El cognitio per primas intentiones en el Tractatus de secundis intentibus de Hervaeus Natalis (1250-1323)

Abstract

The aim of this contribution is the study of the concept of primae intentiones according to the Breton tomist Hervaeus Natalis (1250–1323), through the analysis of his Tractatus de secundis intentionibus. In this text, the Breton inherits the theory of knowledge of Thomas Aquinas to re–elaborate it in the light of the concept of intentio, making the Tractatus the first work in which the theory of intentionality is exposed in a unitary way. This paper will examine the first part of this theory, in which Hervaeus theorizes the primae intentiones as a medium by which an object of the world is known and ‘passes’ into the intellect of a knowing subject, to analyse its originality.