain myself in 1. The National Edition of the Nuovo saggio reminds us that in the second edition (Mailand, 1836) Rosmini had already moved toward a more precise use of the terms ens and essere. He probably did not see any more need to retain the Scholastic way of speaking, and realized that the notion of essere indicated something simpler, whereas that of ens included the composition of being and a most general reference to something that is, or an essence. However, the doctrine does not change. See Francesco Orestano, introduction to Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee, vols. 3–5 of the Edizione Nazionale delle opere edite e inedite di A. Rosmini-Serbati (Rome: Anonima Romana, 1934), 3:xxxii–xlii. 2. The Innate Light, 555. 3. See Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 22–25.

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The Idea and the Mind ⁄  accordance with the aim of this study, which requires putting aside a good number of problems related to the nature of the idea and its high perfection, as Rosmini understood it. The book has a “proemio” and is divided into three parts. In the proemio ideas are called, following Plato, the divine. The first part discusses being as per se manifest (per sè manifesto). Being is known or manifested by itself (per se), which means that it is at the same time what is known, or manifested to the intellect (manifestato), and what makes known, or being as manifesting (manifestante). Although being is only one, ideal being intuited by the intellect is distinguished from God; it is also said to be neither nothingness—even if it is indeterminate—nor anything subjective. Ideal being is called possible being (ente possibile), and it is reaffirmed as the first object of knowledge. The first part concludes with a consideration of the final perfection of human nature, based on the intuition of ideal being. The second part deals with ideal being in its conjunction with the human mind. It contains a deep analysis of Plato’s dialogue Parmenides. He defends Plato’s position against the objections of the Eleatic and the Megaric schools, but also against Aristotle’s criticism, which was probably not always directed toward Plato himself but to some of his disciples. According to Rosmini the discussion of the Parmenides results in the discovery of a different mode of being, which unites in itself two apparently contradictory properties: absolute and relative existence. The value of this teaching for the present work is obvious, because it not only provides us with the ontological categorization of the idea but also ensures the dignity of the human nature to which being is manifested. The title of this part is appropriately “On Being Per Se Manifest in Conjunction with the Human Mind,” that is, as manifesting. The third part bears no specific title, probably due to the fact that the book was not revised by the author; but he anticipated in the proemio that he would deal with being as manifested, in conjunction with real things. The way real things are known by the human mind, intellective perception in other terms, is examined in the light of the

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea ontology developed in the Teosofia. Then follows an in-depth discussion with Aristotle and Aquinas about the meaning of the expressions “knowledge in potency” and “knowledge in act,” where Aquinas’s commentaries are found very enlightening. He then considers the imperfection of human knowledge and, in the last chapter, he carefully examines Vincenzo Gioberti’s objections. Some other properties of being as manifesting are also dealt with throughout this part.4

Essere per sè manifesto: Manifestato and manifestante Being is manifested to us. The use of the expression “idea of being” should not lead us to think that it is the idea that we know, not what the idea reveals. In other words, being is known in the idea, and the idea as such—its (objective) presence to the intellect—is discovered after reflection. This is necessarily so, since the contrary position would entail repeating the difficulty ad infinitum. In the Nuovo saggio, an essence was defined as “that which is understood in any idea.”5 Thus, in the idea of being we understand the essence of being. In other words, the idea of being shows what to be consists in; if we did not grasp this, we could never predicate existence of anything. The mere sentence “This horse exists” would lack intellectual content. 4. For more detail on the composition of the different parts of the Teosofia, and on the dates and changes in the plan of the work, see Carlo Gray, introduction to Teosofia, vol. 7 of Edizione Nazionale delle opere edite e inedite di A. Rosmini-Serbati (Milan: Fratelli Bocca 1938), i–cxlv. A summary of the content of the fourth book can be found at lxxxiii–lxxxviii. 5. The Innate Light, 646. In a footnote to paragraph 1143 in Certainty, appendix 6, Rosmini explains: “The essence that we think in the idea is the essence which subsists, except that in the idea it is possible, and in the subsistence is in act . . . the subsistence of any thing is the act of the essence.” Therefore, the essence is the same, both in the mind (as an idea) and in the thing. This double mode of existing does not introduce a difference between what is known and what is in reality; on the contrary, it only verifies that the real thing is known, without confusing the order of knowledge (logic) with the order of reality (metaphysics). The distinction of the modes of being, consequently, is basic and necessary to guarantee the objectivity of the act of knowledge. It cannot be argued that we would have three modes instead of two: the idea, the essence, and the thing. The idea and the real thing are in fact the two modes of the same essence.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  To grasp the essence of being does not equal comprehending Absolute Being, God. Such an identification between being and God completely lacks evidence and contradicts two solid facts of observation, (1) that we understand being; and (2) that we do not comprehend God. The very claim that this identification naturally follows from the statement “We grasp the essence of being” contains the proof that it is false. Unless somebody denies that he has an understanding of being (which is impossible), he must admit that at least he himself (who claimed that the identification ought to be made) understands being without identifying it with God.6 But what is the idea? Subsistence cannot be predicated of it, like of other things. We cannot say it is nothing, because nothingness cannot make anything known. Moreover, we have enough evidence that some sort of existence corresponds to it; we even said it was a mode or a form of being, meaning by such terms the highest categories in which being itself is divided. Again, only keen observation can supply a definition, or better a description, of the mode of being proper to the idea. Making use of Rosmini’s concept of the per se manifest, we will see (1) that it is an ontological perfection of being itself to be known, not only a perfection relative to us; and (2) the ontological features of ideal being, which dignify the minds to which it is present. The concept of “per se manifest” is grasped, according to Rosmini, after long reflection. We first know being in itself (what it means to be) without asking ourselves how we know it. Then we become conscious that we know being. After that, we realize that being had to be manifested to us somehow. But as we cannot find anything else that could manifest being to us, because it would need to be manifested by it, we conclude that being is both manifested and manifesting. After all this, the reflection asks who could have manifested being to it. Without finding before itself anything else than manifested being, it cannot turn to any other cause. On the other hand, we see that, even if there is this cause, 6. I think this simple reasoning should suffice to reject any possible ontologism in Rosmini. See Giannini, Esame delle quaranta proposizioni rosminiane, 11–30. Cf. Rinnovamento, 562.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea it would also have to be and, consequently, we could not know this cause if we did not know being already. Thus, being would necessarily be the first known and we can conclude that manifested being is essentially manifesting.7

If (1) being is manifested to us; and (2) what manifests it could not be known without the thought of being, then being manifests itself. What makes something known cannot be made known by that same thing. We must therefore arrive at a primum cognitum, which is being itself. But this primum cognitum must also have the property of manifesting itself to the knowing mind, lest its own manifestation remain absurd.8 Being possesses then the quality of the per se manifest. If nothing united in itself these two features of manifesting and manifested, knowledge would be impossible. And that being cannot be made otherwise is proved from the fact that we know being, and we speak about it all the time. If it did not manifest itself of its own, it could not be manifested by any other thing, because outside being there is nothing. Nothingness cannot manifest that which is; nothingness cannot manifest anything. Being, therefore, must have as its first feature that of manifesting itself, of being light.9

Like all finite beings, a horse is made known by the idea of the horse present to the intellect; it receives its intelligibility from the idea and not from itself. Manifested and manifesting are different in this case. Besides, the meaning of horse could be understood without any horse subsisting in reality, which is equal to saying that “[its] subsistence is not necessary to [its] being known.”10 Finite reality is called contingent precisely because its essence does not entail subsistence, that is, its subsistence is not necessary. 7. Teosofia, 15, 1513. 8. Absurd is a different concept from either mysterious or unexplained. An absurdity always includes a contradiction; it is therefore inconsistent and must be rejected. A mystery denotes something not completely known by us, which is true of almost everything in the universe. Finally, something can remain unexplained without being absurd or without us noticing that it is absurd. Both mysteries and absurdities contain an unexplained element, the former because their intelligibility exceeds our power of understanding, and the latter because there is no possible way they could be explained. 9. Teosofia, 15, 1510. 10. Ibid., 1516. Cf. ibid., 1703.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  Ideas possess a certain kind of self-evidence, they are the necessary object of thought, while real things are not; they need an idea to be understood. If we say, “There are no centaurs,” we assume that we understand the meaning of the word centaur. Even if we are right and these fantastic creatures actually do not exist, it remains true that we have the idea of a centaur: this, and only this, accounts for the possibility of denying their real existence. It would be wrong to say, “We do not have the idea of a centaur.” We also need the idea to deny that we have the idea. In other words: we cannot deny the object of thought, it is always presupposed in whatever speech we make. The same applies to being. If somebody thought that he might conceive a door, a horse, a star, and a painting, but that a positive idea of being does not exist, one definite remark that could be made is that by denying that we think being, we think it; otherwise we could not even deny it. The judgment of subsistence is a new act of the subject that has the same object as the act of intuiting the essence of the thing. The essence is not changed, for in that case a different thing would be known;1 1 it is only the subject that performs a new act. But the subsistence of something is not enough to manifest it, as the horse could exist without me taking any notice of it. Moreover, as we already noted, the action of subsisting reality upon our senses is not enough to give us an intellectual notice of its existence. Sensations and feelings in general are not known until the idea of being is joined to them, which proves that they are not per se manifest. If ideas make the essence of things known (and neither subsistence nor sensations do), they can be called manifesting. But if the source of intelligibility of ideas is the first idea, the primum cognitum, they are manifested in turn by something else. For that reason, only being unites both attributes and is legitimately called per se manifest. It could be argued that being manifests everything and is manifested by something else that never discloses itself. But in that case, either (1) 11. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 500–7 (A592–602/B620–0). This is a strong point in Kant’s philosophy that in my opinion withstands all criticism.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea what manifests being is nonbeing, which must be dismissed as absurd; or (2) if it is something, it could be made known by being. But we had assumed that it manifested being, not that it was manifested by it; the second possibility leads thus to a contradiction.12 Therefore, being manifests itself and we have found the primum cognitum in human knowledge. Furthermore, somebody could deny the distinction manifesting-manifested; but the immediate consequence would be that everything becomes per se manifest, which is obviously false. Without fear of falling into a circular argument, we can affirm that if manifested and manifesting being were not the same essence, it would not be being that is manifested, that is, we would not be talking about being. Being as manifested is the essence, “that which is understood in any idea”; but, as being must necessarily manifest itself, it is also the idea, that is, being as manifesting. This justifies why in the ontological treatises we find “ideal being” (essere ideale) and not so much “idea of being” (idea dell’essere). This attribute of being is revealed only to intelligences, which receive a higher perfection because of it. From an ontological point of view, the intelligence is brought into existence by this very manifestation, since an intelligence that thinks nothing is an absurdity. An intelligence is precisely that to which being is manifested. The idea has not only a logical, epistemological, or gnoseological significance, but takes on an ontological importance, since the existence of a mind, not merely its activity, depends upon it. 12. Notice the similarity with Kant’s gratuitous Ding an sich, the unknown x that justifies all skepticism. It is one of Rosmini’s greatest merits to provide a solution to this delicate problem in the philosophy of knowledge, namely: “What can be known of the real thing if all the contact we have with it is due to sensations, which are a modification of ourselves?” The idea of being, which is objective by nature, reveals to us all the truthful information about the real world that sensations possess. The whole problem lies in whether there is any objective element in the understanding or not, since sensations could not supply this objectivity alone. If what the mind adds to sensation is also a category belonging to the subject, then the real world is our own invention or modification, and all speech about it would be senseless, Ding an sich included. Thus, if we are to make any sense of this expression, it is not within Kant’s philosophy, but outside it.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  In the first act, in which the intelligence is constituted, the subject just receives irresistibly, i.e. it has present, being; it does not yet perform any intellectual operation, because it is not yet constituted as such, but is constituted in that very act.13

Ideal being essentially speaks of a relationship to intelligence, but ideas are independent of our acts of understanding. How can something have at the same time a relative and an absolute existence?

Objective Mode (or Form) of Being: Absolute and Relative Existence We are not the source of the intelligibility of being, but being as such is. Thus, being is per se intelligible. It is our primum cognitum, that is, the first idea and, consequently, per se manifest. Does this mean that being would not be being if it were not per se intelligible and manifest? Or does it simply state that being would not be intelligible and manifest if it were not per se intelligible and manifest? The second possibility involves a misunderstanding, if it is thought of as an alternative to the first. The first question could be perhaps reformulated this way: When saying that being is intelligible, are we attributing to being something that belongs to being itself, independently of ourselves, of our existence even as intelligent beings? It is not possible to talk of intelligibility without a reference to a mind or an intelligence. So, is it our own mind we are supposing here, or would being conserve this property without us? In other words, have we discovered something about being itself, or about being in relationship to us? The question is relevant and has to be dealt with. I will try a short but clear demonstration that our minds, as well as all finite minds, are not necessary in order that being be endowed with the property of intelligibility. Consequently, intelligibility must be a property of being as such. This implies that, if intelligibility necessarily includes a relationship to a mind, some mind must exist if being is to be such. But being is; therefore, this mind exists. This could be considered a demon13. Teosofia, 15, 1557.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea stration of the existence of God as a First Mind (Prima Mente), and in fact we find several places in Rosmini’s works where it is presented as such, but I will not deal with them at length, only insofar as it helps the purpose of the present work. I will first discuss the absolute and the relative existence of ideas and ideal being, and then move on to the consideration of intelligibility as an attribute of being itself. The absolute existence of ideas corresponds to their being the possibility of things, whereas relative existence corresponds to their being the intelligibility of things. In this way, both features will appear as inseparable, just as the objective mode of being results from the coincidence of both types of existence.

Absolute and Relative Existence of Ideas and Ideal Being In book IV of the Teosofia Rosmini follows Plato’s Parmenides (130c–d) in his discussion about the nature of ideas. In my opinion, however, he is not just repeating Platonic teachings but rather illustrating his own thought by reference to and in continuity with the debates that took place at the Athenian Academy. Besides, Rosmini’s philosophical approach is to see how far the discussion about a given topic has gone and to give his own solution, taking care not to lose any of the true elements in the history of the problem.14 Rosmini’s position represents indeed a substantial contribution to the problem of what ontological status should be attributed to ideas. What kind of existence is proper to them? If ideas had an absolute existence like real things have, they would need something else to be known, which would make knowledge impossible. If their existence were merely relative to our mind, like the acts of understanding, which cannot exist independently, everything that is made known by them would indeed take part in the intelligence itself, that is, all things would be thinking objects, which is far from evident. 14. “[B]ecause we do not intend to cut off the tradition of science and truth, but we put all our effort in resuming it” (ibid., 15, 1702 in fine).

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  What is part of the real world can have either an absolute or a relative existence (is either substance or accident),15 but it can never have both at the same time, or else it would have a contradictory element in its own essence. For example, “fatherhood” is a relationship of Mr. Smith to his son, but Mr. Smith existed before and independently of that relationship. He is not Mr. Smith because of the relationship to his son. And the relationship of fatherhood between Mr. Smith and his son does not take place independently of both father and son, which would contradict the very essence of the relationship. In the realm of real finite things, absolute existence (in se) excludes relative existence (in alio). Obviously, substances can be the subject of a relationship, but the being of the relationship is that of the substance. Accidents always inhere in a substance and they cease to exist when the substance is destroyed. If we admitted an absolute existence for them, we would need to accept one of the following alternatives: (1) accidents do not need substances in order to exist; or (2) a substance can exist in another substance. Both statements contradict the nature of substance and accident. All of this, however, does not apply to ideas. But reality is not the only kind of existence; the categories of substance and accident do not have to apply to all that is.16 We saw that ideas could not be granted only an absolute existence or a relative one—that is, the existence in alio. But we have reached the firm conclusion that ideas are not simply nothing and must be accorded existence. 15. For fuller comprehension of Rosmini’s understanding of substance and accident, see Bergamaschi, Grande dizionario antologico del pensiero di Antonio Rosmini, 1:14– 17 and 4:483–97. In this, like in most other classical philosophical topics, Rosmini does not conceive an entirely new theory, but offers a deeper understanding of the same basic intuitions contained in the philosophical tradition. 16. Rosmini discussed extensively the problem of the categories, which includes the appropriate understanding and right number of them, in the first book of the Teosofia, and, from a historical point of view, in the Saggio storico critico sulle categorie. His most important conclusion is that the correct understanding of the problem leads to the theory of the three forms or modes of being. See Cirillo Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 19–34; and my “Las categorías del ser según Rosmini.”

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea The entire difficulty lies in the following: in being persuaded that being does not exist only in a subjective mode, but also in an objective mode, and in understanding the nature of this mode. Because if we understand this, we will understand that in the subjective mode being cannot exist but in itself, and precisely because it exists in itself, it does not exist in another. On the contrary, in the objective mode being can exist not only in itself but also in another, and because it exists in another, precisely for this reason it exists in itself.17

By subjective mode we understand real existence. As the accidents cannot subsist independently of the substance in which they inhere, their being is not proper to them; they participate in the being of the substance, they exist in alio. The subjective mode of existence means therefore that mode of existence for which being in se and being in alio exclude each other. At the same time it is adequately described by saying that it means the same as “not thought as present to a mind” or “not including a relationship to a mind.” In the first line of the last quotation we find clearly stated that reality does not exhaust the whole of being. The difficulty consists in understanding the nature of the objective mode of being. The reduction of the notions of absolute and relative existence to the way they are instantiated in real things, where they exclude each other, prevents us from grasping the true nature of ideal existence. Rosmini is very strong on this point: Instead, it is thought that the essence of this relative mode [that of ideas] is known, once we have the relations between contingent and sensible beings in mind. But these, as they are one outside the other, are conceived first as subsisting and then in their relations with each other. Moving from this, the principle is universalized, and it is claimed: “that which is per se is logically prior to that which is for another.” . . . The pretension was that what was seen to be constant in material beings had to be universal for all beings [per tutti gli enti] without exception, and thus for all being.18

17. Teosofia, 15, 1584. “The problem for Plato was therefore to demonstrate that even though ideas existed in themselves, they could nonetheless at the same time exist in the intelligence” (1582). 18. Ibid., 15, 1610.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  So, there is a relative mode of being that does not belong to accidents and that does not exclude absolute existence, but constitutes its essence. Reciprocally, it must be said that there is an absolute mode of existence that does not belong to substance and that does not exclude relative existence, but constitutes its essence. To sum up, there is one mode of existence that is absolute and relative at the same time, without entailing any sort of contradiction. Instead of trying to solve the problem a priori, we can rely on our observations about the nature of ideas to establish whether we know of any entity that unites both kinds of existence within its own essence. Such observation reveals that this is the case with ideas or concepts. We can analyze how this takes place either for determined ideas or for ideal being, the source of them all. The first path is taken by Rosmini in his discussion of the Parmenides and, although I have already anticipated some of his conclusions, it will be helpful for us to go into more detail. The second is clearly a Rosminian argument. Parmenides argues that ideas cannot have existence purely relative to a mind. This would also be opposed to the objectivity of ideas and it would entail the consequence that what is known is part of a mind, that is, intelligent.19 In effect, if an idea that shows a plurality of things is nothing but (emphasis added) a modification of the subject, then either ideas reveal only the subject or things are intelligent in themselves. We also have to exclude existence as purely relative to things, which would be the case if the relationship were exclusively that of exemplarity. The absurdity that would follow from such a position is that we would need another idea to know this relationship. If the idea is just the exemplar of the thing, then we establish a relationship of likeness between them. But in order to recognize this likeness we would need another idea whose likeness to both the idea and the 19. “The act of the human spirit when ideas are present to it is called intuition. . . . Intuition, therefore, since it is an act of the subject, has a subjective existence; ideas, on the contrary, since they are the essences, insofar they are in themselves objects of the mind, have an objective existence” (Ibid., 15, 1601–2).

