This is the point I was making in this post, and at the moment I thought I was thinking for myself, but it turns out that for some of the metaphysics and epistemology post I was vaguely recollecting things I'd read in Ordinatio I.3.4 a few weeks ago. Look at the following from Scotus [mildly paraphrased]:
"As far as the knowledge of principles is concerned, the senses are not the cause, but the occasion, of understanding. The intellect is not able to have the knowledge of simple notions unless this is accepted from the senses; but once these simple notions are accepted, the intellect can put them together by its own power and, if from the nature of these simple notions there is an evidently true complex concept, the intellect, by its own power and by that of the terms, can assent to that complex - but not in virtue of the sense from which it accepted the terms from without. For example: if the notion of "whole" and of "greater" is received from the sense power, and if the intellect puts together this proposition: Every whole is greater than its part, the intellect, in virtue of itself and of these terms, will assent to this complex notion with certitude, and not only because it sees these terms conjoined in reality (as if for instance it assents to the proposition Socrates is white, because he sees the terms [i.e. Socrates and whiteness] to be united in reality).
No, rather I say that if all the senses from which such terms were derived were false, or (what would be even more deceptive), if some senses were false and some true, still the intellect would not be deceived about such principles, because it would always have with it the terms which were the cause of the truth. For instance, if a man born blind were to be miraculously impressed with the appearances of whiteness and blackness in a dream, and if they remained in his imagination upon awakening, his intellect, abstracting from them, would compose this proposition: White is not black. And his intellect would not be deceived about this, although the terms were derived from an erring sense, because the formal ratio of the terms which he attained is itself the necessary cause of the truth of this negative proposition."
I think this is both true, and very similar to what I was saying in the previous post. But yesterday I'd forgotten all about having read it, even though it was fairly recently. It just goes to show that the modern academic obsession with footnoting is misplaced to some extent. I may never have an original thought, and if I did it would be impossible to prove, because what I believe I just thought up on my own may well be and probably is a composted sediment from something someone else once said or wrote. So why be so obsessed with attribution?
nihil sub sole novum nec valet quisquam dicere ecce hoc recens est iam enim praecessit in saeculis quae fuerunt ante nos
non est priorum memoria sed nec eorum quidem quae postea futura sunt erit recordatio apud eos qui futuri sunt in novissimo
