Primo Cadit in Intellectu Ens Gilson Ma

“Primo Cadit in Intellectu Ens”
Gilson, Maritain, and Aquinas on Knowing Being

By Br. Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B.
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception ST 824 – Thomism in Modernity

Rev. Thomas Joseph White, O. P.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Introduction
My purpose in this article is to show that the existent, or ens, as it is commonly called in Latin by St.
Thomas Aquinas, is the first thing that is known by the mind. I will try to show in particular that ens is
known prior to the intellect’s knowledge of esse or the actus essendi. Ens is understood to be that which
has being, or in other words the thing which exists, sometimes also referred to simply as a ‘being,’
whereas esse and the actus essendi, commonly referred to as the ‘to be’ or the ‘act of existence,’ are
understood as that by which an existing thing is. In order to see how knowledge of ens is prior to
knowledge of esse and the act of existence, I will first raise objections from two modern authors, Etienne
Gilson and Jacques Maritain, both of them striving to be faithful disciples of St. Thomas, who argue that
esse on the one hand, or the actus essendi on the other, are what are first known by the mind. After giving
some brief counter objections to their arguments, I will place my main response. Following the main
response, I will respond to each objection individually to clear up any other difficulties that remain. My
main sources will be Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers, Maritain’s Existence and the Existent, a
variety of their other works, as well as articles from other scholars in support of or against their proposed
positions. For my main response I will rely primarily on Aquinas’ commentaries on Peter Lombard’s
Sentences, on the De Trinitate of Boethius, and on The Metaphysics of Aristotle, as well as Aquinas’
Summa Theologica, the De Veritate, and various other works of the Angelic Doctor.
Objections
Objection 1: That Knowledge of Esse is Prior to Knowledge of Ens According to Dignity.
Etienne Gilson, in his work entitled Being and Some Philosophers, argues that “the most serious
mistake made by the various metaphysics of essence is their failure to realize the nature of essence.” 1 The
true nature of essence, he argues, is that it is always the essence of some being. And yet, the concept of
essence does not adequately express the nature of the corresponding being, since “there is, in the object
of every concept something that escapes and transcends its essence.” What the object of the concept
contains that exceeds the essence is its “act of existing,” and this, he says, can only be reached by means
of the second act of the intellect, namely judgment. This is because the “act of existing” of anything
transcends both essence and representation. 2 What Gilson is essentially arguing here is that simple
apprehension of essences is not enough to give us the nature of a known object. This is because the object
of our knowledge is something that both exists, and exists in a certain way. We cannot fully know the
thing until we both know through a concept the essence of the existing thing, and also know its very “act
of existing” through judgment. The being or the very act of existing of the thing is beyond
conceptualization, since, as he holds, concepts can only be formed about essences, and that is why one
must use judgment to know its existence. That is why he says that, “because it lies beyond essence,
1 Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: PIMS, 1952), 202.
2 Ibid.
1
existence lies beyond abstract representation, but not beyond the scope of intellectual knowledge; for
judgment itself is the most perfect form of intellectual knowledge, and existence is its proper object.” He
reiterates this again saying, “The proper function of judgment is to say existence, and this is why
judgment is a type of cognition distinct from, and superior to, pure and simple abstract
conceptualization.”3 Judgment then holds a certain priority for Gilson over simple apprehension insofar as
it is a more perfect way of knowing things by penetrating to their very act of existing. Hence, he says that
“there is only one way to reach pure existence, . . . through overcoming all essences without ever losing
them, to reach their common source, itself beyond all essences yet containing them all.” 4 The knowledge
of esse, thus attained through judgment, is able to more perfectly comprehend the being of a thing than
any other kind of knowledge attained in the act of simple apprehension. In fact, the knowledge of essence
must be overcome, for Gilson, as some kind of impediment to that supreme knowledge of esse acquired
through judgment. Thus, he says that, “An epistemology in which judgment, not abstraction, reigns
supreme, is necessarily required by a metaphysics in which “to be” reigns supreme in the order of
actuality.”5 Judgment then is the most superior act in the epistemology of Gilson, since it attains to the
esse, the very act of being, whereas any other acts, such as the apprehension of essence or of ens, will be
subsequent and inferior to judgment. Therefore, we can conclude that esse is for Gilson more honorable
and thus prior to either essence or ens according to dignity.
Objection 2: That Knowledge of Esse is Prior to Knowledge of Ens According to the Consequence of
Being.
Even though he seems to give priority to the judgment of esse in the order of nobility over the simple
apprehension of essentia, nevertheless, Gilson grants that both acts of the intellect are equally required for
knowledge and that they should not be seen as two separate distinct acts. Knowledge depends upon them
both. But, the way in which these two acts are linked together manifests in yet another way the priority
that Gilson gives to judgment and its knowledge of esse over the simple apprehension of essentia. He says,
“essentia always belongs to an esse, and, even while I conceive it apart, essence never cuts loose from
actual being; it is, rather, bound to it by a life line, and, if that line is cut off, essence is dead. No
knowledge will ever come of it.”6 He does not say that knowledge of esse can be without essence, in fact,
they both belong together, at least according to simultaneity. He manifests this simultaneous act of
apprehension and judgment when he says that,
What comes first is a sensible perception whose object is immediately known by our intellect as
“being,” and this direct apprehension by a knowing subject immediately releases a twofold and
complementary intellectual operation. First, the knowing subject apprehends what the given object
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 208.
5 Ibid., 207; “of the two operations of the human intellect, judgment and simple apprehension, judgment is the more
perfect.” Ibid., 229.
6 Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 204.
2
is, next it judges that the object is, and this instantaneous recomposition of the existence of given
objects with their essences merely acknowledges the actual structure of these objects. 7
However, what seems to be lacking in his treatment of how the two acts of the intellect relate is a similar
vital dependence of judgment on simple apprehension. This is manifested more where he says that,
“every ens is an esse habens, and unless its esse be included in our cognition of it, it is not known as an
ens, that is, as a be-ing.”8 Even before knowing ens, one must first know its esse, that is, the existence by
which it exists. He manifests further that this is his view in what he says next, that, if one is just thinking
of being in general then, “such a general cognition necessarily involves that of existence in general, and
such a general cognition still entails the most fundamental of all judgments, namely that being is.” 9 One
must then already make a judgment that an ens exists, namely that esse pertains to the ens, prior to really
knowing it as an ens. Our knowledge of something as a “being” thus first depends on knowing that it
exists, namely judging it to be an existing thing. We cannot know that something is a being without first
judging it as such. If the perception of ens depends on the judgment of esse, then it would seem that, for
Gilson, knowledge of esse is prior to knowledge of ens insofar as ens depends on the esse for its being, but
this dependence does not reciprocate.
Objection 3: That Knowledge of Esse is Prior to Knowledge of Ens According to the Order of
Resolution.
Gilson grants that ens is prior to all cognition in the order of resolution, insofar as all other
knowledge can be resolved into ens as a composite is resolved into its elements. However, he argues that
the knowledge of ens is further resolved into the knowledge of esse, and therefore esse is prior than ens in
the order of resolution. He says that,
Since ens (being) includes its own esse (to be), each and every real knowledge ultimately is resolved
into the composition of an essence with its own existence, which are posited as one by an act of
judging. This is why judgment ultimately bears upon esse (to be), and also why the truth of cognition
ultimately rests upon the fact that its object is, rather than on our abstract knowledge of what the
thing is; for all true knowledge is resolved into being, and, unless we reach “to be,” we fail to reach
“being.”10
In order then for one to have any knowledge or apprehension of essentia or ens, one must first attain to the
esse of the thing, to its “to be,” since the esse is contained in the ens much like an element is contained in
its composite. And since one resolves a composite into its elements, so is ens resolved to esse. Thus, he
concludes that that esse is prior to all other things in the order of knowledge since all other things are
resolved into esse. That is why he says, “‘to be’ then is first in the order of cognition, and it remains so
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., 205.
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even in the order of self-cognition.” 11 This would seem to indicate that esse is prior to ens insofar as it is
first in the order of resolution, as “the letters of the alphabet are prior to the syllables.” 12
Objection 4: That Knowledge of Esse is Prior to Knowledge of Ens According to the Order of
Discovery.
We saw above that, for Gilson, what comes first in knowledge is “a sensible perception whose object
is immediately known by our intellect as ‘being.’” 13 This sensible perception is the experience of
existence, that is, it is the direct experience of entia, beings, “which come to us in sense experience.”14
For, as he says, “to perceive is to experience existence, and to say through judgment that such an
experience is true is to know existence. An intellectual knowledge of existence is therefore possible for an
intellect whose operations presuppose its vital experience, as an existent, of another existent.” 15 This first
“vital experience” of another existent that happens in sense experience is what Gilson seems to be
equating with the first perception of ens. This “vital experience” seems to be that first “sensible
perception whose object is immediately known by our intellect as ‘being.’” 16 But it is important to note
that, even though he says that the sensible perception is immediately known by our intellect, nonetheless
this first “vital experience” of being does not yet seem, for Gilson, to be any kind of intellectual
knowledge, rather, it is still in the senses as “simply apprehended,” 17 and, as such, it is presupposed to
intellectual knowledge as its beginning. It is because “sensory perception is the vital exchange which
constantly takes place between existing intellectual souls and actually existing things” that he gives as the
reason why “sensible perception is a first principle of human knowledge.” 18 The perception then of ens, as
apprehended by the senses, seems to fall before all intellectual knowledge, whereas that very ens is not yet
known as an ens until after the act of judgment has affirmed it to be so, by positing it to be. “Every ens is
an esse habens, and unless its esse be included in our cognition of it, it is not known as an ens, that is, as a
be-ing.”19 Based on these texts of Gilson, it seems that the perception and knowledge of a thing can be
ordered in the following way according to the order of discovery:
1. Simple perception of ens in the senses. (“Vital experience” of the existence of another thing, but
the intellect does not yet know that it is an ens.)
2. Simple apprehension of the essence of the thing. (The intellect knows what is the ens, that is its
definition, but not yet that it exists or that it is an ens having esse.)
3. Judgment of the esse of the thing. (Because of this judgment, now the intellect knows that it
exists and that it is an ens having esse.)
11 Ibid., 206.
12 Aristotle, The Categories, trans. J.L Ackrill, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OCT, 1956), chap. 12.
14 Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 29.
16 Ibid., 204.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 207.
19 Ibid., 204.
4
If our analysis is correct, then it would seem that the knowledge or truly intellectual perception of
ens only follows upon judgment, whereas that first perception of ens that Gilson speaks of is not yet
intellectual perception, strictly speaking, but only the perception of the senses, and perhaps of the
common sense. If this is so, then it would seem that the knowledge of judgment precedes the intellectual
perception of ens, for Gilson. Such a precedence though would seem to be in the order of discovery
Objection 5: That Knowledge of the Actus Essendi is Prior to Ens According to Dependence.
Jacques Maritain, in his work entitled Existence and the Existent, describes the objects of the two acts
of the intellect stating that “Essences are the object of the first operation of the intellect, or simple
apprehension. It is judgment which the act of existing confronts.”20 Judgment, then, has as its object the
act of existing or the actus essendi. He continues on saying that,
in the initial upsurge of its [the intellect’s] activity out of the world of sense, in the first act of self-
affirmation accomplished by expressing to itself any datum of experience, it apprehends and judges
in the same instant. It forms its first idea (that of being) while uttering its first judgment (of
existence), and utters its first judgment while forming its first idea. 21
It seems from this text that apprehension, judgment, and the formation of the first idea of being are all
done not only simultaneously, but they are also in some way one first act. Their does not seem to be any
priority or posteriority between them, at least according to time, in the first awakening of consciousness.
He goes on to say that the intellect, in this first act,
lays hold of the treasure which properly belongs to judgment, in order to envelop it in simple
apprehension itself; it visualizes that treasure in an initial and absolutely original idea, in a privileged
idea which is not the result of the process of simple apprehension alone, but of the laying hold of
