Understanding Human Sensation and Internal Cognitive Faculties

The Process of Sensation

1. The sense remains in potency while not excited.
2. The object acts according to its nature.
3. This action is not purely material.
4. The sense receives the action of the object according to its nature.
5. Once the sense has been excited, it reacts according to its nature; that is to say, it knows.

Conclusion on Sensation

It's the common act of the sensed thing and of the sensing agent.

Internal Senses: An Overview

• Common Sense
• Imagination
• Estimative Faculty
• Memory

Common Sense: Functions and Nature

• It's a sense.
• It's an internal sense.

Functions of Common Sense

1. Allows experiencing diverse sensations and comparing them.
2. Allows knowing the direct acts of sensible knowledge.

Nature of Common Sense

1. It is not a reflective capability.
2. It is not an intellectual capability.
3. It pertains to our sensation of objects.
4. It is like the core, root, or principle of external senses.

Imagination: A Sensible Knowledge Capability

• It's a knowledge capability.
• It's a sensible knowledge capability.
• Its object is not real; it's imaginary, a phantasm: it does not exist outside the act that perceives it.
• It implies:
  • Conservation of images
  • Reproduction of images

Imagination vs. Illusion and Hallucination

Estimative Faculty: Perceiving Utility and Danger

• It's a knowledge capability.
• Object: utility or danger of perceived things.
• It's similar, but it's not intelligence.

Cogitative Power (in Humans)

It's the same capability, but considered in humans.

Memory: Recalling the Past and Internal Duration

• Formal object: the past.
• Its proper act: to recognize memories.
• It implies the concrete perception of internal duration.
• This perception implies:
  • Succession of internal states
  • Subjective identity

Memory and Intelligence