Minerd / Deely DRAFT, AMA 2018, ©2018 Matthew K. Minerd, Ph.D.

Getting the Middle Term Right: Cenoscopy, Idioscopy, and the Formal Objects of Sciences
Matthew K. Minerd, Ph.D
with Brooke Deely, Ph.D. and Don Eaglehouse, R.Ph.

Abstract
Throughout John Deely’s work on the philosophy of science, the distinction between
cenoscopic and idioscopic science plays a key role. Indeed, according to his reading of Western
intellectual history, the increased focus on idioscopic methods and conceptualization could be
called a quasi-property of the modern scientific outlook. This increased focus marks an
important moment in the noetic and cultural history of the West, to such an extent that the
popular narrative of Western intellectual history presents this as a radical break, as though the
new idioscopic focus of modernity implied, both de facto and de iure, a break with the
cenoscopic outlook of pre-modern investigations of reality. Deely repeatedly contested such an
“interpretation through rupture,” insisting on the close relationships between cenoscopic and
idioscopic reality, seeing the latter as an outgrowth of the latter—at once new and old, so to
speak.
Deely’s use of the terminology “cenoscopy” and “ideoscopy,” originating as it does in
Bentham, is not always accepted by those who follow a more traditional Thomistic vocabulary
concerning the division of the sciences. To help facilitate such an understanding, this paper will
propose a rapproachement between Maritain’s treatment of empirio-metric physics and Deely’s
discussion of idioscopic knowledge. The paper will not engage directly in a defense of
Maritain’s position against, for example, the reproaches of the Laval school. Instead, taking his
position for granted, it will seek set forth a “fusion of horizons” between his thought and that of
Deely concerning these matters pertaining to the nature and division of the sciences.

Personal Introduction

I would like to open by thanking Brooke and Don for this opportunity to explain in some

technical detail an important philosophical topic. Brooke needs no introduction—though, I

should like to stress her involvement in these reflections, and would also like to attest to her deep

devotion to John’s work. Her continued advocacy on behalf of John’s bequest to St. Vincent

College is something for which we should all be thankful. In addition, as “Maritainians”, we

should all be very thankful for her stern and unflagging advocacy on behalf of the Maritain-

centric nature of the Deely-Maritain chair at St. Vincent. Having myself been blessed to share in

John’s last months on this earth, I can attest to his great love for Maritain—a fact I had known

for years but one that was profoundly confirmed in our weekly chats during the final months of

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his life. His name is attached to is only because he wished that the semiotic outlook be carried

forward as well—an outlook too easily overlooked, as history well attests. However, his heart,

as well as that of Brooke’s, rests with the Maritains. I need not dilate on this point but will avail

myself instead, of a word from her recently. Slightly altering her words—only slightly as

regards ordering—Brooke recently exclaimed to me, “I would rather die than forget about

Maritain!” We owe her a great debt, indeed.

We also owe a debt of thanks to Mr. Eaglehouse, whose insights will help to ground our

abstruse reflections today. Don and his wife * have been a steadfast support to the Deelys since

their move to Latrobe. From early on, Don and John hit it off well—so much so that Don, not a

philosopher but a pharmacist, found in John’s works an articulation of reality that relieved him of

his feeling of being “intellectually alone.” In John, he found a like mind—so much so that his e-

mail signature has read, for two years now: “Signs are supra-subjective triadic relations

accessible only to the understanding.” We are quite fortunate to have his contribution to today’s

paper, and as friends of John we all owe a debt to him and his wife for the love they have shown

the Deelys. With Aristotle, we should note that we owe an unpayable debt those who have

bettered us philosophically. Don has been helping us repay that endless debt that we all owe to

John.

Thematic Introduction

It was at Brooke’s suggestion that I crafted today’s talk, one written formally from the

perspective of a philosopher. My goal is to fuse horizons between John’s vocabulary and that of

the Thomist school’s vocabulary concerning the division of the sciences and the nature of

various sciences’ formal objects. Thus, my goal is pedagogical and exploratory, and I am forced

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to leave some important technical remarks to the footnotes (though I can gladly provide print /

digital versions of the paper to those interested in references). Briefly stated, I will explain how

John’s distinction between cenoscopic and idioscopic knowledge meshes well with the Thomist

school’s understanding of the ultimate distinction of formal objects of habitus. To accomplish

this rapprochement, I will proceed in three stages. First, I will speak the language of those

gathered—a Thomistic language; though, as we will see, this discussion will involve distinctions

that are not often made in this era wherein the wisdom of the august Thomist school is often

spurned for a kind of sola scriptura approach to Thomas’s texts. Next, I present John’s general

distinction between cenoscopic and idioscopic knowledge, which I will illuminate from the

perspective of the Thomist points made in the first section of the paper. Finally, I will close with

an example, provided by Don Eaglehouse. Blessedly, this example will help to ground our

abstruse discussions in a clear example—something very appropriate to our phantasm-bound,

human intellects.

Maritain and the Multi-Valence of the Sciences

Among the generally-accepted line of development within the Thomist school, it had

been normal up until recent history to make a clear distinction between two important

acceptations of “formal object.” However, before explaining this distinction, I must very briefly

note for the non-experts in the room another critical distinction, namely, that between the sense

of “material object” and “formal object”—a distinction thematized by Maritain, Simon, and

Deely as the distinction between thing and object.1 The “material object” is the very thing that is

1
See Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald Phelan et al. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2002), 96-107. Yves R. Simon, An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Knowledge, trans. Vukan Kuic
and Richard J. Thompson (New York: Fordham University Press, 1990), 141-149. Citations from Deely are legion.
Also see John C. Cahalan, “The Problem of Thing and Object in Maritain,” The Thomist 59, no. 1 (1995): 21–46.

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known, but considered primarily as independent of every power or habitus whatsoever. In

contrast, to call something an “object” is already to import a relation to a power of the soul (and,

likely too, to a habitus). The object is the thing as placed before a power. Yes, indeed, the

notion of “object” includes “thing,” and yet it also includes the relation2 to a power or habitus

formally specified in a particular way in relation to the given thing. This is well expressed by

Simon, following Poinstot: “Thus describing the object of knowledge in its form as object is

equivalent to revealing the nature of its relation with the knowing subject or the cognitive

faculty.”3

Now, let us pass to the question of constitution of the object as such. I take for granted

the Thomist position that formal abstraction (or, “eideitic visualization”) gives the ultimate

character and differentiation to a science. Furthermore, I take for granted that the manner of

defining terms is a sign that indicates such a difference in abstraction. That is, the modus

definiendi reveals the foundational differentiating character of objects as objects (i.e.,

reduplicatively as such), namely the status of an object in its particular abstractive character.