that which the intellect affirms from the moment it judges, namely, the act of existing. 22
What seems to follow from this text is that, in the very first act of the intellect, what is first perceived
is not ens or esse, but the “act of existing.” This actus essendi is what the intellect affirms when it says that
something exists. As distinct from the esse of a thing, namely that by which something exists, the actus
essendi tells us that something exists, quia est. To say that something exists, however, is normally the
result of judgment, as Maritain points out here, however, in this very first act of the intellect, the act of
existing becomes the very object of simple apprehension. In this act, the apprehension forms a concept of
the actus essendi not like just any other essence, but as of a “...super-intelligible delivered up to the mind
in the very operation which it performs each time that it judges, and from the moment of its first
judgment.”23 The intellect is able, in this first act, to make the actus essendi into an object of simple
apprehension since “it seizes upon the eminent intelligibility or the super-intelligibility which the act of
judging deals with (that of existence), in order to make of it an object of thought.” 24 This concept of the
20 Jacques Maritain, Existence and the Existent (New York: Paulist Press, 2015), 19.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
5
actus essendi in the primary act of simple apprehension is, he says, “...the first of all concepts, because it
springs in the mind at the first awakening of thought, at the first intelligible coming to grips with the
experience of sense by transcending sense. All other concepts are variants or determinations of this
primary one.”25 If all other concepts then are dependent on and determinations of this first concept of the
“act of existing,” then it would follow that, according to Gilson, the knowledge of the actus essendi is
prior to all other concepts, whether of essence, esse, or even ens.26
Objection 6: That Knowledge of the Actus Essendi Precedes Ens as Form Precedes Matter.
According to Maritain, the first simple apprehension of the mind by which it perceives the actus
essendi is prior to the apprehension of ens in the order of formal causality. He says that,
generally speaking, simple apprehension precedes judgment in the later stages of the process of
thinking; but here, at the first awakening of thought, each depends upon the other. The idea of being
(“this being”) precedes the judgment of existence in the order of material or subjective causality; and
the judgment of existence precedes the idea of being in the order of formal causality. 27
Although Maritain grants that there is a mutual dependence between apprehension and judgment in the
first awakening of the intellect, nonetheless, it still seems that the apprehension of the actus essendi is
prior simply speaking to all other judgments or apprehensions. It is notable that he says judgment is prior
in the order of formal causality. What he seems to mean is that the idea of being [perhaps he means ens]
which is perceived as the subject of the very first apprehension is yet only perceived under the aspect of
its existing, that is, as having the actus essendi. This first concept then of the intellect is the idea of a
being, but of a being only insofar as it is the subject of intellection, whereas the primary aim of the
concept is the formal aspect, namely the act of the being’s existence, its actus essendi. He concludes in the
final sentence of the section that it is through knowing the concept of the actus essendi in this way “that
this is how the intellect conceptualizes existence and forms its ideas of being—of the vague being known
to common sense.”28 We come then to know the vague being seen by the common sense through first
perceiving being under the formal aspect of its act of existence. From this, it would seem that the first
concept in the mind is formally the actus essendi, and only materially a being.
25 Ibid., 20.
26 This priority of the judgment of existence over apprehension is mirrored in Maritain’s understanding of how one
comes to the subject of Metaphysics: “In other words, in the (unique) case of the intuition of being, the concept, this
concept of the esse, formed after I have seen it, is second in respect to the judgment of existence where and in
which, while pronouncing existence in itself, my intelligence has seen the esse. This concept is owing to a reflective
return of simple apprehension upon the judicative act in question.” John F. X. Knasas, “Gilson vs. Maritain: The
Start of Thomistic Metaphysics,” in American Maritain Association: Proceedings of the 1990 Annual Meeting, ed.
Deal W. Hudson and Dennis Wm. Moran (presented at the The Future of Thomism, Fordham University, New
York: Notre Dame Publishers, 1990), 173; For a thorough critique of Maritain’s views on the intuition of being as
the beginning of Metaphysics, cf. John F. Wippel, “Maritain and Aquinas on Our Discovery of Being,” Studia
Gilsoniana 3 (2014): 429.
27 Maritain, Existence and the Existent, 21.
28 Ibid.
6
Objection 7: That Knowledge of the Actus Assendi Precedes Ens, as the Vague Precedes the Distinct.
That the primary aim of the first concept of the intellect is not a being or an ens simpliciter seems to
be supported in what Maritain says later in a footnote, that “the first idea formed by a child is not the idea
of being; but the idea for being is implicit in the first idea that the child forms.” 29 What the child perceives
in its first perception, if we read this footnote with the text above, is a concept of the actus essendi, which
at that point is nothing else than the “vague being known to common sense,” only to be known later as a
distinct being. This vague being of the child’s mind only becomes distinct when, “by the ‘reflection’ which
judgment has primed, the subject grasps itself as existent, and grasps the extra-mental existence of
things.” At that moment it “renders reflexively explicit that which it already knew.” 30 Thus, the mind first
grasps the act of existence of the being, knowing the being at this point implicitly and in a vague and
indistinct way. But later on, when it reflects upon itself and on “extra-mental existence” through
judgment, then it grasps distinctly the existence of the thing, so that the act of existence of the thing that
was only known vaguely and as indistinct before becomes clear and explicit. Only at this point can the
child be said to have an “idea for being.” From this it seems that, for Maritain, the perception of the actus
essendi precedes the idea of being, or ens, in the same way that that the vague and implicit precedes the
clear and explicit.
Objection 8: That Knowledge of the Actus Essendi Precedes Knowledge of Ens According to Time or
Being.
In a lengthy footnote,31 Maritain describes several steps whereby one comes to knowledge of being.
The first step is the “judgment” of the sensitive and estimative powers, common with irrational animals,
which he says is the “blind equivalent” of what we express in saying that this thing exists. The second step
is the simultaneous awakening of intellect and apprehension, when there is formed in the intellect an idea,
“in which the idea of being is implicitly present” and a judgment “composing the object of thought in
question with the act of existing.” The third step is the formation of the idea of existence, when the
intellect “grasps the act of existing affirmed in the first judgment of existence, in order to make of it an
object of thought.” The fourth step is the intuition of first principles, particularly the principle of identity.
The fifth step is an “explicit reflection” upon the intellect’s act wherein it becomes self-conscious and
expresses its own existence. The sixth and final step is when it knows explicitly “as extra-mental, the
being and the existence which in their extra-mental reality had already beein given to it” in the previous
second, third and fourth steps. What is important to note about these six steps of knowing for Maritain, is
that the first step is not in the mind but still in the senses, hence he says that it is “blind” and is an act we
hold in common with the animals. But, the act of the intellect begins with the second step, and it is in that
second and third step that the actus essendi is first known. In the first judgment of the second step,
simultaneous with the first awakening of the intellect, the intellect “affirms that this singular subject
29 Ibid., 34, n. 12.
30 Ibid., 35, n. 13.
31 Ibid., 35–36, n. 13.
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exercises the act of existing.” It takes the “intuition of sense” perceived in the first step and
immaterializes it, and “it thus reaches the actus essendi.” However, this act of the intellect whereby it
attains to the act of existence is direct and immediate and is not had by reflecting on phantasms.
Likewise, in the third step, that affirmation of the act of existence is then formed into an idea and made
an object of thought. However, it seems that it is not until the sixth step that the intellect actually
perceives being explicitly as ens.32 If then, these steps are not simultaneous but one follows on the other,
as it seems to be the case, then it is clear that the knowledge of the actus essendi precedes knowledge of
ens, according to time. But if all six of these steps are in fact simultaneous for Maritain, then the
knowledge of the actus essendi will precede that of ens not according to time, but at least according to the
dependence of being, or else according to order.
Contrary Objection 1: That Knowledge of Ens Precedes Knowledge of Esse and the Actus Essendi as
the Confused Precedes the Distinct.
John of St. Thomas, in his Cursus Philosophicus, argues that knowledge of ens precedes knowledge
of the actus essendi as the confused precedes the distinct. For, he says, the connatural mode of our
intellect is to proceed from potency to act, from the confused to the distinct, and from imperfect to
perfect. But, the concept of ens, in whatever way it is applied to an object, is the most confused and
indeterminate account. Therefore, it follows “that [ens] is the first knowable account, or the first formally
known thing with regard to our intellect.”33
Contrary Objection 2: That Knowledge of Ens Precedes Knowledge of the Actus Essendi as the Simple
Precedes the Composite.
John Wippel, in his analysis of Maritain’s teaching on the discovery of being, argues that the
intellectual recognition of the act of existing is posterior to the simple apprehension of ens, since the first
act of the intellect is bound to be more simple and less sophisticated than those that follow. But, as he
says, “To recognize that there is such an act of existing requires some sophisticated metaphysical analysis,
for instance, showing that one can reason from the fact that something exists to the presence of some
32 Even though in his later Existence and the Existent published in 1947, Maritain seems to hold that the judgment of
the act of existence precedes knowledge of being (understood as ens), nevertheless in his earlier work, The Degrees
of Knowledge, first published in 1932, Maritain seems to hold that there is an intellectual perception of being prior to
any judgment of existence; “There is, therefore, an intellectual perception of being which, being involved in every act
of our intelligence, in fact rules all our thought from the very beginning.” Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of
Knowledge, trans. Gerald B. Phelan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), 215.
33 “Intellectus noster connaturali modo procedens procedit de potentia ad actum, et de imperfecto ad perfectum: ergo
proportionatum eius obiectum in tali processu, debet etiam esse aliquid imperfectius, et confusus, semper enim id
quod distinctius est, est perfectius confuso, sed conceptus entis quatenus in unoquoque obiecto applicate invenitur,
est ratio confusior, et omnia quae in obiecto actu inveniuntur magis confundens, et indeterminans: ergo illa est prima
ratio cognoscibilis, seu primum cognitum formale respectu nostri intellectus.” Iohannes Poinsot, Cursus Philosophici
Thomistici: Pars Prima Secundae, I.II (Munich: Constantini Bibliopolae, 1638), 20 q. 1, a. 3. All Latin translations
are mine.
8
ontological principle within that thing to account for that fact.” 34 In other words, knowing that something
is the case is not enough to know why it is so. One must also know that the perceived existence of
something necessarily entails an underlying cause of its existence, namely its actus essendi. Such an
understanding would seem to require knowing the relation between the fact of a thing’s existence and the
principle by which it exists. And the knowledge of this relation is that further “sophisticated metaphysical
analysis” required which is unreasonable to ascribe to the first simple act of the intellect. Hence, Wippel
concludes, “I do not think that, according to Aquinas, in the order of discovery one should hold that in its
first judgment or judgments of existence the intellect explicitly grasps esse in the sense of the actus
essendi.”35
Response
I respond that knowledge of ens is prior to knowledge of essentia, esse, and knowledge of the actus
essendi. Nevertheless, regarding this matter philosophers have held divergent opinions.
1. That Some Philosophers Have Held Essentia to be the First Known.
Some philosophers, moved by the need for immutability in our knowledge, denied the real
distinction between being and essence, making esse and essentia to be wholly the same, while holding the
actual existence of the thing to be separate. Based on this denial of the real distinction between esse and
essentia, and the consequent reduction of being to essence, they were then led to posit essence as the first
thing known in the mind. This reduction of being to essence can traced back, according to Gilson, to
Avicenna’s neo-platonic belief that essences are posited in themselves, “floating, so to speak, between
things and minds, now engaged in the reality of individual beings, then conceived by intellects.” 36 These
essences have more being, as it were, than existence itself, since they are all that is immutable in things
and in thought. Such a divorce between being and essence with a greater immutability given to essence,
sets the groundwork for the essentialism that we see in the position of Duns Scotus wherein, Gilson
recounts, being is held to be a univocal term and, as such, “there is no room in Scotism for any distinction
of essence and existence.” This is because, for Scotus, “being is always said in the same sense and always
means the same thing.”37 Thus, “the determinations of existence strictly follow those of essence, since
existence is nothing but the definite modality of essence itself.” 38 Because of this dependence of being on
essence in the doctrine of Scotus, Gilsons concludes, “it seems clear that, in such a doctrine, essence
reigns supreme.”39 Suarez follows Scotus in identifying being with essence, and thus Gilson states that,
“this is what Suarez forcefully asserts, and this is why he finally decides that between an actualized
34 Wippel, “Maritain and Aquinas on Our Discovery of Being,” 428.

