Thomas Aquinas vs. Hervaeus Natalis: First and Proper Object of the Intellect | Francesco Binotto

Late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-thinkers address the question of what the proper object of the intellect is. In my contribution, I intend to compare Thomas Aquinas's and Hervaeus Natalis's accounts of the first and proper object of the intellect. While Aquinas holds that the intellect's proper object is the quiddity of material things, Hervaeus states that it is the accident (and precisely bodily quantity) that plays the role of the first and proper object of the intellect. My aim is to bring to light the assumptions from which these two accounts follow and the reasons why Hervaeus takes a different direction from Aquinas.