What I merely wish to do is to explain the technical logical distinction made by Maritain in

arguing on behalf of a distinction of formal objects between the modern sciences and the

philosophy of nature. Any discussions regarding the soundness of his distinction must fully

engage this important bit of Thomist logic. The distinction of which I speak is that between the

Also, see the wealth of texts from Aquinas found in L.-M. Régis, Epistemology, trans. Imelda Choquette Byrne
(New York: Macmillan, 1959), 177–93. On the prehistory of the notion of object, see also Lawrence Dewan,
“‘Obiectum’: Notes on the Intention of a Word” in Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 403–43.
2
To be exact: a one-directional relation of measure to measured from the thing to the object, founded upon extrinisic
formal causality.
3
See Simon, An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Knowledge, 7. One senses here the same set of issues that arise
as regards so-called “first intentions,” as I have discussed elsewhere in Matthew Minerd, “Beyond Non-Being:
Thomistic Metaphysics on Second Intentions, Ens morale, and Ens artificiale,” ACPQ 91, no. 3 (2017): 358-365.

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formal object quod and the formal object quo, what we may call the “two faces” of the formal

object.

As is openly admitted in The Philosophy of Nature, this matter of terminology is of great

importance in delimiting the formal object of supernatural theology. Thus, our task is to

understand how the natural tool of logic is “sharpened” by its use in theology. To begin, we

must distinguish Deus ut res and Deus ut objectum.4 The language is stilted, but the point is

obvious once we formulate the matter aright. It is one thing to consider God as a He is in

Himself (ut res) absolutely speaking, prescinding from any knower whatsoever. However, to be

an object implies that God is known by some intellectual being. Speaking in a general manner,

we have the distinction between the material object (=ut res) and the formal object (=ut

obiectum). Thus, God is known sub ratione entis mobilis in natural philosophy (as the Unmoved

source of motion), sub ratione entis in metaphysics, and sub ratione Deitatis by faith (and

theology).5

In ST I q.1, a.3, St. Thomas notes the difference between considering something ut res

and ut obiectum by using examples of the proper sensibles (i.e., of the external senses) and the

common sensibles (i.e., of the common sense). However, in his text, the distinction between

faith and theology is a little blurry at times. Nonetheless, see especially the remark in ST I q.1

a.7: “[That God is the object of this science] is clear also from the principles of this science,

4
On this capital point of supernatural theology, see Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Sense of Mystery: Clarity and
Obscurity in the Intellectual Life, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2017), 126-
127n9 and 135-139.
5
The general character of one’s knowledge is colored by the way that one approaches one’s object. The distinction
between knowing God as Prime Mover vs. God as Source of created being is attested to in Aquinas, De Trinitate,
q.5, a.2, ad 3. The fifteenth century Dominican Dominic of Flanders takes a similar view, noting that natural
philosophy proves the existence of God as cause of motion, while metaphysics proves His existence as cause of
being. Indeed, he explicitly states his view as being part of a longer conversation in agreement with Avicenna. See
Phillip-Neri Reese, "Dominic of Flanders, O.P. (d. 1479) on the Nature of the Science of Metaphysics" (PhL Thesis,
The Catholic University of America, 2015), 22-23n40.

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namely, the articles of faith, for faith is about God. The object of the principles and of the whole

science must be the same, since the whole science is contained virtually in its principles.” The

conclusions are drawn out “from the power” (i.e., virtually) from the principle of the science.

What is not quite clear is the distinction between formal revelation and virtual revelation, though

it is at play in ST I q.1, a.6, ad 3, as well as ST I q.1, a.8.6

It is precisely to avoid confusing the assent of theology with that of faith that we need to

make a further distinction so as to understand these matters aright. For its limitations, the

vocabulary of Cajetan is helpful here. When we are considering something as an object, we

must distinguish between the ratio formalis obiecti ut res and the ratio formalis obiecti ut

obiectum. The ratio formalis obiecti ut res is the formal object quod (i.e. the formal object that

is known, or the formality considered from the perspective of the thing known). Maritain has

felicitously referred to this as the “intelligibility appeal” of the thing known. In known being, the

thing (ut res) offers itself to the given power from a particular perspective. However, we can go

further so as to understand how this given perspective (of the object, considered as a thing, ex

parte rei) can be approached under several different lights (ex parte cognoscentis).

That is, the “intelligibility appeal” of the thing can be considered in different manners.

Maritain focuses on the traditional Thomistic division of types of immateriality involved in the

orders of natural knowledge. These represent various kinds of rationes formales sub qua,

rationes formales obiecti ut obiectum, or “objective lights” under which the given intelligibility

is known. Following time-hallowed, one could call this the formal object quo. In an incredibly

6
As regards the distinction between res ut res and res ut obiectum, no dualism need be presupposed. Instead, as
Maritain has ably shown, the notion of object includes that of thing. For a rather clear exposition of this point, see
John C. Cahalan, "The Problem of Thing and Object in Maritain," The Thomist 59, no.1: 21-46. Jacques Maritain,
Degrees of Knowledge, ed. and trans. Gerald Phelan et al. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002),
96-107, 127-136. Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, trans. E.I. Watkin (London: Sheed and Ward,
1932), 159, 193, 205n2, 253n1.

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dense text, Maritain discusses how “it may happen that, given a certain sphere of fundamental

intelligibility determined by the intelligibility-appeal of the thing, the corresponding objective

light be diversified into several different objective lights each specifying a type of knowledge.”7

To summarize his points, we can say the following. In revealing Himself, God opens up

the very depths of the intimate nature of the Deity (ratio obiectum ut res). This same objective

formality (still from the perspective ut res) can be viewed under various lights (i.e. precisely ut

obiectum). There is the full clarity of God’s own self-knowledge, which alone is fully

comprehensive of His Supernatural Majesty. Then, there is the clear vision of the blessed souls

in heaven—viewing God in the light of glory. Here below, there is need for the supernatural,

though obscure, light of faith. Formally speaking, the depths of the Deity are seen (though

obscurely) in this light. (Thus, we have the “intelligibility appeal” of the Deity seen under the

“objective light” of faith, i.e. formal revelation, assented with Supernatural Certitude in the First,

Supernatural Truth who reveals this.) Speaking loosely, one could say that supernatural theology

7
Maritain, Philosophy of Nature, 127. See ibid., 127-128: “It may happen that, given a certain sphere of
fundamental intelligibility determined by the intelligibility-appeal of the thing, the corresponding objective light be
diversified into several different objective lights each specifying a type of knowledge. In such a case it is clear that
what ultimately specifies a scientific habitus is the formal perspective sub qua, the objective light, more than the
formal perspective quae.”
“Such is the case for theology,—and this is Cajetan’s point: theology has the same intelligibility-appeal, the
same formal perspective of reality (as does the beatific vision: Deitas ut sic) and consequently belongs to the same
sphere of fundamental intelligibility. The intelligibility-appeal, the ratio formalis quae of theology is deity as such,
the deep depths of the divine nature; its sphere of fundamental intelligibility is Deitas sub ratione Deitatis, God
taken not according to the intelligibility-appeal of the first cause, but according to that of the deity itself. And yet
the formal perspective sub qua, the objective light of theology, is not the light of the beatific vision and of the
science of the blessed; our theology proceeds from a special objective light: the light of divine revelation, not as
evident as it is in glory and not as in evident, but simply as revealing: for the principle of theology are received from
the intuitive science of the blessed by means of faith. In this case the intelligibility-appeal, the formal perspective of
reality, has only a generic and not a specific determination, and the objective light corresponding to this
intelligibility-appeal, (the formal perspective sub qua which corresponds to this formal perspective quae) also has a
generic unity which is diversified into several species.”
“The lumen divinum is divided first into lumen divinum evidens, which is the perspective sub qua, the
objective light of the theology of the blessed; secondly into lumen divinum revelans abstrahendo ab evidentia aut
inevidentia, the divine revealing light considered neither as evident nor inevident, which is the objective light of our
theology; and finally lumen divinum inevidens, the non-evident divine revealing light which is the objective light of
faith. Three different objective lights for the one same sphere of fundamental intelligibility, for one same object
intelligibly determined by the formal perspective of the object as a thing (Deitas).”

