49. The Acting Upon Understanding and Immateriality

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Two Powers of Understanding #

• Undergoing Understanding (Passive Intellect): Receives the natures of all material things in universal form; immaterial but in potency to its objects; like a blank tablet
• Acting Upon Understanding (Active Intellect): Makes potentially understandable things actually understandable by separating universal natures from material singulars; immaterial and active; analogous to light
• Both powers are absolutely necessary; neither alone suffices for human knowledge

The Nature of the Acting Upon Understanding #

Aristotle identifies four characteristics:

1. Separable from Matter: The acting upon understanding is korístas (χωριστός)—separated/separable from matter
2. Impassive (Apathes): Not subject to passion in the primary sense; unmixed with matter
3. Not Mixed with Matter: Has no composition with material elements
4. Substance is Act Rather Than Potency: Its very nature is actual, not the passive potency characteristic of the undergoing understanding

The Problem of Potentially vs. Actually Understandable #

• Material things are only potentially understandable in themselves
• Images contain determined material natures but these are not actually understandable while bound to individual matter
• The acting upon understanding must actualize these potentially understandable things
• This is why we cannot understand without images: the object of reason is the “what it is” of something sensed or imagined

Why Both Powers Must Be Immaterial #

• If the undergoing understanding is immaterial and passive, the active principle making its object actual must be even more immaterial
• The maker is always more honorable than what undergoes; the active principle more honorable than matter
• If the acting upon understanding had the determined natures of things, we would not need images to learn
• Therefore, the acting upon understanding is immaterial by its very substance

Immateriality as a Sign of Understandability #

• Something becomes understandable when separated from matter
• Immaterial substances by their nature (God, angels) are actually understandable and therefore actually understand
• This principle is foundational for natural theology and explains why we can know immaterial beings

The Natural Light of Reason #

• The acting upon understanding is the natural light of reason referenced in John 1:9 (“the light that lightens every man who comes into this world”)
• This natural light enables judgment of self-evident truths (e.g., a whole is greater than a part; the principle of non-contradiction)
• Some truths (Trinity, Incarnation) require the supernatural light of faith

Act and Potency in the Order of Knowing #

• In our mind: ability (potency) comes before act in time—we can understand before we actually understand
• Yet universally: act is prior in time because something in act must cause the transition from potency to act
• God and angels are actually understanding always, without prior potency
• This hints at the ultimate goal of philosophy: knowledge of God

Key Arguments #

Why the Acting Upon Understanding Must Exist #

1. The undergoing understanding is in potency to all material natures
2. What is only potency cannot actualize itself (nothing gives what it does not have)
3. Images contain material natures but not actually understandable ones
4. Therefore something must actualize potentially understandable things
5. This something is the acting upon understanding

Why the Acting Upon Understanding Must Be Immaterial #

1. The undergoing understanding is immaterial (established in previous readings)
2. The active principle is always more honorable than the passive principle
3. The maker is more honorable than what undergoes (artist > marble; teacher > student)
4. Therefore the acting upon understanding must be even more immaterial than the undergoing understanding
5. Its substance must be act (actualized form) rather than potency or matter

Anaxagoras’ Doctrine and the Necessity of Immateriality #

• Anaxagoras teaches that mind (νοῦς) is unmixed with all things
• He distinguishes: (a) not being mixed with other things, and (b) not being a mixture of things itself
• The reason given: if mind were mixed with things, it could not rule over them
• The analogy of an impartial judge: a judge must not be part of what he judges between
• Anaxagoras adds that mind is the thinnest and purest of all things—if it were composed of other things, it could not be the thinnest

The Rejection of Plato’s Forms (Eidos) #

• If Plato’s separate world of forms existed, the acting upon understanding would be unnecessary
• Forms could act directly on the undergoing understanding as sensible things act on sensation
• Aristotle rejects this: “What a man is” cannot exist separately from actual men and matter
• The soul must have an active power to separate universals from particulars in sensation, memory, and experience
• Therefore the distinction between undergoing and acting upon understanding is necessary

The Relationship Between Images and Intellect #

• The acting upon understanding acts upon images, not directly upon material things
• Images are tools (organa) of the acting upon understanding
• Images contain determined natures but these are tied to individual material conditions
• The acting upon understanding separates the universal nature from the singular material conditions
• This actualized universal can then be received by the undergoing understanding

Important Definitions #

Korístas (χωριστός) #

• Separated, separable from matter
• Not necessarily existing separately in fact, but separable in definition and operation

Apathes (ἀπαθής) #

• Without passion (passio) in the primary sense
• Not subject to being harmed or corrupted by what it receives
• Not mixed with matter

Potency (Potentia) vs. Act (Actus) #

• Potency: Ability, capacity to receive or become something
• Act: The realization of that capacity; having a quality or nature in actuality
• In the order of definition: act is prior (form is defined before matter)
• In the order of being: act is prior to potency universally
• In time (for things that change): potency comes before act (the student can understand before he does)
• Universally in time: act is always prior because something in act must cause the transition

Potentially Understandable vs. Actually Understandable #

• Potentially understandable: Material things as sensed or imagined; their natures are present but not yet separated from material conditions
• Actually understandable: Universal natures that have been separated from material singularity; can be received by the undergoing understanding