35 Ibid.
37 Ibid., 86.
38 Ibid., 87.
39 Ibid., 89; cf. ibid., 91,92.
9
essence and its existence there is no real distinction, but a mere distinction of reason.” 40 Because Suarez
had identified existence with actual essences, as Gilson claims, thus “his disciples were quite excusable in
ruling existence out of metaphysics.”41 The fundamental reason for this incessant move towards
essentialism and ultimate “rebellion of the reality of existence” is that, “reason has only one means to
account for what does not come from itself, . . . and it is to reduce it to nothingness.” 42 The existence of
things does not come from our own minds but from things outside of us, so the great temptation is to
posit only that which seems to come directly from us, namely the essential concepts within our minds,
and to deny the existence that comes from without. In a metaphysics that follows such an essentialist path,
whether it is of Scotist, Suarezian, or later Kantian temper, the knowledge of existence or the existing
thing, if there be any in such a science, would be consequent to the knowledge of essence, so that essence
would remain the primum cognitum of the mind.
2. That Other Philosophers Have Held Esse to be the First Known.
Other philosophers, most notable among them Etienne Gilson, have held that esse was the first thing
known to the mind. At the root of this position lies a similar mistake as that of the essentialists, however,
opposed on the other end of the spectrum. In his efforts to flee from the error of the existentialists who
posited esse and essentia to be only distinct according to reason and further reduced being to essence,
Gilson accepts that there is a real distinction between being and essence, but, as Lawrence Dewan argues,
he seems to hold this distinction to be one based on negation, and furthermore that it is not provable by
reason. “Gilson’s own doctrine only works if ‘essence’ names something which includes imperfection in
the very nature of the item… This suggests that essence is a negation of esse.”43 The root assumption
underlying Gilson’s negative take on essence is, as Dewan claims, “that he thinks of esse as something
other than the actual existence of the essence (which actual existence he identifies with the essence).” 44
Whereas the essentialists tended to identify essence and esse, while dividing the act of existence from
both of them, Gilson, according to Dewan, tends to identify actual existence and essence, while dividing
esse from both of them. This tendency to divide esse from the actus essendi in Gilson seems to derive
from his own difficulty in seeing how the real distinction between essence and esse can be proven.45
Although these assumptions seem to lie at the root of Gilson’s emphasis on esse as the primum cognitum,
nevertheless, the more proximate cause of his error seems to be a confusion between the order of
discovery on the one hand, and the order of dignity and of being on the other. If we were to reduce his
argument in Being and Some Philosophers to a syllogism, we would say the following: That by which
something exists is better than that which exists, since that is greater on account of which something else
exists. But, esse is that by which ens exists. Therefore, esse is better than ens, and thus prior to it. All fine