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea thing would still remain unknown. Notice that there is no contradiction in saying that ideas are the exemplar of things, but in claiming that they are only the exemplar of things. It is also wrong to say that the relationship of exemplarity includes a potentially indefinite number of ideas, but that it would not be intrinsically impossible for ideas to be solely the exemplars of things. The fact is that the latter position would require an actually infinite number of ideas to be consistent, which obviously cannot take place. I stress the word solely precisely because of this point; the relationship of exemplarity cannot take place if the exemplar has an existence purely relative to the thing that is produced according to it. This kind of relationship is not peculiar, but simply impossible, for the reasons already stated. This argument is basically the same Plato uses to refute the argument that things participate in ideas through a relationship of similarity.20 Patricia Donohue-White is right when she states that this reasoning “depends upon the equivocal use of the term ‘similarity’ . . . whatever the relation of similarity may entail between two entities of the same order of being, the relation cannot be assumed to obtain in the same sense between entities of different orders of being. This reveals the fundamental presupposition of the Third Man argument: the eide and particulars which participate in the eide are of the same order of being.”21 Nonetheless, in my opinion, Plato does not understand this as a criticism of his theory of ideas, but as a criticism of the understanding of ideas in terms of “similarity.” In other words, Plato shows that in order to have similarity we need two different orders of being; similarity does not obtain in the realm of being without introducing the separation of ideas from reality. Thus, there would not be two different kinds of similarities, as Donohue-White suggests, but two ways of understanding it: one leads to contradictions and has to be dismissed; the other to truth, following the Platonic way. 20. Cf. Plato, Parmenides, 132c–133a; and Aristotle, Metaphysics, 990b17ff., 1039a2ff., 1079a13ff. 21. Donohue-White, “Objections to the Eide in Plato’s Parmenides,”355–56.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  We can conclude that ideas must also have a relationship with the mind, and not exclusively to the things they make known. The third possibility is that ideas have the same kind of absolute existence as things. As a rule, this is admitted as being the true Platonic position: the hypostatization of forms or ideas. The following impossibilities would result from this: (1) knowledge of ideas would be impossible. or at least should still need to be explained by having recourse to something else, which is in fact what we normally call ideas; and (2) things could not be known through them either, because their relationship to the mind would remain unexplained. At this point, I think Donohue-White is also right in claiming: “While it is true that Plato holds to this fundamental distinction, it does not follow for Plato that there is no interpenetration between the two realms. Plato’s concept of participation is meant to express an essential relation between the eide and particulars.”22 This answers Parmenides’ objection that if both worlds were completely separated, that is, if both subsisted on their own, the gods would know the intelligible world (eide) and we would know only the sensible one (the particulars).23 However, it is Parmenides’ position, not Socrates’, that represents Plato’s own understanding of the problem here. Plato, in Parmenides’ words, is pointing out the consequence of such a theory, that is, it would make participation impossible. If Socrates (probably the young Plato) once thought that ideas had a separate existence like that of substances, he should change his views. Not only participation but knowledge of eide and, consequently, knowledge of particulars would become impossible. In other words: men would be like animals, gifted only with the senses as a means of cognition. It is the vision of ideas, and the consequent possession of an intelligent soul, that elevates human beings above animals and allows them to escape subjectivism and relativism (compare the whole problem of the second navigation). So ideas have an essential relationship not only with 22. Ibid., 361. 23. See Plato, Parmenides, 134.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea things and with the divine intelligence but also with our minds. Therefore, they can be justly called the divine (to theion), and not God. Plato is not arguing against eide, as the article suggests, but defending their true nature, or more precisely, arguing against erroneous theories of ideas.24 Plato offers no conclusion, but after the entire discussion, Rosmini feels justified, in order to avoid contradiction, in defining ideas as that which simultaneously exist absolutely and relatively: “From all this, although Plato does not state it explicitly, it becomes plain that ideas must at the same time exist in an absolute mode and in a relative one.”25 And a few paragraphs before he had stated: These two modes are equally necessary to constitute the nature of ideas. Here lies precisely the essence of these entities that are called ideas, in their existing at the same time in a relative mode and in an absolute mode.26 n

24. Donohue-White seems to acknowledge this in the last paragraph of her article: “Plato’s objections in the Parmenides are not successful (even, I believe, against his own understanding of the eide)” (“Objections to the Eide in Plato’s Parmenides,” 369). I believe that the key point here is to see that Plato’s later thought is represented by Parmenides, not by Socrates. 25. See also the preceding lines: “Plato, where he introduces Parmenides talking against ideas, also makes use of this technique. Because Parmenides first conduces Socrates to give ideas a purely relative existence, either to the mind, transforming them in mere subjective notions, or to things, transforming them in mere exemplars. From the first hypothesis he infers the absurdity that things, taking part in the ideas, which are notions, would all be intelligent. From the second hypothesis, that they are purely exemplars, he concludes absurdly that we would need other ideas to know the likeness of the exemplar and of the copy, and so we would have an infinite regress multiplying the exemplars. He then considers the ideas as having a purely absolute existence, and from this hypothesis he derives another absurdity, namely that the mind could not take part in them, not even things; neither the mind could know them nor could things be known” (Teosofia, 15, 1611). Cf. ibid., 1616; and Aristotele esposto ed esaminato, 53–146, where Plato’s and Aristotle’s doctrines on ideas are carefully examined and contrasted. See Berti, La metafisica di Platone e di Aristotele nell’interpretazione di A. Rosmini, 67–76 and 102–10. 26. Teosofia, 15, 1602.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  The second way to demonstrate the nature of ideas is to concentrate on the characteristics of the idea of being. In fact, it is from ideal being that all ideas derive their main features.27 If ideal being must necessarily have both an absolute and a relative existence, then all ideas will share this same feature. Absolute existence independent of the mind is not possible for ideal being, since that would contradict its essence, which consists in intelligibility. Potential intelligibility was excluded because of the contradictions that arise from denying that being is the source of intelligibility. Besides, the attribution of potential intelligibility to being turns it into a kind of thing, which bears no necessary relationship to a mind, and thus indefinitely postpones the question of how we know being. Although different from the mind or intelligence that thinks it, ideal (indeterminate) being cannot exist without it. And truly indeterminate being cannot subsist independently of the mind and in itself. But there is no repugnance in it being in itself before a mind. And it is evidently different from the mind, as there is a contradiction in saying that the mind is indeterminate being or vice versa.28

In fact, is it possible to understand what the idea of being is without understanding that it must have a relationship to an intellect? Would that not be absurd? The real and the ideal modes of existence are profoundly distinct. Whereas it corresponds to the essence of the object to be present to a mind, no real thing, be it sensitive or nonsensitive, can be called, insofar as it is real, an object per se, since no intrinsic relation with a mind is included in its concept. On the contrary, per se object of the mind is only that which has a relation with the mind due to its own nature, a relation that makes it known to the mind, in such a way that if it were not known by the mind (i.e., by some mind), it would not exist. 27. “Now, since all ideas or concepts as we see them are always the same ideal being more or less and in different ways determined, consequently we can apply the same principle to each idea, and in each of them the absolute and the relative modes are united. None of them precedes the other, since they cannot be fully conceived without each other” (ibid., 15, 1611). 28. Ibid., 15, 1535.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea In other words, the concept of a per se object of the mind includes the relation with the mind, so that it could not be thought without thinking at the same time the relation with the mind.29

Now, with which mind?

Intelligibility Is an Attribute of Being Itself When we proved above that being was per se manifest, we saw that it was intelligible in itself. In other words, being has a necessary relationship to the mind. And we have already seen that indeterminate being requires such a relationship.30 The point here is whether or not being itself must be manifest to itself, independently of a finite mind. Or we may pose the question in this way: Is intelligibility a property of being that is caused by the existence of finite being? In classical Greek-Christian metaphysics the problem would be formulated the following way: Does creation have to occur in order that a perfection such as knowledge takes place? If being did not have the property of knowing itself, nothing else could account for this most-evident perfection, namely, knowledge. So the property of per se manifest is both a property of being itself and of ideal being. The primum cognitum for the human mind is ideal being, not Absolute Being (God). If the latter were the case, all investigation would cease, as we would possess perfect knowledge from the very beginning of our existence. But it is being itself that we know in the idea of being. While the essence of a horse or any other finite 29. Ibid., 15, 1589. 30. “1. That the nature of ideal being is such that uniting in itself without contradiction two modes of existence—in itself and relative to the mind—or better, having a mode of existence that embraces these two, it enables the communication of itself to a mind. 2. That this communication is not only possible, that is, nonrepugnant to the nature of ideal being, but is necessary; so that it would be repugnant to ideal being’s own nature that this communication did not take place” (ibid., 15, 1585). “Indeterminate being cannot have its own existence without being in a mind. Therefore, by its own nature it has a relationship with the mind, through which it is either present to the latter or it does not exist at all. Consequently, it is per se object of the mind” (ibid., 15, 1590). Cf. ibid., 13, 774.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  thing does not demand real existence as necessary, this is not the case with being as such. Being would not be, if it were not real, too. Let us explain this in more detail. Real things are not being itself, but have being. To say that a given thing is being would immediately transform it into the thing in which all others participate, if they are to exist. If we consider this more attentively, we will convince ourselves that things cannot participate in real being as in another thing, be it finite or infinite. If this thing were finite, the finite universe we encounter would be self-contained, which contrasts with its main feature: namely, finitude. If it were infinite, everything would be infinite as well, as the infinite cannot be divided. To participate in being then, to have being, is a relationship for which mere reality cannot account. In other words, in order to explain participation in being, the category of reality does not suffice. The fact that Plato introduced his teaching of ideas to explain how things are what they are is, in my opinion, of the highest significance. For him, things are not only made known by ideas, but “they receive being and essence”31 from them. However uncertain Plato’s standpoint may have been, it is certain that, in his opinion, the whole world would remain absolutely dark and impossible to explain if some kind of existence were not attributed to ideas. The whole problem lies in explaining the meaning of to have being, which amounts to explaining in what creation, or metaphysical participation, consists.32 Before considering participation, we will see how we can infer the existence of an infinite mind from the nature of ideal being. The sentence “Being would not be if it were not real” will then receive its full explanation. n

31. Republic, 509b. 32. In a recent translation and commentary on the dialogue we read: “How shall we explain participation? Can we explicate participation in terms of being?” Plato, Parmenides, trans. Gill and Ryan, 108. I believe the term being in the question is taken to signify reality, in which case the doubt is justified, since the problem of the one and the many cannot be sufficiently clarified without introducing ideas.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea When we say that being knows itself, are we attributing to being operations proper to persons? Could we say that of everything that has being? A positive answer to the former does not imply a positive answer to the latter. Because to say that being is personal does not mean that every being is a person. Nor do we want to claim that ideal indeterminate being possesses the attributes of personhood; only infinite being does. Indeterminate being requires a mind to think it. This mind has to be real, otherwise the very nature of ideas will be undermined. This mind might not necessarily be our own; any mind would suffice. In other terms, ideal being is independent of every particular mind, but it is not indifferent to some mind. So, it is not this being (ideal indeterminate being) that we said was per se manifest to itself, because in that case the mind that sees it would be necessary, not contingent. For this reason, ideal being is neither Absolute Being nor necessary to being. Absolute Being would remain such without any finite intelligence thinking it. It does not come to itself until it has manifested itself to a finite intellect. If being does not need to manifest itself to finite intelligences, is it still manifest to itself ? It must be, because if it were not manifest to itself, it could not be manifest to anything else. This conclusion lies in the concept of the per se manifest. If it were manifested by something else, manifestation would not be an essential part of its nature; but as it is per se manifest, this manifestation must take place in being itself. We are thus led by our own understanding of being, that is, by the presence of ideal being to our mind, to conclude with certainty that being as such demands a mind in order to be. Being, then, would not be being without being actually understood by a mind, and this mind cannot be finite, or limited. There is another way of arriving at the same conclusion. We can pose the following question: If we suppress all human subjects, will being cease to be intelligible? That would be tantamount to saying that the human intellect is the source of the intelligibility of being, which we found to be contradictory, since subjects know their

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  own existence by the light of being. So, based on the very fact that we think being, without ourselves being the reason for its intelligibility, we are able to draw the conclusion that being is intelligible because it is actually understood, that there must be a mind (different from ours) that (1) permanently thinks being; and (2) is also being itself. Why should being be actually, and not just potentially, understood? Because in such a case it would receive intelligibility from something other than itself, and this would be impossible. In order to clarify this I suggest as a mental experiment to suppress all intellects in the world, not only human. If being were to be left alone, would it be only potentially intelligible? Can we make any sense of the possibility of being understood without an existing intelligence? Would it not have something superfluous and be imperfect, incomplete? Even more, would it not be essentially frustrated, because it would require something other than itself—that is, something which is not (!?)—to reach its potential perfection, intelligibility? But nothing can be independent of being. So, guided by the necessity of reasoning, we must postulate a mind that actually understands being in all its intelligibility. Why in all its intelligibility? Because an imperfect understanding of being would render this mind finite and leave the intelligibility of being unexplained, which is akin to considering our mind, or any finite one, as the only that exists. The mind we postulated cannot be different from being itself, either. This would result in an intrinsic contradiction, since being, in order to achieve all its perfections, would be dependent on something else, which makes no sense. In other words: being’s intelligibility forces us to acknowledge that it is essentially and actually understood, not by us, but by this Mind.33 The only alternative would be to admit that we are the source of its intelligibility, which contradicts all our experience and is even self-contradictory. In the following text Rosmini states that our understanding of being forces us to conclude that being must be thought by an absolute mind, although we cannot have a positive grasp of this mind nor of 33. Cf. Teosofia, 12, 173.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea the perfect way in which it understands being; its existence, however, we surely know. When we say that absolute being is per se object of the mind, we speak about the mind in general, i.e., about any mind, which does not mean that every particular mind must intuit being, rather (1) that it must be known by the absolute mind, that is to say by itself; (2) that it is intelligible to other minds essentially as object, when it makes itself present to them. As regards the human mind, in the present life it does not intuit absolute being, but it makes for itself a concept of it by way of logical determinations, a true though negative concept. With this concept we can then define absolute being in such a way that it could not be confused with any other one. And since what is expressed in the definition of the thing is the essence, therefore we know to some extent the essence of God. But this essence is purely logical and negative; however, it is not false, because we know that it is limited and defective, and therefore it cannot deceive us.34

It becomes plain also that we have a demonstration for the existence of God as Absolute Mind, as the First Mind.35 If it obtains that “being would not be if it were not real,” and if this reality is the Absolute Mind, the difficulty in attributing personal operations to being ceases altogether, because we deduced the existence of God from the understanding of the essence of being, and the existence of an intelligent God, which is a basic requisite for personhood. Ideal being reveals this to us, once we reflect carefully on its nature. As Rosmini puts it: And that being cannot be made otherwise is proved from the fact that we know being, and we speak about it all the time.36

Finally, to sum up the previous argument, we can say that in the idea of being we understand being as such. Neither the idea of being nor being as such, as we understand it, is Infinite Being (God). But moving from our understanding of being as such, thanks to the intuition of the idea of being, we can prove the existence of Infinite Being as a Mind, whose essence we nevertheless do not positively or natural34. Ibid., 15, 1597. 36. Teosofia, 15, 1510.

35. Cf. Philosophical System, 179.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  ly grasp. Nothing would exist, no being, absolutely speaking, if there were no Infinite Being as a Mind. In other words, an Infinite Mind is essential to being, which means that Infinite Being has to possess a Mind; and this means that finite being could not exist if an Infinite Mind did not exist. We know this through the intuition of being—not directly, but after long reflections and meditations on it. This reasoning could in no way be applied to any other idea or concept, for example, that of a horse. There is no need for a horse to exist in the real world, let alone an infinite horse, which would contradict its own essence. Only some properties allow for an infinite existence, all of which are one way or another rooted in being.37 Not only in the sense that we know the possibility of an infinite existence through being, but also that if we do not want to have a multiplicity of infinites— something absurd—all those perfections need to find their unifying place in being, in Infinite Being. Thus, we can affirm that Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysical definition of God as the Ipsum Esse Subsistens is highly accurate.38

The Intimate Bond between the Idea and the Intelligence Ideal being is present to all intelligences and renders them intelligent. We can also say that the idea of being is present to the intelligence, as long as we do not understand this as if something other than being itself, the idea, made us know being. That would contradict the essence of the per se manifest, which we proved above to be a necessary attribute of being. The fact remains, however, that our intuition of being is inevitably limited. We can understand this only as sharing in a perfection gratuitously given to us. As I said, it is not an idea that shows being to us, but being that gives itself to be understood. This is implied by the conclusion that the idea of being is innate to the human understanding. 37. See Josef Seifert, “Transcendentals and Pure Perfections,” in Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology, 2 vols., ed. Barry Smith and Hans Burkhardt (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1991), 2:909–11. 38. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, 11, 13 and elsewhere.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea Now, ideal being unites in its essence absolute and relative existence in such a way that it would not exist in itself if it were not present to a mind. Conversely, it could not be the object of a mind if it did not have an absolute existence. For Absolute Being this implied the existence of an Absolute Mind. Indeterminate being is also being but is understood by finite minds. Does this mean that each mind has its own idea of being in itself ? Would it not be a requisite for the individuality of the intelligent soul that it possess a “private” idea? The answer is a definitive no, since such a position contradicts the objective nature of the idea, which consists in having at the same time a relative and an absolute existence. If each intelligence had its own idea, the idea would lose its objectivity and be reduced to an accident of the subject, a part of its nature. The idea is neither a subjective element of the mind nor one of its modifications. We must not understand the idea as constituting the mind or as if it were a part of it. The consequence would be, in this last case, that objective knowledge is impossible, that the contents of thought are modifications of the spirit, and that there is no grasp of any real thing other than the thinking subject. In fact, thought itself would turn out to be impossible. We have to pay close attention once again to the nature of ideas, the objective mode of being. When two people understand being they understand the same essence; otherwise, communication would be impossible. It is unthinkable that one person understands one being and a second person understands another being. The essence of being is one and the same; to be—or to exist—has universal meaning. There can be different theories about being, but they are theories about the same object. Being and everything that necessarily follows from it—namely, the principles of identity, of contradiction, some basic affirmations about truth, and so on—are common to all intelligences, and require only careful consideration to be discovered. This would be impossible if the idea were a modification of the spirit and not its object. As St. Augustine puts it: “If we both see that what you say is true, and both see that what I say is true, I ask: where do we see it? Certainly neither do I see

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  it in you nor you in me, but we both [see it] in immutable truth itself, which is above our minds.”39 All this cannot but strengthen the thesis that the essence of ideas consists in uniting absolute and relative existence in their essence. Thus, there is only one ideal being for all intelligences and it could not be otherwise, or else the objectivity of thought would be destroyed. n

The purpose of this work is to supply a proof of the dignity of the person that is rooted in philosophy of knowledge. I have already taken a good number of steps toward this goal by showing that the intellect, which cannot be absent from the person, is essentially endowed with the intuition of being as such; and that such an intuition makes knowledge possible; it does not originate in us but in God himself. We also secured the difference between divine and human (or, in general, finite) intelligence by indicating that our intuition of being is imperfect, which cannot be the case for an absolute mind. We also proved that an Absolute Mind really exists, beginning with our own intuition of being; this proof obtains, since an Absolute Mind possesses perfect knowledge and has no need of proofs of any kind. In the following text, Rosmini synthesizes several important points: Saying that something is object or thinkable or intelligible per se means more or less the same thing. Only ideal being is  per se; real being is   . There is only one exception to this principle (although properly speaking it is not an exception): God is intelligible per se in his reality also; his subsistence is understood in his ideal essence. Consequently in God, subsistence (that is, reality) can never be unaccompanied by ideality.

Rosmini sees a very big mistake in confusing the idea of being with God, and he wastes no opportunity to explain why the identification 39. Confessiones, XII, XXV. And Aquinas writes: “Immutable truth is contained in the eternal reasons. Thus the intellective soul knows all truths in eternal reasons.” Summa theologiae, I, 84, 5. Both are quoted by Rosmini in Rinnovamento, 585. “It is false that all ideas are a mere modification of our thinking principle. The thinking principle is the subject and the idea is the object: between subject and object there is opposition; therefore, the latter is not and cannot be a modification of the former” (Rinnovamento,

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea is so harmful. It is not hard to imagine, then, that this reasoning offered him another chance to reject a natural intuition of God: It is a serious, pernicious error to say that God is an idea or even that he is  . In human language “idea” does not mean reality, yet God is  . Why do we use the word “idea” in this way? Why has “ideal” been coined in opposition to “real”? Precisely because we do not naturally have a vision of totally real being and do not have any experience of the necessary nexus between ideal being and complete, real being; we can only reason to this nexus. The very existence of the word “idea” and its constant use refute the error of those who attribute to human beings the intuition of God in the present life.40

Ideal being is not a constitutive element of the human intelligence but it is necessary for the latter to exist. How can we understand this? If ideal being is the form of the intelligence, as Rosmini frequently says, and at the same time it is not part of it, because it is essentially its object, should we not be forced to admit either that the intelligence is an idea or that there are no finite intelligences, they are all absorbed in the one infinite intelligence? There are good reasons to exclude the two latter possibilities: the distinction between object and subject,41 in 142). There is consequently full agreement among Augustine, Aquinas, and Rosmini on the nature of objectivity, a point that deserves further study. Aquinas goes even further than Rosmini on the question of innatism, since he wants the principles of the understanding to be innate. I will not enter into this disputed problem here. 40. Psychology, II, 1343. “No subsistence, other than the divine subsistence, is per se intelligible” (ibid., I, 242). “It would not be out of place here to consider the following question: ‘Is the intelligible communicated in a limited or unlimited manner to human nature? If the former, what does this limitation consist in?’ I reply briefly. The intelligible is eternal, necessary being in which essence and subsistence are not distinguished but form a single, extremely simple ens. Essence shines in the idea, it is the intelligible. If human beings were intellectually to behold the intelligible fully, they would see the Almighty whose essence is his very subsistence” (ibid., I, 240). Cf. Philosophical System, 182. 41. “You object that, according to me, the act of intuition is created by virtue of the manifestation of being, and that consequently the very act of intuition is an effect of being. This is true, but it does not give rise to any difficulty. Although intuition and that which intuits are the effect of the manifestation of ideal being, it does not follow that they are an act of ideal being itself, but the very opposite. Cause is not effect. How this manifestation comes about, how it is a kind of creation, does not concern me here.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  the first case, and the indetermination of the being we see in the intuition, in the second. It is at this point that Rosmini introduces the concept of objective form. Subjective forms constitute the subject and pertain to it, but the object could never mingle with the subject without losing its own essence. Ideal universal being is present to the mind, and to every mind, without suffering any change. It is appropriated by each mind, though, and once it has been intuited, the mind is able to make use of it as if it were its own. The mind (the subject) and being (the object) remain distinct, and the act of intuition, which pertains to the mind, although it must still be considered different from it, can be called the subjective form of the mind. Rosmini says: In man, however, there is, besides the activity constituting his substance, something else not pertaining to that activity, although it contributes to maintaining it. This is what is first understood; it is not the activity which understands, but that which renders this activity possible and subsistent. It is rightly called the form of the intelligence in so far as it adheres to the subjective principle and renders it intelligent.42