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extends this obscure knowledge by seeing what conclusions can be drawn from it and how the

immediately known content of faith are interrelated (and also defends those principles by

showing their fittingness, for theology is truly a wisdom, defending itself against those who

would attack its principles and discursively savoring the intelligibility of those principles). This

is a light that is unique, one that is naturally acquired in study. It is the “objective light” (shining

upon the Deity as such) of “virtual revelation.” It thus has its own kind of certitude and

approach to the Deity that differentiates it from faith simpliciter.8

Thus, the immediate concern of Cajetan in the text9 relevant to Maritain is to discern the

various kinds of intrinsically supernatural10 formal objects that fall to the obviously

differentiated orders of faith and of theology. As we have seen (in brief), under pressures

asserted in matters regarding theological knowledge, Thomist logic felt it necessary to push the

thing-object distinction even further than this initial dichotomy. Discussion of formal objects

takes place on the level of discourse pertaining to “objects.” Precisely because being-an-object

implies a relation to a power (whether congnoscitive or appetitive), objects are two-sided affairs.

For our purposes, we can say that they have a “thing face” and an “object face." From what we

have seen in the somewhat flamboyant vocabulary of Cajetan, the “thing-as-object” can be

8
See note 16 below. Also, see Jacques Maritain, Science and Wisdom, trans. Bernard Wall (London: Geoffrey Bles,
1944): 234-237, esp. 236, which I translate (for reasons discussed below): “Theology, like every wisdom†
simpliciter dicta, knows its principles by turning back upon them. Even when it is a question of a truth of faith,
theology knows it, not inasmuch as it is a mystery of faith, transcending theological knowledge†, but inasmuch as it
is an object to which this knowledge† returns by scrutinizing it, explaining it, and giving it precision in the light of
virtual revelation.”
†Note, however, that the current English translation reads “science” in the locations thus marked,
something that eminently confuses the qualitative distinction between the offices that fall to science and those that
fall to wisdom. (As I discuss below in note 33, wisdom has the added office of reflecting upon and defending its
principles. Yes, forms of wisdom contain he conclusion-oriented illation involved in science, but this office is
formally and eminently contained in the loftier notion of wisdom. Bernard Wall’s mistake was almost certainly a
typo of sorts. Still, it is an incredibly dangerous typo that ought to be updated in any future edition. See Jacques
Maritain, Oeuvres completes, vol. 6 (Fribourg, CH: Éditions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1984), 242-243.
9
Cajetan, In ST I, q. 1, a. 3.
10
On the important distinction between the supernatural quoad substantiam seu essentiam and quoad modum
tantum, see Garrigou-Lagrange, The Sense of Mystery, 206-216.

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considered either from the perspective of the extra-mental thing or from that of the power to

which that thing is objected. Already, considered merely as an object, the thing is objectified as

regards a particular formality holding ex parte rei.11 From our example, one considers the Deity

formally as such (as opposed, for example, to Highest Good formally as such12). However, the

Deity as such is the central intelligible locus for faith, discursive theology, and the Spirit’s gift of

wisdom. That is, precisely as an object, the Deity confronts a particular habitus and thus, in so

specifying the objective perspective of that habitus the “objective light” (or, formal object quo),

plays a more formal role in specification than does the formal object quod—precisely because it

is a matter of the formal specification of the object as an object.13 What is more, we could

extend this trio to include charity and hope, for charity has a formal object quo specified by the

internal mystery of the Deity inasmuch as this impels the human will toward the Deity for His

own sake,14 and likewise, one will never understand hope unless one remembers that it ultimately

impels the human will toward the achievement of our complete Beatific Union with God.15

11
And hence, this is the domain wherein a careful Thomist metaphysic must discuss the way that there is not a
formal-actual distinction between quiddities in the thing, lest one fall into the famed Scotist maxim: “Cuilibet
universali correspondet in re aliquis gradus entitatis, in qua conveniunt contenta sub ipso universali.” See B. Ioannis
Duns Scoti, Theoremata, ed. M. Dryeyer, H. Möhle, and G. Krieger (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute,
2004), prop. 4 no. 30 (p. 600:7-8). On this point, one may merely consult the somewhat less-intense reflection on
this matter found in John of St. Thomas, The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas: Basic Treatises, trans. Yves R.
Simon, John J. Glanville, and G. Donald Hollenhorst (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), q. 2, a. 3
(pp.76–88).
12
Which is formally and eminently contained in the loftier notion of the Deity. On this see Garrigou-Lagrange,
“The Eminence of the Deity, Its Attributes, and the Divine Persons” in The Sense of Mystery, 171-197. Also,
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and Nature, vol. 2, trans. Bede Rose (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder,
1955), 144-207.
13
Maritain, The Philosophy of Nature, 128-129.
14
See ST II-II, q. 25.
15
See ST II-II, q. 17, esp. aa. 1 and 2. To understand this latter point, the following comment (related to the
question of why Thomas did not hold that Christ had the theological virtue of hope) by J.-H. Nicolas is of great
assistance. See Jean-Hervé Nicolas, Synthèse dogmatique (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991): “Nonetheless, St. Thomas,
who obviously recognizes the reality of Christ’s hope thus delimited, refuses to see the theological [virtue of] hope
in it. The reason he gives is that the first object of theological hope is union to God in vision. All the rest—
including terrestrial joys among them—which is also the object of theological hope nonetheless is only in function
of the principal object which justly renders hope to be theological virtue: as deriving from the union to God or
contributing to the conducting one toward it. As soon as this principle object is lacking—since Christ upon this
earth was, as a man, fully united to the Father and to the Spirit through the vision and the love that irresistibly flows

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In short, merely within the domain of the theological topics of faith, hope, charity,

theology, and the Spirit’s gift of wisdom, one must extend the notion of object so that one notes

that there is the thing-face of the object (the formal object quod) and the object-face (or

objectivity as such, the formal object quo) of the object. Thus, in our example from Cajetan (and

Maritain), the aforementioned five habitus have one and the same formal object quod: the Deity

considered in its supernatural, intimate, Trinitarian mystery. And yet, in each of the

aforementioned five, the formal object quo—the “light under which” the Deity “is objected”—

differs. In sequence, for the sake of clarity16—faith: the Deity (o. quod) obscurely attained in

knowledge on the intrinsically supernatural revealing authority of the First Truth (o. quo); hope:

the Deity (o. quod) inclining the will toward my beatific salvation (o. quo); charity: the Deity (o.

quod) inclining the will primarily and principally for its own sake (o. quo); theology: the Deity

(o. quod) known not on the force of formal revelation but, presupposing that revelation, in a

discursive manner by the studious labor of human reason objectively illuminated by faith (o.

quod); and the Spirit’s gift of wisdom: the Deity (o. quod) as experienced mystically in a quasi-

experiential way, moved by the Spirit modo divino (o. quo).

