Monday, April 20, 2009

Q89 A6: Whether the act of knowledge acquired here remains in the separated soul?

Yes. The act of knowledge here acquired remains in the separated soul, but in a different way, because through the intelligible species acquired in this life, the soul apart from the body can understand what it understood formerly, but in a different way; not by turning to phantasms, but by a mode suited to a soul existing apart from the body.

Manet in anima separata actus scientiae hic acquisitae, sed non secundum eundem modum, quia secundum species intelligibiles hic acquisitas, anima separata intelligere possit quae prius intellexit; non tamen eodem modo, scilicet per conversionem ad phantasmata, sed per modum convenientem animae separatae.

Action offers two things for our consideration--its species and its mode. Its species comes from the object, whereto the faculty of knowledge is directed by the (intelligible) species, which is the object's similitude; whereas the mode is gathered from the power of the agent.

In actu est duo considerare, scilicet speciem actus, et modum ipsius. Et species quidem actus consideratur ex obiecto in quod actus cognoscitivae virtutis dirigitur per speciem, quae est obiecti similitudo, sed modus actus pensatur ex virtute agentis.

Thus that a person see a stone is due to the species of the stone in his eye; but that he see it clearly, is due to the eye's visual power.

Sicut quod aliquis videat lapidem, contingit ex specie lapidis quae est in oculo, sed quod acute videat, contingit ex virtute visiva oculi.

The acts which produce a habit are like the acts caused by that habit, in species, but not in mode. For example, to do just things, but not justly, that is, pleasurably, causes the habit of political justice, whereby we act pleasurably. (Cf. Aristotle, Ethic. v, 8: Magn. Moral. i, 34).

Actus per quos acquiritur habitus, sunt similes actibus quos habitus causant, quantum ad speciem actus, non autem quantum ad modum agendi. Nam operari iusta, sed non iuste, idest delectabiliter, causat habitum iustitiae politicae, per quem delectabiliter operamur.