41 Ibid., 105.
42 Ibid., 107.
43 Lawrence Dewan, “Etienne Gilson and the Actus Essendi,” Maritain Studies/Etudes Maritainiennes 15 (1999): 79.
44 Ibid., 85.
45 Cf. ibid., 83.
10
and good, but if one does not distinguish this sense of “prior,” then one can easily fall, as Gilson seems to
do, into the mistake of saying that esse is prior to the others not only according to dignity, but also in the
order of discovery, thus giving too much emphasis to the act of judgment in its affirmation of existence
over simple apprehension and the ens that first falls into the mind.
3. That Other Philosophers Have Held the Actus Essendi to be the First Known.
Other philosophers have held that the “act of existing” is the first thing that is known by us. Jacques
Maritain was led to this position through his understanding of the order between the two acts of the
intellect. He held rightly that it is the second act of the intellect that pertains to the existence of things,
that judges whether a particular being exists. 46 And yet, it seems from the texts cited above in the
objections that he saw this act as in some way preceding the act of simple apprehension of essence and
even the apprehension of ens. Joseph Owens seems to concur with this, citing in support the fact that
existence is metaphysically prior to essence, and thus arguing that the act of knowing existence is likewise
metaphysically prior to the act of simple apprehension which knows essence. He grants priority to simple
apprehension solely in the case of logic, since, “only from the viewpoint of logic, where the terms are
considered in priority to the proposition, do the indivisibles precede the synthesis.” 47 The only way that
Maritain seems to see the apprehension of ens as being prior to judgment, as we saw above, is insofar as
it is pre-rational, being first of all in the common sense, whereas the first truly intellectual apprehension of
ens only occurs after the mind has posited the act of existence through judgment. In this, both Maritain
and Owens seem to fall into a similar error to Gilson, that is confusing the priority in the order of dignity
with the priority in the order of discovery and being. Indeed, it is true that the “act of existence” is first
insofar as it is the goal to which understanding aims, to know how things actually exist, 48 however the
goodness of the end and its priority in intention should not be confused with the priority of knowing ens
first of all in the order of discovery. Nor should one confuse this priority of dignity of the second act with
priority according to being, since, in fact, the act of judgment of a thing’s existence depends both on the
apprehension of the essence of that thing, and also its ens, and is thus posterior to it according to being.
Existence is, simply speaking, prior to ens according to the order of being, since it is that by which the
existent is, but the apprehension of ens is prior to the judgment of existence in the order of discovery and
in the order of being. For, one thing is before another according to being “when the sequence of two
things cannot be reversed, then that one on which the other depends is called ‘prior’ to that other.” 49 And
since the simple comes before the composed ontologically, so also is the apprehension of being itself or
of indivisible concepts presupposed to the act of judgment, by which those indivisible concepts are
combined or divided.50 To say then that either existence or the “act of existence” precede in our
46 Cf. Jacques Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics: Seven Lectures on Being (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1948), 19–20.
47 Joseph Owens, “Aquinas on Knowing Existence,” The Review of Metaphysics 29, No. 4, no. 116 (1976): 679.
48 Cf. Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics: Seven Lectures on Being, 22–23.
49 Aristotle, The Categories, chap. 12.
50 The simple is before the composed ontologically, as the integral part precedes the integral whole: e.g. the bricks in a
wall can exist without the wall, but the wall cannot exist without the bricks. But this is not the case with potential
11
knowledge the thing that is existent, is to commit the fallacy of equivocation in speech, whereby one
confuses the meanings of the word “prior.” 51 It is also to commit the fallacy of secundum quid et
simpliciter, insofar as one holds that, since esse is prior to ens simply speaking or simplicieter, therefore it
is also prior in our knowledge, that is in a certain respect or secundum quid.52 But, just because esse is
prior simpliciter to ens, or prior according to nature, it does not follow that it is therefore prior also
secundum quid, that is according to us in the order of our discovery. 53
4. That Knowledge of Ens is Prior to Knowledge of Esse, Essentia, and the Actus Essendi.
If neither essence, esse, nor the act of existence are what first falls into our intellect in the order of
knowledge, then it remains to see how the last possibility, namely ens, must be the first that is known by
us. I say then that the knowledge of ens is prior in the order of ontological dependence to the knowledge
of esse (the second sense of prior),54 and that it is prior in the order of discovery or knowledge (the third
sense). However, the knowledge of ens is posterior to knowledge of esse in the order of dignity (the
fourth sense),55 and it seems to be simultaneous with the knowledge of esse and essentia in the temporal
order (the first sense). That ens is prior ontologically and according to knowledge can be seen from the
proper object of the intellect, from the order between the acts of the intellect, and from the intellect’s
mode of procedure.
4.1 Argument from the Proper Object of the Intellect.

According to Aquinas, the first thing known by the mind in the order of knowledge can be taken in
two ways:
either according to the order of diverse powers, or according to the order of the objects in one
power. Indeed, in the first way, since the whole knowledge of our intellect is derived from sense, that
which is knowable by sense is first known by us than that which is knowable by the intellect, namely
the singular or sensible rather than the intelligible. In another, namely according to another mode,
the first thing knowable for each power is its proper object. 56
parts and wholes; the body can exist without the hand, but the hand cannot exist without the body.
51 For a detailed explanation of the various senses of the word “prior,” cf. Aristotle, The Categories, chap. 12; See also
Duane Berquist, “Post-Predicaments: ‘Before’ Ch. 12,” n.d., http://www.at-
studies.com/index.php/download_file/view/222/399/327/.
52 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De Falaciis, ed. Robert Busa S.J. and Enrique Alarcón (Taurini, 1954), chap. 13,
www.corpusthomisticum.org Although the authorship of this treatise has been cast under doubt, it still stands in its
own right as an excellent summary of the different kinds of fallacies.
53 “Et quia prius et notius dicitur dupliciter, scilicet quoad nos, et secundum naturam; dicit consequenter quod ea, ex
quibus procedit demonstratio, sunt priora et notiora simpliciter et secundum naturam, et non quoad nos. Et ad huius
expositionem dicit quod priora et notiora simpliciter sunt illa, quae sunt remota a sensu ut universalia. Priora autem
et notiora quoad nos sunt proxima sensui, scilicet singularia, quae opponuntur universalibus, sive oppositione prioris
et posterioris, sive oppositione propinqui et remoti.” Thomas Aquinas, “Expositio Libri Posteriorum,” in
Commentaria In Libros Peryhermeeneias et Posteriorum, 1st ed., Opera Omnia Iussa Impensaque Leonis XIII P. M.
edita I (Romae: Polyglotta, 1882) I., lect. 4.
54 Even though esse, if taken simply or absolutely, is prior ontologically to ens, as we will see below.
55 This is shown in the response to the first objection below.
12
Our primary concern in this paper is to see how knowledge of ens precedes the knowledge of other things
known by the intellect, so we will not consider the first mode, namely according to the order between
powers, except insofar as it plays into our later discussion on the primacy of the confused universal
received through sense in our understanding of ens. Let us then first look at how ens is prior to other
objects of the intellect in the order of knowledge. Doing so, we will also come to see how ens is prior to
all other things known as the proper object of the intellect.
4.1.1 The Priority According to Knowledge, or Definition.

In order to understand how ens is prior in the order of knowledge, we must first determine what it
means for something to be prior in this way. One thing is before another in the order of knowledge
insofar it is included in the definition or else the understanding of those things that follow. 57 Because of
that priority in definition, it will thus be prior in knowledge. For example, the axioms and postulates in
book 1 of Euclid, since they are contained in the propositions that follow, are the cause of those later
propositions being known, that is, the later propositions are known on account of the postulates. If the
knowledge of the propositions is caused by the knowledge of the postulates, then we can say that the
postulates are more known, and therefore prior. The reason why the more known postulate is placed in
the definition of the less known propositions is because “in all names which are said of many analogously,
it is necessary that they are all said with respect to one, and therefore that one ought to be placed in the
definition of all [the others].” 58 Knowledge of the consequent Euclidean propositions is said with respect
to knowledge of the postulates, since the propositions follow from the postulates, and thus the postulates
are going to be placed in the propositions. But, as Aquinas continues,
Since the account which the name signifies is the definition . . . it is necessary that that name is said
first of all of that which is placed in the definition of others, and consequently of the others,
according to the order by which they approach that first one either more or less, just as healthy which
is said of animal, falls in the definition of healthy that is said of medicine, which is called healthy
insofar as it causes health in the animal; and in the definition of healthy that is said of urine, which is
healthy insofar as it is a sign of the health of the animal.59
56 “dicendum est quod primo cognitum homini potest accipi dupliciter: aut secundum ordinem diversarum potentiarum
aut secundum ordinem obiectorum in una potentia. Primo quidem modo, cum cognitio intellectus nostri tota
derivetur a sensu, illud, quod est cognoscibile a sensu, est prius notum nobis quam illud, quod est cognoscibile ab
intellectu, scilicet singulare vel sensibile intelligibili. Alio modo, scilicet secundum alium modum cuilibet potentiae
est cognoscibile primo suum proprium obiectum.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentarium in Boetium de Trinitate
(Typographia Pontificia Petri Marietti, 1898) q. 1, a. 1.
57 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Opera Omnia Iussa Impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita (Rome:
Polyglotta, 1888), http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/ I. q. 5, a. 2.
58 “Respondeo dicendum quod in omnibus nominibus quae de pluribus analogice dicuntur, necesse est quod omnia
dicantur per respectum ad unum, et ideo illud unum oportet quod ponatur in definitione omnium.” ST., I. q. 13, a. 6.
59 "Et quia ratio quam significat nomen, est definitio, ut dicitur in IV metaphys., necesse est quod illud nomen per prius
dicatur de eo quod ponitur in definitione aliorum, et per posterius de aliis, secundum ordinem quo appropinquant ad
illud primum vel magis vel minus, sicut sanum quod dicitur de animali, cadit in definitione sani quod dicitur de
medicina, quae dicitur sana inquantum causat sanitatem in animali; et in definitione sani quod dicitur de urina, quae
dicitur sana inquantum est signum sanitatis animalis." Aquinas, ST. I. q. 13, a. 6.
13
Based on this text, we can say that, of any names which are said analogously, all the rest will be said with
respect to one first sense of that name, and that one first sense will be placed in the definition of all the
others. And, that first analogous name that is placed in the definition of the others will be prior to them in
the order of knowledge.
4.1.2 Ens as the Proper Object of the Intellect.