And commenting on Aristotle, he says: [O]bjective forms are causes of subjective forms.43 This is an altogether higher, more sublime question. I simply maintain that what is intuited is not what intuits, that is, the soul. And this is evident” (Psychology, I, 234). 42. Ibid., I, 208. “It is an extrasubjective term of the intelligence, and properly speaking its object. In calling it the object of intelligence we mean that it is a term distinguishing itself from the intelligent principle in the very act communicated to that principle. It communicates itself without confusing itself; indeed, it distinguishes itself from the principle and from every subject (through intuition)” (ibid., I, 209). Cf. ibid., I, 238–39. See Riva, “Il concetto di forma oggettiva.” Bonafede (“L’essere ideale come oggetto e come forma”) concludes that the concept of objective form is contradictory, which would be right if we assume that forms can only be subjective, as the author does. Prini concludes similarly (“Appunti critici sopra il concetto rosminiano della ‘forma oggettiva’”), where he rightly sees the concept of initial being as more loaded with metaphysical consequences. 43. The complete text reads: “Aristotle makes the [intellective] soul result from a form similar to the forms of real being. This form is itself a reality, it is the act of reality. For me, ideal being does indeed inform the [intellective] soul, but in a completely different way. It conserves its own being, which is totally different from that of the [intellec-

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea The peculiar relationship between the object and the mind, or subject, is one example of the law of synthesism. This law expresses that “two very different and opposite entities are, however, conditioned one to the other, so that each of them cannot exist nor can it be conceived without the other.”44 This applies perfectly well to the nature of ideas, which cannot subsist outside a mind, and also to the nature of a mind, which cannot think without having an object of thought (an idea). The object essentially requires the mind, and an intelligent subject cannot exist without the intuition of the idea. Any attempt to make one entity out of both would betray their proper nature, so that we would have to say either that there is no object of knowledge— that is, that everything must be reduced to the subject or to one of its modifications—or that the subject is an illusion, a sort of necessary pole of the representation but bereft of independent existence. In either case the whole world would necessarily be reduced to one single entity, with no space for real distinctions. The law of objectivity gives rise to the law of synthesism. Although the object is united to the subject, there is no fusion whatsoever between them; by the very act of union, the object keeps itself separate from the subject and posits itself for what it is in itself. At the same time it initiates an act in the subject which terminates in the object, not in the subject. Subject and object are therefore united in such a correlative way that their union is essential to both; it constitutes them both in such a different way that one is not only separate from the other but also opposed to it.45 tive] soul. It simply gives itself to the [intellective] soul to be known. Forms, or informing causes of this kind, I call objective. Present in the spirit as essential light, they provide it with an act of intuition which could in some way be called a subjective form. From this point of view, objective forms are causes of subjective forms” (Psychology, II, 1291). 44. Letter to Michelangelo Manzi, Stresa, December 15, 1846, in Epistolario filosofico, 534. For further references to the different manifestations of this law, see the complete heading Sintesismo o sintetismo, in Bergamaschi, Grande dizionario antologico del pensiero di Antonio Rosmini, 4:403–12. See Maria Adelaide Raschini, Dialettica e poiesi nel pensiero di Rosmini, 155–76. 45. Psychology, II, 1337. In the following paragraph Rosmini comments on the Parmenides: “[I]f Socrates had known the law of synthesism, he would never have accepted Parmenides’ claim that species were something in themselves and could not be in

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  If the idea were not present to the subject, he would be dark even to himself; otherwise, we would have to accept that all things know themselves. The objection that a determined being can have intelligence in potency, but not yet actualized, contradicts the very essence of intelligence. In a word, an intelligence that does not understand anything is an absurdity. If to think means to think being, and the thought of being is present to the intelligence from its beginning, all thinking subjects must necessarily exist in a primary act of understanding. Not an understanding of this or that thing in particular, but of being in general, of universal being. A pure potency is impossible to conceive as a real entity; an entity completely devoid of act is unintelligible. Only nothingness is the absolute absence of perfections, but nothingness is a negative concept, precisely the total negation of being, and, above all, it does not exist in reality. Therefore, all our faculties and powers possess a primary act—different in each case—that constitutes them as such. This primary act is intrinsic in each faculty and enables it to perform particular secondary acts. If each power had no specific primary act determining it, the consequence would be that any power could perform any act. This is absurd because powers are defined by the primary act that limits them. Each power is indeed a first act. Every power is a first [primary] act which, given the necessary conditions, produces various other acts dependent upon differing conditions. The first, constant act is called power relative to the secondary, adventitious acts. Every power, therefore, is an activity held in check as it were, ready for action. With this in mind, it is easy to see that as every second act needs a term for it to take place, so a power or first act needs its own internal term without which it could neither be nor be thought. Similarly, because a power is something stable, while its operation is adventitious, it must have a stable term along with which it either remains in existence or perishes. If the term of its operation is us. On the contrary, he should have determined that the intellective species (not to be confused with the image) is being itself in its ideal form. Being is so totally in itself that it cannot not be in itself nor can it receive anything from us. However, it can be intuited by us exactly as it is in itself, and not otherwise. We share in it, and in this sense it is in us.”

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea removed, the power remains; but if the term of the power is removed, the power ceases to exist.46

The first act of the mind is the intuition of ideal being (the object), which is indeterminate and receives the determinations of sense experience, broadly understood.47 Now, the intelligence cannot subsist without the intuition of ideal being. We also know, according to the law of synthesism, that ideal being cannot subsist unless it is present to a mind. It is not the proper object of an Infinite Mind because of its indetermination, and the Infinite Mind perfectly understands the totality of being. Nevertheless, it is being that we understand in the idea. Are there consequently two per se manifests? No, this would be contradictory, unless we say with Rosmini: Being per se manifested to finite intelligences [ideal being] is not independent of being per se absolutely and necessarily manifested, because even if it is per se manifested and as such there is nothing beyond it, yet it is dependent as relative being; so that, as it began to exist together with finite intelligences—for which reason it can be said to be co-created with them—it will cease to exist if they were annihilated. And if such minds, together with it, are not annihilated, that depends on God’s will, i.e., on absolute being.48

However striking the conclusion may be, we must say that from the very beginning of their existence, intelligences have an imperfect 46. The Innate Light, 1008. “Because the idea of being, as objective form, constitutes our intelligence, intelligence can be defined as the faculty of seeing being. Further reflection shows that if the vision of being were removed, our intelligence would cease. Being therefore cannot be eliminated or removed from the mind” (ibid., 545). Cf. also ibid., 552, 624, and 537. Cf. also Psychology, I, 231 and 233. 47. This is made possible by the unity of the subject, which unites two basic terms, namely, ideal being as an object and the fundamental feeling, the modifications of which are the different sensations and other feelings that result as a direct contact with real existing things. Cf. Psychology, I, 174–80; Teosofia, 15, 1646. 48. Teosofia, 15, 1527. “[Ideal] being . . . does not form the mind, it does not create the intelligence. Being is only the necessary ontological condition, as objective form, of the intellective principle. Rosmini often speaks as if ideal being created the intelligence. This expression is not exact. Ideal being is only the term, however necessary, of the intellective principle. . . . The principle and the term in the order of existence are both coprinciples, that is, primordial elements; one is a condition for the other. Therefore, if

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  grasp of God, who is veiled behind ideal being.49 Yet, although ideal being is the form of the intelligence, God is neither its object nor its form. The discussion of the relationship between ideal being and God will make this point clearer.

Note I: Objective Being and Plato’s Parmenides Gail Fine’s book On Ideas is among the latest literature about Plato and Aristotle on the problem of ideas. She gives a translation of Aristotle’s Perì ideón followed by an extensive discussion of each Aristotelian argument and their higher or lower relevance against Plato’s theory of forms or ideas. In general, Fine concludes that “Aristotle neither misinterprets Plato nor offers a decisive objection to him.” She recognizes Aristotle’s “familiar strategy of not giving his opponent distinctions he does not explicitly formulate and properly emphasize.” “[On different occasions] Aristotle is perhaps pointing out unwelcome, unwanted consequences Plato faces if he is not clear about various distinctions.” Still, Fine admits in defense of Plato that “one can observe distinctions without drawing them explicitly,” and speaks of Aristotle’s style of philosophical criticism.50 She does not give a particular place to the Parmenides in her lengthy and detailed examination of Aristotle’s arguments and of different interpretations of their theories. On the contrary, she advances the suggestion that “perhaps we should not appeal to the Parmenides on behalf of any view. For it might well describe a theory of forms not previously adumbrated, in an effort to warn us against possible misreadings of Plato’s actual views. . . . One might argue, however, . . . that this part of Parmenides considers different accounts of forms, without meaning to suggest that they all add up to a consistent package that Plato ever bought.”51 one cannot exist without the other, one cannot create the other. Ideal being can only be the ideal objective form of the intellect” (Riva, Il concetto di forma oggettiva, 21–22). 49. As Thomas Aquinas puts it, “All beings endowed with knowledge know God implicitly in everything they know” (De veritate, 22, 2 ad 1). 50. Fine, On Ideas, 241, 113, 140. 51. Ibid., 111, fn. 36. Two contemporary discussions of the Parmenides arrive at a

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea Aristotle’s target would be above all the middle dialogues, probably at the same time that Plato was writing the late ones, and his main criticism would be that Plato “treats universals as particulars.”52 Their discussion is about the nature of universals, in particular their separate existence, and not simply about their existence, for on this point they both agree. Aristotle thinks that his koina explain everything Plato endeavors to explain, while avoiding many difficulties and contradictions. Now, I think that on this point it is easy to disagree with Aristotle; even Plato himself rejected the possibility that ideas should be treated as substances subsisting independently of the mind. Plato also showed in advance that Aristotle’s position, taking away absolute existence from ideas and considering that “each of these forms is a thought that cannot properly exist anywhere except in minds,” was inconsistent.53 We should not take this as if Plato did not think himself that ideas existed in a mind, but in the sense that ideal being would be defined only by this kind of relative existence. Rosmini’s approach to the dialogue and above all his own theory of ideas, which has been only partially developed in the present work, offers a positive solution to the problem, without getting entangled in the labyrinth of never-ending interpretations and reinterpretations, hypotheses and counterhypotheses that are so abundant in both Platonic and Aristotelian literature. The apparent aporetic structure of the Parmenides suggests that the nature of ideas finds no adequate expression. This might have discouraged critics and interpreters from finding out the true Platonic teaching on ideas, while admitting his disciple’s simplified version of it. If we understand the dialogue this way, it could help to solve one of the most disputed questions in the history of philosophy. The reuniting of both properties (absolute and relative existence) similar conclusion. See Plato’s Parmenides, trans. Allen: “[I]t dictates no solution” (206); “The final result is perfection of aporetic structure” (339). No better conclusion in this respect is obtained by Sayre nor by Withaker in their translations. 52. Fine, On Ideas, 222. 53. Cf. Parmenides 132b, 132b3–5. For a detailed analysis of Aristotle’s misunderstanding of Plato’s position and of his failure to criticize his teacher properly, I refer again to Rosmini’s Aristotele esposto ed esaminato, 53–146.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  does not entail a contradiction, since “absoluteness” does not mean “real subsistence in se,” and “relatedness” does not mean “accidental mode of being.” The way ideas subsist is always relative to a mind. This forced Plato to conclude that there must be an intelligible world from which we can finally contemplate God.54 However, all our ideas, even if they refer to the concrete existing thing, show the independence of our own mind, but not of a mind absolutely speaking. To call ideas the possibility of things does not imply a primacy of potency over act, either, since the idea requires an act of thought and a mind (also in act) in order to exist. This puts ideas themselves in act in the First Mind, since they are not in potency there. If they were, then the Mind would be self-contradictory, since it is proper and essential to a mind to think.

Note II: Self-contradictory Objects I will make a brief comment on the much-debated topic of the status of self-contradictory objects, like a round square. From Rosmini’s perspective, a contradiction cannot be an object of thought. This means not only that a round square cannot exist in reality—that is, that we cannot find it among real existing things—it also means that the mind cannot actually have a round square as an object of thought, not even as a “pure object.” The expression “round square” means in fact not one object but two, which we see are essentially incompatible and mutually exclusive. If we could actually think a square that is round, then although it does not reside in our power to create it, there could be some other power able to do so in this world or another, since the idea’s properties would not be essentially incompatible. “Round square” is a set of two concepts that exclude each other. We think first a circle and then a square, but we cannot think both together. Even if there existed only one word for this absurdity, it would still be impossible to have an intellectual representation of what it means, precisely because it does not 54. See Reale, Per una nuova interpretazione di Platone, particularly chap. 6, vii–viii and 17–19.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea mean anything. Not only is the imagination incapable of representing such a thing, but the intellect also has no actual grasp of a contradictory essence. The general concept of a geometric figure can bear the potentiality of being either a square or a circle, but these are only potentially included in the concept of geometric figure, like the species in the genus. If they were actually contained in it, so that by thinking “geometric figure” we think distinctively both square and round, then such a concept would not obey the principle of contradiction, which applies not only to judgments but first of all to ideas or concepts. Millán Puelles’s The Theory of the Pure Object 55 is one of the latest comprehensive treatments of such entities like absurd or paradoxical objects. What Millán Puelles refers to as not having a “true being,” although still remaining a “true object of thought” (in other words, what is objective tantum), would need further specification in light of his own affirmation that it is we who conceive the object.56 If Rosmini is right, and the object as object57 has both an absolute and a relative existence, then nothing can be objective tantum, if that means that it would have an existence only relative to our mind. The mind considered in its own subjective existence is not enough to explain the existence of any object of thought, not even those like genus and species, which have only a mental status.58 In other words, we do not even have the power of building a concept absolutely on our own, 55. Millán Puelles, The Theory of the Pure Object. Apart from the great clarity of his explanations, Millán Puelles deals with a very wide bibliography on ideal objects, ranging from the first and second Scholastics to the contemporary discussion, including Brentano, Frege, Husserl, Meinong, Hartmann, Parsons, Russell, etc. See particularly pt. 1, sec. 2, chap. 7, sec. 6, 242–67. His solution is very similar to the one suggested here, since he recognizes that they “are endowed only with a quasi—or pseudoessence . . . a ‘self-contradictory’ essence is no unitary essence, but two essences that are conceived ‘as if they were’ one. . . . it is not they which may be taken as the agents of the infringement; rather, it is each and every one of us who truly infringes the principle” (254–55). 56. Referring to these objects, he writes: “The objectuality does not presuppose the being of the object, but only of the subject” (ibid., 260). 57. Millán Puelles adopts this way of speaking many times in his book. 58. This is a consequence of the concept of objective form and of the law of synthesism.

The Idea and the Mind ⁄  if that concept is not contained somehow in the possibility of being. Tantum could mean that no real thing corresponds to that representation (transobjetual), but then the absolute existence of the object would not be compromised, since we could still acknowledge its nature with its own particular features. Millán Puelles would not have to deny this, but given his argument that such objects have merely (tantum) a relationship to consciousness, their objective character remains doubtful; and Parmenides’ first argument against a partial view of ideas could be addressed to him.59 Therefore, “true objects of thought” do have being—namely, (Platonic-Rosminian) objective being. I suggest that Millán Puelles’s affirmation that absurd objects have actually no essence, but are a compound of two essences made by us, excludes the need to grant them as such any being before consciousness. “Circle” and “square” are objective representations, but “round square” is not. Saying the words together is possible and we pronounce them without difficulty; nor does the impossibility refer only to the fact that a priori nothing like that can exist in reality, but also to the fact that a square absolutely excludes being round, since that would destroy its nature, installing, so to speak, the contradiction in it. Based on the principles of identity and of contradiction, our mind can understand the absolute impossibility of a square circle and pronounce such impossibility as conclusive. In my opinion, that such an impossibility is sometimes hidden from us60 does not suffice to make a contradictory object, however “provisionally,” an object of our consciousness. 59. Probably a good part of the problem lies in the use of the word tantum, but I do think it would help clarify the language not to employ it, since object and objective already mean the thing insofar as it is understood by an intellect, and not in its “extramental” existence. Millán Puelles argues also with this point. The point, as with Husserl, is to see that the act of knowledge, of whatever kind (thinking, believing, etc.), cannot be performed without an object (= an idea), and if we mean the real thing, we need to admit something of a nature different from that of the object, that is, a sensation or a feeling. We explained above that both the primitive judgment and the judgment of existence require some sensation, since the idea as such only showed the possibility of something, not its actual reality. 60. Millán Puelles rightly quotes Saint Thomas and Husserl on this. See ibid., 253 and 255.

 

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person n Initial Being and the Place of Intelligences in the Whole of Being When we intuit being, we do not yet attribute ideality to it. It is only when we compare it with real things that we call it ideal. We find it is indeterminate, “not in itself, but relative to contingent realities.”1 “If it were not an object of our mind, we could not reason about it.”2 “It is [then] seen as common to all objects of thought.”3 It is called logical because “it shows no subsistence outside the mind.”4 Moreover, “the most universal idea of all . . . is possible being.”5 If we consider that it “has the susceptibility to receive different terms,”6 namely, all the things we know, we call it virtual. Finally, this “lack of its terms . . . explains why it is called initial being.”7 All these attributes can be predicated of being as it is present to our mind. I will focus here on the latter. Being is called initial in two basic senses: gnoseological and metaphysical. With regard to the philosophy of knowledge, being is present in all our thoughts, namely, ideal being, which is determined by sensations and feelings, and through the exercise of reasoning. Ideal being is, therefore, the beginning of knowledge, and the whole Nuovo saggio can be interpreted as an analysis of it as the source of knowledge and of the ways it is determined in the human mind. Our grasp 1. Psychology, II, 1381, fn. 1. 1111111111112. Teosofia, 13, 774. 3. Ibid., 12, 217. 111111111111111111114. Certainty, 1458. 5. The Innate Light, 409. 1111111111111116. Teosofia, 12, 279. 7. Certainty, 1440.

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The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  of being, however imperfect, provides us with the understanding of what being is. Yet initial being has another, more important value, to be found in its metaphysical significance;8 it was alluded to above. Although this involves a thesis about creation, which remains outside the scope of the present work, we can give some more detail.9 The act by which finite being is produced escapes all possible experience, so that a positive notion of the creative act is not within reach of a limited power of understanding. Rosmini describes the demand longing for this knowledge as “lack of temperance in speculation.”10 However, we can still investigate the problem philosophically in different ways. One of these explores whether there are any conditions necessary to produce finite being. Some pages before I said that the intro8. Rosmini understands metaphysics as the study of “the final reasons of real entia” (Preface to the Metaphysical Works, in Psychology, I, 10; see also ibid., 18). Ideology deals with ideal being, and a third group of philosophical sciences focuses on moral being, i.e., real being not as it is, but as it ought to be. Of course, these last sciences are closely connected to metaphysics, since the latter are at the foundations of “what [real] ens must be if it is to be perfect” (ibid., 19). Metaphysics, then, contains a number of disciplines, which result from the different means of obtaining knowledge about being. While ideology relies on intuition, since its objects are of an ideal nature, metaphysics in turn requires perception and reasoning. There is also perception of ourselves and of the world, and thus we have psychology and cosmology. By reasoning and abstraction we can achieve a general theory of being: namely, ontology. Finally, natural theology considers Absolute Being, in which “all conditions of ens are fully and completely verified” (ibid., 25). Rosmini thought the four sciences could be grouped into two main branches, the first one being psychology, the study of the human soul, and theosophy, which deals with the general conditions of being and its main division—namely, finite and infinite being. Notice that Rosmini is not postulating the existence of a generic notion of being before God, of which God would be one manifestation. This is an epistemological division, that is, relative to the mind that thinks in a scientific way. This clarification should avoid much confusion in the interpretation of his thought. Moreover, the present study supports this distinction abundantly. As a coronation of metaphysics, Rosmini considers two other sciences: theodicy and supernatural anthropology. Both link philosophical reasoning with revealed knowledge. 9. See Fenu, Il problema della creazione nella filosofia di Rosmini. 10. Logica, 1179. See Teosofia, 12, 8–10.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea duction of a different mode of being to explain finite reality was necessary, because real being is only one: namely, God. In other words: there is only one being that is essentially real; the rest are only contingently real and their essences do not call for real existence in a necessary fashion. I also anticipated that participation in real being must be excluded since it leads to either a radical monism that identifies the world with God or to a radical dualism of God and world that finally deifies the world. The theory of participation, which is, in other words, the problem of creation, has to deal necessarily with the nature of ideas. This does not entail that things are not real, but it demands a more precise explanation of how finite being comes to be real. All finite beings are a determination of being, but not of infinite being, which cannot be determined. Of which being, then, are they a determination? There is no other real being of which we could not in turn pose the same question, since if finite being were the determination of a real thing, we would have to ask the same question for this new thing. Again, reality as such requires something nonreal to be explained.1 1 This nonreal element cannot be the Absolute Object present to the Absolute Mind, because, due to its infinity, it cannot be determined, either. We cannot understand finite being as a reduction of the infinite, either, because what is infinite does not possess parts or quantity. The reduction of the infinite, if something like that were possible, would leave us with another infinite. In effect, since everything that consti11. There is also here a speculative line for interpreting the excesses of German idealism, particularly from Hegel to Heidegger, whose Sein is probably nothing else than the reduction of being to the idea. The idea is indeterminate in itself but cannot subsist without a real finite mind—i.e., there is no idea without reality. Besides, we concluded from the idea of being the necessary existence of an Infinite Mind, which is Real Being itself. The theory of being far exceeds, therefore, the limitations to which Heidegger reduced it. The importance of this point for the history of philosophy cannot be exaggerated. See Darós, “El ser (del conocer) y los entes en la filosofía de A. Rosmini” and “Ser y verdad en la filosofía de A. Rosmini.” Darós, however, emphasizes some apparent similarities between both philosophers, without highlighting the much bigger differences. The same applies to Evain, “L’être en question dans la personne.”

