COGITATIVA. — In Thomistic psychology, c. is that one among the internal senses which collaborates most directly with the intellect; its object is indicated in the contents of “lived experience” or intentiones insensatae. Whereas in the animal such contents become present immediately “by instinct,” in man, who is endowed with intelligence, their acquisition is gradual and depends upon the exercise of c., which is guided in this by the intellect.
The doctrine of c. was elaborated only very slowly in the Aristotelian tradition. It was the Arabs, and among them especially Averroes, who, drawing upon the sparse and vague references of Aristotle, Galen, and the Greek commentators, were able to formulate a sufficiently organized theory. In Averroes, moreover, c. is called upon to fulfill a decisive role, that of the form of singular individuals and of an intermediary for bringing about the conjunction between the one separate intellect and particular individuals during the act of understanding (Averroè Cordub., Comm. sup. l. III De anima, tr. 6, ed. veneta 1662, f. 154 retro).
S. Tommaso, while rejecting monopsychism, retained and deepened the Averroist theory, convinced that it was necessary to posit, between purely sensory contents and purely intellectual ones, a class of contents that participated in the nature of both and thus made their connection and penetration possible.
S. Tommaso therefore attributes the following functions to c.: 1) to grasp “concretely” the meaning of things; 2) to prepare the “phantasms” for intellectual abstraction; 3) to delineate in concrete form the fundamental classifications of things (categories); 4) to make possible the application of the prudential syllogism; 5) to know singular substances and their existence for the first time... The tasks entrusted to c. are therefore among the most delicate in every spiritual formation.