Thesis 3>60
Latin
Nihil intelligit actu et distincte anima, nisi se ipsam.
Copy-text Farmer 1998 (farmer1998:21254), where the OCR prints the number as '3760'; Farmer's apparatus on this page records a 1486 variant only for 3>63 (farmer1998:21282). Copenhaver reports that the wording of the thesis in the Apology differs slightly from the Conclusions (copenhaver2022:5888-5889); Allen quotes it from the Basel Opera (page 92) as 'nisi seipsam' (allen2017:1679-1681). Collation with the Rome print of 7 December 1486 (farmer1998:28040-28042) is outstanding.
English
There is nothing that the soul understands in actuality and distinctly, other than itself.
'actu' is rendered 'in actuality', the term Garcia pressed when he objected that knowledge called hidden is latent, not actual (dougherty2008:9624-9625). 'distincte' qualifies the same act: the soul may grasp other things in some way, as 3>62 says it grasps all beings 'quodammodo' (farmer1998:21260-21261), without understanding them actually and distinctly (editor's reading).
Condemnation
Q13 in the order of the Apology: The hidden understanding of the soul. Printed 7 December 1486; censured by the papal commission in February-March 1487; the work as a whole condemned by the bull of 4 August 1487.
'Wrong' in Blum's translation of the record in Dorez and Thuasne 1897 (dougherty2008:2183, 2249); after Pico's reply, false and 'not to the understanding of the doctors whom he adduces', in Still's report from the same record (dougherty2008:9603-9605, 9620-9621). Farmer records only that the thesis was among the thirteen attacked by the commission (farmer1998:21289).
Doctrine
The thesis concerns the self-knowledge of the soul, its cognition of itself: in the Aristotelian epistemology Pico inherited, the intellect understands itself as a result of understanding other things, whereas Pico makes the soul's self-understanding the only understanding it has actually and distinctly (dougherty2008:9592-9597). In the scholastic account of cognition all knowing begins in the senses, the internal senses form a phantasm, and the agent intellect, the illuminating power of the intellect, abstracts an intelligible species from the phantasm and impresses it on the potential intellect (dougherty2008:9402-9408). Pico's own series grants that nothing intrinsic to the soul lets it understand anything distinct from itself without the proper species (farmer1998:21264-21267). The same series holds that the soul always understands itself and, understanding itself, understands all beings in some way (farmer1998:21260-21261). It adds that the whole substance of the rational soul is its intellectual part (farmer1998:21257), and that by external information the soul can come to understand all things indivisibly through its substantial form (farmer1998:21278-21279). Farmer reconstructs the theory behind 3>60-66: ordinary knowledge comes by abstraction from the senses, while the purified soul rises to its intellectual part and thence to the angelic or 'total' intellect, which informs it with intelligible species that are absorbed into the soul's undivided substance (farmer1998:5864-5871). On this account the soul's knowledge begins as self-consciousness and can reach all things by self-inspection (farmer1998:5874-5876). Still describes two tracks, a lower one that begins in the senses and a higher one that uses intelligibles present to the soul from its origin (dougherty2008:9490-9494). In the Heptaplus Pico gives the intellect an inner light by which it sees itself but not other things, for which it needs the forms and ideas of things (dougherty2008:9641-9645). The qualifiers 'actu et distincte' reconcile 3>60 with 3>62: all things are grasped only in a way, the soul itself actually and distinctly (editor's inference from farmer1998:21254 and farmer1998:21260-21261).
Context
The thesis stood among the paradoxical conclusions offered as new doctrines in philosophy, and in the printed book it came second of the thirteen, after 3>49 and before the eucharistic theses 4>1 and 4>2 (farmer1998:20258-20261; copenhaver2022:1252-1253). Farmer reads the apparent contradictions within 3>60-66 as deliberate debating traps for Pico's opponents (farmer1998:5875-5877). He refers the historical thesis from Simplicius on the soul's self-consciousness to this one (farmer1998:14585-14586). Copenhaver takes it as the type of the bare doctrinal thesis, a third-person declaration with no doxastic content, unlike the first-person 'non assentior' of 4>13 (copenhaver2022:5818-5834).
Reception
Pico replied to the commission that he meant the act of understanding called 'intelligere abditum', hidden understanding, of which Henry of Ghent speaks in his ninth Quodlibet and Augustine often in De Trinitate (dougherty2008:9599-9602, 9620-9622; farmer1998:5861-5864). In the Apology he headed the thirteenth Question 'De abdita intelligentia animae disputatio' and explained hidden understanding as intuition without phantasms, as distinct from cognition of external objects (dougherty2008:2395-2399, 2424). Cassirer quotes the passage: the hidden understanding is without phantasm or the help of sense or imagination, direct and permanent (cassirer1942:1149-1152). In the same Question Pico claimed that a hidden concatenation runs through all his conclusions (dougherty2008:2391-2395, 2422-2423). Blum's translation of the commission's record gives the verdict 'Wrong' (dougherty2008:2183, 2247-2249). Still reports that the reply did not satisfy the commission, which declared the conclusion false and not in accord with the understanding of the doctors Pico adduced (dougherty2008:9603-9605). Edelheit counts it among the seven theses declared suspect, as against six condemned (edelheit2008:14877-14883). Pico later put two further propositions in its place, and Pedro Garcia (Garsia) traced both to Averroes (allen2017:1681-1683). Garcia also objected that knowledge called hidden is latent, not actual (dougherty2008:9624-9625). After this last Question Pico briefly reviewed the proceedings and said that speed had mattered more than accuracy (copenhaver2022:12062-12063).
