ASSENSO. – judgment (v.) consisting in the act by which the mind adheres to a proposition, that is, affirms the relation of unity or distinction existing between subject and predicate. The word derives from the Latin assensus, by which, in later usage and in a technical sense, the Greek term συγκατάθεσις was rendered; Cicero translates it as adsensio or adprobatio and, attributing its introduction to Zeno, defines it as the wholly voluntary act by which the mind assents to the content of an evident representation (φαντασία), called by Zeno himself apprehensive (καταληπτική) and which, «once accepted and approved» (συγκατάθεσις), he called «comprehension» (κατάληψις) (Cicero, Acad., I, 40, and in general H. Ritter and L. Preller, Historia philosophiae graecae, 10th ed., Gotha 1934, §§ 484–86).
Contrary to the Cartesian thesis, a. is an act belonging exclusively to the intellect, and is distinct from the consent of the will, which is rather an adherence of the will, in the affective order, to the truth intuited and affirmed by the intellect. The distinction, however, is almost entirely neglected in common usage, which, naturally failing to distinguish the various analytical moments of judgment, understands a. synthetically as intellectual-volitional adherence to a given proposition. In this sense, dissent is opposed to a., although, logically, every critical act of thought is always affirmation, and therefore a. According to the varying content of the judgment, a. may be certain-opinional, true-erroneous. Particular questions arise concerning a. not founded on the evidence of the relation between subject and predicate but on extrinsic authority (v. FEDE).
In juridical language, a. often denotes the act of will of one who, without being the author or a party to a juridical act, must, by law, supplement the will of the latter so that the act may be valid.