這段話找了許久，終於被我「挖到」，希望對其他研究者有用。
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) 在他的Summa Thelogiae解釋何為Agent intellect & Potential intellect。引自版本：1970, Blackfriars in conjunction with Eyre & Spottiswoode, London & McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York
[Aquinas] Reply: The reason why we have to say that we have a ‘potential’ intellect is simply that we sometimes find ourselves not actually but only potentially understanding; for this implies a power in us that is in potency to intelligible objects before it actually understands them, and which is then brought into act, with regard to these, when it knows them, and again when it returns to reflect on them. And this power we call the potential intellect. And the reason for saying that our intellect is also ‘agent’ is that the material things we understand do not exist as non-material and actually understood until they are received into the soul; before this they are only potentially intelligible. There must, then, be some power in us to make them actually intelligible; and this power we call the agent intellect.
Aquinas的Agent intellect 被國人翻譯為「主動理智」；Potential intellect「被動理智」。這些觀念來自Aristotle，探討人的靈魂分為兩部分(動力)：(1)被動理智：潛在心智但尚未瞭解事物；(2)主動理智：起而行動瞭解這些事物。Aristotle舉例：主動理智似光對於顏色(被動理智)，它(主動理智)提供動力讓我們透過感官「體驗」被動理智潛欲了解的事物，從意像(image)中摘取(abstract)意涵，經過這段過程後，人始實際領悟知識，讓知識進入靈魂。
還在理解當中，若有哲學達人，敬請賜教。
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