Examples & Illustrations #

Learning What a Dog Is #

1. Sensing individual dogs (singular, material)
2. Memory of what was sensed (still singular)
3. Experience: gathering many memories of similar things
4. The acting upon understanding separates what is common to all these experiences
5. The undergoing understanding receives this universal nature
6. Result: actual understanding of what a dog is

The Senses as Model for Understanding #

• The eye must be free of color to receive all colors
• If the eye were colored, it could not see other colors
• Similarly, the undergoing understanding must be free of all material natures to receive them all
• Both demonstrate the principle: to receive everything in a genus, one must lack any particular determination in that genus

Art Acting on Matter #

• The artist (e.g., Michelangelo) is more honorable than the material he works with (marble)
• Art is something actual (the form exists in the artist’s mind)
• The form exists in the material only in potency until art acts upon it
• Analogy: the acting upon understanding to the undergoing understanding is like art to matter
• Note: The analogy is not perfect because the acting upon understanding acts on images, not directly on the undergoing understanding

The Light Bulb and the Object Analogy #

• If a light bulb is the only source of light and I smash it, I can no longer see the other person
• But does this make the light bulb the organ of sight? No—it was the object (the other person leaving) that interferes with seeing, not the organ
• Similarly, when alcohol or brain damage interferes with thinking, this may interfere with the imagination (which is bodily), not necessarily the intellect itself
• The brain is related to understanding as the light bulb is related to seeing in this example

The Impartial Judge #

• A judge must not be mixed with or partial to either side
• If the judge has a financial interest in one party, the judgment is compromised
• This illustrates why mind must be unmixed with things: to rule over them and know them impartially

Mozart’s Sonata and the Soul’s Reception of Forms #

• The second movement of Mozart’s B-flat Sonata begins with a beautiful melody
• After repeating it, another melody emerges underneath the first
• This illustrates how the soul receives multiple natures: just as the ear receives all of Mozart’s music, the understanding receives all material natures
• Museums: after visiting many times, the paintings become part of you; reason even more so, becoming all material natures

Questions Addressed #

How Can an Immaterial Understanding Be Acted Upon by Material Things? #

• Material things cannot directly act on an immaterial intellect
• The solution: the images in imagination contain material natures but are not actually understandable
• The acting upon understanding separates the universal nature from material conditions
• This actualized universal can then be received by the undergoing understanding
• The problem is not fully resolved until the role of the acting upon understanding is understood

Why Must Both Powers Exist? #

• The undergoing understanding is in potency and cannot actualize itself
• What is only potency cannot move itself from potency to act
• Images alone cannot provide actually understandable things
• Therefore something must actualize potentially understandable things
• This is the acting upon understanding

How Do Images Relate to Understanding? #

• The object of our reason is the “what it is” of something sensed or imagined
• This is not a form existing separately in a Platonic world
• Therefore we cannot understand without images of sensible things
• Images are the tool or instrument through which the acting upon understanding works
• The acting upon understanding acts upon images, not upon the material things or the undergoing understanding directly

What Is the Natural Light of Reason? #

• Identified with the acting upon understanding
• The source of our ability to judge certain truths immediately: whole > part, non-contradiction
• Some truths cannot be judged by natural light alone (Trinity, Incarnation) and require faith
• This light is derived from a higher light: “This is the light that lightens every man who comes into this world” (John 1:9)

How Do We Understand Without Having All Things? #

• In understanding, we “in a way become all things” (spiritually, not materially)
• The senses receive all sensible qualities: the eye is all colors, the ear is all sounds, the tongue is all tastes
• The understanding, even more so, receives all intelligible natures
• But we receive them in a unified, ordered way that makes us one understanding, not many

Notable Quotes #

“The mind is unlimited, self-ruling, and mixed with nothing… the thinnest and purest of all things.”

• Anaxagoras (DK12), discussed as parallel to Aristotelian doctrine
• Illustrates the necessity of immateriality for knowledge and ruling

“The maker is always more honorable than the one undergoing, and the principal, in the sense of the active principal, than the matter.”

• Aristotle, De Anima III.5
• Justifies why the acting upon understanding must be immaterial and active

“This is the light that lightens every man who comes into this world.”

• John 1:9
• Interpreted by Berquist as referring to the natural light of reason (the acting upon understanding)
• Not speaking primarily of faith but of the natural intellectual light given to all humans

“I studied the body so I can study the soul. I study the soul so I can study the angels. I studied the angels so I can study God.”

• Thomas Aquinas (quoted by Berquist)
• Expresses the hierarchical ordering of knowledge toward the ultimate goal of knowing God

“Nothing gives what it does not have.”

• Philosophical principle (nemo dat quod non habet)
• Used to establish that potency cannot actualize itself

“The soul is in a way all things.”

• Aristotle, De Anima III.8
• Because senses receive all sensible qualities and understanding receives all intelligible natures

“It’s not bad for those who say that the soul is the place of forms, rather than the world by themselves.”

• Aristotle (paraphrase), concerning where universals exist
• The soul is the place of universals, not a separate Platonic world