It was quite accepted practice to make a distinction between the obiectum formale quod

and quo, even in the most introductory textbooks of the recent past. One could hardly read a

Thomistic introduction to theology without bumping into it because of the critical reasons noted

above.17 And yet, in the ecclesial iconoclasm of recent decades, this distinction cannot be taken

forth from it—the other goods, all while being the object the hope, would not suffice for specifying and making the
theological virtue of hope exist in Christ in His terrestrial existence still moving toward his ‘corporeal glorification’”
(my translation).
16
And here I am simplifying slightly, for there are then secondary objects that fall under these various objects. But
they are always understood in light of the primary formal object.
17
Merely consider its deployment in J.-M. Hervé, Manuale theologiae dogmaticae, vol. 1 (Paris: Berche et Pagis,
1929), 2-6. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione, 5th edition (Rome: Desclée et Socii), 8-12. And especially
Emmanuel Doronzo, Theologia dogmatica, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, 1966),
40-49. Likewise, one can consult the many and varied works of Austin Woodbury, who regularly deploys it

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for granted today. I say this as one who had to “walk backwards” into it. Thankfully, I walked

backwards into the embrace of Maritain and Deely. It is not surprising that Maritain, who

benefitted so immensely from the Thomist school’s pedagogy felt that he could deploy this

distinction so briskly in The Philosophy of Nature. With what I have already said, we are ready

to explain his important distinction regarding the object of the sciences within the first degree of

abstraction, the domain of ens mobile.

Here, it is best just to jump into the deep end, so to speak. Let us consider the definitions

that Maritain gives in The Philosophy of Nature for the complete formal objects of three distinct,

quasi-specific18 domains: the philosophy of nature, empirioschematic sciences (e.g., biology,

arguably experimental psychology, etc.), and empiriometric sciences (e.g., mathematical physics,

quantitative chemistry, etc.).

We begin by noticing what is the same for all of these, namely the formal object quod. It

is what is generally accorded by all Thomists to the so-called first degree of abstraction (or, of

abstrative, intellectual visualization), namely ens secundum quod mobile. It is the connatural

throughout the philosophical and theological disciplines. Woodbury’s texts are held in collection at St. Vincent
College’s Latimer Family Library in the John N. Deely and Anthony F. Russell Collection. Their publication is
being sought by the industrious Mr. Andrew Wood, who has devoted years to this project, reworking Fr.
Woodbury’s idiosyncratic but brilliant texts for modern publication.
18
And one may say that these are generic formal objects, for they describe entire domains within which, perhaps,
there is the possibility of isolating subjects and principles that stand on their own as the explanatory nucleus around
which the entire scientific body of knowledge will organize itself in statu scientiae, all the while being a
determination of the more general perspective delimited by the quasi-specific objects we will delimit in the body of
the paper. Maritain tends to see the traditional degrees of abstraction as having this generic character without
definitively noting that this same point likely holds, on his own principles, for the subordinate domains that he notes
within the first degree of abstraction.
Thus, one also has at hand a key for explaining so-called “paradigm shifts” in the sciences (or, the
development-by-replacement often discussed by Maritain). Such “shifts” in reality are the reorganization of
discipline that was perhaps not oriented around its deepest subject and principles, in whose light the architecture of
the science’s objective illation must be reorganized.
And, this same point can potentially pertain to the philosophy of nature, about which some thinkers (such
as Cajetan) held that its various branches were specific sciences, though this not the general position held by other
Thomists, including John of St. Thomas but likely also many contemporary ones as well (especially those of the so-
called Laval school). See Yves R. Simon, “Epistemological Pluralism” in Foresight and Knowledge, ed. Ralph
Nelson and Anthony O. Simon (New York: Fordham University Press, 1996), 97-99n5.

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domain of intelligibility for the human intellect, whose proper formal object is being as it is

found in sensible things.19 However, this is only a consideration the formality ex parte rei that is

“objected” to the (speculative) intellect for its scrutinization. It is the generic domain of

intelligibility to which further specificity is added by a further differentiation, namely the “light

under which,” or, formal object quo.

It is here that we are given three different options by Maritain. For the philosophy of

nature, one is concerned with the very “ontological constitution” of mobile being as such. In

contrast to the positive scientist, one is here concerned with the very ontological constitution of

mobile being. Adopting a device used by F.-X. Maquart20 we could say that the concern here is

mobile being (or, sensible being), accenting the ultimate formal perspective and concern of the

philosopher: “being under the conditions of poverty and division which affect it in that universe

which is the material universe, being viewed from the outlook of the mystery peculiar to

becoming…”21 And it is for this reason that Natural Philosophy provides an indispensable

entrance point for metaphysics. While distinct from metaphysics, “for us humans… the

philosophy of nature constitutes the first germinal differentiation around which spring up all the

other parts of philosophy…Were we to suppress the philosophy of nature, exile it from the

sphere of knowledge… there would be no metaphysics open to things and on to the immensity of

19
For a very clear discussion on the distinction between the proper, adequate, and extensive objects of the human
intellect, see Austin Woodbury is likely helpful. See Austin Woodbury, Natural Philosophy: Treatise 3, Psychology,
The John N. Deely and Anthony F. Russell Collection, Latimer Family Library, St. Vincent College, Latrobe, PA,
esp. nos. 902, 904, and 920. These texts are quoted at length in an editorial footnote in Garrigou-Lagrange, Sense of
Mystery, 146-147n6.
20
F.-X. Maquart, Elementa philosophiae, vol. 1 (Paris: Andreas Blot, 1937), 36-37. Note that Maquart uses
“sensible” instead of “mobile.” Trying to keep this paper in line with Maritain’s vocabulary, I have chosen to use
“mobile,” although one is perhaps more justified to use Maquart’s nuance, if it is understood as meaning “sensible
being, in other words, sensible being, which is essentially considered from the perspective of its mobility, for this is
what pertains to being as it falls under our senses.”
21
Maritain, The Philosophy of Nature, 120.

