Secunda intentio — the second intention — is, in scholastic usage, a concept that refers to other concepts. While the first intention (say, horse) aims at real horses, the second intention (say, species, genus, universal) aims at first intentions themselves. They are the tools of logic: concepts with which the mind analyzes its own cognizing.
Thomas Aquinas introduces this distinction in his commentary on the Sentences; Hervaeus Natalis (d. 1323) develops it systematically in De secundis intentionibus. The scholastic doctrine becomes the precursor of modern logic: what Frege will grasp as concept-script and Tarski as metalanguage has its conceptual-historical root here.
Beyond formal logic, too, the thought carries far. The second intention structurally describes that act which contemporary cognitive science knows as metacognition: knowledge-about-one’s-own-knowledge, reflection on one’s own state of cognition (Cleeremans, Frith, Carruthers). Even if some animals display simple forms of metacognitive acts, propositional reflexive self-attribution — a judgment about one’s own judging — remains with the human being.
In the Personhood ontology, the second intention is operative in a twofold way: first as a class of concepts about concepts (concept of person is a second intention with respect to person), second as a bridge to the metacognitive act-structure that belongs to the faculties of the rational soul. Whoever reflects on what he thinks performs an act of second intention — and precisely this act presupposes original intentionality.
Ontological classification: Counter-concept: First Intention; related to: Self-Consciousness.
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
References: Bexten 2017, pp. 38—45, 48—49 (doctrine of concepts and reflection).
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Scriptum super Sententiis I, dist. 2, q. 1; Summa theologiae I, q. 85.
- Hervaeus Natalis: De secundis intentionibus. Composed ca. 1307—1316.
- Carruthers, Peter (2008): “Meta-cognition in Animals: A Skeptical Look”. Mind & Language 23(1), pp. 58—89.