Secunda Operatio Respicit Ipsum Esse Rei: An Evaluation of Jacques Maritain, Étienne Gilson, and Ralph McInerny on the Relation of Esse to the Intellect's Two Operations

Abstract

Secunda Operatio Respicit Ipsum Esse Rei:An Evaluation of Jacques Maritain, Étienne Gilson, and Ralph McInerny on the Relation of Esse to the Intellect's Two Operations Elliot Polsky Status Quaestionis In his Preface to Metaphysics (1939), Jacques Maritain warns that "it is a radical error to restrict the object of the intellect to the object of the first operation of the mind."1 Thanks to texts such as q. 5, a. 3 of St. Thomas's commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate, the seventh reply in d. 19, q. 5, a. 1 of book I of the Scriptum on the Sentences (hereafter simply Scriptum), and the corpus of Scriptum I, d. 38, q. 1, a. 3, it is the common opinion of the twentieth century's great existential Thomists that, whereas the object of the intellect's first activity (or operation) is the essences of things, the object of the second operation of the intellect is the act of existence or to-be (esse).2 In the texts just cited, Aquinas distinguishes two operations of the intellect, which correspond to two distinct aspects in things: their nature, quiddity, or essence, on the one hand, and their existence [End Page 895] or to-be (esse), on the other. The first operation, says Thomas, "pertains to [respicit] the nature of a thing," or put differently, "apprehends [apprehendit] the quiddities of things." The second, however, "pertains to [respicit] the being [esse] of a thing," or put differently, "comprehends [comprehendit] the being [esse] of a thing." These two operations have traditionally been named "simple apprehension" and "judgment," respectively. The principal authors espousing this existentialist thesis are Maritain3 and Étienne Gilson,4 for whom the cognition of esse in judgment plays an essential role in both epistemology and metaphysics. This paper restricts itself to considering the metaphysical thesis itself that esse is cognized in judgment—that is, that the object of the second operation of the intellect is esse. The standard response to existential Thomism in regard to the cognition of esse was given first by Father Louis-Marie Régis in his 1951 review of Gilson's Being and Some Philosophers.5 It was subsequently developed at considerable length by Ralph McInerny in various places.6 The heart of the [End Page 896] argument made by these two authors against existential Thomism consists in pointing to a text in lecture 5 of Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's Peryermenias (De interpreatione) in which Aquinas appears to say quite plainly that "is" signifies esse, that "is" is a verb, and that verbs signify concepts in the first operation of the intellect, not the second. In response to this objection, existential Thomists could either, as Gilson does, call into question the value of Aquinas's Aristotelian commentaries for revealing Aquinas's own thoughts7 or, more plausibly, point out that none of the existential Thomists deny a concept of existence in the first operation.8 Rather, all they deny is that our understanding of existence originates in the first, rather than the second, operation. So, even if Father Régis and McInerny are right to see in In peryermenias a simple concept of esse, this need not contradict the existential Thomist thesis that esse is properly cognized only in judgment. It is the contention of the present paper that both sides of this dispute are mistaken. For reasons that have not been previously explored, we must deny the existentialist thesis that the object of the second operation is esse. Moreover, we must reject the Régis-McInerny interpretation of In peryermenias in which that text is taken as describing a particular concept of existence cognized in the first operation of the intellect. To reach these two conclusions, we proceed as follows. First, we present a chronological sketch of Maritain's understanding of the relation of esse to judgment, using him as the chief representative of the existential school and only citing Gilson afterward to confirm our previous interpretation of Maritain and to suggest that his view is generally representative of the existential school. Second, using texts in which Aquinas distinguishes the two operations of the intellect, we consider whether it is...