Grounded on this understanding of the priority according to knowledge, we can say that ens, for
Aquinas, is included in the definition of all other things insofar as they are knowable, since they are only
knowable insofar as they are an ens, that is as they are said analogously to be an ens. For, something is
only knowable to the extent that it is separated from the potency of matter, and to that extent it is in act,
and thus able to be known immaterially.60 But, each thing is knowable in act insofar as it is a being, that is
as it is an ens.61 We see an example of this relation of act and knowledge in sensible perception:
And this indeed appears manifestly in sensible things, for sight does not perceive the colored in
potency, but only the colored in act. And similarly it is manifest that the intellect, insofar as it is
capable of knowing material things, does not know except what is in act, and hence it is that it does
not know prime matter except according to a proportion to form, as is said in the first book of the
Physics.62
If all other things are knowable by the intellect insofar as they are in act, and if they are in act to the
extent that they come closer to ens, therefore ens will be included in their definition, just as the prime
analogate is included in the definitions of all those things that are related to it as analogues. Because it is
contained in the understanding of all other things that we know, thus ens is said to be the principle of all
other things and therefore contains them all in itself in a united and indistinct way. “For, the first that falls
into the imagination of the intellect is ens, without which nothing is able to be apprehended by the
intellect; . . . whence, all other things are included in some way in being, in a united and indistinct way as
in a principle.”63 Ens is thus prior to all other things that fall into the mind, just as a principle is prior to
60 “Res materialis intelligibilis efficitur per hoc quod a materia et materialibus conditionibus separatur. Quod ergo est
per sui naturam ab omni materia et materialibus conditionibus separatum, hoc est intelligibile secundum suam
naturam.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, ed. Lavergne (Nîmes: Giraud, 1853) I., cap. 47.
61 Ibid. I. cap. 71, n. 16; “Ratio enim significata per nomen, est id quod concipit intellectus de re, et significat illud per
vocem, illud ergo est prius secundum rationem, quod prius cadit in conceptione intellectus. Primo autem in
conceptione intellectus cadit ens, quia secundum hoc unumquodque cognoscibile est, inquantum est actu, ut dicitur in
IX metaphys.. Unde ens est proprium obiectum intellectus, et sic est primum intelligibile, sicut sonus est primum
audibile.” Aquinas, ST I. q. 5, a. 2; q. 16, a. 3; Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In Metaphysicam Aristotelis Commentaria, 3rd
ed. (Taurini: Marietti, 1820), VII.2.
62 “unumquodque cognoscibile est secundum quod est in actu, et non secundum quod est in potentia, ut dicitur in IX
metaphys., sic enim aliquid est ens et verum, quod sub cognitione cadit, prout actu Est. Et hoc quidem manifeste
apparet in rebus sensibilibus, non enim visus percipit coloratum in potentia, sed solum coloratum in actu. Et similiter
intellectus manifestum est quod, inquantum est cognoscitivus rerum materialium, non cognoscit nisi quod est actu, et
inde est quod non cognoscit materiam primam nisi secundum proportionem ad formam, ut dicitur in I physic..”
Aquinas, ST, I.87.1.
63 “Primum enim quod cadit in imaginatione intellectus, est ens, sine quo nihil potest apprehendi ab intellectu; sicut
primum quod cadit in credulitate intellectus, sunt dignitates, et praecipue ista, contradictoria non esse simul vera:
unde omnia alia includuntur quodammodo in ente unite et indistincte, sicut in principio.” Thomas Aquinas,
14
those that follow from that principle, whereas all other things that follow from ens only differ from it
insofar as they add on to ens particular determinations, modes, or accounts of being, such as the account
of being undivided, from which we have the idea of “one,” or the account that this being is not that being,
whereby we have the idea of division, 64 or there might also be added to ens a relation to a final cause or to
an exemplar cause, from which we have the ideas of “good” and “true.” 65
It is on account of the primacy of ens as the first principle of all other things, as well as being the
primary analogate according to which all things can be said to be knowable, that all knowable things
receive the name ens. Hence, “we attribute being to anything whatsoever that is apprehended by us.” 66
“And thus, when [the intellect] apprehends the essence of some being, it says that essence is a being; and
likewise any general or specific form whatsoever, such as: ‘goodness is a being’, ‘whiteness is a being’, and
so on with the rest.” 67 Since we name things as we know them, and if everything that falls into the mind
we call a ‘being,’ thus, it is clear that whatever falls into the mind is understood first of all as a being. 68
Therefore, ens is included in our understanding of anything whatsoever that the mind apprehends. 69 This
is what we mean then when we say that ens is prior according to knowledge or according to account.
A corollary that follows from this priority is that ens is prior to all other things known as form
precedes matter. For, because of its commonality to all things that are known, as included in their
definitions, thus ens can be said to be the proper object of the intellect and the first intelligible. 70 And
since it is the aspect under which anything is knowable by the intellect, therefore ens is the formal account
of knowability, and it therefore precedes anything that is known as form precedes matter.
Commentarium In Libros Sententiarum (Parma, 1856), http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/ I., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3.

64 “primo cadit in intellectu ens; secundo, quod hoc ens non est illud ens, et sic secundo apprehendimus divisionem;
tertio, unum; quarto, multitudinem.” Aquinas, ST I., q. 11, a. 2, ad 4; Cf. Thomas Aquinas, “De Potentia,” in
Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. 1 (Paris: Lethielleux, 1882) q. 9, a. 7, ad 15.
65 Cf. Aquinas, In Sent. I., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3; “...inveniuntur aliqua addere super ens, quia ens contrahitur per decem
genera, quorum unumquodque addit aliquid super ens; non quidem aliquod accidens, vel aliquam differentiam quae
sit extra essentiam entis, sed determinatum modum essendi, qui fundatur in ipsa essentia rei.” Thomas Aquinas, “De
Veritate,” in Quaestiones Disputatae (Typographia Pontificia Petri Marietti, 1898) q. 21, a. 1.
66 “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod id quod primo cadit in intellectu, est ens, unde unicuique apprehenso a nobis
attribuimus quod sit ens; et per consequens quod sit unum et bonum, quae convertuntur cum ente….” Aquinas, ST
I.II., q. 55, a. 4, ad 1.
67 “illud quod primo cadit in apprehensione intellectus, est ens; unde oportet quod cuicumque apprehenso per
intellectum, intellectus attribuat hoc quod est ens. Et ideo cum apprehendit essentiam alicuius entis, dicit illam
essentiam esse ens; et similiter unamquamque formam generalem vel specialem, ut: bonitas est ens, albedo est ens, et
sic de aliis.” Aquinas, “De Veritate” q. 21, a. 4, ad 4.
68 “Cum autem ens sit primum quod in intellectu concipitur oportet quod quidquid in intellectum cadit, intelligatur ut
ens, et per consequens ut unum, verum et bonum. Unde cum intellectus apprehendat essentiam, unitatem, veritatem
et bonitatem in abstracto, oportet quod de quolibet eorum praedicetur, ens, et alia tria concreta.” Aquinas, “De
Potentia” q. 9, a. 7, ad contra.
69 “Nam illud quod primo cadit in apprehensione, est ens, cuius intellectus includitur in omnibus quaecumque quis
apprehendit. Et ideo primum principium indemonstrabile est quod non est simul affirmare et negare, quod fundatur
supra rationem entis et non entis, et super hoc principio omnia alia fundantur, ut dicitur in IV metaphys..” Aquinas,
ST I.II., q. 94, a. 2.
70 Cf. Aquinas, SCG II., cap. 98; Aquinas, ST I., q. 5, a. 2.
15
4.2 Argument from the Acts of the Intellect
4.2.1 The Two Acts of the Intellect.
The primacy of ens over all other things that are known can be seen not only from its relation to
other things that fall into the mind, but also from its relation to the acts of the intellect themselves.
Aquinas, following Aristotle’s De Anima (Bk. III), posits two acts of the intellect, one “which the
philosopher names understanding of indivisibles, which consists in the apprehension of simple
whatnesses, which by another name is called formation; another is what they call faith, which consists in
the composition or division of the proposition: the first operation regards the whatness of the thing; the
second regards its esse.”71 The apprehension of indivisibles by which we know the simple natures of
things is most frequently called the first act of the intellect, or else simple apprehension, whereby we
apprehend “Socrates” and “white,” that is the simple natures of things, whereas the composition and
division of these simple natures is called the second act of the intellect, or else judgment, whereby we say
“Socrates is white.” The first act only regards the simple natures of Socrates and his accidents, whereas
the second combines these by adding to them the verb “to be,” predicating whiteness of Socrates.
4.2.2 The Order of the Two Acts

