The Conceptual Habit and the Distinction between Logical and Real Universals According to Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

This paper defends that the act of the concept depends on the conceptual habit. The act of the concept knows two real causes of physical reality: material and formal. One of them, the formal cause, is the real universal (unum) which is present in a plurality of material subjects (in multis). The real universal is different from the logical universal. The habit does not know of causes, but the acts of the concept. So, it permits to distinguish between the act of knowledge that knows the real universal and the act that knows the logical universal.