  Of all those following in the tradition of Albert the Great who developed theories of the intellect in the 13th and 14th centuries, Dietrich of Freiberg went the furthest. In treating of the active intellect (intellectus agens), Dietrich identified a three-fold object, which, however, the intellect knows in a single intuition (uno intuitu): its principle (deus), its essence (essentia) and the totality of beings (universitas entium). According to Dietrich, the intellect knows its essence and all beings not only according to its essence, but also “in its principle, according to the mode of this very principle” (in suo principio secundum modum ipsius principii; cf.  Dietrich of Freiberg, De intellectu et intelligibili II 37–40, ed. Mojsisch, 1977, pp. 175–77). This mode of knowing is the highest that we can identify. Before Dietrich, no one had formulated this mode of knowing in such a progressive manner by making such a radical claim. Nevertheless, Dietrich did not further elaborate how to think this mode of knowing in its individual moments, that is, the way the intellect actually knows “in its principle, according to the mode of this very principle”.