Just to make sure that you are clear about the respective functions of the two types of intellect Aristotle distinguished, here are the bullet points of what we discussed in last class:

Intellect (nominal definition): the power by which we think (‘thinking’ meaning any of the intellectual operations described below).

Agent/active intellect: produces the first universal representations (intelligible species) by abstraction from experience (the information stored in sensory memory in the form of phantasms = singular representations of singulars we encountered in our life), and stores these intelligible species in the potential intellect.

Potential/possible intellect: starting out as a “blank slate”, once activated by the intelligible species performs the rest of intellectual functions:

1. It can form simple concepts in the process called “simple apprehension” or “concept formation” (as when we actually think of men or donkeys in general)

2. Having formed the simple concepts, it can form affirmations and negations in the process called “judgment formation” (as when we think “All men are animals”, “No men are donkeys”)

3. Having formed judgments, it uses them in the process called “reasoning”, moving from premises to conclusions. Reasoning is fundamentally of two kinds:

a. Induction (scientific generalization) – an inference moving from several particulars to a universal conclusion; this inference is valid only when the predicates belong essentially to their subjects, as in ‘This man is an animal, and that man is an animal, … etc.; therefore, all men are animals”; the conclusions of such inductions are known a priori; based on the understanding of the essential nature of their subject, which enables us to know even particulars that we have never experienced

b. Deduction -- using the universal propositions arrived at by induction as the first principles of demonstration, deductions are formally valid inferences (such that the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion), which usually move from universal premises to more specific conclusions (as in ‘Every man is rational; the boy who will be born tomorrow will be a man; therefore, that boy will be rational’)