35. Transition from Sense to Reason in Aristotle's De Anima

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Transition: Senses to Reason #

• Chapter 3 concludes the study of sensation (internal and external senses completed in Chapter 2)
• Chapter 3 distinguishes senses from reason in preliminary fashion
• Chapter 4 will begin detailed treatment of understanding and reason
• The transition illuminates something further about sensation itself by contrast with reason

Ancient Philosophers’ Failure to Distinguish Sense and Reason #

• Pre-Socratic thinkers investigated life through two principles: self-motion and knowing (without clear distinction between sensing and understanding)
• They focused on animal life rather than plant life (hence “anima” → “animal”)
• Plant life appeared too hidden/obscure to investigate clearly
• Critical error: They treated all cognition as bodily and material, following the principle “like is known by like” (Empedocles: “by earth we know earth, by water water”)

The Materialist Presupposition #

• Until Anaxagoras, Greeks had no concept of anything immaterial or non-bodily
• Common opinion (ancient and modern): “Whatever is must be somewhere in some place; if it isn’t somewhere, it doesn’t exist”
• This conflates being with body
• Consequence: Reason was understood as a bodily faculty, acted upon by environment like sensation

Why the Distinction Matters #

• Sleep vs. Death analogy: Shakespeare repeatedly compares sleep to death because both involve cessation of sensing and self-motion
• During sleep: vegetative powers (digestion, growth) remain active, but sensation and movement cease
• This shows sensing and understanding are distinct from vegetative life
• Pre-Socratic failure to see this distinction led them to conflate reason with sensation

Key Arguments #

Argument 1: The Truth in Empedocles (Qualified) #

• Empedocles’ principle: “The known must be in the knower in some way”
• Truth: This is valid—we must grasp/contain the object of knowledge somehow
• Error: Empedocles understood this in a material way
• Problem with material interpretation: A metal chair would “know” metal; Goliath with a stone in his forehead would “know” stone better
• Aristotle’s correction: The known must be in the knower immaterially, not materially
• The senses demonstrate immateriality: Even sensation receives impressions immaterially (not taking in material substances)

Argument 2: Reason Cannot Be Merely Bodily #

• If reason were bodily like sensation, it would be acted upon by environment like sensation
• Therefore, when environment changes, thinking would change (Empedocles’ view)
• But reason involves judgment, which requires appeal to principles (definitions, axioms)
• Judgment is not mere passive reception but active discrimination of truth from falsehood

Important Definitions #

Knowing (νοεῖν / intelligere) #

• Two components: grasping and judging
• Grasping (νοεῖν): Understanding what something means; apprehending the object
• Judging (φρονεῖν / iudicare): Separating true from false by reference to some principle of knowledge
• Example: Reading an author—grasping what he means vs. judging whether he’s true/false
• Judgment is the perfection of knowing: The wise person is characterized especially by good judgment
• Practical wisdom (φρόνησις / prudentia) is tied to judgment: the prudent person has good sense, good judgment

Judging More Precisely #

• Definition: “The separating of the true from the false by some beginning in our knowledge”
• Beginnings of knowledge vary by discipline:
  • In sensible matters: we return to the senses
  • In geometry: we return to definitions and axioms
  • All ultimately rest on sensory knowledge or first principles

The Private Object of Reason #

• The proper or private object of reason is what-it-is of something sensible or imaginable
• Reason naturally grasps being as it appears in material, sensible things
• We have difficulty separating what is never separated in experience (being from body)
• This explains why we identify substance with body and struggle with immaterial being

Examples & Illustrations #

Sleep and Death Comparison #

• Shakespeare constantly compares sleep to death (“sleep is the counterfeit of death”)
• Prince Hal scene in Henry IV: King sleeping on deathbed appears dead because no sensing or self-motion
• Yet during sleep: digestion and growth continue (vegetative powers active)
• Shows that sensing/understanding and vegetative life are distinct

Geometric Judgment Example #

• Question: How do we judge that “an obtuse angle is greater than an acute angle”?
• Answer: By returning to definitions of obtuse, acute, and right angles
• Definitions of Euclid: Right angle = when straight line meets straight line making equal angles; obtuse angle = greater than right angle; acute angle = less than right angle
• Deeper principle: All geometric judgment ultimately rests on the axiom: “The whole is greater than the part”
• Even deeper: All reasoning returns to the axiom of non-contradiction: “The same thing cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same way”

Anecdote: Brother Edmund’s Fall #

• Brother Edmund fell rock-climbing, hit his head, knocked unconscious
• During unconsciousness: thoughts altered/confused (fitting Homeric view that thoughts change with bodily condition)
• Brother Mark joked that if Edmund had maintained consciousness, he could have “demonstrated that all philosophy changes at this moment”
• Shows the apparent connection between bodily state and thought

Homer on Mind and Environment #

• Homer: “The mind of earthly men is such as the day the Father of men and gods brings forth”
• Interpretation: As circumstances change, thinking changes (materialist reading)
• Scene: Man struck and laid thinking different thoughts (as if thought is result of bodily condition)
• This supported pre-Socratic materialism

Complaint About Modern Philosophers #

• Modern philosophers often speak so obscurely that students cannot grasp what they mean
• Example: Three years trying to understand what Heidegger means by “being”
• Error: Should spend most time judging whether something is true/false, not struggling to grasp meaning
• Principle: If you cannot grasp what someone means, you cannot judge whether it’s true
• Counter-example: “A friend is another self”—clear enough to judge: FALSE (friends distinct from selves)

Questions Addressed #

Why did ancients conflate sensing and reasoning? #

• Root cause: Materialism—assumption that everything is bodily
• Supporting principle: “Like is known by like” applied to bodily knowing
• Historical factor: No recognition of immaterial being until Anaxagoras
• Consequence: Without concept of immaterial being, no reason to separate reason from body

How does the principle “like is known by like” apply to reason? #

• Empedocles: Applied it materially—earth in us knows earth, water knows water, etc.
• Aristotle’s correction: The principle is valid BUT must be understood immaterially
• In sensation: Sense receives form immaterially (not taking material substance)
• In reason: Reason grasps immaterial forms/essences

Why is being identified with body in common opinion? #

• In our experience, what is, is always a body (in sensible things)
• Reason has difficulty separating what is never separated experientially
• Therefore we identify being (ens) with body, substance with body
• Only when we recognize immaterial substances (unmoved mover, reasons, God) do we separate being from body

What is the proper object of reason vs. sensation? #

• Sensation: The sensible qualities present in external things
• Reason: The what-it-is (essence/form) of sensible/imaginable things
• Limitation: Our reason naturally grasps being as it appears in material things
• Consequence: We know immaterial things (like God) only by negation, analogy, and causation—not by direct intellection

Notable Quotes #

“Concerning the principle, therefore, by which we say an animal is sensitive, let it be termed in this way.” (Aristotle, quoted by Thomas; end of De Anima II, opening of Chapter 3)

“For all these thinkers assume understanding to be bodily like sensing, and that like is sensed and judged by like.” (Aristotle, on ancient philosophers’ error)

“The same thing cannot both be, and not be at the same time, in the same way.” (Axiom of non-contradiction, foundation of all judgment)

“It’s all wrong there, the proportion. You should spend most of your time trying to judge whether what somebody says is true or false, rather than what does he mean.” (Berquist, on modern philosophical obscurity)

“God is altogether simple. And the closer you get to God, the simpler you become.” (St. Teresa of Avila, quoted by Berquist)

“Being, or what is, is what our mind first understands” (Thomas Aquinas, following Avicenna; qualified as “being as considered in sensible or material things”)