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beings.”22 Whence, we have the winding definition given by Maritain for the formal object quo

of the philosophy of nature: sub modo definiendi per intelligibilem quidditatem (et non per

operationem sensus), seu sub lumine ontologico. It is the “sub lumine ontologico” that is most

telling about the character of the science: “from a formally ontological perspective.”23

Then, we have a second subdivision by which the perspective shifts. One certainly never

passes outside the formal object quod. Mobile being remains the generic “background” of

consideration. But now, the intellectual focus is mobile being (or, sensible being), the emphasis

thus being placed on the conditions of the mobility of being, not its ontological aspect. Thus,

one is concerned with knowledge that is resolved into definitions drawing directly upon sense

data.24 Hence, we could say that there is an initial specifying of the formal object quo, namely

22
Ibid., 120-121.
23
See ibid., 139-140. Also, see Maritain, Science and Wisdom, 61.
While this is not the place to engage in the necessary discussions (and, unfortunately, polemics) involved
with the particular disagreements between Maritain and the so-called Laval-school outlook, the burden of proof
seems to lie with the latter, for if the particular sciences are only a dialectical “run up” to the philosophy of nature,
one will ultimately reduce all the various scientific disciplines in the order of the first degree of abstraction /
intellectual visualization to the unified and sole discipline thus permitted demonstratively in the order of the first
degree of abstraction, namely to the philosophy of nature. To my eyes, this is an unnecessary philosophical
imperialism and seems to be a situation akin to what occurred, most notably in Wolffian Scholasticism but arguably
under the influence of the Scotist and Suarezian schools, with regard to the reduction of the various philosophical
disciplines to the status of being branches of metaphysics.
Thus, while the “Laval” outlook offers the great benefit of maintaining natural philosophy in its distinct
and indispensable noetic domain, it would seem to fall prey to the interpretation offered in Maritain, Science and
Wisdom, 39-40: “One cannot say that the ancient philosophers were incurious concerning the details of phenomena,
but they did not see that detailed phenomena demand a special science which is specifically distinct from the
philosophy of nature. The philosophical optimism of the ancient world, which led very quickly to very hypothetical
explanations concerning detailed phenomena, saw philosophy and experimental sciences as one and the same
knowledge. All the species of the material world were subdivisions of one unique specific science which was called
philosophia naturalis, and to which belonged, at one and the same time, the explanation of the substance of bodies,
and that of the rainbow and snow-crystals. And so it was even for Descartes. One may say that for the ancient
philosophers, the philosophy of nature absorbed all the natural sciences and that analysis of the ontological type
absorbed all analysis of the empirical type.”
On the point regarding Descartes, see Étienne Gilson, “Météores Cartésiens et météores scholastiques” in
Études sur le role de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du système Cartésien (Paris: J. Vrin, 1951), 102-137.
Regarding the aforementioned issue of the order of the sciences, see Maritain, The Philosophy of Nature, 1 and 32.
Also, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “Dans Quel Ordre Proposer Les Sciences Philosophiques,” Revue thomiste 40
(1924): 18–34. This article was incorporated into Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s Le réalisme du principe du finalité, a
translation of which is scheduled to be published by Emmaus Academic. Finally, see Maquart, Elementa
philosophiae, vol. 1, 35-36.
24
This point is explained with great lucidity by in Simon, “Maritain’s Philosophy of the Sciences” in The
Philosophy of Nature, 155-182. Note that this would not include, directly, disciplines such as sociology, given the

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sub modo definiendi per operationem sensus. This “objective light” provides us an intermediate

specification, which will then be further specified as to whether the science in question is

concerned primarily with phenomenality as such (as is the case, for example, in biology), in

which case the final determining character of such sciences (of the empirical, or,

empirioschematic, type) will be sub lumine empiriologico seu sub ratione phenomenalitatis. In

contrast, the primarily mathematical sciences—those falling to the classically defined

“subalternate sciences”, including in their domain mathematical physics—will have an ultimate

“objective light” that focuses upon the quantitatively measureable character of mobile being: sub

ratione quantitatis.25

Schematically, this could be represented as:

It is the formal object of the so-called physico-mathematical sciences that most obviously

evidences the need to explain the formal object of, for example, modern physics using a

vocabulary that is suppler than merely “ens mobile.” It is not a positivistic error to argue that the

modern physicist is not concerned with directly ontological questions concerning mobile being.

He or she is concerned only with the measureable side of this mobility and with the properties

relation of their data to human freedom, thus imbuing them with a broadly-speaking “moral” character. See Yves
Simon, “From the Science of Nature to the Science of Society” in Practical Knowledge, ed. Robert J. Mulvaney
(New York: Fordham Press, 1991), 115-136
25
However, see note 18 above for important reflections on this matter.

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that pertain to it qua quantifiably mobile.26 Thus, one needs both the formal object quod (ens

secundum mobile) and the formal object quo (sub modo definiendi per operationem sensus et sub

ratione quantitatis).

We cannot dwell on this fact at length, but the listener ought to meditate at length on the

troubling status of such a formal object—one that seemingly straddles two very different generic

degrees of abstraction. According to this perspective, any of the empirio-metric sciences

consider mobile being (object quod) only from the measureable “face” of this motion. By

limiting the lumen quo to this, one is only interested in the mobile (quod) as measurable (quo)—

nothing more. The final resolution of principles is not into form, matter, and privation, nor into

any of the ontological principles of mobile being considered sub lumine ontologico.27 The

character of an entire science is bound to its manner of abstracting—to the character of the

means of demonstration.28

26
To this end, I refer the reader to Maritain’s own words in Degrees of Knowledge, 64-69. Our discussion cannot
do the intellectual historiography that would be necessary to substantiate this claim fully. One should also consult
Zvi Biener, “The Unity of Science in Early-Modern Philosophy: Subalternation, Metaphysics and the Geometrical
Manner in Scholasticism, Galileo and Descartes,” (PhD Diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2008). Likewise, for a
slightly dated but more systematic study, see Bernard I. Mullahy, “Thomism and Mathematical Physics,” (PhD
Diss., Laval University, 1946).
27
To this end, Fr. Mullahy’s full comment deserves citation. See Bernard Mullahy, “Subalternation and
Mathematical Physics,” Laval théologique et philosophique 2, no. 2 (1946), 106: “We fail to see any foundation for
the objection that the intermediary sciences do not enter directly into the classification of the sciences. By the very
fact that they are intermediary, a status based on simple fact and actual results, we could hardly expect them to fit
directly any one of the three general types of knowledge which derive from the degrees of abstraction. If this is
what Professor Salman has in mind when he says that they do not derive normally from the theory of the degrees of
abstraction, his observation is perfectly true. But then it is an observation that calls for an explanation and perhaps
for a restatement of how the general doctrine of abstraction is to be understood. On the other hand, there is a sense
in which it must be said that they derive essentially from the degrees of abstraction. For it is only by seeing these
sciences precisely as intermediary sciences, that is, as combinations of two different levels of intelligibility which
arise out of two distinct kinds of abstraction, that we can understand their true nature. It is utterly impossible to
grasp their meaning except in relation to the degrees of abstraction. That is why it is completely false to say that
they are mere factual data which the philosopher must force arbitrarily into a synthesis that has no natural place for
them. Nor did Aristotle or any of his great commentators ever show signs of embarrassment in this matter…
Mathematical physics is specifically distinct from pure natural science because its very subject requires modification
and connotation by the subject of mathematics, and because it must borrow from mathematics to establish its own
principles. And yet the introduction of this extrinsic element into experimental physics is necessary and not
arbitrary. The ancients recognized clearly both these points.”
28
On the topics covered in this section, one should also consult Austin Woodbury, Logic, The John N. Deely and
Anthony F. Russell Collection, St. Vincent College Latimer Family Library, p. 307-324, 349-350. On the latter

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Deely: Cenoscopy and Ideoscopy

One who is familiar with Maritain’s work (especially in, though certainly not limited to,