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  tutes the infinite is itself infinite, the result of the reduction remains unchanged: the reduction actually did not reduce anything. The concepts of “reduction of the infinite” and of “limitation of the infinite,” without qualifications, imply a serious contradiction. We have to conclude again that initial being is the only possibility for the existence of finite reality. Finite being is a determination of initial being. The latter consists of a principle and a term; the principle for all finite beings is the same—initial being—and the term varies according to each finite thing. That which is common to all allows for a determination in order to constitute what each thing is in its own right. Initial being is also universal, since it allows for the multiplication of individuals; and universals can exist only in a mind. So, initial being has ideal nature. It is the same universal indeterminate being we have found to be the formal element in knowledge. Since God is not the common being of everything that exists, this is another reason to postulate the existence of ideal being as a condition for the coming to be of finite things. Initial being remains distinct from God and pertains to the ideal mode of being. But how does this initial being, which is the same innate ideal being in our minds, come to be? In other words, given that it is a condition for the existence of the finite, how is it in turn produced? Not being God, it must have some origin. Let us focus again on what ideal-initial being reveals to our mind. It is the possibility of all things, an infinite capacity that will never be exhausted. Being is in itself infinite, and however many finites we consider, there will always be “space” in it for something else. In fact, the potency of ideal being reaches the infinite itself. The only “term” that could complete its potentiality is Infinite Being. For that reason, God is the origin of ideal being, not the human subject. Initial being certainly results from an abstraction, since it requires a consideration of being without all its terms, finite or infinite, but not one the human understanding can make. Only an intellect that contemplates the fullness of being is able to produce such an abstraction.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea The First Mind, whose existence we proved above, performs this operation, called by Rosmini theosophical abstraction.12 By means of it, God shows ideal-initial being to finite intellects, which, due to the law of synthesism, He creates at the same time that He abstracts initial being. So, the formal element in knowledge is also the condition for creation: finite minds must have a very particular place in the chain of being.13 Neither finite intelligences nor any other finite being can exist without theosophical abstraction. However, ideal being does not reveal the act of creation to us: “Indeterminate being, the object of intuition, makes known what exists but it does not show any productive efficiency.”14 There is always a gap between our perception of a finite reality and being, which we predicate of it. We know that the thing exists, but we cannot explain why it exists. The reason remains hidden in Absolute Being. Therefore, the void concept of being, of being as object of human intuition, is not enough to find a sufficient reason why those things that can either subsist or not, actually do subsist; it is necessary to have recourse to a free eternal will, whose actual existence is not intuited. And it is precisely that dense veil which hides this voluntary act from man’s intellectual eyes, the reason why the entire universe is before human thought like a great Arcanum, like an impenetrable mystery.15

There is in human intelligence, and in all intelligences as well, an insatiable desire to know the ultimate reason for the existence of the world we see and our own existence. But finite things do not contain 12. It is studied in Teosofia, 14, 1178–1183. See Ottonello, L’essere iniziale nell’ontologia di Rosmini, 89–93. See also Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini,54. 13. Although the expression is usually attributed to Arthur O. Lovejoy, it hardly possesses any specific meaning in his famous book. It simply serves as a label referring to the study of different metaphysical systems developed in history. See his The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 1966. In Rosmini, the term means the whole of being considered in the connections to be found among the different kinds of beings. 14. Teosofia, 15, 1563. 15. Ibid. Cf. ibid., 13, 1191–94; ibid., 15, 1564, 1706.

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  in themselves the reasons for their existence. Our mind thus will not find complete rest until the only adequate term of being is manifested to it. The idea of being is therefore an anticipation of the perfection awaiting intelligent creatures and a seal that guarantees that the first cause will manifest itself to us, and will therefore fulfill that vow, that intellectual necessity of knowing it, which it [the first cause] left in us. This will be the fulfillment of its work, a work that cannot be left incomplete.16

Initial being is correctly placed not only at the beginning of knowledge but also at the beginning of finite reality, not only that of a finite mind; it is right to call it “dialectic beginning of science and of all subsistence.”17 We can therefore explain that to have being means to exist in an intelligence, to be linked to being in an intelligent subject. There is no reality independent of a mind. God exists as an Absolute Mind; but for finite beings, a finite relative mind is also required. The following passage refers to the human intellective soul, but its meaning can be extended to any intelligence in general: The whole universe is suspended from heaven by this chain whose middle link is the intellective soul, joined to the first two links [matter, sensitive soul] through sense and to the second two [ideal being, God] through the idea and the influence of the subsistent Ens, where idea has its seat and everlasting dwelling place.18 16. Ibid., 15, 1564. 17. Ibid., 12, 286. For a full discussion of initial being, see Ottonello, L’essere iniziale nell’ontologia di Rosmini. For our discussion about the twofold character of initial being—gnoseological and metaphysical—see particularly 77–81. Two merits of this book, a full understanding of which requires some familiarity with Rosmini’s thought, are to show the immense distance between Hegel and Rosmini and, at the same time, that the Italian philosopher offers the most serious systematic alternative to Hegel’s dialectical thinking in modern philosophy. Cf. also Cristaldi, Temi rosminiani, 31–37; and Ferroni, La critica di Rosmini a Hegel nella “Teosofia.” 18. Psychology, IV, 5. Cf. ibid., II, 1332–33. “We must also bear in mind that existence in the spirit does not remove existence in itself; on the contrary, it constitutes it” (ibid., 1339, in fine). See Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 118–21.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea We cannot do without a mind if we are to explain the existence of the world, even the material world. Initial being, which has an objective mode of being, is the condition for the existence of finite reality. Consequently, [t]he more one meditates, the more one sees that eliminating the spirit from the universe renders human wisdom vain and absurd. Intelligence, cut off from the divine, loses its human quality.19

Although it is not enough to define the person as an intelligent being, intelligence is necessarily a requisite for the existence of persons. It can be concluded that the person has a unique place in the “chain of being,” and that authorizes the formulation of the principle of person: “What is, but is not a person, cannot subsist without a person.”20

Initial Being and the lumen intellectuale We find many important clarifications to Rosmini’s thought in his letters, which sometimes constitute small treatises on different subjects. The following paragraphs can serve as a clarification of Rosmini’s systematical and historical position. They are from a letter written in 1834, when the author was gathering opinions and commentaries provoked by his Nuovo saggio. n

You already know that the opinions of the Fathers of the Church about the nature of the light of reason (initial being) are divided in two. Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure and others want it to be God himself (the Word, qui illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum). Thomas and a good number of later Scholastics want the light to be created. The opinion exposed in the Nuovo saggio and elsewhere conciliates these two tendencies or mediates between them. In order to understand correctly what I say, the following 19. The Innate Light, 453, appendix 5. About the necessity to admit a spiritual principle to explain the existence of a material world, see the arguments drawn from the nature of space and time borrowed from Parmenides and Plato in Psychology, IV, 59–60. Cf. also Teosofia, 15, 1675. In another passage Rosmini says: “Finite being is neither the essence alone, as it is seen in the idea, nor its mere reality, but the union of both made in the thalamus of the mind” (Teosofia, 13, 840. Cf. Teosofia, 14, 1182 and 15, 1653, 1660–77). 20. Logica, 362.

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  principle should be firmly kept in mind: “the light does not express the thing as it is in itself, but as we conceive it.” After that another truth has to be well considered: “our cognition, though true in itself, can be nevertheless substantially different from the real thing.” For example, if looking at a floret, behind which there is a man, we just saw a part of the human figure, would we perceive a man? Certainly not. It is true that, based on previous knowledge, we will infer from the little we see, the rest that we do not see, and we will realize that there is a man behind the floret. But why? The object of vision and perception would not be a man; speaking in an exact way, it would be correct to say that we see “a piece of an arm, or of a leg”; and that we infer the existence of a man thereof. In short, “we do not perceive something if we do not perceive everything that belongs to the (specific) essence of that thing.” Now, let us apply these principles to being and solve the questions you posed. 1. Is initial being God himself ? I answer that it is not, because in initial being something is missing appertaining to the divine essence: the term, the fulfillment, that is the subsistence in itself, reality; and if something is missing in the object of conception, whatever it may be, the perceived thing is not God any more. As Sebadius accurately says: Non proprium Dei, nisi plenum atque perfectum, i.e., the being that lacks something cannot be God. Therefore, initial being is not God. And still, when it will be fulfilled, that is to say, when we will see being, not initially but completely, what we will then see fittingly receives the name of God. Consequently, the name of God does not suit being as shown by nature to us, because things are called according to the way they are conceived. The conceived object changes essentially due to the different way of conceiving it, and thus receives another name. 2. Is initial being, which we see, a created being? I answer that it can be called created, as Aquinas likes to do, not because it is created in itself, but because it is created in us, that is, insofar as it is shown to us and seen by us, and it is created insofar as it is limited by the imperfection of our vision. 3. Is it numerically the same in all men? Yes, and for that reason the human species is one. In no way does it follow from this that all men have just one intellect (this was the Arab’s mistake), just as it is not the case that they have only one pair of eyes because the sun is one. The seeing principle is one thing, the seen object is another: seeing principles are many, the object they see is one. From there follow the consensus in truth, the possibility of human society, and of the union with God.”21 21. Letter to Giovambattista Tonini in Bologna written in Rovereto, August 17, 1834, in Epistolario filosofico, 231–32, also cited in Bergamaschi, Grande dizionario antologico del pensiero di Antonio Rosmini, 2:939–40.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea

The Divine in Nature During the writing of the Teosofia, Rosmini realized that it would be of great help to write a book on what he had many times called, following Plato, “the divine in nature.”22 His main thesis is very simple, and he presents it in a few paragraphs. He then analyzes in detail ancient theological doctrines and mythologies, highlighting the recognition of this divine element in every religious tradition. The documents of history constitute a proof, although indirect, of the thesis of the present work: that all intelligences are endowed with the highest dignity due to the presence in them of an element that can only come from God. This is also Rosmini’s thesis in his work: to gather the endorsements of the wisest men of all times for what he had proved through philosophical reasoning. Already in the Psychology he had written: [T]he ancients were in fact content to say that the human mind was divine, but as far as I know they went no further. When I investigated the matter myself, I found that two things had to be distinguished in the human mind, subject and object, as I called them. I saw that [the] subject, because limited and contingent, could not in any way be called divine; only [the] object could be ranked among divine things as something truly unlimited, eternal, necessary and furnished with other totally divine qualities. This object, standing immovably before the human subject, is being itself, in its ideal mode.23

We can call being “something divine,”24 but if the way everything receives being presupposes an intelligence, which is the first reality that exists, according to the order of things, then intelligences bear a privileged place among finite beings. Let us see how Rosmini explains that the divine element must be the idea. 22. As a caption to chapter 33 of the fourth book in the first part of the Psychology, Rosmini puts Plato’s quotation from the Timaeus: “The divine he made with his own hands, but ordered his children to make what is mortal” (69c3–5). 23. Psychology, I, 650. “In fact, the most influential philosophers have all acknowledged that there is something divine in the human being, that is, something which only God himself can give directly” (ibid., 649). 24. Cf. Teosofia, 15, 1527.

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  He formulates the problem in the following terms: we are asking “if something in this universe is manifested that has an immaterial and unlimited nature.”25 We must exclude all material things because matter is subject to division and corruption. Besides, it must have no limits, for in that case something else would reduce its perfection. But it also must be manifest; otherwise its divine character would be in need of something else to be unveiled, which would contradict its nature.26 When we look for the divine our aim is not just to find something that can lead to the thought of God, because “there is no doubt that the whole universe speaks about God: thought goes from it as from an effect to the first cause.” He is not looking for something “divine by participation,” either, since again, everything, insofar as it partakes in being, could be called divine in that sense. And “a nondivine effect of a divine cause” is also excluded for the same reason. The question he wants to answer is different: “If within the sphere of created being there is something divine in itself immediately manifested to human intellect, i.e., something that pertains to the divine nature.”27 [T]o all who have had the patience to read all that I have already written about this, it is well known that I consider indeterminate being an object that possesses those two sublime features, an object that is without any doubt evident to all intelligences; otherwise, we could not even speak about it.28

We have found in ideal being the following characteristics: (1) it is objective, universal, unlimited, necessary, immutable, eternal; (2) it is innate in our spirit; (3) it is necessary to explain the existence of the mind as well as of things; and (4) it expresses the essence of God, although in a limited way; after all this, the attribute of divine, can produce no admiration. It is neither a finite being nor God. We cannot say it is a purely mental being, in the sense that we can call a product 25. Del divino nella natura, 3. 26. “If this divine element exists, it can only be an object of the understanding, because the question refers to something that is manifest in the world” (ibid., 4). 27. Ibid., 2. 28. Ibid., 5.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea of the imagination purely mental. Neither is it an ens rationis in the classical meaning of the expression, since the mind does not produce it in the process of knowing something, but it is found already present in it. The only alternative is that, in a way that remains partially veiled for us, ideal being is in God. Its features surpass all finite beings, so it cannot have its natural foundation in them. Ideal being admits of features proper to God alone, without being God. It lacks subsistence and personality, which cannot be absent in God. Due to their universality and absoluteness, we also frequently call truth and moral obligation divine, both in ordinary and philosophical speech. We still distinguish them from God. Now, I have said that at the bottom of all ideas there is ideal being, and that this is in God, and in God it is God himself, even if it does not appear to us as the divine substance. . . . I examined this first and sovereign idea, intelligible being, light of every reason, and the most evident divine features of infinity, eternity, superiority above everything else, supreme authority, etc. appeared in it. I concluded from this that it must appertain only to the deity.29

And in the same book, some paragraphs before: The corollaries that I deduced from it were manifest, namely: (1) We cannot say with precision that we see God (the divine essence) in the present life, because God is not ideal being only, but is inseparably real-ideal. (2) What we see is however an appurtenance of God, that will acquire the form of God, when completed. Down here we see a reflection of God, purely intelligible being (), and even this to a limited extent. (3) This limitation of the being we see is thoroughly subjective, i.e., it comes from our side, not from the side of being, from God. (4) Therefore, it seems more proper to say that being, seen by us in such a limited way, is a created light, rather than uncreated. Considered, however, only in the part we see and not in the limitation, it is objective, uncreated, absolute, truly divine.30

Although the text hardly contains anything new, it might be helpful to add some commentaries. 29. Rinnovamento, 562, 471. Cf. ibid. 553, 467. “Thus it follows from this that ideal being rightly receives the designation of divine, and so the human being sees the manifestation of something divine in nature” (Del divino nella natura, 6). 30. Rinnovamento, 473. Cf. Teosofia, 15, 1630.

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  1. The idea of being is innate to the intelligence. At the same time, God’s own essence is Absolute Being; for that reason, only He can show being to a creature, that is, only God can put intelligences in act, precisely through the communication of the light of being. This is also a consequence of the per se manifest. Ideal being includes potentially everything, in the sense that everything we know, we know in ideal being. There is a certain infinity contained in it.31 2. Rosmini claimed several times that ideal being was an “appurtenance of God,”32 that it had to be called divine, but he would never refer to anything real in the same way. Let us clarify somewhat the meaning of this attribute. Only God is being due to His own essence; therefore, being is a divine property. The perfections of an apple, a horse, or a star cannot be attributed to God, but being as such pertains to Him as constituting His own substance. Ideal being is thus an appurtenance of God, which justifies calling it the divine. The dignity of the intelligence lies in its primary act, which consists in seeing what, properly speaking, belongs to God. Its imperfect grasp guarantees also the distinction from God. 3. The fact that the idea is not something real is not at odds with its having an intrinsic value, because being is not reduced to reality, lest we suppress its intelligibility altogether. The concept of per se manifest proved the existence of a second mode or form of being, con31. Nevertheless, God cannot be revealed positively in the idea, since that would entail a natural vision of God’s essence. Only by means of the addition of another light to the mind it is possible to have some positive knowledge of God. This second, more powerful light is, according to Rosmini, what Catholic theology calls supernatural grace, which does not consist in the (natural) communication of ideal being, but of real being itself as a light to the mind. Infinite real being cannot be made known positively but by itself. Therefore, if the essence of God is to be revealed to a finite intelligence, it must be through the communication of His reality, which is limited by the receptive capacity of the finite intelligence to which it is communicated. For all these most interesting problems, of capital importance for both philosophy and theology, cf. Antropologia soprannaturale, I, 33–276. The natural knowledge of God we can possess remains always ideal and negative, it is never real and positive. Cf. ibid., 44–50; and Teosofia, 15, 1597. 32. Teosofia, 12, 461 and 13, 1045; Rinnovamento, 473.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea tained in being itself: namely, ideality or objectivity. Absolute Being (God) is a perfect object for itself, but it cannot be the form of finite intelligences. Nonetheless, being is what all intelligences understand first. Whereas we understand it in an initial way, since our intellectual grasp is imperfect,33 complete being remains hidden from our direct intuition. At the same time, initial being explains the possibility of participation. It has thus an additional ontological significance. 4. Moreover, ideal being present to our mind is neither a finite thing nor God, but from its existence we prove the necessary existence of finite minds. In the same way, we prove God’s existence as the First Mind, who must produce both ideal being and the finite minds in which it shines. Now, although ideal being is found in finite minds, due to its nature it greatly surpasses the capacity of any of them, however powerful and elevated they might be. Intelligences contain, therefore, as a condition of their existence, an element of infinite dignity; they are the place where the divine is present in the world. The almost poetical tones of the following paragraph should not make us forget the stringent logic that has guided us thus far: [The Idea] an element by means of which the world created by God holds in its womb ever-shiningly something from its eternal an infinite author, something that stretches and binds itself with its first cause, which when creating the finite being has not abandoned it alone and divided its existence entirely from His own. This thing, which remains in the world like a relic from the hands of its maker, constitutes the summit and the tip, as it were, of this marvelous immense universe, a summit and a tip that disappears from mortal sight in infinite and absolute being, and there, as in its legitimate soil, like the strongest root of an immense plant, it overturns, penetrates, deepens, and firmly stands and hides itself. However long, and wherever we search, in Heaven, on earth, or in the dark abysses, no other element similar to this could be found that could be compared to it in dignity; because all other things that constitute this magnificent masterpiece, of which we are but an imperceptible dot, are bounded within their limits, whether they be spirits or bodies.34 33. “[I]ndetermination is the effect of our imperfect vision of being; it is not something inherent in being itself” (The Innate Light, 436, fn. 6). 34. Del divino nella natura, 6. Rosmini divides the possible objectors to his thesis into

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  We see here the reason for the natural religiosity of the human being as well, since human nature possesses an unlimited object, which urges man to look for his source. Nothing can “fill” ideal being. We do not encounter in this life the full measure of being, and it does not require profound reflection to realize that we could never find it among finite things. Even if we were to have a perfect perceptive knowledge of all beings in the universe and their natural causes, being extends itself further still. This natural religiosity of the human being is not based upon consciousness, it does not require a rational decision or a particular awareness. It is just constitutive of our nature, so that to neglect it equals neglecting our most intimate vocation. Rosmini puts it in these words: The human intellect . . . having as its object unlimited being, though deprived of reality, proves the need to find an unlimited reality as well, which could two groups: those who consider the attribute of divine given to ideas exaggerated, and those who believe we have an intuition of God and, therefore, the attribute divine is insufficient. “Two lines of noninsignificant opponents . . . [a] to call being intuited by the human intellect divine is completely exaggerated and unnecessary . . . [b] the human intellect does not have an intuition of the divine only, but of God himself ” (ibid., 7). As an answer to the second, he says: “The distinction between the divine and God is one of this world: and we have to see if it exists down here, in our mind, not in Heaven; in other words, it is a distinction relative to our mind. And in fact, what we call divine is nothing else but the first object of the natural intuition of the mind. In order to solve the matter we do not need anything else but to verify this ideological [epistemological] and logical fact: if the concept of indeterminate being is identical with the concept of God. I think that to recognize the distinction between these two concepts it is enough to formulate the difficulty. Once this conceptual distinction is recognized, we only need to prove that indeterminate being, that is to say the idea of universal being, has some of the divine attributes” (ibid., 9). Cf. also ibid., 10. And to the first group: “Finally some did not acknowledge the divine element present in human reason as its object, and taking it for a finite being or even for something inferior to them, they plunged into the vile systems of sensism and subjectivism. They cancelled every connecting point between the nature of the universe and that of its author, thus preparing the way for modern disbelief ” (ibid., 12). These texts are enough to save Rosmini from ontologism, but at the same time show that a solid theory of knowledge must recognize the “intrinsic theism of the intelligence” (intrinsecità teistica dell’intelligenza), as Sciacca puts it. Cf. Sciacca, L’interiorità oggettiva, 34–35. See also Ottonello, “Il divino e Dio,” in Rosmini: L’ideale e il reale, 99–113: “The intelligence receives the act of its own existence from the manifestation of God” (109).

