42. Understanding and Sensation: The Immateriality of Mind

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Comparison Between Understanding and Sensation #

• Understanding is like sensing in being a form of receiving or undergoing (πάθος/pathos), but not in the way matter undergoes change
• Both are receptive powers that exist in potency before actualizing their objects
• Neither sensation nor understanding alters the receiver the way matter is altered when it receives a new form

The Immateriality of the Intellect #

• The fundamental argument: to receive all things, the intellect must lack any particular material nature
• The intellect must be “unmixed” (ἀμιγής) with matter to know all material things
• This is a consequence of the principle that the receiver must lack what it receives

Reception as Perfection, Not Alteration #

• Berquist emphasizes the distinction between undergoing in the sense of suffering (harmful) versus undergoing as reception and perfection
• Understanding and sensation perfect the knower; they do not change the knower from one state to another
• This distinguishes immaterial reception from the way continuous matter receives forms

The Problem of Naming: Metaphysics vs. Wisdom #

• The course should perhaps be called “Wisdom” rather than “Metaphysics,” since Aristotle himself called it πρώτη φιλοσοφία (first philosophy) and σοφία (wisdom)
• The term “Meta-ta-physica” literally means “after the books of natural philosophy,” indicating the order of learning
• Andronicus of Rhodes, the cataloger of Aristotle’s works, provided the title “Metaphysics”

Key Arguments #

The Argument from Universal Reception #

1. The intellect must be able to receive the natures of all material things
2. Whatever receives something must lack that thing (otherwise it would be determined and limited by it)
3. Therefore, the intellect must lack any material nature itself
4. Conclusion: The intellect is not a body and is not mixed with matter

The Comparison to Anaxagoras #

• Anaxagoras argued that the cosmic mind (νοῦς/nous) must be unmixed with matter to rule and order all things
• Aristotle applies this principle to the human intellect: it must be unmixed to know all things
• The ruler must be distinct from what is ruled; the knower must be distinct from (or unmixed with) what is known
• Unlike Anaxagoras’s focus on commanding, Aristotle’s focus is on knowing

The Principle of the Receiver Lacking What It Receives #

• The eye must lack color to perceive all colors
• The tongue must lack taste to perceive all tastes
• The ear must lack sound to hear all sounds
• By extension: the mind must lack material nature to know all material things

The Critique of Empedocles #

• Empedocles claimed we know things because we are composed of them (earth, air, fire, water, love, and hate)
• This fails because it cannot account for the fact that we can learn what we don’t actually know
• We do not always actually know things we are composed of; we must encounter them through the senses first
• Therefore, knowledge cannot depend on actual possession but on receptive potency

Important Definitions #

Undergoing (πάθος/pathos) #

• Originally meant suffering something contrary to one’s nature
• Extended to mean any kind of receiving or being acted upon
• In understanding and sensation, it means a perfecting reception, not an alteration
• Distinguished from the way matter undergoes change (where one form replaces another, destroying the previous form)
• When clay is molded into a cube from a sphere, it undergoes change in the strict sense
• When the eye receives color or the mind receives an intelligible form, it undergoes something more like perfecting

Species (εἶδος/eidos; Latin: species) #

• In the context of sensation and understanding: the form or nature of a thing as received by the knowing power
• The intelligible species is what the intellect receives in potency before understanding
• “Those who say the soul is the place of species speak well”
• The intellect receives species in potency (δύναμει), not in actuality (ἐνεργείᾳ)

Impassable (ἀπαθής/apathes) #

• In the strict sense: not undergoing change the way matter does
• The intellect is impassable in that it is not altered by receiving intelligible forms
• Yet it is receptive—able to receive the species of forms
• This paradox is resolved by distinguishing material alteration from immaterial perfecting reception