The Degrees of Knowledge29) will note I have not deeply engaged in his distinction between so-

called “peri-noetic” and “dia-noetic” sciences, the former being the domain of the knowledge

attained in particular sciences (a kind of collections of demonstrations arranged within the

schemata provided by scientific laws,30 based upon sense-resolved concepts that obliquely attain

the essence of things), and the latter being the sort of essential knowledge of things that is

organized into scientific bodies of knowledge that include both propter quid and quia

demonstrations. Because of the potentially pofound issues involved in this distinction

(especially for the so-called peri-noetic sciences), I will not attempt a full discussion of the

matter. The deeper foundations for his most certain insights should be sought in his treatment of

the constitution of the formal object quo, which ultimately is concerned with the question of the

particular constitution of the abstractive quality of the middle terms in a given scientific

citation, one should also see the remarks on scientific and philosophical facts made in Maritain, The Philosophy of
Nature, 140-151; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 54-57; Maritain, Science and Wisdom, 61-64; also, Yves Simon,
“Philosophers and Facts” in The Great Dialogue of Nature and Space (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1970), 139-162.
29
See Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 59, 216-224. One may also consult remarks made along these lines in The
Philosophy of Nature, Peasant of the Garonne, and Science and Wisdom.
30
On this assertion, see Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 58-59. I am not convinced that one should say, following
Ashley (and others who critique Maritain) that he would reduce the certitude of these sciences to mere probability.
Instead, the certitude of the sciences is analogical (a point that Maritain made throughout his life), but there is a true
certitude had in the sciences of this type, and certitude (and not, necessarily, evidence) is all that is needed for
science (at least for it to be a true science, though in an imperfect state). (See on this John Poinsot’s treatment of the
scientific character of theology.) Maritain’s position is expressed best in chapters 2 and 4 of Degrees of Knowledge.
And yet, one does find him unfortunately attributing to them solely demonstration quia est in Degrees, 36. This
same assertion can be found in Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Le sens commun: la philosophie de l’être et les
formules dogmatiques, 4th ed. (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer & Cie, 1936), 41. It is not clear that this opinion on
Maritain’s part is completely in line with what he says in chs. 2 and 4, given that scientific laws provide the structure
wherein demonstrations propter quid can occur—with the limited certitude proper to this sort of science. (Indeed,
contrary to the Laval approach to these matters, he preserves the scientific character of these disciplines as true
disciplines without collapsing them into natural philosophy. I discuss this matter in note 24 above.) Concerning Fr.
Ashley’s critique, see Benedict M. Ashley, The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural
Introduction to Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 54 and 220.

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discourse. We will not render a judgment on his manner of discussion the so-called peri-noetic

and dia-noetic characteristics of, for example, modern physics and natural philosophy,

respectively. For an engaging entrée into this question, one should read the work of John

Brungardt (who is here at this conference), wherein he ably explains the particular critiques that

differentiate the great Charles De Koninck from Maritain in these matters.31

Our interest is in taking a path along the lines of John Deely, who himself thought this

distinction should be eschewed.32 However, according to him, one must not eliminate the

objective distinction between the quasi-wisdom that is Natural Philosophy and the solely-

scientific disciplines that are the various modern branches of science.33 Unlike De Koninck’s

later-life position, which favored seeing modern science as a dialectical extension of the same

kind of knowledge as that pursued in natural philosophy, Deely instead thought that one should

replace the discussion of “peri-noetic” and “dia-noetic” knowledge with the distinction between

idioscopic and cenoscopic knowledge.

31
John G. Brungardt, “Charles De Koninck and the Sapiential Character of Natural Philosophy,” American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly 90, no. 1 (Winter, 2016): 1-24.
32
See John Deely, “Listen to Maritain,” 5. [Need to find full citation. From personal copy.]
33
As a philosophical point of no small import, one sees that the notions of scientia and sapientia are of a properly
proportional analogical valence. In the famed texts of the sixth book of the Metaphysics, we are presented with the
various intellectual habitus as though they were single qualities. Yet if one has reflected on synderesis, or the
various scientiae (and hence also intellectus) of clearly differing formal objects, one will realize that this Aristotelian
scaffolding requires further differentiation—which is the nature of true development, passing from the vague to the
distinct, finding again the former in the latter. (Cf. John of St. Thomas, Material Logic, q. 26 a. 1.) Of equal
importance is the real and qualitative distinction between science and wisdom. And, yet, I have often suspected that
many scholastics (including myself at certain moments once upon a time) have thought of sapientia much more like
Thomas Hobbes—a broadest collection of knowledge, not a qualitatively different undertaking from scientia as
such. See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1.5: “As, much Experience, is Prudence; so, is much Science, Sapience.”
Indeed, seeing the fact that there are analogical acceptations of wisdom (each with their own sapiential
functions, which become increasingly more all-embracing, to the point of embracing all things under the divine light
of the Deitas sub ratione Deitatis in supernatural theology), we would see that the distinctly sapiential tasks
analogically fall to these various disciplines. Much progress would be made to articulate the differences of these
domains, and to articulate the ways in which various kinds of sapientia (in which Natural Philosophy must be
included as a lowest, but most human, analogate) formally and eminently include the tasks that fall to scientia. For
the Aristotelian and the Thomist, they aren’t the same. They do not have the convience of saying with Hobbes—to
steal a paraphrase from Msgr. Robert Sokolowski—“wisdom is not different from science, not something else than
science, just a lot of science.”

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This is not the place to perform a complete history of the terms “cenoscopic” and

“idioscopy” as used by Jeremy Bentham, C. S. Peirce, and Deely.34 Instead, let’s cut to the

central point of the distinction, well summarized by Deely himself in a footnote in Four Ages of

the Understanding:

Here, the reader is advised to advert to Peirce’s adoption… of a strange terminology from
Jeremy Bentham… according to which Peirce divides science into idioscopic—what are
ordinarily called the experimental sciences as requiring special experience to determine
the sense of their propositions—and cenoscopic (or “coenoscopic”, what are dependent
on observation observation only in that sense which is available to a mature human
organism at any time. Thus, Aristotelian physics is a coenoscopic science, and so was
medieval metaphysics a coenoscopic science. But physics after Galileo, modern physics,
is rather a definitely idioscopic science.35

What is centrally important to idioscopy is the description “as requiring special

experience to determine the sense of their propositions,” or as Deely expresses it elsewhere, the

demonstratio ad sensus,36 an expression that that should make our ears ring with words we

discussed earlier from Maritain: sub modo definiendi per operationem sensus.37 Idioscopic

science thus calls for a demonstration that ultimately bears upon factual data susceptible to

sensible critique.38 The point, then, is what we saw before: the manner of defining involved in

such idioscopic knowledge differs from the manner of defining involved in cenoscopic

34
Deely has done some of this for us, thankfully. See, John Deely, Peirce, “Perplexing Features of Cornelis de
Waal’s Guide for the Perplexed,” book review in The American Journal of Semiotics 30 no. 3-4 (Spring 2014).
35
John Deely, The Four Ages of the Understanding (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 618n21.
36
See Deely, Medieval Philosophy Redefined (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2010), xxxi.
37
Indeed, it is on this point that it is quite unclear to me how Fr. Benedict Ashley could categorically reject Maritain
the way that he does, for instance in The Way toward Wisdom, while nonetheless accepting the distinction between
cenoscopic and idioscopic analysis. He seems not to note that the change in the manner of definition changes the
character of the scientific middle terms involved in the objective illation. As all the weight of demonstration bears
upon the middle term’s illumination and connection, it does not seem clear to me that one take these two positions
without contradiction. For some discussion of Fr. Ashley on this topic, see John N. Deely “In the Twilight of
Neothomism, a Call for a New Beginning—A Return in Philosophy to the Idea of Progress by Deepening Insight
Rather than by Substitution: A Review of The Way toward Wisdom,” ACPQ 83, no. 2 (2009): 267-278. Deely does
not seem to sense the internal contradiction on this point, but that is not our concern here. Ashley’s position raises
the same issues as the position raised by DeKoninck’s later-life position, as discussed in other notes.
38
See, for example, Maritain, Degrees, 58-59. See my remarks in note 30 about a significant weakness in Maritain
on this score, though not an insuperable one.