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea fulfill and realize it. For this reason, man, just as every other intelligent being, continually aspires to the infinite and remains restless until he reaches it; in a word: man is made for God and he tends to Him continually due to a rational instinct of his nature, whether he goes along with it or he fights it in himself.35

Individuality and Immortality I think that two major possible objections are worth answering at this stage. Once they are solved, little doubt will remain about the possibility of such abstract reasoning to help deepen the nature of personhood. We can formulate the first objection in the following terms: Is not the individuality of the human soul, mind or spirit, endangered by the intuition of an object that is the same for all minds to which it is present? Is there not a real risk of diluting the reality of the person into the universality of ideal being? Whether there is a risk or not does not concern us here, since the real problem is whether in fact the reality of the person as an individual is suppressed or not. Moreover, the answer to this doubt is a firm no. In point of fact, exactly the opposite is the case. The intelligence (subject) is originated by the intuition of being (object) and possesses a contrary nature. Ideas do not generate other ideas on their own; a thinking subject is required. Therefore, the mind that intuits ideal being is not a universal being, but a real individual subject. Objective forms are the cause of subjective forms, and there is no possibility of confusing the former with the latter, or of dissolving one of them into the other. Universal being is thus the guarantee of the individuality of the person and not a hindrance to it. Human beings receive their individuality from the intuition of being in general which constitutes them intelligent.36

The second objection refers to immortality. I mean the indestructibility of the soul, since death is the separation of soul and body, the two fundamental components of the human being. Leaving aside the 35. Del divino nella natura, 95. 36. Psychology, I, 568. Cf. ibid., 569.

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  problem of whether the human condition is posse mori or rather non posse non mori, it is clear that human nature, as we experience it, is bound to death. The body is subject to corruption due to the action of natural forces upon it. There is no difficulty on this point. The problem is whether something similar could happen to the soul, whether it could cease to be what it is resulting from natural causes alone. If the human soul (not human being) were not indestructible, our conviction that we have found the being endowed with the highest dignity would be considerably weakened. In the Psychology, Rosmini calls immortality “a delicious fruit” of psychological (= anthropological) investigations. He calls it “the condition on which human dignity depends,” and writes that “the little that Philosophy can tell us about this matter is a delightful and extremely precious truth.” How can philosophy “show that our better part, the intellective soul, is of its own nature immortal and not subject to disintegration”?37 We can derive the answer from the premises we already have. The natural term of the soul is ideal being, which is eternal and cannot be modified by any contingent subject, let alone destroyed by them. The last possibility is that God could remove ideal being from the sight of the intellect and thus annihilate the soul. Given the conclusion that “natural theology offers us,” namely, that “nothing created is annihilated by God,”38 the conclusion is plain: No force of nature can do anything relative to being in general, which is impassible, immutable, eternal and not subject to the activity of any ens. Hence, the power with which human beings intuit being in general cannot perish. This power, this first act, is the intellective soul, which cannot therefore cease to exist in its own individuality; it possesses its own individuating reality, a fact which we normally express by saying that it is immortal.39 37. Cf. ibid., 660. 38. The full text is: “Natural theology offers us this proposition (confirmed by Revelation): ‘Nothing created is annihilated by god.’ Indeed, it is not fitting for the Creator to annihilate his own work which, precisely because it is his, is respected and loved because of the respect and love that he has for himself ” (ibid., 665). 39. Ibid., 679. “The human soul, by having as its term being in general which of its nature is eternal and impassible, must itself be eternal. All previous proofs of the im-

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea

The Intelligent Will Can we deduce from such a long speech on ideas and being any attempt to ground the value of persons? If we show a way in which this is possible, our doubts could be cleared. But the title of this section suggests that we can propose the “ultimate root of the dignity of the human person” based on what we have said hitherto. I believe it is not necessary to survey all the efforts that aim at establishing the dignity of the person in order to reach such a conclusion. It will be enough if I indicate the reasons why this explanation inevitably underlies all others. Before proceeding, I would like to point out that Rosmini is not suggesting an identification of the person with the intelligence. When he endeavors to find what can be called the personal element, that is, what it is that constitutes a person as such, he says: “The personal element in the human being is his intelligent will, through which he becomes the author of his own actions.”40 And in another passage: “We have no experience of a purely intellective subject. Our experience is simply of the human subject, which is simultaneously animal, intellective, and rational.”41 Together with classical philosophy, we can reduce the spiritual faculties of the person to the intelligence and the will.42 In its operations, the will presupposes the understanding. In other words, when speaking about the will, we presuppose the nature of the intelligence. In effect, the will is the spiritual faculty, which consists in the active power that adheres without compulsion to the object the understanding presents to it. With the will we can affirm everything that is, precisely because of its dependency on the cognitive power, which has univermortality of the soul are reduced to this” (ibid., 720). Cf. Philosophical System, 125 and Psychology, I, 235, 237, as well as the whole book V, 660–730, entitled “Immortality of the Human Soul and Death of the Human Being.” 40. Society and Its Purpose, 52. See also Anthropology, 604. 41. Anthropology, 797. 42. Cf. “But an intellective volitive individual presupposes person” (ibid., 855).

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  sal being as its object. The intellect supplies the will with its object. Therefore, the value of ideal being also dignifies the will.43 At any rate, the teaching that the will depends upon the intellect belongs to the legacy of classical thought. Needless to say, Rosmini belongs to this tradition.44 Let us mention finally that Rosmini understood the need to include the volitional aspect in the definition of the person because even if the relation of dependency remains in the concept of intellect, the will is not discussed.45

Objective Being and Ethics Soon after the publication of the Nuovo saggio, Rosmini wrote the Principles of Ethics, showing the immediate consequences of the former work for ethics. Some minor imprecisions in his early writings received full clarification in the Teosofia, where the whole system was given its ontological justification. But though he did not write a specific book on moral being (essere morale), he dedicated large sections to the subject in the Teosofia as well as in other earlier works. We will now see some consequences of Rosmini’s epistemology and ontology for the foundations of ethics.46 43. I will not discuss the many related problems (e.g., freedom, the necessity of the first act of volition, its relation to the other powers of the soul, its dependence from God, and so on), neither in themselves nor in the context of Rosminian philosophy. 44. Cf.: “[We define] ‘will’ as ‘desire tending to known good’” (Anthropology, 587). Cf. also ibid., 501; Principles of Ethics, chap. 5, art. 1; Psychology, II, 1102; Teosofia, 13, 1037; Compendio di etica 187; The Concept of Wisdom, 59, in Introduction to Philosophy, 114–16. All these places, where the will is defined in roughly the same way, are quoted in Bergamaschi, Grande dizionario antologico del pensiero di A. Rosmini, under the heading “Volontà” (4:885–901). See also Thomas Aquinas’s solution to the problem of whether the intellect moves the will or vice versa in Summa theologiae, I, 82, 4 and Rosmini’s commentary on this passage in Anthropology, 572. This is one more example of the substantial agreement between both great philosophers. For the relationship between freedom and the intellect, see also Anthropology, 704–10. 45. Cf. Anthropology, 28, 509, 572. 46. For a recent discussion of moral being in Rosmini, see Gomarasca, Rosmini e la forma morale dell’essere, chaps. 5–6: 103–46. Cf. also Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 9. For the importance of Rosminian ethics in the context of contemporary ethical issues, see Del Noce’s noteworthy essay, “Significato pre-

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea The problem whether there is a supreme rule by means of which we are able to judge the morality of our actions receives a positive answer in the idea of being, which is the first our understanding possesses and is also the rule of all our knowledge and judgments. If we must admit the presence of a primary idea in order to explain knowledge, a fortiori the criterion of moral actions must also be found there. The light of reason, which must not be confused with reason itself, is immutable and objective; it cannot deceive, although we can apply it incorrectly. At the same time, it is the source of moral obligation, since it shows the good that must be realized and the evil that must be rejected or avoided. The subject becomes morally good precisely by “following the light of reason” in all his actions. The subject is thus not autonomous but heteronomous, that is, he does not create the law himself, he receives it. We should recall that the idea of being, notwithstanding its interior presence to the mind, is actually independent of the subject and can therefore be the source of a meaningful moral obligation, something a law that originates in the subject as such could definitely not be. In effect, what the subject judges in making correct use of the idea of being also has a normative character because it is based on objective knowledge. What things are in themselves shows to us the way we should behave in view of them, how we should deal with them. There is a well-known passage in Rosmini’s Philosophy of Right that bears some resemblance to the Kantian principle but in fact represents the opposite position, particularly if we read it in the light of the present study. The supreme, active principle, the foundation of a person, which is informed by the light of reason, receives the rule of justice. Properly speaking, the principle is the faculty of what is lawful. But because the dignity of the light of reason (ideal being) is infinite, nothing can be superior to the personal principle which of its nature acts on the promptings of a teacher and lord of infinite dignity. Such a principle is naturally supreme; no one has the right to comsente dell’etica rosminiana.” The considerations of this section are based on Rosmini’s Principles of Ethics, 1–87.

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  mand that which depends upon the commands of the infinite. If the person is of its nature supreme activity, it is clear that each person has a duty of not harming others, either in thought or by an attempt to offend or subject them through despoliation of the supremacy bestowed by nature.47

The main sentences have been emphasized in order to show that, if Rosmini recognizes the person as bearer of the supreme value, he acknowledges at the same time—and, nota bene—for the same reason, that there is a law above himself and that he is actually not autonomous. In fact, Rosmini recognizes expressly in this passage the objectivity of moral law (“The supreme, active principle, the foundation of person, which is informed by the light of reason, receives the rule of justice”), and places the dignity of the person in his being “upon the commands of the infinite.” For that reason, moral law forbids not only some external actions, but also internal ones. Love and hatred begin in the human soul, as do the esteem of the good and the choice of what is morally evil. All of these are hidden acts of the person and define his moral character, even before he performs any exterior act.48 The question that naturally arises is: What are good and evil? Good expresses the perfection of a thing, that which is according to its nature. On the contrary, evil is the privation of a perfection that a given subject needs in order to be perfect or complete according to its nature. There are, of course, degrees of goodness, depending on how completely a thing has realized its nature. Therefore, the good is the most perfect expression of the being of something. Evil cannot exist without being, since the total negation of being would equal nothingness, which can be neither good nor evil. Evil requires being, or good, and is therefore a negative essence, defined in its relation to being. Without this relation, the notion of evil could not be grasped and would dilute itself into nothingness. That is why evil is usually called a privation instead of a negation, because privations do not totally remove the subject they inhere in, whereas a negation entails evil’s total annihilation. 47. Rights of the Individual, 52. 48. See Compendio di etica, 516, 517, 530.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea Being explains our judgments of good and evil: everything that corresponds to being is good, and everything that contradicts it is evil. We can say this of being in general and, consequently, of every being in particular, whose essence determines its place in the order of being. Thus, the order of being supplies the law of ethics. n

In man, however, it is possible to witness a struggle between the tendency toward a subjective good and the realization of a universal good. We have a natural inclination toward what completes and gratifies our nature; this can be undoubtedly regarded as good and is shared by all beings insofar as everything has a drive toward its own conservation and completion. But beyond that, we can know what is just in itself, not only what is gratifying to us. The same notion provides the rule for acknowledging both what is good for us and in itself, the former being a specification of the latter. For this reason, Rosmini distinguished the sciences of eudaimonology and ethics. The former deals with the subjective good (happiness, the good convenient to human nature) and is naturally subordinated to the latter, which has objective good (the just, the honest) as its end. If we reduced the good to the subjective good, this would imply the cancellation of any good in itself and reduce it to pleasure and egoistic interest. We must actually consider human happiness in accordance with all the elements that constitute human nature, among which we find the intellect. We cannot found ethics sufficiently on the notion of subjective good, because our intellect is open to universal being. If being and good are the same thing, although considered under different respects, the intellect is always open to higher goods, until it reaches being itself, which is absolute, supreme, and complete goodness. There is no higher perfection among finite beings than this openness to absolute goodness. This is surely the greatest possible excellence and supersedes all other elements present in the same nature. Man also possesses an animal principle, whose good he has to procure, but wherever an intellective principle is present, all the rest must be subordinated to it. The dignity of the human subject lies firstly in

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  the intellect, which enables him to participate in a happiness that is far beyond his own capacity to achieve. This difficult equilibrium in man is what the struggle consists of.49 The notion of moral good adds the assent of the will to that of objective good. The subject adheres to what is good in itself, not moved by an instinct, interest, or desire, but by the rule of justice—to give each thing its due—which is rooted in the intelligence. Therefore, “follow the light of reason” can also be expressed as “love all beings according to the order your intelligence sees in them.” Without the will there would be no moral good, as the subject could not properly be said to act if he is not master of his operations. So, objective good becomes moral when the will adheres to it. A morally good subject is one whose will agrees with the good and avoids evil. But if the will follows the intellect, and the intellect has universal being as its light, then the will is directed toward universal being or good. To love being in its proper order implies, therefore, loving intelligences above everything that is not intelligent. Universal being provides intelligent natures with the qualification of ends, whereas nothing else can be loved in itself, but only as a means. This qualification makes the person the proper recipient of love. Persons are not indeed an end in themselves, except for the fact that the supreme end, absolute good, is outlined in them, that is, be49. This struggle is not what Catholic theology calls original sin, which goes beyond the conflict between the subjective and the objective good. The teaching about original sin states that, due to the disobedience of our first parents, human nature, as we receive it by generation, is affected by a positive disorder, i.e., by a force irresistibly pushing the will in a direction opposite to moral good. Instead, the subjective good is not morally disordered, unless chosen instead of a higher objective good, e.g., justice or the acknowledgment of truth. In other terms, that man is born with original sin implies that the struggle has already begun in favor of the subjective good against the objective good, thus making it more difficult—better, impossible without supernatural aid—to rise above partial, literally immoral desires. Rosmini dedicated hundreds of pages to clarifying this point, since it constituted one of the major topics that provoked opposition to his thought during his life. For a philosophical explanation see, e.g., Conscience, book 1, 9–110. For a theological treatment, together with the consideration of many philosophical implications of the problem, see Il razionalismo teologico.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea cause universal being is present to them. The order of love, consequently, demands that God, the absolute good, be loved and revered above all beings. The ultimate perfection of ethics is achieved in religion. We see again that the dignity of persons—moral dignity included, that is, the capacity to love and act in accordance with the order of being—hangs, so to speak, on ideal universal being. Its explanatory capacity becomes even more evident when we apply it to ethics. Returning to the struggle we observe in human nature, we can say that subjective and objective good constitute a very special sort of coincidence in man. The expression of this agreement is moral good. Actually, man’s own perfection consists in the adherence to universal (objective) good; that way he attains his own (subjective) fullness. In moral good, therefore, the subjective and the objective good become one without losing their own properties. The good of the person is properly speaking a moral good, the highest form of good. The person is that being which, thanks to the intellect, has a share in universal good. What is finite remains finite, but receives a dignity that by far exceeds its subjective capacity. Morality is the completion of the person. The person, in turn, is precisely the place where the highest instantiation of being can be found. This perfection is bestowed on the person without becoming, as it were, a subjective part of his nature. Otherwise, the finite person, each finite person, would become the source of universal good, and ultimately of absolute good. The reasons for the struggle in man are the same ones that account for his dignity. We can legitimately say that human nature, considered in its highest element—the personal element—possesses the power to affirm the whole of being and thus transcend itself. The dignity of the person, therefore, shines with special intensity in his moral dimension. Moreover, this dignity is enhanced further if we consider that the only finite beings that can act according to universal good are persons. The entire universe is depending on them to achieve its end, since only personal beings can be considered ends in themselves due to the presence of ideal universal being in them. All other beings are means toward this end. That Absolute Being can only be God, who is the only true end, but increases once more the value

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  of the person, as now he is seen to be the bridge that unites the Creator with the rest of creation—or, in other terms, the infinite with the finite.50 This also justifies the classical understanding of the person as existing between the finite and the infinite. One could argue that the dignity of the human being resides in his being created “to God’s image and likeness,” but the real problem is precisely to determine in what this image and likeness consists. If it is essential for Infinite Being to be intelligible and to be understood— that is, to be Real and Ideal, Mind and Word—and if we have found the same basic structure in human nature, although in a limited, contingent, and finite way, then we will find “image and likeness” there. However legitimate the recourse to revelation or to a prephilosophical standpoint, Rosmini’s philosophy gives, in my opinion, a positive answer to the long-debated question about the possibility of a philosophical proof of the dignity of the human person. In fact, as far as I am aware, he based each step on observation and natural reasoning. The following text harmoniously binds philosophy and revelation, without conflating them: The human being could not be ordered to God if he did not possess by nature something divine; and this divine element is precisely the light of reason that shines in him, ideal being that illuminates his mind and that continually inscribes in his heart the eternal law. Because ideal being is eternal, necessary, and infinite, and even if it is communicated to the human being, it is not the human being, but appertains to God Himself, and Scripture calls it “splendor of God’s face sealed upon us.” This light allows us to know beings, therefore to know God also, who is the Supreme Being, and it makes it possible for us to appreciate Him above all other things, as He deserves. For this reason, it is written in the holy book that the human being is made “to God’s image and likeness.”51

The speech on transcendence and God cannot be dismissed as “theological,” unless we adopt the aprioristic ungrounded stance that 50. Cf. Teosofia, 14, 1392 about the formal end (fine formale) and the concrete end (fine concreto) of the universe. See also Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 56–61. 51. Compendio di etica, 102.

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea natural reason is unable to say anything about God.52 At any rate, the present work has at least suggested a way in which natural theology is possible, and therefore can be a logical fruit of human reasoning. C. Bergamaschi accurately observes: “The observation that dignity ‘comes from outside’ to the human person constitutes a central point in the doctrine of spirituality, because it means that at the ontological level it is vain to extol the person rejecting transcendence. . . . Being a spiritual being is not enough to constitute man as an ‘end,’ we must specify the reason why spiritual beings are ends. If there were nothing absolute in them, they would be situated one step above matter, but their value would remain in principle the same: finite, contingent, limited, and equally infinitely distant from God, simple ‘means’ to an ‘end’ placed outside them.”53 n

Moral being is also the highest realization of being itself, since it always implies a relation to infinite being. The finite is not required for the existence of moral being, but wherever a finite intelligence is found, there is also the will of universal good (love) and, consequently, an intimate union of the finite with the infinite, of the relative with the absolute. This relation shows an additional higher participation in an attribute of being as such, since once we can show that Absolute Being (God) is the perfect coincidence of ideal and real being, absolute love must be present in a way that totally surpasses human understanding. This absolute love is also the eternal happiness that Absolute Being enjoys. The person, due to his participation in real, ideal, and moral being, is also a mirror of being as such, the place, again, where being is revealed in its fullness. From the consideration of this dimension of the person, certainly enormous consequences would follow.54 52. Ralph McInerny’s Gifford Lectures (1999–2000) are a recent very clever and excellent defense of the possibility of natural theology. See his Characters in Search of Their Author. 53. Bergamaschi, L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini, 76 and 78. 54. Cf., e.g., what Rosmini says at the beginning of the Teosofia: “But man does not aspire to pure knowledge, he wants to love what he knows. Moreover, there is no full

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  The Ultimate Root of Personal Dignity Our purpose was to show that Rosminian philosophy provides a solid basis for understanding the roots of the ontological dignity of the person. I do not claim that this proof of personal dignity is the only one. Rather, I maintain that it is the most radical, in the literal meaning of that word. In effect, if the intelligence is assumed in all spiritual activities of the person, and if the intelligence is defined by its first act, the intuition of being—there is no ulterior instance where we could discover a deeper source of the value of the person. Being is present to the intelligence as an indeterminate object; it does not possess an epistemological value exclusively, but a metaphysical one as well, as it reveals the veiled presence of God to the mind, a presence that we trace to its source, the full richness and the first source of all being. Ideal being is not only a function of experience, that is, a category that serves to organize experience, as that would imply an immanentization of the intelligence. On the contrary, we saw that the intelligence is ordained by nature to something other than itself: namely, the object. Otherness is granted to it from the very first act. Besides, the object (idea) is a transparent means of knowledge and makes the transcendence of the intelligent subject possible. Neither knowledge nor love is possible without the idea. Besides, it corresponds to the ontological constitution of being to be understood (per sè manifesto). For this reason, intelligent natures possess in a limited way something that belongs to being as such. Shining before them, putting them in act as intelligent, it communicates a perfection that reflects its intimate ontological structure. Therefore, the value of the idea is not merely “epistemological”; a deep understanding of the fact of knowledge goes beyond epistemolknowledge free of affection. Love perfects knowledge and the human being that loves knowing, finds in the loved being the good, the full term of that act of which he is the potency. That is why a right definition of man is ‘a potency, whose ultimate act is the union with unlimited Being through loving knowledge’” (12, 35).