Between these two acts of the intellect there is a certain order, first regarding the things themselves
that are known by each act, and second regarding the acts themselves. Hence, Aquinas distinguishes a
primum cognitum, one in each of these acts, which precedes all the other simple apprehensions of the first
act and all other judgments of the second act. He says,
Since the operation of the intellect is twofold, one by which [the intellect] knows that which is,
which is called the understanding of indivisibles, and another by which it composes and divides, in
each of these there is something first: for, in the first operation there is something first which falls in
the conception of the intellect, namely this, what I call ens; neither is anything able to be conceived
by the mind in this operation unless ens is understood. And since this principle (it is impossible both
to be and not to be at the same time), depends on the understanding of ens, likewise this principle,
(every whole is greater than its parts), on the understanding of whole and part: thus also is this
principle naturally first in the second operation of the intellect, namely of composition and division.
Neither is someone able to understand according to this operation of the intellect, without having
understood this principle. For, just as whole and parts are not understood without having understood
ens, so also neither is this principle (every whole is greater than its part), without having understood
the aforesaid most grounded principle.72
71 “cum sit duplex operatio intellectus: una quarum dicitur a quibusdam imaginatio intellectus, quam philosophus
nominat intelligentiam indivisibilium, quae consistit in apprehensione quidditatis simplicis, quae alio etiam nomine
formatio dicitur; alia est quam dicunt fidem, quae consistit in compositione vel divisione propositionis: prima
operatio respicit quidditatem rei; secunda respicit esse ipsius.” Aquinas, In Sent. I., d. 19, q. 5, a. 1, ad 7.
72 “cum duplex sit operatio intellectus: una, qua cognoscit quod quid est, quae vocatur indivisibilium intelligentia: alia,
qua componit et dividit: in utroque est aliquod primum: in prima quidem operatione est aliquod primum, quod cadit
in conceptione intellectus, scilicet hoc quod dico ens; nec aliquid hac operatione potest mente concipi, nisi
intelligatur ens. Et quia hoc principium, impossibile est esse et non esse simul, dependet ex intellectu entis, sicut hoc
principium, omne totum est maius sua parte, ex intellectu totius et partis: ideo hoc etiam principium est naturaliter
primum in secunda operatione intellectus, scilicet componentis et dividentis. Nec aliquis potest secundum hanc
16
We can see from this text that the first thing apprehended by the first act of the intellect is ens, whereas
the first thing known by the second act is the principle of non-contradiction. All other things that are
known in the first act, such as the individual ideas of whole and part, depend upon a prior understanding
of ens, whereas all other statements known in the second act, no matter how fundamental, depend on an
understanding of the principle of non-contradiction. So, we can see the priority of these two prima
cognita for the two acts of the intellect. And yet, there is an order and a priority between these first-
knowns as well. For, the very principle of non-contradiction depends on a prior apprehension of ens. One
cannot negate non-being of a being without first understanding what non-being is, and this cannot be
understood without further knowing what being is. Thus, ens, as apprehended by the first act of the
intellect, is at the very foundation of all other things known by the intellect, whether they are understood
by simple apprehension or by judgment.
The order between the first things known by the two acts of the intellect shows the priority of ens
over everything else. But this priority can also be seen from the definitions of the acts themselves. The
order between these acts is according to the order of knowledge, whereby one is placed in the definition
of the other. For, the second act is defined, as we saw above, by the composition or division of
apprehended simple natures with other simple natures. The natures received in apprehension are
understood as simple and undivided, and thus prior in the order of definition to the division and
composition of these natures with each other. And since the simple precedes the composite in the order
of definition, just as one precedes many,73 so also does the first act of the intellect precede the second.
Another way to see this order between the two acts of the intellect is by comparing them to natural
generation, where the imperfect is prior to the perfect and potency is prior to act. “For,” he says,
When the human intellect goes forth from potency to act, it has a certain similitude with generable
things, which do not have their own perfection at once, but acquire it successively. And likewise the
human intellect does not at once grasp perfect knowledge of a thing in first apprehension; but first it
apprehends something about it, namely the whatness of the thing itself, which is the first and proper
object of the intellect; and next it understands the properties, accidents and habits that stand around
the essence of the thing. And according to this, [the intellect] has a necessity to compose or divide
one apprehended thing with another, and to proceed from one composition or divison to another,
which is to reason.74
operationem intellectus aliquid intelligere, nisi hoc principio intellecto. Sicut enim totum et partes non intelliguntur
nisi intellecto ente, ita nec hoc principium omne totum est maius sua parte, nisi intellecto praedicto principio
firmissimo.” Aquinas, In Metaphysicam Aristotelis Commentaria IV., lect. 6. Parentheses are mine.
73 “Sed multitudo, etiam secundum rationem, consequenter se habet ad unum, quia divisa non intelligimus habere
rationem multitudinis, nisi per hoc quod utrique divisorum attribuimus unitatem. Unde unum ponitur in definitione
multitudinis, non autem multitudo in definitione unius.” Aquinas, ST I., q. 11, a. 2, ad4; Cf. Aquinas, In Sent. I., d.
24, q.3, ad 2.
74 “Cum enim intellectus humanus exeat de potentia in actum, similitudinem quandam habet cum rebus generabilibus,
quae non statim perfectionem suam habent, sed eam successive acquirunt. Et similiter intellectus humanus non statim
in prima apprehensione capit perfectam rei cognitionem; sed primo apprehendit aliquid de ipsa, puta quidditatem
ipsius rei, quae est primum et proprium obiectum intellectus; et deinde intelligit proprietates et accidentia et
habitudines circumstantes rei essentiam. Et secundum hoc, necesse habet unum apprehensum alii componere vel
dividere; et ex una compositione vel divisione ad aliam procedere, quod est ratiocinari.” Aquinas, ST I., q. 85, a. 5.
17
It is the nature of the intellect to move towards perfection from its initial stage of imperfection. For, the
intellect is related to intelligible things just as prime matter is related to natural things. It is the utterly
passive potency of matter that allows it to receive any form whatsoever, just as it is the pure passivity of
the possible intellect that allows it to become all things in an intelligible way. 75 But, just as prime matter
desires form, as imperfection naturally desires perfection, so also does the intellect naturally desire
knowledge.76 Thus, it will naturally tend from its original state of not knowing, to an apprehension of
being, and from thence to a more distinct apprehension of an essence. And then, by combining that
essence with others through judgment, it attains yet greater perfection and precision, until it finally arrives
at discursive reasoning from principles to conclusions. We can see then from this analogy between the
generation of substance from prime matter on the one hand, and the passage of the intellect from
apprehension to judgment on the other, that simple apprehension precedes judgment in the order of
generation, or discovery. If apprehension is prior to judgment in the order of generation, then we can say
that the knowledge of ens, the first-known in apprehension, will be prior to the knowledge of esse, which
pertains to the act of judgment.
4.3 Argument from the Intellect’s Mode of Procedure.

4.3.1 Comparison of the Act of the Intellect with Generation and Sensation.
Seeing that knowledge of ens is to knowledge of esse as the imperfect is to the perfect leads us to our
next consideration, namely that knowledge of ens precedes all subsequent knowledge just as the vague
and indistinct precedes the clear and distinct. This can be seen first of all if we make a comparison
between the generation of knowledge in the intellect and the generation of man in nature. In both cases
we find that the universal which is predicated of more comes before that which is predicated of less.
Hence, Aquinas says, “more universal things are first known to us according to simple apprehension, as
Avicenna says, and animal falls into the mind prior than man. For, just as in the being of nature which
proceeds from potency to act, animal is prior to man, so also in the generation of knowledge animal is
conceived by the intellect prior to man.”77 In the formation of an embryo, the first thing that is apparent is
that it is a being, and then that it has a vegetative soul on account of its growth, after that it becomes
apparent that it is an animal by its movement, and last of all, it is known to be a man when it speaks. Here
we see that which is predicated of more (ens, or animal) comes first, while that which is predicated of less
(man) comes last in the order of generation. And this same order is found in the order of the mind: the
most universal according to predication comes first in the order of discovery while the more particular
according to predication comes last.78
75 Cf. Aquinas, “De Veritate” q. 10, a. 8; ibid. q. 14, a. 1; Aquinas, ST I., q. 14, a. 2, ad 3.
76 Aquinas, In Metaphysicam Aristotelis Commentaria I., lect. 1.
77 “magis universalia secundum simplicem apprehensionem sunt primo nota, nam primo in intellectu cadit ens, ut
Avicenna dicit, et prius in intellectu cadit animal quam homo. Sicut enim in esse naturae quod de potentia in actum
procedit prius est animal quam homo, ita in generatione scientiae prius in intellectu concipitur animal quam homo.”
Ibid. I., lect. 2.
78 It should be noted that, although the most universal in predication is found first in the order of discovery,
nevertheless, the most universal in causing is found last in the order of discovery. Thus, while sensible being is the
18
The fundamental reason why the more universal in predication is first known to the intellect is
because it is the natural order of the mind to know intelligible forms that have been abstracted by the
agent intellect from sensible phantasms. And, the first known among these abstracted forms will be the
most universal in predication. 79 We saw above that this is the case from the order of generation, but it can
also be concluded from the order found in sensation. For, when one senses an individual substance, for
example if we see something coming towards us from a long distance, the first thing known is, of course,
that it is a bodily substance, then that it is an animal, then a man, and finally that it is Socrates. 80 Sensation
follows the order of discovery, going from the more universal in predication to the less universal, so also
in the intellect, the more universal comes before the less.
4.3.2 Imperfect Knowledge is Indistinct Knowledge.