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knowledge. And everything hinges upon this as regards the abstraction of the principles under

which the entire discourse will take place. Scientific conclusions, precisely as scientific

conclusions, are distinct from mere judgments made in a void.39 The character of the judgment

as inferred is influenced by the entire light of the principles, the first among which illuminate all

the inferred conclusions and, in a manner, give a science its unity.40

The great sin of the modern era was to believe that the “discovery” of idioscopic

knowledge ought to spell the end for cenoscopic knowledge, as though “(idioscopic) science”

was situated outside of a broader cenoscopic framework wherein the idioscopic sciences are

particular determinations of isolated subjects and principles within that philosophical

background.41 Instead, the saner and truer position (indeed, one that coheres well with the

general Thomistic noetic) would have been to acknowledge that the cenoscopic knowledge

pertaining to the philosophy of nature, when purged of scientific duties that fall to the particular

39
Logically speaking, this is precisely because the illation (or, inference) is objective, not merely explicative. On
this see Austin Woodbury, S.M. in Austin Woodbury, Logic, The John N. Deely and Anthony Russell Collection,
St. Vincent College, Latrobe, PA, p.239-241 (n.299-300). This text is cited in Garrigou-Lagrange, The Sense of
Mystery, 28n41.
From the analysis of psychological causality, this can also be seen an important text of Poinsot. See Cursus
philosophicus, vol. 4 Naturalis philosophiae IV Pars: De ente mobile animato, ed. Beatus Reiser (Turin: Marietti,
1937), q.11, a.3, 372A7-12 and 373A28-B17: “Quarto inquires: An per istas tres operationes formenter disctinci
conceptus. Respondetur de prima et second operatione id expresse doceri a D. Thoma multis locis…. [Then
discussed for a page…]”
“Quod vero attinet ad discursum cum non constet nisi pluribus propositionibus non facientibus aut
omponentibus unam tertiam, sed inferentibus, videtur quod non producat distinctum verbum a propositionibus, sed
illas cum diversa modification et habitudine, scilicet ut inferentes vel ut illatas. Unde sicut per discursum fit
transitus de una prpositione ad aliam, ita oportet ad producendum id, quod propositionis est in illo conceptu seu
verbo, concurrer secundam operationem, et quantum ad it, quod motus seu illationis est, concucrrere tertiam, quod
est respicere illud verbum seu conceptum ut modificatum. Et sic cum dicitur, quod est distincta operatio, ergo habet
distinctum verbum, conceditur, quod est distinctum modaliter, non realiter ab eo quod propositionibus ipsis
repraesentatur. Cum vero ex simplici apprehensione proceditur ad repraesentationem compositam, distinctum
obiectum relucet in repraesentanda quidditate vel veritate. Et sic discursus secundum causalitatem (id est secundum
illationem) praesupponit discursum secundum successionem (id est secundum plures propositiones succedentes), ut
dicit S. Thomas 1. p. q.14 a.7, non vero ex pluribus propositionibus unam facit.”
40
On the issue of the subjective-ontological unity of a science, see John of St. Thomas, Material Logic, q. 27, a. 2.
41
On this, see John Deely, Descartes & Poinsot: The Crossroad of Signs and Ideas (Scranton: University of
Scranton Press, 2008), esp. 1-32. It is a repeated theme in Maritain.

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sciences, can assume the true office of being a form of wisdom in the order of the first degree of

abstraction.

Indeed, it is in the Physica—not Metaphysics properly speaking—that one finds the first

sapiential developments of common sense. As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange showed with convincing

clarity, if some naivety in the simplicity of the presentation, common sense represents the initial,

non-systematic, yet fertile, experiential ground wherein our first insights of reality eventually

offer the material to be understood in a sapiential manner by philosophy.42 Yet, we must assert

even more than he that this common sense expresses itself (1) often in concepts that have not

rendered explicit the distinction between ens rationis and ens naturae,43 (2) and, when it does

isolate ens naturae, it does so in the first degree of abstraction. Common sense is, indeed, a

concealed metaphysics, but we must make sure that we recognize the proper character of this

cenoscopic knowledge from which philosophical reflection must take its point of departure.

The reflective defense of principles falls to forms of knowledge that are wisdom, not

scientia properly speaking. Thus, the empirical sciences would require the sapiential-defensive

knowledge provided by cenoscopic natural philosophy, which alone provides the semi-final44

42
See Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Le sens commun: la philosophie de l’être et les formules dogmatiques, 4th ed.
(Paris: Desclée de Brouwer & Cie, 1936). A translation of this volume is under contract with Emmaus Academic
for publication in the near future. Though the text is dated, it drew quite warm praise from Maritain late in his life.
See Jacques Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time,
trans. Michael Cuddihy and Elizabeth Hughes (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 136n7. Deely
himself uses the language of common sense at times, though generally with critical remarks. One must, of course
distinguish common sense strictly speaking from cenoscopic scientific-sapiential knowledge, which is in vital
contact with the former, as with its initial source, and yet represents the discursive organization of the former.
43
Or, I would say, that it does not distinguish between logical, moral, technical, and natural valences, a point that
should be understood in light of my reflections in my Deely-inspired reflections in Minerd, “Beyond non-being,”
cited above. Metaphysics, ultimately sorting out this distinction, must do more than did the admirable Dominican
pedagogue Antoine Goudin, who like so many Thomists, treats ens rationis briefly as “the shadow of real being” in
q. 6 (De umbra entis realis, scilicet Ente rationis) in his Philosophia iuxta inconcussa tutissimaque Divi Thomae
dogmata, 2nd ed., ed. Roux-Lavergne, vol 4, Moralis et metaphysica (Paris: V. Sarlit, 1857), 299ff. It is to his credit
that he treats it and at some length—though Suarez knew that he had to do so as well. See Francisco Suarez, On
Beings of Reason (De entibus rationis), Metaphysical Disputation 54, trans. John P. Doyle (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1995). Would that more contemporary Thomists merely consider the topic at the length of these
two men!
44
That is, leaving room for higher forms of wisdom such as metaphysics and supetnatural theology.

