This intellect produces the second intellect, and so on.
But though the form (and, hence, the intellect with which it is identical) are the substance of the human person, they are not the person itself.
In this question the superiority of the will is vindicated by Henry, since not only does it move all the other faculties, and hence the intellect too, but it also, indeed above all, moves itself, at a level of perfection which is second only to that of God.
What universal concept we actually form, according to Auriol, depends on how closely our will makes the intellect focus on the information we receive from the object of cognition, and hence how strong an impression the object makes on the intellect: the more closely focused, the stronger the impression, the more specific the universal concept that is formed.
Maimonides understands that since average people cannot conjoin with (and hence cannot receive truths from) active intellect themselves, they need help—in the form of virtuous guidance to help them live in accordance with the truth.
The assumption is that things graspable by intellect alone belong to a realm above the material, corporeal world and hence are timeless.
Since the identity of the subject of first philosophy with the first object of the intellect was foundational for the medieval conception of metaphysics, a basic instability underlies the medieval conception of metaphysics and hence the doctrines of the transcendentals: being as the first object of the intellect goes beyond the extension of real being as the subject of metaphysics.
Some interpreters, relying on Timaeus' claim (at 30b3) that intellect cannot become present to anything apart from soul, have argued that Intellect is (part of) the world's soul.[22] This cannot be correct: like the rest of becoming, the world's soul is a product of the Craftsman, and hence neither it nor anything else on the side of becoming can be identified with Intellect.
– and hence no inflation.