Apart from comparing the intellect’s mode of procedure to generation and sensation, the order in
knowledge from the more universal to the less universal can also be seen from the fact that the connatural
mode of our intellect is to proceed from potency to act, and from imperfect to perfect. 81 However, to
know something imperfectly is to know it indistinctly, as Aquinas says:
Everything that proceeds from potency to act first arrives at incomplete act, which is a middle
between potency and act, before perfect act. But the perfect act to which the intellect attains is
complete knowledge through which things are known distinctly and determinately. But incomplete
first known to us since it is universally predicated and most apparent to our senses, “ens commune” that is separable
from matter and immaterial substances are last known to us, since they are the first causes, and thus most removed
from sense. Hence Aquinas says, “Ea autem quae sunt universalia in causando, sunt posterius nota quo ad nos, licet
sint prius nota secundum naturam, quamvis universalia per praedicationem sint aliquo modo prius quo ad nos nota
quam minus universalia, licet non prius nota quam singularia; nam cognitio sensus qui est cognoscitivus singularium,
in nobis praecedit cognitionem intellectivam quae est universalium. Facienda est etiam vis in hoc quod maxime
universalia non dicit simpliciter esse difficillima, sed fere. Illa enim quae sunt a materia penitus separata secundum
esse, sicut subst antiae immateriales, sunt magis difficilia nobis ad cognoscendum, quam etiam universalia: et ideo
ista scientia, quae sapientia dicitur, quamvis sit prima in dignitate, est tamen ultima in addiscendo.” Ibid. I., lect. 2.
79 “Cuilibet potentiae est cognoscibile primo suum proprium obiectum. Cum autem in intellectu humano sit potentia
activa et passiva, obiectum potentiae passivae, scilicet intellectus possibilis, erit illud, quod est actum per potentiam
activam, scilicet intellectum agentem, quia potentiae passivae debet respondere proprium activum. Intellectus autem
agens non facit intelligibilia formas separatas quae sunt ex se ipsis intelligibiles, sed formas quas abstrahit a
phantasmatibus, et ideo huiusmodi sunt, quae primo intellectus noster intelligit. Et inter haec illa sunt priora, quae
primo intellectui abstrahenti occurrunt. Haec autem sunt quae plura comprehendunt vel per modum totius universalis
vel per modum totius integralis, et ideo magis universalia sunt primo nota intellectui et composita componentibus, ut
diffinitum partibus diffinitionis.” Aquinas, Commentarium in Boetium de Trinitate q. 1, a. 3, resp.
80 “Et secundum quod quaedam imitatio intellectus est in sensu, qui etiam quodammodo abstracta a materia recipit,
etiam apud sensum singularia magis communia sunt primo nota, ut hoc corpus quam hoc animal.” Ibid. q. 1, a. 3,
resp.
81 The reason for this is the pure potentiality of the possible intellect which is able to be in some way all things in an
intelligible way. “anima data est homini loco omnium formarum, ut sit homo quodam modo omnia, prout eius anima
est receptiva omnium formarum; nam intellectus est quedam forma receptiva omnium formarum intelligibilium et
sensus est quedam forma receptiva omnium formarum sensibilium.” Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia Libri De Anima,
Opera Omnia Iussa Impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita XLV (Roma: Commissio Leonina, 1984) I., cap. 7.
19
act is imperfect knowledge through which things are known indistinctly under some confusion,
which are known thus: in a certain respect they are known in act, and in some way in potency. 82
To know something “under some confusion” is to know the whole, and yet without having a proper and
distinct knowledge of the parts. The whole is known in act, while the parts are only known in potency.
Hence, Aquinas says,
It is manifest that to know something in which many are contained, but without having a proper
knowledge of each of those that are contained in it, is to know something under some confusion.
But, in this way are able to be known both the universal whole (in which the parts are contained in
potency), as also the integral whole, for each whole is able to be known in some confusion without
the parts being known distinctly.83
Thus, when we know the more universal, such as “animal,” we know it indistinctly, insofar as we know
the “animal as animal,” but when we come to know the less universal through the more universal, then we
know “animal insofar as it is rational or irrational,” that is, we know man or lion distinctly. We therefore
know animal before we know man and, as Aquinas concludes in the same place, this same reason can be
applied if we compare any more universal to any less universal to show that the indistinct universal is
known before the distinct particular. Since then, the most imperfect knowledge is that which precedes all
other knowledge in the order of discovery, we can conclude then that ens is the very first thing known by
us in the order of discovery.
5. Conclusion to Main Response.
In my main response I sought to show that knowledge of ens is prior to knowledge of esse and the
actus essendi. I demonstrated this by first looking at the opinions of previous philosophers, most notably
Gilson and Maritain, showing what was correct in their positions and in what they erred. 84 Next, in the
refutation, I began by trying to show what it means for something to be prior according to knowledge,
manifesting that it entails priority according to definition and predication. From this I was able to
conclude that ens is prior both according to definition and also as the proper formal object of the intellect.
Next, I looked at the relation of the knowledge of ens to the two acts of the intellect. It was shown in that
section that knowledge of ens precedes all other knowledge by ontological dependence. Finally, I looked
at the mode of procedure of the intellect, namely going from the imperfect to the perfect, and showed
82 “Omne autem quod procedit de potentia in actum, prius pervenit ad actum incompletum, qui est medius inter
potentiam et actum, quam ad actum perfectum. Actus autem perfectus ad quem pervenit intellectus, est scientia
completa, per quam distincte et determinate res cognoscuntur. Actus autem incompletus est scientia imperfecta, per
quam sciuntur res indistincte sub quadam confusione, quod enim sic cognoscitur, secundum quid cognoscitur in actu,
et quodammodo in potentia.” Aquinas, ST I., q. 85, a. 3, resp.
83 “Manifestum est autem quod cognoscere aliquid in quo plura continentur, sine hoc quod habeatur propria notitia
uniuscuiusque eorum quae continentur in illo, est cognoscere aliquid sub confusione quadam. Sic autem potest
cognosci tam totum universale, in quo partes continentur in potentia, quam etiam totum integrale, utrumque enim
totum potest cognosci in quadam confusione, sine hoc quod partes distincte cognoscantur.” Aquinas, ST I., q. 85, a.
3, resp.
84 This will be brought out further in the individual responses to the objections that follow.
20
from this that ens precedes esse and the actus essendi in the order of discovery as the vague precedes the
distinct.
Responses to Objections
Response to Objection 1.
I grant Gilson’s conclusion, that the knowledge of esse acquired through judgment is superior in the
order of dignity to knowledge of ens. A proof of this is that truth is said primarily of the complex things
known by the second act of the intellect, but only secondarily of those things known by the first. 85 Thus,
judgment is better than apprehension as being more true. Also, since explicit knowledge of a thing is
better than implicit, therefore the explicit knowledge that something exists in such a way, acquired
through judgment, is better than the implicit knowledge of apprehension where something is only known
as an ens. Granting this, I nevertheless also maintain that Gilson’s heavy emphasis on the act of judgment
makes him overlook the dignity of the first act, to the point where he says that the essences that are
known in the first act must be overcome by judgment in order to arrive at existence. 86 I believe this
excessive emphasis on the act of judgment can be explained by the polemical stance that Gilson has taken
against essentialist idealism. As Brian Kemple says in his insightful article,
Ultimately, what we find in Gilson’s approach is a systematic integration of St. Thomas’ doctrine into
a philosophy specifically oriented to the refutation of idealism. Having correctly identified that
idealism is an untenable position, Gilson appears to overreact, taking as a given fact that there is an
absolute dichotomy between the realist and idealist. This acceptance of such a dichotomy is the
result of the presumption that all objects of thought are either the so-called real beings, entia realis,
of extramental substantial constitution, or the logical beings, entia rationis, which exist only in
thought.87
Since it is “real beings” that are known by the second act, which posit the actual existence of things
through judgment, whereas the first act seems to pertain primarily to “beings of reason,” namely essences,
thus it makes sense why Gilson focuses so much on judgment as the most effective means of overcoming
idealism. However, such an excess on the side of pure realism leads Gilson to make two errors, first to say
that everything in the understanding is first of all in the senses (Brian Kemple shows this to be contrary to
the teaching of St. Thomas),88 and second that it moves him to separate esse from the actus essendi, or
state of existence, which state of existence he then identifies with the essence (Lawrence Dewan shows
that this teaching of Gilson is also against the thought of St. Thomas). 89
85 Cf. Aquinas, “De Veritate” q. 1, a. 3.