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dialectical framework within which not only its principles are defended but also those of the

particular sciences. This is a new proposal on my part, but one that seems well grounded,

especially if we take quite seriously the remarks on cenoscopic knowledge offered by Deely.45 It

shows that the first “critique” quoad nos takes place in the domain of knowledge connatural to

us: the first degree of abstraction, in cenoscopic natural philosophy. Thus, one does the work so

well expressed by Peirce— and one can apply his words both to metaphysics (wherein the

ultimate philosophical critique occurs) and to the philosophy of nature:

Any such idioscopic inquiry must proceed upon the virtual assumption of sundry logical
and metaphysical beliefs; and it is rational to settle the validity of those before
undertaking an operation that supposes their truth… and so the whole inquiry will be
conducted before the first outward experiment is made. But this preliminary inquiry is
long and arduous.46

A Concluding Example

To close, let me use a set of examples that I have incorporated from the reflections of Mr.

Eaglehouse on these matters, based on John’s own Basics of Semiotics, namely the case of a

thermometer, though expanding the example. If you take a thermometer and set it out in the air,

the ambient air surrounding the thermometer will cause a reaction within the thermometer, that

will result in a number on it, the actual ambient temperature of the surrounding air. Let’s say

that number at this particular time is 40˚F, and there are two people present witnessing this. One

of the people are from Florida, and the other one is from Canada. Physically speaking the only

45
On the distinction between properly scientific duties and sapiential ones, see Doronzo, Theologia dogmatica, vol.
1, 69-76. Also, Emmanuel Doronzo, Introduction to Theology (Middleburg, VA: Notre Dame Institute Press, 1973),
21-24. Also, see Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione, vol. 1, 13-16. Also, it is also related to what he says
about criticism in Le réalisme du principe de finalité (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1932), 148-175. A translation of
this text is under contract with Emmaus Academic. Yet, the ultimate philosophical-sapiential defense, considered
from the perspective of being, is undertaken by metaphysics. This was normally the focus of “criticism” for those
following in the wake of Garrigou-Lagrange. As an excellent example of this species of philosophical undertaking,
one should consult Austin Woodbury, Defensive Metaphysics, The John N. Deely and Anthony F. Russell Collect,
St. Vincent College, Latimer Family Library, Latrobe, PA.
46
Cited in Deely, Medieval Philosophy Redefined, xxxi.

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conclusion that can be gained from the 40˚ F is the fact that the ambient air around the

thermometer is 40˚F. Thus, notice: the entire reality of thermal energy (object quod) is

“bleached” out to this one bit of “pointer data,” 40˚, itself understood within a whole system of

interpretation of numbers related to our systems of temperature rendering. The quantitative

outlook, one that is part of an entire science of thermodynamics (implicitly at least) has a

different formal perspective than a philosopher may cenoscopically have on the notion of

thermal energy and its changes. That is, it has a different formal object quo.

Now, there is a very powerful transition that can be made here. In this, I slightly alter

Mr. Eaglehouse’s point, drawing out explicitly its deep meaning in this case and in a personal

example he provided for us. The person from Florida might interpret the ambient air as “cold,”

while the person from Canada might consider the ambient air as “warm.” And in both of these

cases, each person considers the warmth or coldness vis-à-vis their potential action. The valence

of “warm” and “cold” thus is practical. Thus, each person considers a given physico-

mathematical reality from a formally practical perspective. We could thus say that a further

obiectum quo has been added, ultimately specifying the knowledge as practical—i.e., under the

light of the principles of human action to be applied to each person’s personal activity. When the

temperature changes, upon the settling of warm air, both agents will agree about the physical

temperature and the general moral implications of “warm” weather. However, notice that there

are two different specifications—the physical temperature, itself attained only by a composite of

quod and quo, is further specified when seen “in the light of” (sub lumine) practical action.47

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One would thus see the initial datum as the “material object” of sorts. It already presupposes a good deal of
formal abstraction, but in relation to the ultimate determination, it stands in the line of material causality. The
same sort of thing might be seen if one considers how human acts enter into the constitution of the formal object
of moral philosophy. On this, see Austin Woodbury, Ethics, The John N. Deely and Anthony F. Russell Collection, St.
Vincent College, Latimer Family Library, Latrobe, PA: “Ethics or moral philosophy is the philosophical science which
is concerned about moral acts. But, since a moral act is a human act measured by the rule of morals, the

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Such “recasting” occur all the time, of course—sometimes in quite dire circumstances.

To this end, one may consider Mr. Eaglehouse’s experience of having prostate cancer. For more

than twelve years he had chosen to be tested for a Prostate Specific Antigen. This test,

considered in itself,48 “provides a number,” as it were. The case is akin to that of the

thermometer. The number eventually changed to a value that had to be considered medically

important. Thus, under a further interpretive formal object quo of the art of medicine, it seemed

necessary to make an appointment with specialist to have a discussion on how to proceed. Yet,

the doctor did not agree with Don that this single conclusion warranted treatment. If one

mistakenly holds that medicine has the character (the same sort of object quo) as physico-

matematical science, one will look for the certainty that pertains to such sciences. And yet, the

light under which such test data needed to be understood was precisely a practical light—that of

the art of medicine. Once openly understood from this perspective, Don’s data was read

aright—and thankfully so, for he is with us today only because of that!

The deeper point “behind” the distinction between cenoscopic and idioscopic knowledge

is an incredibly important point regarding human knowledge. A particular formal light

(specified in terms of both the formal object quod and quo discussed above) can stand in the line

of material causality as susceptible to a different formal perspective. This fact requires

significant reflection so as not to be flippant as regards the unity and distinction of the

MATERIAL OBJECT of ethics is human acts, i.e., free, deliberate acts. But, these acts, which are considered also by
natural philosophy (psychology) under the formal character of moveable being, are considered by ethics under the
formal character or formal reason of morality, i.e., of measureability or orderability by the rule of morals.
Therefore, the FORMAL CHARACTER WHICH [formal object quod] ethics considers is morality. The FORMAL
CHARACTER WHEREUNDER ethics considers moral acts—and sees the causes of their morality—is the natural light
of the principles of [practical] reason (subordinated indeed, as is explained in logic, in the present state of man, to
the light of divine revelation, but nevertheless proceeding as a principal cause.”
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Which is already a bit of a construction, as it is actually being done under a technico-moral light. Yet, we can
consider the results “in a vacuum,” for many doctors do this as well, mistaking their field for the physico-
mathematical sciences, and not deeply appreciating the arts that they are. Here, the age-old wisdom of Aristotle
remains. See Nicomachean Ethics 1.8 and 2.2.

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phenomenological character of the objects of our knowledge. Such a phenomenology can help

to reveal the structure of the various ultimate formal objects within which our knowledge is

constituted. All of this can be done without “overthrowing” the cart of past work in the Thomist

school. It also does justice, for example, to the experience of the modern scientist, who is

simultaneously aware of the certitude—granted, a qualified certitude, but certitude nonetheless—

that he or she experiences in making scientific judgments, all the while aware of the need for

demonstratio ad sensus.

In any case, I suspect at this point the listener has reached a point of inundation, so we

will close our discussion. The upshot of this whole conversation should, in my opinion,

encourage the listener to consider again the important logical (and metaphysical) topics related to

the constitution of formal objects of sciences (and “wisdoms”). And this encouragement comes

with the added rhetorical weight of the intellectual support of two great thinkers, whom we

remember today with such affection—John Deely and Jacques Maritain.

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