APPRENSIONE. - In philosophical, chiefly scholastic, language, a. (from ad-prehendere, to take, to grasp) denotes, in a broad sense, every perceptive act by which the mind comes to know something; in a strict sense, the first operation of thought, productive of the pure concept, prior to the synthesis of affirmation or negation effected in judgment. In the first sense, a. is almost synonymous with perception and is used by s. Tommaso also to denote sensible perception (In Boeth. De Trinit., VI, 2). In the more specific meaning, a., as opposed to judgment, represents in man the initial form of spiritual knowledge that brings us into contact with the intelligible contents and values of things. For this reason it was called by the scholastics « apprehension simplex, cognitio essentiarum, indivisibilium intelligensia » (cf. s. Tommaso, I Perhermeneias, 1). It is well known that in Thomistic philosophy a., as an act of thought by which the quiddity of things is grasped, more or less distinctly, is realized principally through an abstractive operation of the intellect (v. ASTRATTO; LUSTRAZIONE). With regard to the theory of knowledge, it should be noted that the etymology of the term reveals its realistic meaning: ad prehendere, as a movement of thought toward the object in order to possess it in the intentional unity of the concept.
A final, more technical and little-used meaning is that in which a. is contrasted with comprensione, as partial and limited knowledge with adequate and total knowledge.