Mind (νοῦς/nous) and Soul Parts #

• The intellectual part of the soul is distinguished from the sensitive and vegetative parts
• Aristotle refers to it using the language “that part of the soul by which the soul both knows and judges” (γιγνώσκει καὶ δοξάζει)
• Judging comes second in order but first in dignity or perfection
• Different sciences judge differently: natural philosophy by the senses, mathematics by the imagination, logic by reason itself, theology by Scripture, magisterium, and tradition

Examples & Illustrations #

The Eye and Color #

• If the eye were green, everything would appear green
• The eye must lack all color to perceive all colors
• Reference to the Wizard of Oz with special green glasses as an illustration
• Similarly, the mind must lack all material nature to know all material things

The Tongue and Taste #

• If the tongue were salty, everything would taste salty
• The tongue must lack all taste to perceive all tastes
• The exception of touch: the sense of touch cannot be completely lacking in temperature but senses what it lacks (something warmer or colder)

The Transparent Glass #

• To show all colors in a transparent glass, it must remain transparent
• If filled with colored liquid (blue, red, green, yellow), it can only show that one color
• The mind must be “transparent” to all material natures—lacking any definite material nature

The Judge and Impartiality #

• A judge must be impartial (not a part of the conflict) to rule well
• “Impartial” etymologically means “not a part of”
• A commander must be distinct from those commanded to command effectively
• A president requires ceremonial distinction; a mother must maintain authority separate from her children
• The intellect must be unmixed with matter to know and distinguish all material things

The Brother’s Friend #

• Anecdote about a philosophy instructor describing impressions from a student’s face
• Students react as if the teacher is acting upon them harmfully (suffering)
• Illustrates how we use the word “undergoing” even for cases where no harm occurs

Sartre and Gabriel Marcel #

• Sartre cannot see that receiving anything is compatible with freedom; he views all reception as imposition
• This makes teaching, parenthood, and friendship impossible
• Sartre’s claim: “Hell is others” because being acted upon by another violates freedom
• Marcel recognizes that mutual action and perfection in friendship is compatible with freedom

Questions Addressed #

How is Understanding Like Sensation? #

• Both are forms of receiving or undergoing their objects
• Both exist in potency before actualizing their objects
• Both require the absence of what they receive in the knower
• Yet both differ from bodily alteration—they are immaterial receptions that perfect rather than change

Why Must the Intellect Be Immaterial? #

• To receive all material natures, it cannot have any particular material nature itself
• If it were material, it would be determined by that material nature and unable to know all things
• The principle applies universally: the receiver must lack what it receives to receive it fully

Is the Intellect Separable from the Body? #

• Aristotle alludes to Plato’s tripartite soul (reason in the head, spirited part in the chest, appetitive part below)
• Aristotle shows that reason is not bodily at all and therefore not in one part of the body
• This addresses whether reason is “separable according to magnitude” from the body
• The intellect is not a bodily organ but is the immaterial receiving power of the soul

Why Does Understanding Require Immateriality While Sensation Can Be Embodied? #

• Sensation involves receiving particular sensible forms through bodily organs
• Understanding involves receiving universal intelligible forms
• The universality of what the intellect receives (all material things) requires complete immateriality
• The particular nature of sensible reception allows for embodied sensory powers

Notable Quotes #

“Understanding is like sensing in being an undergoing, in being a receiving, in being acted upon in some way. But not in the way matter acts upon.”

“It is necessary, therefore, since it understands all things, that the mind be unmixed. Something like Anaxagoras says that it might command. But this is necessary that it might know.”

“The mind is the place of species… not the whole soul is the place of species, but the intellectual part is such. Nor is it the species in act, but originally only in potency.”

“The ruler must be distinct from the ruled; the ruler must not be mixed with the ruled, because this is prevented from ruling.”

“When you are able to sense something before you actually sense it, right? You are able to understand something before you actually understand it, right? But you come to sense something or to understand something by, in a way, receiving that thing.”

“If this was green, that would get in the way of it showing all what? It’s like that with the mind, you see. The mind, in a sense, has to be what? Transparent, right? In order to receive and to show all what? Material things.”