Second intentions are relations the mind forms among realities precisely insofar as those realities are known. They are not features things have in themselves but, rather, are features they take on once they become objects of knowledge. The expression originates in medieval Latin scholasticism, drawing on the Persian polymath Avicenna. A clear understanding of the nature of second intentions depends on a now-unfamiliar sense of the word “object”: for the scholastics, to be an object meant to be a reality as known. First intentions are the immediate objects of knowledge—pines, oaks, citizens, cars—while second intentions are the relations that belong to those objects only because they are known: for example, genus, species, subject, predicate, statement, and syllogistic conclusion. Logic, properly speaking, is the science and art of second intentions. Understanding this distinction matters for theology, for epistemology, and increasingly for thinking clearly about what distinguishes human knowing from machine pattern recognition.
The expression “second intentions” originates in classical logic from a confluence of medieval Latin sources and the works of the Persian polymath Avicenna. The expression itself already reveals something important in the adjective “second.” In order to understand what a “second” intention is, we first need to understand the nature of a “first” intention. And before we can understand what a first intention is, we need to understand something about the noun “intention.”
The term intention can refer to realities pertaining either to human willing or to human cognition. As it is used in the expression “first (or second) intention,” it refers to the cognitional meaning. In common use, however, we tend to use the term to refer to realities pertaining to the domain of human willing. It is therefore useful to set aside this volitional sense of the noun at the outset.
Volitionally speaking, intention refers to an act of willing an end to be effected through particularized and circumstanced means still to be determined. It is the kind of self-imposed impulse that sets us in motion toward some kind of action, even though we still have to deliberate about how to carry out that action. It should be noted, however, that because this intention is not a blind impulse, we often refer to the judgment connected to this intention as though it were the intention itself. Thus, for example, when we say, “I intended to go to sleep at a reasonable hour,” we are often referring both to the act of will itself and to the articulable meaning that shapes that act of willing.
Outside of this volitional use, the term intention is less colloquially used. Here, we have a meaning connected to Latin scholastic usage, thereby making it much less natural precisely by being much more technically stabilized. Even here, however, there are ambiguities. In Latin scholasticism, it was normal to speak of how the mind stretches forth to what it knows. This kind of dynamic orientation of the knower toward the object of knowledge (whether the sort of knowledge we share with the animal kingdom or the specifically human way of knowing) is reflected in the verb intendere, meaning “to stretch out toward.” Thus, the term intentio came to refer to the cognitive quality involved when we know something. For a number of scholastics, the intentio was the concept expressed by the mind when it seeks to know a given reality as an object of knowledge. This is not, in fact, the sense of “intention” we need when speaking of second intentions.
Instead, let us focus on the very last words of what was just said: “a given reality as an object of knowledge.” The word object is very important here, and to understand it in line with the traditional terminology we are trying to recover, it is necessary to set aside our contemporary understanding of the word. In contemporary usage, when we speak of an “object,” we almost always mean “something that is independent of the mind.” According to this common usage, even if there were no human knowers, there would still be objects.
By contrast, for the scholastic tradition that gave rise to the expression “second intention,” to be an object meant to be a reality as known. In fact, the etymology of the word object already hints at this meaning, for it comes from ob + iacere, “to be thrown before.” An object is a reality “set before” a given power, in this case the cognitive power that is the human intellect.
An example will help. When we know the nature of pine, pine becomes an object of intellectual knowledge. In this situation, it has some peculiar characteristics. The one reality that is the pine tree, living in our forests, can be known as a plant, a conifer, etc. Yet there is no such thing as a plain old, generic “plant” out in our experience. If someone comes to tell you, “I saw a plant out there,” you will immediately respond, “What kind?” And if this does not quite get the point across, consider that we can say, “Pine is a species of conifer.” I assure you that you have never seen a species growing in a forest.
These examples already contain all of the distinctions that we need. First of all, there are realities—things that we may or may not know. Whenever they become known, we can say that they are “objects” (of knowledge). These immediate objects of knowledge, part of our experience of the world—pines, oaks, and bears, but also cars, borders, citizens, etc.—are called first intentions because they are the primary objects of knowledge. They are the first “aim” of our knowing.
However, notice something very important when we say that “pine is a (first) intention.” No pine, in the wild, is an intention. A pine is many things: evergreen, needled, coniferous. Indeed, even in a much less exact sense, it is a green plant. But in no botany textbook would you read that a pine (or any other plant) is an intention.