 ⁄ Ontological Significance of the Idea ogy. It is precisely the structure of being itself, independent of any finite reality—be it a mind or anything else—that shows the high perfection of knowledge and that guarantees that objectivity is possible. The very existence of an intelligence contains the proof of its dignity. The finite mind is called to transcend itself, to rise above its limitations, due to the divine element that constitutes it. As Sciacca writes: “Consequently, the infinite is present to the finite human being; the infinite is inherent to his nature. Here interiority unveils its depth and the human person is seen in all its spiritual ‘immensity,’ in its ‘existential drama,’ since we have to equate human activity in its integrality to this infinity that constantly thrusts the human being to transcend and fulfill himself, to realize himself at the level of the infinite present to him, which constitutes his own norm. Consequence: the world, the universe is not on a par with the human being, who is capable of ‘comprehending’ it without being comprehended in turn by it; and not because of the infinity of thought in the idealist and subjectivist sense, but because of the infinity of truth objectively present to him.”55 I have left the following texts for the end, since they express in a condensed form much, if not all, of what has been discussed in these pages. Their synthetic character lends itself to transcribing them without further comment. What is this divine element that enhances these beings, taking them beyond their own limits and allowing them to reach out towards the infinite? . . . Universal being, present to rational natures and enlightening them with its own spark of divine fire. Because intellectual beings understand universal being, they can think, and go on thinking about particular things until their natural 55. Sciacca, L’interiorità oggettiva, 52. Apart from Sciacca, Maria Adelaide Raschini, a well-known Rosmini scholar, confirms the conclusion of the present work. She writes: “The foundation of the ‘dignity’ of the person, and of his very subsistence as such, lies therefore in the fact that he is constituted as intelligent in the light of being and that he is able, through the will, to conform himself to the norm of being. Consequently, when natural acts are ordained by the personal principle, they acquire the same dignity of the person: the person is the only guarantee of the dignity of ‘human nature.’ To harm human nature is to harm the person because it means to strike or to diminish the means of his fulfilment” (“Attualità del concetto rosminiano di persona,” in Rosmini oggi e domani, 202–3).

The Idea and the Dignity of the Person ⁄  progress reaches the absolute. It is through the idea of universal being that they are ordered towards absolute being. Because of this perfect universality, the idea has an infinite extension, and bestows an infinite capacity upon its subject. The presence of this idea in human beings produces an extraordinary paradox in nature, causing us to marvel at the obvious limitations and the infinite greatness found in the human subject who is indeed formed of finite and infinite elements, which alone explain the essential struggle in which human nature is perpetually involved. Seen from the point of view of man-assubject, there is nothing weaker or more miserable than human nature; seen from the point of view of being-as-object, there is nothing greater or more noble than human nature whose intellect beholds in being its essential light, from which it receives the intellectual vision of the intelligible, essential notion common to all that the subject understands.56 The dignity of the intelligent subject arises, as I have observed, from the dignity of the idea of being, the source of the subject’s understanding. Being, the first object of knowledge and the source of all the rest of our knowledge, is universal, unlimited and infinite. . . . The objectivity found in intellective contemplation is in a certain sense infinite, as I said, because it has no limits. It is capable of making known all things, even infinite things, as they are and whatever they are. And infinity is the foundation of dignity. Wherever we are engaged with something infinite, we are dealing with something so great and awesome that finite things give way before it. . . . The primary dignity of the intelligent subject, therefore, lies in the contemplation of truth. Secondly, the vision in which the intelligent subject sees universal being is that in which it would see the absolute, subsistent being if it were to reveal itself in its act of subsistence rather than as an idea. The intelligence . . . is constituted to perceive absolute being and absolute good, and so to perceive once more the infinite. Only in this perception can its forces be fully consumed. This direction towards absolute, infinite being is the second cause of the dignity possessed by the intellective being. There is no greater good to which it could be related. Finally, the perception of absolute being implies union with and possession of absolute being, the source of bliss and of infinite enjoyment. The capacity for enjoying this bliss is the third and last cause of dignity in human beings and every other intelligent nature.57 56. Principles of Ethics, chap. 4, art. 8, 59–60. 57. Ibid., chap. 3, art. 9, 44–45.

Conclusion n We can now sum up some of the basic features of the Idea (of being) that justify both the title and content of our study. An attentive consideration and analysis of the Idea shows that it has two sides: from one side it looks at the infinite, from the other the finite. Its infinite and therefore most valuable side is based on three points: (1) Nothing can be understood without the thought of being: the Idea has therefore an unlimited openness. (2) In the Idea, being itself is given to be thought: this makes the objectivity of knowledge possible and speaks, at the same time, of the structure of being itself. (3) It is independent of all finite intelligences and can, therefore, be present to all without requiring any particular one in order to exist: it is therefore an appurtenance of Absolute Being, of God. At the other side of each of these features, the Idea presents a finite face, which could be summarized thus: (1) It shows everything in a potential, initial way: in the case of human nature it is not the only means of knowledge, but it requires sensations, or feelings, in the widest meaning of the term. (2) Thanks to it, intelligent beings are granted a share of what they are not, that is, of what is other than themselves but of what they closely resemble; and, again thanks to it, there is a likeness of Absolute Being in the finite person. (3) Its presence indicates and ensures the irreducible distance and distinction between the finite and the infinite: the intelligence to which it is present with the mentioned characteristics must be finite. Finally, the Idea shows that although the infinite is in no need of the finite to exist, the finite is in need of the infinite.That way, both the difference of the finite and the infinite and the dependence of the one on the other are secured. 

 ⁄ Conclusion n

Contemporary philosophy is to a great extent conditioned by the selection of a given methodology. This leads not only to a very particular kind of specialization, but also to a more or less admitted impossibility to reach certain theses and to deal with certain problems. Thought is therefore often held back, and legitimate conclusions risk being rejected “on methodological or epistemological grounds.” In such a context, detailed and restricted argumentation is preferred to insight and contemplation, thus quenching the source of reaching further truths. We might be frequently shown many of the trees in the forest, although seldom the most beautiful ones. Undoubtedly, in any case, a minimum acquaintance with the forest itself, and its unity, is often missing. For that reason, we have moved from gnoseology to general ontology, without forgetting to highlight the connection with ethics and anthropology. Metaphysics can also profit from the solution of the problem of knowledge, since participation, which is an alternative name for creation, and probably a more adequate one in a philosophical discussion, is made possible thanks to the Idea, which possesses not only an epistemological value, but also a metaphysical one. Finally, the conclusion about personal dignity involves ontology (the study of being in general), metaphysics (the study of real being), and anthropology (the study of man). Rosmini offers a remarkable example of how this can be done. It is more important to see the whole, instead of each part in its individual complexity. Certainly not because the philosopher we have chosen as companion and guide had not also busied himself with careful and detailed analysis of each of his theses; he did so, and in such a way that has remained without parallel to our days. In this work I tried to take a step backward and “see the forest,” making a serious effort to show that the main philosophical fields are necessarily linked together. The reader will judge if this goal has been at least partially attained.

Appendix Rosmini’s Own Account of the Problem of Knowledge

The aim of this appendix is not to discuss critically Rosminian epistemology in its historical context, but rather to offer a summary of the analyses that led him to the solution he finally proposed. My concern, therefore, is not whether or not his readings are justified and correct in every detail. I assume that his approach, even if it is not the only possible one, is still valid and justifies his conclusions. The problem of knowledge is such a rich one that there can be many legitimate ways to attack it. However, a keen and attentive reading shows that Rosmini’s hermeneutics enlightens epistemology in an unusually significant way. His observations supply the elements for understanding other aspects of the theory of knowledge, many of them also discussed in the Nuovo saggio. For this reason, I will follow his account of the problem, without discussing its adequateness in particular. I am convinced that a correct understanding of Rosmini’s analyses will make it easier to accept the innatism of the idea, a central thesis for the whole Rosminian system, and particularly for the problem of personal dignity.1 n

According to Rosmini, philosophers have primarily chosen two false ways to explain satisfactorily the existence of ideas: some gave insufficient reasons for them, whereas others assigned them an excessive cause. Locke assigned two sources to knowledge: sensation and reflection upon sensation. He rejected the idea of substance because its origin was not in any of them. Rosmini’s answer to Locke is that, as a matter of fact, the idea of substance is the result of a judgment. In fact, when we perceive a sensation, we say: “Sensitive qualities cannot exist without some kind of support.” We would not be able to pronounce such a judgment if we did not previously 1. For a more detailed analysis, I refer the reader to Rosmini’s own Nuovo saggio (vol. 1 of the English translation: An Historical Critique): Locke (47–64), Condillac (65– 98), Reid (99–132), Smith (136–62), Stewart (163–209), Plato and Aristotle (222–77), Leibniz (278–300), Hume (310–19), Kant (301–9, 324–84). The paragraphs between the analysis of each philosopher supply introductions, summaries, or conclusions that facilitate the comprehension of the text. Also he makes frequent cross-references. In paragraphs 385–96 Rosmini makes a summary of the preceding explanations.



 ⁄ Appendix possess the idea of existence, which informs us of the impossibility of sensitive qualities existing on their own. This idea is universal, while sensations and sensitive qualities are particular. The idea of a corporal substance is thus obtained after a judgment that requires (1) sensations; and (2) the idea of existence. The mind must have this idea in itself. We cannot argue that it is taken from the particular idea of a thing or of a substance, because we saw that it is already necessary in order to form the idea of the thing. If the intellect sees in the particular idea some universal element (for example, the idea of existence), it is because it was already placed there. Neither sensations nor reflection can account for the idea of substance; nonetheless, this idea exists; therefore, there must be another source of knowledge. Now, if a judgment is required to form our ideas and a primary idea is also needed to form the first judgment, this idea must be present in the mind before the first judgment takes place. This first judgment cannot have an idea as subject, but a sensation or a group of sensations, or else the problem becomes impossible to solve. This does not imply, however, that an idea cannot be the subject of a judgment of existence, but only that this must not be the case necessarily, as it would result in the aforementioned contradictions. In Locke’s philosophy, there is also a constant confusion between the sense and the intellect and between their corresponding operations. Condillac saw that Locke had overlooked the judgment that immediately follows the sensation, but he attributed the judgment to the senses, consequently reducing ideas to “modified sensation.” The Scottish school (mainly Reid) had to fight the idealism and skepticism produced by Locke’s system in England and represented by Berkeley and Hume. Reid, too, recognized that a judgment was needed to know the existence of things, and he saw clearly that this operation could not be performed simply by the senses. He affirmed the existence of a primitive judgment by which we become aware of an existing thing: that is, by which we affirm “This thing exists.” It is later on that we consider the concept of the thing with no reference to its real existence but rather in its mere possibility, an operation that has since been called simple apprehension. Reid’s mistake was to claim that the primitive judgment took place in a mysterious way, without the need of any idea. This he called the teaching of common sense as opposed to the conclusions of Berkeley’s idealism and Hume’s skepticism; but Reid forgot that the existence of ideas is also a fact of common sense, something everybody acknowledges. According to Rosmini, Stewart had fallen into the same mistakes through his analyses of the nature of proper and common nouns. These philosophers assigned ideas an insufficient cause because they restricted the origin of knowledge to sense perception instead of carefully examining the nature of the intellect, thus confusing the former with the latter. There were others who recognized something innate in the mind, the origin

Rosmini’s Account of the Problem of Knowledge ⁄  of which could not be found in the senses. These are Plato, Leibniz, and Kant. Plato posed the problem of the formation of ideas too broadly, extending it to every idea. Thus he was forced to admit an indefinite number of innate ideas in the soul, toward which the mind is directed by the stimulation of the senses. The adolescent in the Meno could answer correctly without being first taught; he already knew: his mind was in possession of the corresponding idea, and he needed help only to remember. Aristotle points out that to know in potency is different from to know in act; we cannot say we know something before we actually know it, but only that we are able to know it (that we are in potency with respect to knowledge). By the exercise of the power of understanding, we acquire particular truths. But it was the acquisition of the first universal truths that still needed to be explained—the truths that also account for the arts of reasoning and of learning. Do we know these primary truths the same way we know the others? Or must we presuppose a first truth present to the intellect that allows it to understand whatever it understands? Plato was wrong to postulate the innatism of all ideas, but his reasoning is correct if applied to first principles. Aristotle himself recognizes that the active intellect must be itself substantially in act—“the mind does not think intermittently,” he says2—in order to produce the universals, thus contradicting at least in part his other affirmation that before knowing any particular thing, the intellect is only in potency. These hesitations show nonetheless Aristotle’s brilliant mind, according to Rosmini, as well as the difficulty of seeing the problem clearly.3 Leibniz realized that Locke’s affirmation of our faculty of thought was inconsistent if the question,”What is there in human understanding that accounts for the use of this faculty?” did not receive an adequate answer. The solution Leibniz proposed was based on the principle that a body cannot operate in the mind; therefore, ideas cannot be introduced from external reality into the soul. The sensations can motivate our attention toward the perceptions we already possess, although in an insensible way. The soul contains in itself the trace of the ideas of being, substance, one, cause, and so on. Each being (monad) perceives the whole universe from a different point of view, which is complementary to others. But it does so always by paying attention to what has been given to it in a potential way and by use of those few ideas already present in the soul. All beings possess perception, but not all are aware of them. If we know our body, we must also know the perceptions, which correspond to our body, which is one simple monad. But in the percep2. On the Soul, 430a22. I quote W. S. Hett’s translation (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1995), 6th ed. The Greek text is as follows: ajll oujc oJte; me;n noei` oJte; d J ouj noei`. 3. Cf. also Teosofia ,15, 1693–1702.

 ⁄ Appendix tions this monad has of other bodies, we must find the perceptions these bodies have of the rest of the universe. Therefore, in one single perception and in each monad the whole universe is contained. The soul applies the innate ideas it has to the perceptions it discovers in itself. Leibniz’s solution was clearly in the same line as Plato’s, even though he did not admit the innate presence of all ideas in the soul, but only a limited number of them. Rosmini still finds this answer unsatisfactory, because it fails to grasp the power of ideas to generate other ideas. If Leibniz had acknowledged this, he would have been forced to recognize one primary innate idea in the soul, not many. The last philosopher we will deal with is Kant. Although the relationship between Kant and Rosmini on this point gives rise to numerous comments, I will limit myself to one fundamental appreciation. According to Kant, the object of knowledge is the result of the union between the sensations originated by the real thing and the categories of the intellect, supplied by the subject. Sensations constitute the material, contingent, and particular aspect of the object, and the categories of quality, quantity, relation, and modality make up the formal aspect. It is senseless to say that the concept corresponds to the real existing thing, because the latter remains unknown until the intellect judges the sensations coming from it. The idea does not make us know the thing, but constitutes its formal aspect. Independently of its author’s intentions, this refined idealism confines the mind in the most absolute skepticism. Nothing can be known that is not an object of our spirit, but at the same time the object is constituted by the categories of the subject. Universal and necessary predicates remain such for Kant, but they are only a product of our mind. Kant’s merit lies in distinguishing the formal and the material aspects of knowledge, but he failed when he made the formal aspect subjective. He recognized in the intellect something innate—although he would have refused to use this term—namely, the categories. On the one hand he makes these categories subjective, but on the other he does not see that one idea alone is enough to account for knowledge. Plato, Leibniz, and Kant share the conviction that not all ideas can be factitious, but they differ in what they think the innate element of knowledge is. In Kant this analysis reaches the highest point, as he stated that all ideas were factitious, though not completely. He erred, then, in the determination of this nonfactitious element, the formal one. However, he prepared the soil, as it were, for others to solve the problem of the origin of ideas. Let us read Rosmini’s utterly clear reflections on this innate principle. We form objects of the intellect according to an a priori objective form. Now, either this form is the type of truth and, in this case, the type, that is, the essence of truth, must be innate in us (this is my position), or nothing of this kind is admitted in the spirit. In this case, the spirit, limited and determined as it is, will endow what it perceives with a purely subjective form. This is the foundation on which modern scep-

Rosmini’s Account of the Problem of Knowledge ⁄  ticism and critical philosophy is founded. However, it is easy to see that in this supposition all the immense work of critical philosophy would be based upon the material analogy of a receptacle. . . . On the other hand, if the object of the intellect had such a form because the subjective intellect bestowed that form upon the object, scepticism—as I have indicated—would be inescapable. There would only be subjective truth, that is, nontruth (truth is essentially objective and absolute). This is the case in Kant’s system which is, in fact, merely the Aristotelian analogy of the receptacle, developed and ingeniously sustained.4 Before moving on, it is worth mentioning that Rosmini did not make the claim of introducing a thoroughly new philosophical teaching or system.5 Although he does claim to have put the elements of such a teaching together in a systematic way, he also firmly believes that many philosophers had already known it. Among others, he frequently quotes Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Marsilio Ficino, Tommassini, and Malebranche, and carries on their line of thought.6

The Importance of the Criticism of Reid Among all the philosophers considered by Rosmini, Reid enjoys a special position. The Scottish philosopher intended to refute Hume’s skepticism, but in fact opened the way to Kantianism. His common sense does not suffice to ground the objectivity of knowledge and the possibility of certainty, because it is not based on something universal and objective, but rather on a sort of necessity or impulse in our nature. Rosmini thinks that Reid’s failure can be attributed to a lack of careful distinction between the operations of the senses and that of the intellect. In fact, by doing away with ideas, Reid deepens the skepticism he hoped to refute. Reid sees that to understand the essence of a thing, without any indication of its existence or not, we must have a prior sensation, which is always accompanied by a persuasion of existence. Consequently, the simple appre4. An Historical Critique, 254–55. 5. At the beginning of the Nuovo saggio, Rosmini wrote: “The present work is not about philosophy in its search for new truths but about its attempts to clarify and develop truths known to all.” These truths are universally known, in his opinion, both by philosophers and by people in general. In the Psychology he recalls the purpose of his earlier work by saying: “What I have done is to show that this universal means of knowledge is being in general. This was my aim in A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas where I attempted to clarify what the ancients had said obscurely” (Psychology, I, 684). 6. I refer to the exhaustive indexes of the available editions of the Nuovo saggio for the corresponding places. Cf. The Innate Light, 705–21, index of authors, and 723–93, index of subjects.

 ⁄ Appendix hension, which he calls imagination, is the result of an analysis of a primitive judgment by which our mind conceives things as existing. To the question: “Which is first, the simple apprehension (Locke’s position) or the judgment of existence?” Reid answers without hesitation: a judgment precedes simple apprehension. The first operation of the human mind is not analysis but synthesis, because in the first case a composition would be presupposed without giving any explanation for it. We can argue that a composition requires at least two elements and that sensations are not enough to account for it. Therefore, the idea of the thing should be in the spirit when it makes a judgment on its existence. Rosmini observes: From one point of view, this proposition does seem to be true. How can I judge that an ens exists of which I have no idea? . . . From another point of view, experience absolutely contradicts such a tenet. Experience assures us that we first form the concrete idea of the really existent ens. Only later do we derive the abstract idea, separate from the persuasion of its real existence, which we call simple apprehension of an ens. Do we actually think of a possible horse without having first perceived a horse through our senses?7 The whole problem consists in explaining the nature of this primitive judgment, which according to Reid does not require an idea. But is it possible to form a judgment without at least one idea? It is one thing to state that simple apprehension is secondary with respect to the judgment, and another to assert that ideas are not necessary to form judgments. If the essence of judgment requires an idea, our spirit cannot contradict the laws of its own operation. This idea does not necessarily have to be that of the thing that we judge to exist. According to Rosmini, the reduction of the problem to this dilemma shows a misunderstanding of the structure of judgment. Consequently, he accepts a definition of the judgment that allows for something other than an idea in the place of the subject. “Judgment is an operation of the spirit by which we attribute a predicate to a subject.” This is a broader definition than the former, “Judgment is the comparison of ideas.”8 The predicate must be an idea, as we have seen before. But the subject can be a sensation or a group of sensations, as we also saw. In fact, it must be so, if we are not to be locked up forever in the aforementioned dilemma. Reid poses the problem in its correct terms, although not in all its generality. Thus, he could not answer how we can judge that something exists; instead, he left the problem veiled behind the cover of his mysterious primitive judgment. This 7. An Historical Critique, 121. 8. Ibid., appendix 3.

Rosmini’s Account of the Problem of Knowledge ⁄  was perhaps his main shortcoming, as he did not delve into the nature of this judgment. If he had extended his inquiry, he would have probably neared Rosmini’s position on the problem of ideas. Rosmini summarized two different problems that Reid had not distinguished carefully enough: I. Question 1: “Is it necessary that the simple apprehension of external objects should pre-exist the judgment made on their actual existence?” This is not necessary; only the pre-existence of the perception of sensible qualities is necessary. . . . II. Question 2: “Is it necessary that some universal idea should pre-exist in us prior to the primal judgment about existence?” Certainly, because a judgment not preceded by a universal idea is impossible.9 Reid’s solution, according to Rosmini, had to be tainted with irrationalism, since the power to make a primitive judgment stems from an instinct of human nature, and we are able to explain why. It is a fact that we know the existence of things—this remains indisputable—but we have to surrender before this fact and not attempt a further clarification, which cannot be found. Rather than confute skepticism, and notwithstanding all the contradictions that it still implies, Reid gave it, against his best intentions, a better foundation, in the name of what he called common sense. Kant’s idealism, in which the subject forms the object with the innate categories, can naturally follow from the suppression of ideas Reid proposed: Reid was unable to reply directly to the paralogism serving as a basis for these errors [Berkeley’s and Hume’s] which states: “The soul cannot go outside itself and consequently cannot think anything except itself and what takes place in itself.” Reid, instead of untying the knot, cut it by affirming: “The soul truly perceives and thinks things different from itself, but does this as a result of certain primal, instinctive laws proper to its own nature.”—[This is the system called] Realistic subjectivism. It is not enough to state or to claim the possibility of knowing with certainty the existence of things, or any other objective truth. The recourse to common sense, however safe, cannot supply an absolute guide, either, since errors can surreptitiously introduce themselves in it. Moreover, philosophy goes beyond common sense without contradicting it. To some extent, the task of a philosopher is to confirm its teaching, when this is truthful, answering to difficulties that apparently challenge it. These difficulties are usually based on a partial truth, which should not be lost in the solution we offer; lest the same problem should reappear. According to Rosmini, Reid was thus in part responsible for a new turn toward subjectivism: 9. Ibid., 129.

