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Monday, January 12, 2009


Commentary on De veritate, 10, 8, ad 13

Entry 0053: Commentary on
De veritate, question 10, article 8, ad 13


With respect to the activity of the intellectual faculty, the soul could be made the content of our thinking. The intellectual faculty of man can direct its activity towards getting information about our soul. In this sense, the soul informs, ‘gives form,’ to our act of understanding.

But from the perspective of the actus essendi, it makes sense to say that the intellectual faculty of man inheres in the soul because the metaphysical principle of actus essendi refers to a self-subsisting individual that is actually existing here and now.

De veritate, 10, 8, ad 13, expresses this as follows: "The intellective power is a form of the soul with reference to the soul's ‘act of being,’ for the intellective power exists in the soul as a property in a subject." (Intellectiva potentia est forma ipsius animae quantum ad actum essendi, eo quod habet esse in anima, sicut proprietas in subiecto.)