ST I, q. 85

Of the Mode and Order of Understanding

We come now to consider the mode and order of understanding. Under this head there are eight points of inquiry:

(1) Whether our intellect understands by abstracting the species from the phantasms?

(2) Whether the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasms are what our intellect understands, or that whereby it understands?

(3) Whether our intellect naturally first understands the more universal?

(4) Whether our intellect can know many things at the same time?

(5) Whether our intellect understands by the process of composition and division?

(6) Whether the intellect can err?

(7) Whether one intellect can understand better than another?

(8) Whether our intellect understands the indivisible before the divisible?

Articles

  1. a. 1Whether our intellect understands corporeal and material things by abstraction from phantasms?
  2. a. 2Whether the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasm is related to our intellect as that which is understood?
  3. a. 3Whether the more universal is first in our intellectual cognition?
  4. a. 4Whether we can understand many things at the same time?
  5. a. 5Whether our intellect understands by composition and division?
  6. a. 6Whether the intellect can be false?
  7. a. 7Whether one person can understand one and the same thing better than another can?
  8. a. 8Whether the intellect understands the indivisible before the divisible?

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ST I, q. 85 — Of the Mode and Order of Understanding - Ask the Summa