To say that pine is a (first) intention implies a condition of being known. To return to the examples just stated, pines are evergreens, needled, and so forth precisely because of what they are, independent of knowledge. However, pine is said to be a (first) intention only insofar as it is known. Here, we meet with something very surprising, especially for the reader who has some knowledge of scholastic terminology. Most accounts of intentionality speak only about the intellect “stretching out” toward what it knows. However, there is an important question (and answer) hidden in what we were saying. What is the “intentionality” of pine when it is known? This intentionality is the relation of pine to the knowing person.
In scholastic jargon, this intentionality, this relation from the known reality to the knower, is called a “relation of reason” (relatio rationis), or what we could call a cognition-dependent relation. It is not totally “unreal” because knowing is something quite real. But, it is not cognition-independent, as are the notions of evergreen, needled, coniferous, or green plant. Thus, the predicate first intention is somewhat two-faced. On the one hand, “first” indicates that we’re talking about first-order knowledge of a reality. However, insofar as we are talking about knowledge—that is, about being known—it faces from reality to the knower. Thus—and this is paradoxical but quite certain according to later scholastic metaphysics and logic—the predicate to be a first intention is, in fact, a second intention. Thus, when we say, “A pine is an evergreen,” the predicate (evergreen) is a first intention. When we say, “Pine is an intention,” this implies a second intention. It is the “intentionality,” the cognition-dependent relation, of the known reality to the knower.
This primordial intentionality conditions a whole host of other relations that we form all the time: genus, species, accident, definition, superiority (of genus over species), inferiority (of species under genus), etc. All of these (and many others) are predicates that we say about things as known. That is, all of these are second intentional relations, all presupposing the very first of second intentions, "intentionality."
The primary subject matter of logic consists in various kinds of relations of this sort. There are definitions and their various components and properties: description; metaphysical vs. physical definitions; genus, species, accident, property; extension, comprehension, etc. Likewise, there are statements, their properties, and the properties of their terms: quality, quantity, mode, contrariety, sub-contrariety, supposition, self-evidence, etc. Finally, there are syllogistic inferences, with their various properties: figure, mood, various material conditions (e.g., poetic, rhetorical, topical-dialectical, scientific-demonstrative), and various inferential statuses (e.g., objectively inferential, subjectively inferential, expository).
Thus, second intentions are the relations that the mind forms among things that it knows, precisely insofar as they are known. They are contrasted with first intentions in that first intentions designate the immediate objects of our knowledge in the world (termite, pine, car, family, house, nation, etc.), whereas second intentions designate the various conditions that belong to those objects precisely as objects of knowledge.
To understand something about second intentions is to understand the particular kind of being that is studied in logic. Very often, students learn logic without quite understanding what it is that they are actually talking about. They learn the art of logic, but the scientific aspect of logic lags behind.
Likewise, having some idea of the way in which our knowledge involves this kind of relational structure gives at least a first glance at some of the more important noetic, or epistemological, topics that are crucial for understanding the distinction between human knowing and mere pattern recognition. As we move toward a fuller deployment of AI, it is important to see that human knowledge involves a grasp of realities through the discernment of definitions, the active understanding of complex wholes that are statements, and, in syllogistic inferences, the taking on of various formal and material characteristics. Second intentions attend this structure of knowing.
For the student of theology, moreover, knowledge of this structure among our notions is critical for making many distinctions within our understanding of faith and discursive (or notional) theology. Even though the mystical life is more perfect than discursive theology, this mystical life, bestowed by God, is not communicable and, in any event, also depends upon public revelation, which is communicable. Within communicable, discursive theological expression, there are many kinds of second intentions involved, and it is important to have sensitivity to the way in which faith-illuminated reason forms various second intentions as it seeks some understanding of the revealed mysteries.{1}
{1} For more information related to this topic, see “Beyond Non-Being: Thomistic Metaphysics on Second Intentions, Ens morale, and Ens artificiale,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 91, no. 3 (July, 2017): 353–379; “Thomism and the Formal Object of Logic,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 93, no. 3 (July 2019): 411–444. More advanced readers can consult Francisco da Prato, “Tractatus de prima et secunda intentione,” ed. Burkhard Mojsisch, Bochumer Philosophiches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 5 (2000): 147–174; Hervaeus Natalis, A Treatise of Master Hervaeus Natalis (d.1323) The Doctor Perspicacissimus On Second Intentions, ed. and trans. John P. Doyle (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008). Concerning the final remarks on theology, see Jean-Hervé Nicolas, Dieu connu comme inconnu (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1966), 183–419.
Mattew K. Minerd is the Managing Editor of the Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology.
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