 In this way, Burley points towards a double movement in the process of knowing: a first movement, connected with the activity of abstraction or generalization of the intellect (namely, the kind of knowledge he calls ‘confused’), which goes from the bottom to the top of the categorial hierarchy, i.e., from what is singular to the highest genus. Then there is a second movement, tied to the definitional activity of the intellect (namely the knowledge that he calls appropriate’), which goes from top to bottom of the categorial hierarchy, proceeding from what is more universal and therefore intensionally more simple and primitive to that which is less so, finally reaching singulars, which are intentionally richer and ontologically more complex than any universal.