COGITATIVA. - In Thomist psychology the c. is that one among the internal senses which collaborates most directly with the intellect; and whose object is indicated in the contents of "lived experience" or intentiones insensatae. While in the animal such contents are made present immediately "by instinct," in man, who is endowed with intelligence, their acquisition is gradual and depends on the exercise of the c., which is guided to this by the intelligence.
The doctrine of the c. was elaborated very slowly in the Aristotelian tradition. It was the Arabs, and among them especially Averroes, who, from the scanty and vague hints of Aristotle, of Galen and of the Greek commentators, were able to give a sufficiently organized theory. In Averroes, moreover, the c. is called upon to fulfill a decisive role, that of form of singular individuals and of intermediary for effecting the conjunction between the single 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).
St. Thomas, while rejecting monopsychism, retained and deepened the Averroist theory, persuaded that it was necessary to posit, between purely sensory contents and purely intellectual ones, a class of contents that partook of the nature of both and thus made possible their connection and interpenetration.
St. Thomas therefore attributes to the c. the following functions: 1) to grasp "in concrete" the meaning of things; 2) to prepare the "phantasms" for intellectual abstraction; 3) to delineate in a concrete manner the fundamental classifications of things (categories); 4) to make possible the application of the prudential syllogism; 5) to know for the first time singular substances and their existence... The tasks entrusted to the c. are therefore among the most delicate of any spiritual formation.
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Cornelio Fabro