Historiography
Still sets Dulles, for whom the defence of this thesis was the weakest section of the Apology, against Cassirer, who took its 'occulta concatenatio' seriously as the bond holding Pico's thought together (dougherty2008:9605-9609; allen2017:1683-1684). Cassirer made that hidden linkage the programme of his reading and the soul's 'scientia abdita' Pico's highest knowledge (cassirer1942:487-496, 1121-1131). Farmer reconstructs from 3>60-66 a syncretic theory that reconciles Platonic and Aristotelian accounts of knowledge (farmer1998:5858-5877, 5909-5910). Blum reads the appeal to a hidden concatenation as turning scholastic disputation into an inquiry into the powers of the soul (dougherty2008:2400-2406). Copenhaver is sceptical: the hidden linkage may have been more numerological than doctrinal, and the Apology has no order beyond the one the judges gave it (copenhaver2022:12141-12152). Allen aligns the thesis with Pico's claim that the soul is in some sense all things because it understands all things (allen2017:1257-1263, 1679-1681). Still concludes that Pico's soul, holding innate species yet bound to acquired ones for things outside itself, has its wings clipped (dougherty2008:9646-9652). The thesis shows where Pico located the first certainty of knowledge, in the soul's hold on itself, into which any knowledge of the world must finally be absorbed (editor's inference from farmer1998:5869-5876 and dougherty2008:9592-9597).
Pico's sources
- Henry of Ghent, ninth Quodlibet, on the 'intelligere abditum': authority Pico invoked in his reply to the commission (dougherty2008:9600)
- Augustine, De Trinitate: authority invoked in the same reply ('sepe in libro de Trinitate', dougherty2008:9622) (dougherty2008:9602)
- The Aristotelian account in which the intellect understands itself by understanding other things: the position the thesis reverses, in Still's account (dougherty2008:9594)
Quotations cited
- “Key propositions in Pico's theory of knowledge” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:21288)
- “the soul has no intrinsic knowledge except an intelligere abditum” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:5861)
- “The apparent contradictions in these theses were clearly intended as debating traps” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:5875)
- “Loquor de illo actu intelligendi” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:9621)
- “not to the understanding of the doctors whom he adduces” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:9604)
- “regarded this as the weakest section of the Apologia” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:9606)
- “has its wings clipped” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:9652)
- “De abdita intelligentia animae disputatio” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:2424)
- “in omnibus meis conclusionibus, semper occulta quaedam est” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:2422)
- “quod est sine phantasmate” — Ernst Cassirer, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: A Study in the History of Renaissance Ideas (cassirer1942:1149)
- “is and remains a scientia abdita” — Ernst Cassirer, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: A Study in the History of Renaissance Ideas (cassirer1942:1122)
- “may have been more numerological than doctrinal” — Brian P. Copenhaver, Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy (copenhaver2022:12147)
- “The soul understands nothing actually and distinctly except itself” — Brian P. Copenhaver, Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy (copenhaver2022:5825)
- “Quaestio XIII de abdita animae intelligentia” — Paolo Edoardo Fornaciari (ed.), Apologia conclusionum suarum (front matter and contents only in the corpus) (fornaciari2010:1045)
Not established
- The slight difference in wording between the Conclusions and the Apology that Copenhaver reports (copenhaver2022:5888-5889) is not established by the sources consulted; the Apology's text was not consulted.
- The two propositions Pico substituted for the thesis (Opera, 235 and 240, nos. 45-46, per allen2017:1681-1682) were not consulted.
- Garcia's arguments against the thesis are known here only through Allen and through Still's report of Dulles (allen2017:1681-1683; dougherty2008:9624-9625); Garcia's text was not consulted.
- Why Blum's rendering of the verdict ('Wrong') and Still's ('false' and not according to the doctors adduced) differ, both from Dorez and Thuasne, is not established by the sources consulted; they may record two stages of the proceedings.
- Still's transcription reads 'Henricus non Quodlibet' (dougherty2008:9622) while his translation says 'ninth Quodlibet' (dougherty2008:9601-9602); which question of that Quodlibet Pico meant is not established by the sources consulted.
- Collation against the 1486 Rome print.
Discussed in
- Michael J. B. Allen, Studies in the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico (2017)
- Brian P. Copenhaver, Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy (2022)
- M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (2008)
- Sophia Howlett, Re-evaluating Pico: Aristotelianism, Kabbalism, and Platonism in the Philosophy of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (2021)
- (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
Related theses
3>61, 3>62, 3>63, 3>64, 3>65, 3>66, 3>49, 7a>63, 17.1, 2>1, 2>31, 3>40, 5>19