87 Brian Kemple, “Evaluating the Metaphysical Realism of Etienne Gilson,” Studia Gilsoniana 4, no. 4 (October 2015):
376.
88 Cf. ibid., 378; “By taking ens ut primum cognitum as ens reale, Gilson is bound to uphold a strictly-realist notion of
conceptualization. As a consequence, entia rationis are relegated to a kind of second-order of existence. The objects
of knowledge are exclusively and exhaustively divided into the extra-cognitionally real, ens reale, and the intra-
cognitionally unreal, ens rationis;” Ibid., 379.
89 Cf. Dewan, “Etienne Gilson and the Actus Essendi,” 85–86.
21
I grant with Gilson that both acts of the intellect are required for knowledge, however I deny his
conclusion, that judgment is ontologically prior to simple apprehension, and that a being is thus not
known as an ens without first making a judgment of its existence. The reason for this is that, as was
shown in our response, judgment depends on simple apprehension just as the composed depends on the
simple. This relationship of judgment to simple apprehension is one of ontological dependence, since the
simple can be without the composed, but not vice versa. The judgment ‘that something exists’ is included
potentially in the simple apprehension of ens, but it is not necessary in order to apprehend ens as a being
that there be a composition saying “this being exists.” Of course, perfect explicit knowledge of the thing
would require this, but not imperfect and vague knowledge.
I grant that esse is prior to ens in the via resolutionis, that is, as a constitutive part precedes the whole
of which it is. However, it must be said that esse is not an integral part of ens, like bricks being part of a
wall, but it is rather like a universal part that is separable from ens according to account, but not
according to being, as “rational” or “animal” are said to be a part of man’s definition, or the form is part
of a natural substance.90 Thus, insofar as ens is defined as an “esse habens,” esse precedes ens as the parts
of the definition precede the defined thing in the way of resolution. And, as such, esse must be understood
prior to defining ens as an “esse habens.” However, even though esse is prior to ens according to
resolution, ens is still prior to esse in the order of composition, which is the same as the order of
discovery.
I deny the inferred conclusion, that esse is prior to ens in the order of discovery. This is clear from
what has been said previously. Such a position though seems to be based on the assumption that the first
“vital experience” of ens is only in the senses and not in the intellect, and that the first real encounter
between the intellect and ens is when the intellect judges something to be, and only then does one
understand that it is a being. That Gilson actually holds this is supported by the analysis of Kemple who
saw in his thought a stark division between the ‘extra-mental’ entia realis of the senses on the one hand to
which judgment attains, and the ‘intra-mental’ entia rationis on the other which simple apprehension treats
of.91 Given this division, it would make sense why someone striving to be an ultra-realist would posit
judgment and the esse of external things as first in the order of discovery, while the apprehension of
essence and the ens that is in the mind as being second. However, I maintain, and I believe Aquinas holds
90 “Cum totum sit quod dividitur in partes, secundum triplicem divisionem est triplex totalitas. Est enim quoddam
totum quod dividitur in partes quantitativas, sicut tota linea vel totum corpus. Est etiam quoddam totum quod
dividitur in partes rationis et essentiae; sicut definitum in partes definitionis, et compositum resolvitur in materiam et
formam. Tertium autem totum est potentiale, quod dividitur in partes virtutis.” Aquinas, ST I., q. 76, a. 8, resp.
91 Kemple, “Evaluating the Metaphysical Realism of Etienne Gilson,” 378–379.
22
this as well, as shown in the main response, that the ens that is first known is an ens rationis, that is
intelligible being apprehended by the first act of the intellect, 92 but that this same ens is posteriorly known
in the order of discovery as an ens realis when the intellect judges it to exist by the second act of the
intellect, when it reflects back upon the first act. But this is not to deny that the ens that is first known by
simple apprehension comes to the intellect through the senses, and in particular the common sense, nor
does it deny that ens is presented to the intellect through a sensible phantasm. However, it does not seem
that the ens in the sensible phantasm is perceived as intelligible being until it has been made such by the
light of the agent intellect. At that point it becomes the object of simple apprehension.
I deny Maritain’s conclusion, that the act of existence is first in our knowledge, if one takes “first” as
referring to the order of discovery, nevertheless, it seems correct to grant that the first and second act of
the intellect have no priority or posteriority according to time. 93 This objection has been sufficiently dealt
with in the third part of the main response. It can likewise be dealt with using the same argument that
showed esse to be posterior to ens in the order of discovery, since the act or state of existence of a thing
does not really differ from the “to be” by which it exists, except perhaps according to account. Both are
the principle by which a thing exists, and they only really seem to be distinct insofar as one is understood
through the mode of a noun or a habitus of ens (the act of existence) while the other is understood
through the mode of a verb or an action of the ens (to be).
I deny that knowledge of the act of existence is prior formally to the knowledge of ens. For, as was
shown in the main response, ens is the most common predicate of all that is known, and is therefore the
primary formal account of all that is known by the intellect. However, I grant that the act of existence, if
taken by itself simpliciter and without immediate reference to knowledge, and if understood to be the
same as esse, is itself prior formally to ens, since it is defined as that by which ens exists. For, esse “is that
which is most intimate in each thing, and which is most deeply in all things, since it is formal with respect
to all else that is in a thing.” 94 Thus, in a certain respect, that is according to knowledge, ens has formal
priority over esse or the actus essendi, but simply speaking, that is according to being, esse has formal
priority over ens.
92 “Est enim proprium obiectum intellectus ens intelligibile: quod quidem comprehendit omnes differentias et species
entis possibiles; quicquid enim esse potest, intelligi potest.” Aquinas, SCG II., cap. 98.
93 Cf. Owens, “Aquinas on Knowing Existence,” 682.
94 “Esse autem est illud quod est magis intimum cuilibet, et quod profundius omnibus inest, cum sit formale respectu
omnium quae in re sunt, ut ex supra dictis patet.” Aquinas, ST I., q. 8, a. 1, resp. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, “De Anima,”
in Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. 2 (Paris: Lethielleux, 1884) a. 1, ad. 17.
23
When Maritain says that “the first idea formed by a child is not the idea of being; but the idea for
being is implicit in the first idea that the child forms,” 95 It seems from what follows that the “idea of
being” that he is speaking of is the knowledge of ens which is only known when one judges that a being
exists through the second act of the intellect. If such is the case, I grant the objection. For ens is only
perfectly known after one makes a judgment of its existence by reflecting in the second act back upon the
first act. However, if the “idea of being” refers to that which is known through simple apprehension, then
I deny the objection. That ens is the first known by the intellect in simple apprehension has been
sufficiently proven above where we demonstrated that the vague precedes the distinct as the imperfect
precedes the perfect.
This objection seems to err similarly to the 7 th objection, in that the first apprehension of the intellect
in Maritain’s 2nd step is of an idea where being is only “implicitly present,” and yet that idea of being does
not become explicit until the 6 th step, when there is made a judgment of existence. But, to the contrary,
we saw above that what is implicit in the very first act of apprehension is not being, or ens itself, but
rather all the other determinations that follow upon being. It is true that ens is imperfectly known as ens
until one can make a judgment about it, and perhaps this is what Maritain intends to say when he brings
in the language of “implicit” vs. “explicit.” However, such terminology seems to imply that ens is not the
first known, but that it is only known as such after one has made a judgment of existence. If such is
Maritain’s meaning, then I deny the objection and refer once again to the arguments above where it was
demonstrated that simple apprehension precedes judgment according to the order of being and discovery.
95 Maritain, Existence and the Existent 34, n. 12.
24
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26

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“Primo Cadit in Intellectu Ens”

Gilson, Maritain, and Aquinas on Knowing Being

Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception ST 824 – Thomism in Modernity

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Objection 1: That Knowledge of Esse is Prior to Knowledge of Ens According to Dignity.

1. That Some Philosophers Have Held Essentia to be the First Known.

34 Wippel, “Maritain and Aquinas on Our Discovery of Being,” 428.

2. That Other Philosophers Have Held Esse to be the First Known.

40 Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 102.

4.1 Argument from the Proper Object of the Intellect.

4.1.1 The Priority According to Knowledge, or Definition.

4.1.2 Ens as the Proper Object of the Intellect.

Commentarium In Libros Sententiarum (Parma, 1856), http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/ I., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3.

4.2.2 The Order of the Two Acts

4.3 Argument from the Intellect’s Mode of Procedure.

4.3.2 Imperfect Knowledge is Indistinct Knowledge.

5. Conclusion to Main Response.

85 Cf. Aquinas, “De Veritate” q. 1, a. 3.

95 Maritain, Existence and the Existent 34, n. 12.

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