 ⁄ Appendix This teaching admitted the fact attested by common sense: the soul thinks things different from itself. However, it was unsatisfactory because it failed to answer the opposite fundamental sophism which, indeed, it confirmed. In fact: 1. The subjective, instinctive laws introduced by Reid were arbitrary and devoid of proof. 2. The laws and instinct which, according to Reid, moved human nature to think external things, were blind, because different from reason, and consequently unable to provide any demonstration of their own veracity and authority in witnessing to things different from the soul. Their witness, therefore, could be illusory. And that is what they are, from the moment that human beings abandoned reason to trust in another guide which was explicitly declared not to be reason. 3. Finally, if we think things different from self as a result of instinctive laws of our own nature, these very things must be considered as productions of human nature. The objects of thought come, therefore, from human beings who can no longer assure themselves of any other provenance of things given them to be perceived.10 We should note carefully that Rosmini does not deny that the conviction of the existence of the exterior world appertains to common sense, nor does he claim that only after a philosophical proof is it possible to maintain its existence. There is, according to him, a difference between direct and reflexive knowledge. The former is free from error, whereas the latter requires an intervention of the will and is thus subject to error.1 1 The perception of existing things belongs to direct knowledge, and the act by which we judge that existence does not require a willed act of the intelligence. This is worlds apart from saying that our intellect performs such an act blindly and follows a drive of nature. We must understand Rosmini’s attempt to explain how knowledge takes place in the sense that he is looking for a rationale that will ensure the intellect’s inherent capacity to know truth, be it the truth of logical principles, the truth about the real existence of things other than the mind, the truth about the nature of things, and so on. Is there present in all intellects something that enables thinking natures to know with certainty? Is there any objective truth accessible to the human mind, or is everything we know a product of our subjectivity? We have seen that sensations have a subjective component, but objectivity assumes necessarily that something is the same for everybody, which obviously lies beyond the possibility of sensations and of every subjective entity. If the nature of the primitive judgment resides only in the subject, 10. Psychology, IV, 133. Cf.: “Nature itself comes to the aid of powerless reason and instinctively compels humanity to give credence to first notions which reason is unable to justify” (Certainty, 1048). 11. Cf. Certainty, 1264ff.

Rosmini’s Account of the Problem of Knowledge ⁄  objectivity is impossible. In order to judge truthfully about things, we must be based on an objective element, not on ourselves. By eliminating ideas, Reid also suppressed this objective element. To the question: “How do you know that things exist outside your mind?” he can answer only: “Because I am forced by my nature to think that way.” The problem of ideas is a difficult one, no doubt; but the worst solution is to pretend the problem does not exist. If the first direct act of our understanding possesses no objective guarantee of truth, all knowledge is bound to be hopeless, impossible. Notice that we are always dealing with the same question: how a thing can become an object of the intellect. The mind cannot go, as it were, outside itself to grasp things, because all its operations take place within itself. Even to say “within itself ” is ambiguous, because the mind is not a material thing and cannot be understood through physical images. “Within” here means that it is the subject of immanent (= not transitive) operations. Besides, the known thing is not in the mind with its own existence but with a borrowed one, made possible by the presence to the mind of the idea of existence. Dr. Reid would like to banish ideas from philosophy because he finds them somewhat awkward. To do so, one would have to discover how to eliminate the term idea from all vocabularies, remove it from all languages, forbid common sense from uttering or thinking it. . . . The question was not how our understanding could make the external thing its term and object, but whether it was possible for the external thing itself to be this term and object. If this does not contradict, I have no need of the idea. All I need, when sensations occur, is to let my understanding range freely over them and grasp the external objects as they are, and thus perceive them.12 Of course, this contradicts the spiritual nature of the intellect and its operations, which Rosmini’s understanding of the objectivity of knowledge fully respects. The fear that our acceptance of something between the intellect and the thing—namely, the idea—would obstruct access to real knowledge has no solid basis, since it immediately results in the abolition of all universal ideas.13 If the direct object of the intellect were the concrete thing, then universality would be the object of another faculty, because one faculty performs only one kind of act. Actually, the thing itself is not universal, but our ideas are, because they reveal an essence that could be realized in many individuals. 12. An Historical Critique, appendix 2. For a recent discussion of Reid’s epistemology, see Wolterstorff, Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. 13. “Reid eliminated ideas. He accepted the operations of the spirit which, in his view, immediately conceives real objects. This implied the destruction not only of uni-

 ⁄ Appendix Finally, in Reid there is also confusion between the sense and the intellect. Reid confused what Rosmini calls sense perception, which is extrasubjective, with intellective perception.14 The same problem recurs: how can a thing become an object of thought? The sense does not need ideas to perceive the body operating on it, but the intellect has no proper object without them. As we saw above, the judgment that follows upon sensations requires an idea to be formed. In this way the intellect becomes aware of an existing thing different from itself, because passivity requires an agent, which is clearly not the perceiving subject.

versal ideas but also of universal conceptions; it meant reducing intellectual knowledge to pure subsistent individuals. Reid states specifically in some passages that mere possibility is nothing because, he maintains, that which is merely possible does not exist, and that which does not exist is nothing. This argument was inevitable from the moment he ruled out ideas and left in place only what is real. Possibilities were eliminated because they are only ideas” (An Historical Critique, appendix 30). Cf. also this text: “Reid denies the existence of ideas considered as an intermediary between the real objects of the spirit and the spirit itself. Locke, like the ancients, distinguished between ideas and things. He considered ideas, not things, as the proximate term of the intellect. Reid, however, did not want any intermediary between the real, perceived ens and the perceiving spirit. This is also Stewart’s view. Now, as far as individuals are concerned, the real object truly exists because real individuals exist. However, Reid’s system had no way of explaining universal ideas which have no existence outside the spirit. As a result, Stewart decided to deny them completely; for him, they are names, and nothing more” (ibid., 178). 14. Cf. The Innate Light, 417. See also appendix 3.

Bibliography Works by Rosmini In Italian Antropologia in servizio della scienza morale. Edited by François Evain. Vol. 24 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1981. Antropologia soprannaturale. Edited by Umberto Muratore. Vols. 39 and 40 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1983. Aristotele esposto ed esaminato. Edited by Gaetano Messina. Vol. 18 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1995. The number of the paragraph is cited. Compendio di etica e breve storia di essa. Edited by Maria Manganelli. Vol. 29 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1998. Abbreviated Compendio di etica. The number of the paragraph is cited. Del divino nella natura. Edited by Pier Paolo Ottonello. Vol. 20 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1991. The number of the paragraph is cited. Epistolario ascetico. 4 vols. Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1911–1913. Epistolario filosofico. Edited by Giulio Bonafede. Palermo: Fiamma Serafica, 1968. Introduzione alla filosofia. Edited by Pier Paolo Ottonello. Vol. 2 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1979. Logica. Edited by Vincenzo Sala. Vol. 8 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1984. The number of the paragraph is cited. Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee. Stresa: Sodalitas, n.d. Reprint in 2 vols. of the 6th edition in 3 vols. (Intra: Paolo Bertolotti, 1875–76). Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee. Edited by Gaetano Messina. Vols. 3–5 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 2003–5. Principi della scienza morale. Edited by Umberto Muratore. Vol. 23 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1990. Psicologia. Edited by Vincenzo Sala. Vols. 9, 9/A, 10, and 10/A of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1988–89. Il razionalismo teologico. Edited by Giuseppe Lorizio. Vol. 43 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1992. Il Rinnovamento della filosofia in Italia. Edited by Dante Morando. Vols. 19 and 20 of Edizione Nazionale delle opere edite e inedite di A. Rosmini-Serbati. Milan: Fratelli Bocca, 1941. Abbreviated Rinnovamento. The number of the paragraph is cited (vol. 19: 1–212; vol. 20: 213–596). Saggi inediti giovanili. Edited by Vincenzo Sala. Vols. 11 and 11/A of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1986–87. The number of the paragraph is cited. Saggio storico critico sulle categorie. Edited by Pier Paolo Ottonello. Vol. 19 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1997.

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 ⁄ Bibliography Sistema filosofico. In Introduzione alla filosofia, 223–302. Vol. 2 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Edited by Pier Paolo Ottonello, Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1979. The number of the paragraph is cited. Teosofia. Edited by Pier Paolo Ottonello and Maria Adelaide Raschini. Vols. 12–17 of Opere edite ed inedite di Antonio Rosmini. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova, 1998–2002. The volume followed by the number of the paragraph is cited.

In English Translation Most of the English translations published by Rosmini House are available for downloading at http://rosmini-in-english.org/. Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science. Translated by Denis Cleary and Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House, 1991. The number of the paragraph is cited. Certainty. Translated by Terence Watson and Denis Cleary. Leominster: Fowler Wright Books, 1987. It corresponds to Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee, nos. 1040–1479. Conscience. Translated by Denis Cleary and Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House, 1989. The number of the paragraph is cited. The Five Wounds of the Church. Translated by Denis Cleary. Southampton: Rosmini House, 1987. Introduction to Philosophy, Volume 1: About the Author’s Studies. Translated by Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House, 2004. This is a translation of pages 9–149 of Introduzione alla filosofia. A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas. 3 vols. Translated by Denis Cleary and Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House, 2001. Vol. 1: An Historical Critique (1–383). Vol. 2: The Innate Light (384–1039). Vol. 3: Certainty (1040–1479). The number of the paragraph is cited. The Origin of Thought. Translated by Terence Watson and Denis Cleary. Leominster: Fowler Wright Books, 1987. It corresponds to Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee, nos. 26–45 and 398–1039. The Philosophical System of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati. Translated by Thomas Davidson. London: Kegan Paul, 1882. The Philosophy of Right. 6 vols. Translated by Denis Cleary and Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House, 1993–96. Vol. 2: Rights of the Individual (1993). Principles of Ethics. Translated by Terence Watson and Denis Cleary. Leominster: Fowler Wright Books, 1988. The number of the paragraph is cited. Psychology. 4 vols. Translated by Denis Cleary and Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House, 1999. The volume followed by the number of the paragraph is cited. Society and Its Purpose. Translated by Denis Cleary and Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House, 1994. The number of the paragraph is cited.

General Resources on Rosmini Bergamaschi, Cirillo, ed. Bibliografia degli scritti editi di Antonio Rosmini Serbati. Vols. 1–2. Milan: Marzorati, 1970. Vol. 3. Stresa: Edizioni Rosminiane Sodalitas, 1989. ———, ed. Bibliografia rosminiana: Scritti di Antonio Rosmini. Vol. 5: 1999–2003. Scritti su Rosmini. Vol. 10: 1998–2003. Stresa: Edizioni Rosminiane Sodalitas, 2005. ———, ed. Bibliografia rosminiana: Scritti di Rosmini. 4 vols. Milan: Marzorati, 1970. ———, ed. Bibliografia rosminiana: Scritti su Rosmini. Vols. 1–4. Milan: Marzorati,

Bibliography ⁄  1967– 74. Vols. 5–6. Genoa: La Quercia, 1981–82. Vols. 7–9. Stresa: Edizioni Rosminiane Sodalitas, 1989–99. ———, ed. Grande dizionario antologico del pensiero di Antonio Rosmini. 4 vols. Rome and Stresa: Città Nuova and Edizione Rosminiane, 2001. Includes CD-ROM. Cleary, Denis. Antonio Rosmini: Introduction to His Life and Teaching. Durham: Rosmini House, 1992. Leetham, Claude. Rosmini: Priest and Philosopher. 2nd ed. New York: Faithworks, 1982. Pagani, Giovanni Batista, and Rossi Guido. Vita di Antonio Rosmini. 2 vols. Rovereto, 1959. Rivista rosminiana di filosofia e di cultura. Abbreviated Rivista rosminiana.

Studies on Rosmini Antonelli, Maria Teresa. L’ascesi cristiana in Antonio Rosmini. Stresa and Rome: CISR and Fondazione Capograssi, 1999. Bergamaschi, Cirillo. L’essere morale nel pensiero filosofico di Antonio Rosmini. Genoa: La Quercia, 1981. ———. “Le langage philosophique de A. Rosmini dans l’histoire de la philosophie.” In Akten des XIV Internationalen Kongresses für Philosophie, Wien 2–9 September 1968, 5:585–91. Herder: Vienna, 1970. Berti, Enrico. La metafisica di Platone e di Aristotele nell’interpretazione di A. Rosmini. Rome: Città Nuova, 1978. Beschin, Giuseppe. La comunicazione delle persone nella filosofia di A. Rosmini. Milan: Marzorati, 1964. Bonafede, Giulio. “L’essere ideale come oggetto e come forma.” In L’essere ideale e morale in A. Rosmini, 100–7. Domodossola and Milan: Sodalitas [1955]. Camilloni, Calixto. Filósofos del ser triádico: San Agustín, Rosmini, Sciacca. Córdoba (Argentina): n.p., 1995. Capone Braga, Giuseppe. Saggio su Rosmini: Il mondo delle idee. Milan: Libreria Editrice Milanese, 1914. Cook, Bernard A. An Introduction to the Thought of Antonio Rosmini. New Orleans: Loyola University New Orleans, Office of Publications, 2000. Cristaldi, Giuseppe. Prospettive rosminiane. Milan: Marzorati, 1965. ———. Temi rosminiani. Stresa: Sodalitas, 1996. Darós, William R. “El hecho de conocer y el ser del conocer.” In Verdad, error y aprendizaje, 35–54. Rosario (Argentina): CERIDER, 1994. ———. “El ser (del conocer) y los entes en la filosofía de A. Rosmini: Confrontación con la concepción de M. Heidegger.” In Verdad, error y aprendizaje, 55–78. Rosario (Argentina): CERIDER, 1994. ———. “Ser y verdad en la filosofía de A. Rosmini: Confrontación con el pensamento de M. Heidegger.” In Verdad, error y aprendizaje, 79–100. Rosario (Argentina): CERIDER, 1994. Del Noce, Augusto. Da Cartesio a Rosmini: Scritti vari, anche inediti, di filosofia e storia della filosofia. Edited by Francesco Mercadante and Bernardino Cassadei. Milan: Giuffrè, 1992. ———. “Significato presente dell’etica rosminiana.” In L’epoca della secolarizzazione, 205–22. Milan: Giuffrè, 1970.

 ⁄ Bibliography De Lucia, Paolo. Essere e soggetto: Rosmini e la fondazione dell’antropologia ontologica. Pavia: Bonomi, 1999. Dossi, Michele. Profilo filosofico di Antonio Rosmini. Brescia: ITC-isr, 1998. L’essere ideale e morale in A. Rosmini. Domodossola and Milan: Sodalitas, [1955]. Evain, François. “L’être en question dans la personne: Un affrontement entre Rosmini et Heidegger.” Rivista rosminiana 58 (1964): 29–34. ———. Etre et personne chez Antonio Rosmini. Paris and Rome: Beauchesne, 1981. Fenu, Carlo Maria. Il problema della creazione nella filosofia di Rosmini. Stresa: Sodalitas, 1995. Ferroni, Lorenzo. La critica di Rosmini a Hegel nella “Teosofia.” Stresa: Sodalitas, 1987. Franchi, Ausonio. Saggio sul sistema ontologico di Antonio Rosmini. Domodossola: Sodalitas, 1955. Franck, Juan Francisco. “Las categorías del ser según Rosmini.” Rivista rosminiana 97 (2003): 7–29. ———. “De la interioridad a la trascendencia: Una lección de Antonio Rosmini.” Communio (Argentine edition) 7, no. 1 (2000): 73–82. ———. “I quattro fini della filosofia rosminiana.” Acta philosophica 10, no. 2 (2001): 295–314. Giacon, Carlo. L’oggetività in Antonio Rosmini. Milan: Silva, 1960. Giannini, Giorgio. “Il ‘divino’ e Dio in Rosmini.” In Il divino nell’uomo. Atti del XXV corso della “Cattedra Rosmini,” edited by Peppino Pellegrino, 205–36. Milazzo: Spes, 1992. ———. Esame delle quaranta proposizioni rosminiane. Stresa: Sodalitas, 1985. ———. “La metafisica di Rosmini.” Rivista rosminiana 91 (1997): 5–88. Gomarasca, Paolo. Rosmini e la forma morale dell’essere: La “poiesi” del bene come destino della metafisica. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1998. Guzzo, Augusto. “Lume naturale, forma della verità e idea dell’essere in Rosmini.” In Studi e ricerche di Storia della Filosofia XXI. Turin: Edizioni di “Filosofia,” 1956. Honan, Ugo. Agostino, Tommaso, Rosmini. Domodossola: Sodalitas, 1955. Hunt, Royden, “An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Antonio Rosmini in the context of the Papal Encyclical Fides et Ratio.” At http://www.rosmini-inenglish.org/siteInfo_Studies.htm. Jolivet, Régis. De Rosmini à Lachelier: Essai de philosophie comparée. Paris and Lyon: E. Vitte, 1953. ———. Introduction to Antonio Rosmini: Anthologie philosophique; textes choisis et groupés systématiquement avec notices biographique et notices bibliographiques. Paris and Lyon: E. Vitte, 1954. López-Rioboo, Blanca. La crítica de Rosmini a la gnoseología de Kant. Madrid: S.M. Ediciones, 1977. Malusa, Luciano. Della missione a Roma di Antonio Rosmini-Serbati negli anni 1848–49. Rome: Sodalitas, 1998. Mancini, Italo. Il giovane Rosmini: La metafisica inedita. Urbino: Argalia, 1963. ———. “Le origini dell’idea dell’essere nel giovane Rosmini.” In Rosmini el il rosminianesimo nel Veneto, 389–98. Verona: Mazziana, 1970. Manferdini, Tina. Essere e verità in Rosmini. 2nd ed. Bologna: Alfa, 1994. Manganelli, Maria. Persona e personalità nell’antropologia di A. Rosmini. Milan, Marzorati, 1967.

Bibliography ⁄  Manno, Ambrogio Giacomo. “L’itinerario a Dio alla luce dell’’idea dell’essere’ in Rosmini.” Rivista rosminiana 92 (1998): 121–51. Manzoni, Alessandro. Dell’invenzione: Dialogo. Edited by Pietro Prini. Brescia: Morcelliana, 1986. Menke, Karl-Heinz. “Antonio Rosmini als Brückenbauer zwischen Vernunft und Offenbarung, Philosophie und Theologie, Gesellschaft und Kirche.” In Brückenbauer zwischen Kirche und Gesellschaft, A. Rosmini, J. H. Newman, M. Blondel und R. Guardini,.edited by Antonio Autiero and Karl-Heinz Menke, 17–34. Münster: Lit, 1999. ———. Vernunft und Offenbarung nach Antonio Rosmini: Der apologetische Plan einer christlichen Enzyklopädie. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1980. Muratore, Umberto. Antonio Rosmini: Il discorso sull’uomo. Rome: Città Nuova, 1989. ———, ed. Le due linee della filosofia moderna: Da Cartesio a Hegel o da Cartesio a Rosmini? Atti del II corso straordinario (XXX ordinario) della “Cattedra Rosmini.” Stresa: Sodalitas, 1997. ———, ed. La forma morale dell’essere. Atti del XXVIII corso della “Cattedra Rosmini.” Stresa: Sodalitas, 1995. ———. “Idea di persona in Antonio Rosmini.” In Rosmini e Stefanini: Atti del 2. Convegno della Fondazione Luigi Stefanini, Treviso 14–15 novembre 1997, edited by Giacomo Bernardi, 37–43. Milan: Prometheus, 1998. ———. Una “lettura” di Rosmini. Rome: Città Nuova, 1981. ———, ed. Rosmini e la domanda di Dio tra ragione e religione. Atti del III corso straordinario (XXXI ordinario) della “Cattedra Rosmini.” Stresa: Sodalitas, 1998. Muzio, Giuseppe. Dal tomismo essenziale al tomismo Rosminiano. Rome: Salesiana, 1967. ———. Il divino nella natura e nella intelligenza secondo S. Tommaso: Testi tomistici con introduzione e note. Rome: Sodalitas Thomistica, 1960. ———. La dottrina della conoscenza in S. Tommaso e in Antonio Rosmini con estratti del “Nuovo saggio” e del “Rinnovamento. Domodossola: Sodalitas, 1955. ———. Il senso ortodosso e tomistico delle quaranta proposizioni rosminiane. Rome: Salesiana, 1963. Nebuloni, Roberto. “Kant, Rosmini e la fondazione dell’etica.” Humanitas 45 (1990): 137–53. ———. Ontologia e morale in Antonio Rosmini. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1994. Ottonello, Pier Paolo. L’essere iniziale nell’ontologia di Rosmini. Milan: Marzorati, 1967. ———. L’ontologia di Rosmini. Rome: L’Aquila, 1989. ———. Rosmini: L’ideale e il reale. Venice: Marsilio, 1998. ———. Rosmini “inattuale.” Rome: Japadre-L’Aquila, 1991. Peccorini, Francisco L. From Gentile’s “Actualism” to Sciacca’s “Idea. Arlington, n.p. 1981. Pellegrino, Peppino, ed. Il divino nell’uomo. Atti del XXV corso della “Cattedra Rosmini.” Milazzo: Spes, 1992. ———. ed. Etica e politica: Filosofia pratica o filosofia della pratica? Atti del XXIV corso della “Cattedra Rosmini.” Milazzo: Spes, 1991. ———, ed. Siamo immortali? La riforma rosminiana dell’antropologia. Atti del XXVI corso della “Cattedra Rosmini.” Milazzo: Spes, 1993. Percivale, Franco. L’ascesa naturale a Dio nella filosofia di Antonio Rosmini. 2nd ed. Rome: Città Nuova, 2000. ———. Da Tommaso a Rosmini: Indagine sull’innatismo con l’ausilio dell’esplorazione elettronica dei testi. Venice: Marsilio 2003.

