THE APPREHENSION OF BEING (ENS)

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2014.

Being (ens) is that which is (ens est id quod est),1 that which has the act of being (ens est
id quod habet esse).2 And being (ens) is the primum cognitum.3 How does the intellect first know
being (ens)? In apprehension. St. Thomas writes in the Summa Theologiae: The intellect
apprehends primarily being (ens) itself (Intellectus autem per prius apprehendit ipsum ens)4;
That which, before aught else, falls under apprehension, is being (ens), the notion of which is
included in all things whatsoever the intellect apprehends () Being (ens) is the first thing that
falls under the apprehension simply (Nam illud quod primo cadit in apprehensione est ens, cuius
intellectus includitur in omnibus quaecumque quis apprehendit () Ens est primum quod cadit
in apprehensione simpliciter).5 More specifically, being (ens) as primum cognitum is obtained by
means of an immediate synthetic apprehension, according to one of the greatest and most
influential Thomist philosophers of the twentieth century Cornelio Fabro (1911-1995).6 Being
(ens) as primum cognitum is obtained, according to Fabro, by a conjoint apprehension which
regards the apprehension of essentia (content) and an experience of esse (act): Just as the
notio entis is a synthesis of content and act, so also it is a certain ineffable form of conjoint
apprehension of content on the part of the mind and act on the part of experience7 In his
book Pensar el ser, published in 1994 by Peter Lang (Bern), Luis Romera explains that, in the
thought of Fabro, the primum cognitum is a plexus of content (essence) and act, which one can
express with the formula id quod habet esse. It is not the mere apprehension of a form or of the
most general formality, or directly knowing actus essendi as such. It is rather a plexus that
includes a duality. From this we gather that the understanding is not initially of forms (simplex
apprehensio), while in a second moment it will affirm existence (in judgment). On the contrary,
it grasps in its origin the plexus of formal content (minimal) and of act, of actuation, of insertion
in reality. As a participle, our author sustains that ens says act, the being in act of esse. This
means that already in the first knowledge we know although in a confused way the act of
being; not insofar as it is properly act (as resolutive metaphysical notion of the real), but yes
insofar as to the actual character of the real insofar as it is real. The understanding is not, we
insist, initially formal, in order to later come to the real as such in a second moment; the intellect
comes to the notion of the real from the beginning.8
1

Cf. In I Phys., lect. 3, n. 21; In Boeth. De Hebd., lect. 2, n. 24: id quod est, sive ens
Cf. In I Sent., d. 37, q. 1, a. 1, sol.
3
Primo in intellectu cadit ens(In I Metaphysicorum, lect. 2, n. 45); illud autem quod primo intellectus concipit
quasi notissimum () est ens(De Veritate, q. 1, a. 1).
4
Summa Theologiae, I, q. 16, a. 4, ad 2.
5
Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 2. Cf. In IV Metaphys., lect. 6, n. 605: In prima autem operatione est aliquod
primum quod cadit in conceptione intellectus, scilicet hoc dico ens: nec aliquid hac operatione potest concipi, nisi
intelligatur ens.
6
For a basic explanation of Fabros position on the primum cognitum, see: C. FERRARO, Appunti di metafisica,
Lateran University Press, 2013, pp. 41-48. For Italian epistemologist Antonio Livi (Prato, 1938) on the immediate
synthetic apprehension of being (ens), see: A. LIVI, Metafisica e senso commune. Sullo statuto epistemologico della
filosofia prima, Casa Editrice Leonardo da Vinci, Rome, 2010, pp. 77-81.
7
C. FABRO, Tomismo e pensiero moderno, Lateran University Press, Rome, 1969, p. 355.
8
L. ROMERA, Pensar el ser. Anlisis del conocimiento del Actus essendi segn C. Fabro, Peter Lang, Bern,
1994, pp. 331-332 (Note: Translations into English of the Romera quotes are by Jason Mitchell).
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Explaining how being (ens) is the first object of our intellectual knowledge, Romera
writes that, for Fabro, following the doctrine of St. Thomas, ens constitutes the absolutely first
object of our intellectual knowledge.9 The character of first is specified as a primum, not only
psychological, but also critical-ontological.10 Thus, we are dealing with a first not only in the
analytical order, in the sense that analyzing any object one ultimately finds the notion of ens; but
also of a first, both on the psychological plane since it is the first that comes to our intellect, it
is the unveiling and awakening of our mind11 and on the critical-ontological plane, since it is
the fundament to which the critical problem remits and the basis of openness of the mind to
reality, on which the metaphysical problem is sustained and has meaning.12
Concerning how, for Fabro, the apprehension of being (ens) is immediate and synthetic,
Jason Mitchell notes that Fabro explains in Problematica del tomismo di scuola (1983), that the
first object of intellectual knowledge refers to knowing things that are in act. To this
corresponds, not a simple abstraction according to the essence, but rather a synthetic
apprehension according to the act of being. This is an apprehension since it is something
immediate and of an intellectual nature; it is synthetic since it embraces both act and content. It is
something vague in the beginning, yet becomes clearer according to the psychic development of
the subject.1314
With regard to the anti-formalistic gnoseological thought of Fabro pertaining to the
formation of the primum cognitum, Romera explains that, for Fabro, because it is the first
knowledge and by making reference to the real as real and to the act that this has, the primum
cognitum is not an abstract notion situated next to other abstract essences. Nor does it
correspond to judgment. The grasping of ens is neither an abstraction, nor an intuition; it is rather
a simple and synthetic apprehension (of content and act) which is had thanks to the primary and
constitutive convergence of the sensible and the intelligible. It is an intellectual apprehension,
prepared for by the experimentum, made by the intellect in the act of perceiving the singular.15
Concerning Fabros treatment of the role of perception in the formation of the primum
cognitum, Mitchell writes that in Chapter Six of his book, Romera takes into consideration the
role of perception: The apprehension of ens consists in grasping ens-esse thanks to the
convergence had between the sensitive and the intellectual spheres due to mans substantial
unity.16 The relationship between the perceptive act and the immediate, synthetic apprehension is
dealt with in Percezione e pensiero, which indicates that the primary knowledge of ens is
prepared by the senses by means of experimentum, the operation of experience by means of

