Cogitative Power
Description
Introducing Julien Peghaire:
"Originally published in 1943, Peghaire’s essay is an in-depth study of the vis cogitativa, a sensory power which had been obscured for centuries by the physicalist bent of modern psychology. Distinct from, although functioning in concert with, the other internal senses (sensus communis, imagination, and memory), the cogitative power, according to the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, possesses a number of closely related roles in human perception. As an analog to the animal estimative power, the cogitative power (also called the “particular reason”) apprehends what is useful and harmful in perceptual objects not merely through an inborn instinct but also through a comparison (collatio), informed by reason, of particular cognitive objects or “intentions.” Accordingly, the cogitative power allows humans to perceive the concrete individual not only in terms of its immediate value or harm, but also in terms of its instantiation of a “common nature” or universal. It is this function of the cogitative to serve as a bridge between the particular data of the senses and the universal concepts of the intellect."