 ⁄ Bibliography ———. “Tommaso rivisitato.” Rivista rosminiana 93 (1999): 197–225. Petrini, Francesco. “Rosmini e S. Tommaso: Divergenze e convergenze.” Rivista rosminiana 93 (1999): 7–20, 94 (2000): 19–37, 213–31. Pfurtscheller, Friedrich. Von der Einheit des Bewusstseins zur Einheit des Seins: Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie bei Antonio Rosmini-Serbati. Frankfurt-Mainz, 1977. Piemontese, Filippo. La dottrina del sentimento fondamentale nella filosofia di Antonio Rosmini. Milan: Marzorati, 1966. Pignolini, Emilio. Il reale nei problemi della “Teosofia” di A. Rosmini. Milan: Sodalitas, 1956. Pozzo, Riccardo. “The Philosophical Works of Antonio Rosmini in English Translation.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73 (Autumn 1999): 609–37. Pozzoli, Ugo. “The Philosophical Anthropology of Antonio Rosmini.” Master’s thesis, Catholic University of America, 2001. Prenna, Lino. Dall’essere all’uomo. Rome: Città Nuova, 1979. Prini, Pietro. “Appunti critici sopra il concetto rosminiano della ‘forma oggettiva.’” In L’essere ideale e morale in A. Rosmini, 174–80. Domodossola and Milan: Sodalitas, [1955]. ———. Introduzione alla metafisica di Rosmini. Domodossola: Sodalitas, 1953. ———. Introduzione a Rosmini. Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1997. ———. Rosmini postumo: La conclusione della filosofia dell’essere. Rome: Armando Armando, 1961. ———.“Il sentesismo delle forme dell’essere in Antonio Rosmini.” Studium, nos. 2–3 (1998): 267–77. Pusineri, Giovanni. “Le determinazioni della coscienza pura.” Rivista rosminiana 19 (1925): 43–63. ———.“La forma della verità.” Rivista rosminiana 21 (1927): 112–29 and 247–68. ———. “Per lo studio della formazione filosofica di A. Rosmini: La coscienza pura.” Rivista rosminiana 17 (1923): 17–37. Raschini, Maria Adelaide. Dialettica e poiesi nel pensiero di Rosmini. Venice: Marsilio, 1996. ———. Prospettive rosminiane. Rome: Japadre-L’Aquila, 1987. ———. Rosmini oggi e domani. Venice: Marsilio, 2000. ———. Studi sulla “Teosofia” rosminiana. 4th ed. Venice: Marsilio, 2000. Riva, Clemente. Attualità di Rosmini. Rome: Studium, 1970. ———. “Il concetto di forma oggettiva.” In L’essere ideale e morale in A. Rosmini, 13–22. Domodossola and Milan: Sodalitas [1955]. ———. “Ontologia della persona in A. Rosmini.” Giornale di metafisica 7 (1952): 343–56. ———. Il problema dell’origine dell’anima intellettiva. Milan and Domodossola: Sodalitas, 1956. Schiavone, Michele. L’ etica del Rosmini e la sua fondazione metafisica. Milan: Marzorati, 1962. Sciacca, Michele Federico, ed. Atti del Congreso Internazionale di Filosofia Antonio Rosmini. 2 vols. Florence: Sansoni, 1957. ———. Atto ed essere. Palermo: L’Epos, 1991. ———. La filosofia morale di Antonio Rosmini. 5th ed. Stresa and Rome, 1999. ———. L’interiorità oggettiva. Palermo: L’Epos, 1989.

Bibliography ⁄  ———. Interpretazione rosminiane. Milan: Marzorati, 1963. ———. Ontologia triadica e trinitaria. Palermo: L’Epos, 1990. Venturini, Nello. Problemi della concezione etica di Antonio Rosmini. Rome: Nuova Coletti, 1992. Verondini, Enrico. La filosofia morale di Antonio Rosmini. Bologna: Cappelli, 1967.

Other Works Aquinas, Thomas. Quaestiones disputatae de veritate. Edited by Raimondo Spiazzi. Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1964–65. ———. Summa contra gentiles: Seu de veritate Catholicae fidei. Edited by Raimondo Spiazzi. Turin: Marietti, 1922. ———. Summa theologiae: Cura fratrum eiusdem ordinis. 5 vols. Madrid: Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 1985–94. Augustine, St. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. New York: Modern Library, 1950. ———. Eighty-three Different Questions. Translated by David L. Mosher. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982. ———. On True Religion. In Earlier Writings, translated by J. H. S. Burleigh, 218–83. London: SCM Press, 1953. ———. The Trinity. Translated by Stephen McKenna. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1963. Bonaventure, St. The Journey of the Mind to God. Translated by Philotheus Boehner; edited, with introduction and notes, by Stephen F. Brown. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993. Buttiglione, Rocco. “Saggio introduttivo.” In Essere e persona: Verso una fondazione fenomenologica di una metafisica classica e personalistica, by Josef Seifert. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1989. Descartes, René. A Discourse on Method. Meditations on the First Philosophy. Principles of Philosophy. Translated by J. Veitch. London: Everyman, 1997. Donohue-White, Patricia. “Objections to the Eide in Plato’s Parmenides: A Phenomenological Realist Response.” Aletheia 6 (1992): 340–69. Fine, Gail. On Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Forms. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Hildebrand, Dietrich von. What Is Philosophy? 3rd ed. Introduction by Josef Seifert. London: Routledge, 1991. Husserl, Edmund. Logische Untersuchungen (II/1). Vol. XIX, 1 of Husserliana. Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1984. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan, 1929. Reprint, 1983. ———. Kants Werke in zwölf Bänden. 12 vols. Edited by Wilhelm Weischedel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983. Vols. 3–4: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Vols. 6–7: Schriften zur Ethik und Religionsphilosophie. Malusa, Luciano. Neotomismo e intransigentismo cattolico. 2 vols. Milan: IPL, 1986–89. McInerny, Ralph. Characters in Search of Their Author. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001. Millán Puelles, Antonio. The Theory of the Pure Object. Translated by Jorge García-

 ⁄ Bibliography Gómez. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1995. (Original work: Teoría del objeto puro. Madrid: Rialp, 1990). Plato. Parmenides. Edited by Albert Keith Withaker. Newburyport: Pullins, 1996. ———. Parmenides. Translated by M. L. Gill and P. Ryan. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 1996. ———. Parmenides. Translated and edited by R. E. Allen. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997. ———. Parmenides’ Lesson. Translated and edited by Kenneth M. Sayre. South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996. Reale, Giovanni. Per una nuova interpretazione di Platone. 20th ed. Milan: Jaca Book, 1997. Schøsler, Jorn. John Locke et les philosophes français: La critique des idées innées en France au dix-huitième siècle. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1997. Schwarz, Balduin. “Dietrich von Hildebrands Lehre von der Soseinserfahrung in ihren philosophiegeschichtlichen Zusammenhängen.” In Wahrheit, Wert und Sein: Festgabe für Dietrich von Hildebrand zum 80. Geburtstag, edited by Balduin Schwarz, 33–51. Regensburg: Habbel, 1970. Seifert, Josef. Essere e persona: Verso una fondazione fenomenologica di una metafisica classica e personalistica. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1989. ———. Sein und Wesen. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1996. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Zoeller, Guenther. “From Innate to A Priori: Kant’s Radical Transformation of a CartesianLeibnizian Legacy.” Monist 72, no. 2 (1998); 222–35.

Index of Authors Albert the Great, 8 Allen, R. E., 152 Anselm, 162, 191 Antonelli, Maria Teresa, 6 Aquinas, Thomas, 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 15, 46, 55, 74, 75, 76, 92, 107, 108, 124, 143, 145, 146, 151, 155, 163, 173, 191 Aristotle, 11, 23, 75, 82, 110, 117, 124, 136, 147, 152, 187, 189 Augustine, 4, 8, 9, 12, 19, 51, 88, 144, 146, 162, 191

Ferroni, Lorenzo, 161 Ficino, Marsilio, 191 Fine, Gail, 151, 152 Formenti, Giovanna, 2 Franchi, Ausonio, 112 Franck, Juan F., 12, 131 Frege, Gottlob, 154 Gentile, Giovanni, 13 Giannini, Giorgio, 55, 125 Gill, M. L., 139 Gioberti, Vincenzo, 124 Gomarasca, Paolo, 79, 173 Gray, Carlo, 124

Battistini, Andrea, 74 Bergamaschi, Cirillo, 77, 89, 122, 131, 134, 148, 160, 161, 163, 173, 179, 180 Berkeley, George, 188, 193 Berti, Enrico, 136 Boethius, 13, 15 Bonafede, Giulio, 107, 147 Bonaventure, 8, 74, 107, 162, 191 Bottiglione, Rocco, 11 Brentano, Franz, 154 Burkhardt, Hans, 143

Hamlyn, D. W., 105 Hartmann, Nicolai, 154 Hegel, Georg W. F., 158 Heidegger, Martin, 158 Hildebrand, Dietrich von, 103, 104, 108, 109, 110, 120 Hipp, Stephen A., 8 Hirst, R. J., 41 Honan, Ugo, 55 Hudson, Deal W., 9 Hume, David, 95, 187, 188, 191, 193 Hunt, Royden, 5 Husserl, Edmund, 82, 154, 155

Capone Braga, Giuseppe, 67 Clarke, William N., 9 Cleary, Denis, 7 Condillac, Etienne de, 187 Cristaldi, Giuseppe, 161

John Paul II, 5 Jolivet, Regis, 55 Jolley, Nicholas, 105 Kant, Immanuel, 2, 95, 98–109, 127, 128, 187, 189, 190, 193 Kobusch, Theo, 24

Darós, William R., 158 Davidson, Thomas, 17 De Lucia, Paolo, 13 Del Noce, Augusto, 173 Descartes, René, 71, 79, 88, 105 Donohue-White, Patricia, 134, 135, 136

Leetham, Claude, 7 Leibniz, Gottfried W., 105, 110, 187, 189, 190 Leo XIII, 4, 7 Liberatore, Matteo, 54

Evain, François, 158 Fenu, Carlo Maria, 157



 ⁄ Index of Authors Locke, John, 2, 63, 95, 187, 188, 189, 192, 196 Lovejoy, Arthur O., 160 Malebranche, Nicholas, 92, 105, 191 Malusa, Luciano, 4, 7 Mamiani, Terenzo, 75 Manzoni, Alessandro, 2, 3 Matthieu, Vittorio, 55 McInerny, Ralph, 180 Meinong, Alexius, 154 Menke, Karl Heinz, 18 Millán Puelles, Antonio, 154, 155 Monti, Benedetto, 24, 25, 80 Moran, Dennis W., 9 Muzio, Giuseppe, 55 Nédoncelle, Maurice, 9, 10 Nelson, J. O., 105 Orestano, Francesco, 122 Orsi, Pietro, 2 Ottonello, Pier Paolo, 18, 112, 160, 161, 169 Pagani, Giambattista, 7 Parmenides, 120, 121, 135, 148, 155, 162 Parsons, Terence, 154 Patristics, 4 Percivale, Franco, 55 Peter Lombard, 8 Petrini, Francesco, 55 Piemontese, Filippo, 32 Pius IX, 3 Pius VII, 2 Plato, 46, 58, 77, 80, 105, 108, 109, 121, 123, 130, 132, 135, 136, 139, 151, 152, 153, 162, 164, 187, 189, 190 Pozzo, Riccardo, 17 Pozzoli, Ugo, 13

Prini, Pietro, 55, 68, 76, 112, 147 Raschini, Maria Adelaide, 112, 148, 182 Ratzinger, Joseph, 5 Reale, Giovanni, 121, 153 Reid, Thomas, 64, 93, 187, 188, 191–96 Riva, Clemente, 95, 147, 151 Rosmini, Pier Modesto, 1 Rossi, Guido, 7 Russell, Bertrand, 154 Ryan, P., 139 Sayre, Kenneth M., 152 Scholasticism, 4, 64, 154, 162 Schøsler, Jorn, 105 Schwarz, Baldwin, 109 Sciacca, Michele Federico, 12, 13, 36, 169, 182 Sebadius, 163 Seifert, Josef, 11, 12, 110, 111, 121, 143 Smith, Adam, 187 Smith, Barry, 143 Socrates, 120, 121, 148 Stefanini, Luigi, 10 Stewart, Dugald, 187, 188, 196 Thomism, 54, 55, 110 Tommaseo, Nicolò, 2 Tommassini, Nicolò, 191 Vico, Giambattista, 74 Whitaker, Albert Keith, 152 White, John R., 103 Williams, Bernard, 105 Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 195 Zoeller, Guenther, 106

Index of Subjects fundamental corporeal feeling, 32, 38, 39

a priori knowledge, 102, 104, 109 abstraction, 58, 68; and universalization, 62 activity, 43; and passivity, 32, 33–37, 196

God: Absolute Being, 118, 125, 140, 144, 159, 160, 168, 178, 180; extremely real, 146; First Mind, 130, 139, 141, 142, 143, 145, 150, 153, 158, 160, 161, 168; and initial being, 163; Ipsum Esse Subsistens, 143; natural knowledge of, 167, 180 good: and evil, 175, 176; moral good, 177, 178; objective good, 176, 177, 178; subjective good, 176, 178

being: common, 56, 66; forms or modes, 32, 48, 111–15, 121, 124, 125, 131; indeterminate, 69, 97, 137, 138, 156, 160; initial, 156–62, 168; and intelligibility, 57, 129, 138, 141; logical, 156; manifested, 123, 125–28; manifesting, 123, 125–28; objective, 129–38, 144, 151–53; per se manifest, 122–29, 138, 140, 143, 150, 167, 181; universal, 57, 66, 89; virtual, 156 body, essence of, 35

habitual knowledge, 72 human being as image and likeness of God, 7, 8, 179

chain of being, 160 Christian Encylopedia, 2 cogito, 71 cognitive act, 24 common sense, 95, 188, 191, 193, 194 consciousness, 15, 40, 41, 82, 110, 155, 169

idea of being or existence, 31, 35, 36, 58, 68, 72, 89, 122, 174, 188; dignifies the will, 173; first idea, 60, 64, 79; indeterminate, 79, 88, 90, 91, 168; as light of reason, 58, 66, 90, 126, 141, 166, 175, 182; as lumen intellectuale, 107; necessity, 79; objectivity, 79; as possible being, 44, 79; source of a priori knowledge, 102 idea, 36, 37, 76; absolute and relative existence, 130–37, 138, 144, 145, 152; and Bildertheorie (idea as image), 82; “cold”, 51; and concept, 67, 74, 99; eternity (timelessness), 49, 51, 119, 121; as a form or mode of being, 66, 67, 78, 95, 111–15, 116; identity, 45, 46; immutability, 49–51, 120; includes a relationship, 58; intelligibility, 46, 67, 145; knowability of real being, 76, 115, 116; as light, 114; as likeness (or similarity), 42, 116, 134; as means of knowledge, 29, 46, 56, 81–83, 89, 91, 92, 93, 196; necessity, 47, 48, 49, 99, 119–21; ontological value, 128; and possibility, 47, 48, 49, 51, 55, 56, 62, 67, 68, 78, 99, 104, 117–21, 153, 159, 196; as primitive element, 75–81; and real, 28, 51, 69, 81, 112, 134; self-evident, 127; and sen

dignity: moral, 10, 11; ontological, 10, 11 Ding-an-sich, 128 divine (the), 164–70, 182; appurtenance of God, 166, 167, 179; and God, 10, 112, 166; and ideal being, 16, 136, 164, 165, 179 error, 91–92 esse obiectivum, 24 esse objective tantum, 154, 155 essence: and idea, 51; chaotic, 120; compared to number, 50; morphic, 120; necessary essences, 104, 120 ethics: and eudaimonology, 176; and objective being, 173; and the order of being, 176 exemplarity, 133, 134, 136 experience, 43, 96, 98 extrasubjective, 39–44; and objective, 38, 42, 43; and subjective, 32, 36, 38, 91, 118



 ⁄ Index of Subjects idea (cont.) sation, 29–32, 44, 53, 67; or species, 28, 47, 48, 61, 76, 116, 149; simplicity, 44, 45; unity of, 67; universality, 46–48, 52, 99; and Zeichentheorie (idea as copy), 82 illumination, 106 immortality, 105, 170; condition of human dignity, 171 individuality, 170, 171 innatism, 54, 70–75, 100, 102, 143, 146, 167, 187, 188, 189, 190; and lumen intellectuale, 105–10 intellective awareness, 52, 189 intellective perception, 37, 53, 61, 69, 72, 91, 101; is not deceptive, 97; as objective, 37; of self, 71 intellective principle, 15 interior observation, 114 interiority, 19, 182 intuition (of being), 61, 65, 69, 71, 74, 80, 90, 98, 99, 102, 133, 181; cannot deceive, 88, 96; first act of the mind, 150 judgment, 57, 58, 59, 192; contained in the idea of the thing, 55, 58, 60, 62, 64; of existence, 61, 62; and simple apprehension, 58, 61 knowledge: direct and reflective, 98, 194; receptivity, 110, 111 koina, 152 language, 26, 77, 78 lumen intellectuale: and idea of being, 107; and initial being, 162, 163; and innatism, 105–10; and intellectus agens, 110 mind (or intelligence): first and second act, 149, 150; and ideal being, 114, 128, 143 monism, 158 morality: criterion for, 105, 174; as a form or mode of being, 111, 112, 173, 180; and innatism, 105 object, 23, 61; and idea, 28, 37, 56, 82, 92; pure, 153; self-contradictory objects, 153–55; and thing, 25–27, 29, 92, 117, 196

objectifying, faculty of, 28 objective form, 94, 147, 150, 151, 154; and subjective form, 147, 148; type of truth, 190 objective knowledge, 73, 81, 89, 101, 105; and innatism, 107, 108 ontologism, 125, 169 order of love, 178 original sin, 80, 177 participation, 135, 138 passivity, concept of, 35, 40 person: and being, 11, 12, 178, 180; concept, 13–15; dignity, 178, 181–83; and end, 177–80; and light of reason, 174, 183; and ontology, 9; and substance, 13–15; and system, 9, 10 personal element, 172, 178 personalist metaphysics, 11, 12 philosophy of integrality, 13 philosophy: aims, 6; as a system, 6; and theology, 6, 8; unity, 18, 186 Post Obitum, 5 primary qualities, 41 primitive synthesis (or primitive judgment), 59–64, 67, 69, 93, 99, 188, 192, 194; compared to Kant’s a priori synthesis, 98–104; performed by nature, 64, 96 primum cognitum, 71, 126, 127, 128, 129, 138 principle of cause, 98 principle of cognition, 98 principle of contradiction, 73 principle of passivity, 2, 3 principle of person, 161 principle of substance, 98 problem of knowledge, 2, 21, 25–29, 54, 187 reality: as a form or mode of being, 111, 113, 116; knowledge of, 34, 39, 60, 91, 93–98 reflection, 82 religion, 178 representation, 21, 28 self, 15, 97 sensation: contingency, 49; and extension, 44, 45; and idea, 29–32, 44, 53, 67; as a modification of the feeling subject, 30, 32, 33, 36,

Index of Subjects ⁄  37, 39, 43, 44; multiplicity, 45, 46; mutability, 49; partial identity with the idea of being, 59, 63, 94; particularity, 46; as a passive phenomenon, 33, 34, 35, 39, 43, 44; perishable, 49; as primitive element, 75; produce an inclination, 51, 52; as real thing, 52; relativity, 27; as subjective, 37, 38, 40, 41; as term of an action, 34, 35 sense-perception, 30, 37, 98; as extrasubjective, 37, 40–43, 52, 60, 97; and intellective perception, 31, 44, 96; and sensation, 30 sensitive awareness, 52 simple apprehension, 58, 69, 192 So-sein-Erfahrung, 104, 109 So-sein-müssen, 120 struggle, 10, 176, 177, 178, 183

subject, 14, 16; and object, 14, 146, 148; unity of, 63, 150 subjective, 37–44 synthesism (law of ), 67, 111, 148, 150, 154, 160 system of truth (sistema della verità), 18 theosophical abstraction, 159, 160 transcendence, 180 truth a spiritual light, 116 universality as a relationship, 48 universalization and abstraction, 62 will, 172, 173 word (verbum), 61, 62, 117

n From the Nature of the Mind to Personal Dignity: The Significance of Rosmini’s Philosophy was designed and composed in Dante by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on 60-pound Natures Natural and bound by Thomson-Shore, of Dexter, Michigan.