See: C. FABRO, Problematica del tomismo di scuola, Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica, 75 (1983), p. 198.
See: C. FABRO, Partecipazione e causalit, Opere Complete 11, Editrice del Verbo Incarnato, Segni, 2010, p.
173.
11
See: C. FABRO, Nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo san Tommaso dAquino, Opere Complete 3,
Editrice del Verbo Incarnato, Segni 2005, p. 187.
12
L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 135.
13
See: L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 178.
14
J. MITCHELL, Being and Participation. The Method and Structure of Metaphysical Reflection According to
Cornelio Fabro, volume 2, Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, Rome, 2012, p. 702.
15
L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 332.
16
See: L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 179.
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which the intellect stays in direct contact with reality.17 In the perceptive act, the existence of
what we perceive is immediately given. It is not obtained by way of argumentation, but rather
due to the presence of what is known. According to Fabro, there is not a sic et simpliciter
intuition of the existence of the existent, but rather an immediate, perceptive persuasion of the
existence of the existent.18
In the primum cognitum we grasp both something and existing immediately, although in
a confused way. The interplay between the senses, experimentum, common sense, the cogitativa,
means that this grasping and knowledge of essence and existence is founded in sensible
knowledge.19 An important role is given to the conversio ad phantasmata due to its functional
continuity between the senses and understanding, in that it is by means of the conversio that our
understanding has knowledge of the singular, and this of the ratio entis.20 In Partecipazione e
causalit, Fabro specifies that the primum cognitum refers to an immediate experience of the
being of ens in act and not of esse as act. Here, our author, following his distinction between esse
in actu and esse ut actus, makes it clear that such experience is only of esse in actu and not of
esse ut actus.21 Esse, as act, is grasped in ens.2223

17

See: L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 179.

See: L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 180.
19
See: L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 182: Resumiendo, en el primum cognitum captamos el algo y el existir, ambos
inmediatamente, aunque de forma confusa. Tal captacin ambivalente se hace por el mismo material que presenta la
sensibilidad, el experimentum que preparan el sentido comn y la cogitativa, dndose aqu esa continuidad entre las
dos esferas de nuestro conocimiento. De tal forma el conocimiento sensible es el fundamento para el conocimiento
de la esencia y de la existencia, aunque no lo sea del mismo modo.
20
See: L. ROMERA, op. cit., pp. 182-183. Romera is summarizing Fabros exposition found in Partecipazione e
causalit, pp. 380-382.
21
L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 183.
22
See: L. ROMERA, op. cit., p. 184. Phenomenological reflection obtains an initial knowledge of existence by
distinguishing beween essential content and existence; knowledge of esse as first act is obtained by means of
metaphysical reflection.
23
J. MITCHELL, op. cit., pp. 703-704.
18