50. The Two Acts of Reason and Understanding the Undivided

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Two Acts of Reason #

First Act: Understanding What a Thing Is

• Simple apprehension or grasping (sometimes called simple understanding)
• Concerns the undivided nature; no truth or falsity in strict sense
• Examples: understanding what a man is, what a stone is, what an animal is
• Does not involve composition or division

Second Act: Understanding the True or the False

• Called composition (affirmative statements) or division (negative statements)
• Truth and falsity are found only in statements, not in simple concepts
• Requires putting together or dividing concepts: “Man is an animal” (true) vs. “Man is a stone” (false)
• The mind makes something one out of multiple concepts when forming a statement

Understanding the Continuous and the Undivided #

• When understanding a continuous thing (line, circle, human body), the intellect takes it as undivided in act
• Understanding occurs in undivided time when the object is grasped as a whole
• If the intellect divides the continuous into parts, it then has multiple separate understandings
• Example: Understanding a human body as an organized whole versus understanding its individual organs separately

The Essence (What a Thing Is) in the Whole and Parts #

• What a thing is (its essence) is found equally in the whole and in each part
• A line divided into parts: each part is equally a line; what a line is does not diminish in the parts
• What makes a line continuous: the end of one part is the beginning of the next
• The essence appears even more undivided than the physical thing itself
• This principle applies to immaterial realities: the whole soul is in each part of the body (not its whole power, but its substance)

Knowledge of Simple Things by Negation #

• Simple things (the point, the soul, angels, God) are known through negation and by comparison to composite things
• The point is defined negatively: “that which has no parts”
• We know composed things before simple things; material before immaterial
• Evil and privation (like blindness) are known through negation of the good
• Example: We understand blindness by understanding sight, then grasping its absence

The Distinction Between Nature and Reason (Modern Error) #

• Modern philosophers incorrectly treat reason as entirely separate from nature (like a dog vs. a cat)
• The correct understanding: reason perfects nature, like three perfects two (three = two + one, not a third separate thing)
• Man is an animal with reason, not just an animal
• Nature is determined to one; reason can reason to opposites
• Consequences of the modern error:
  • Reason cannot know anything naturally; everything must be reasoned to
  • But if everything requires reasoning, there is no foundation for reasoning
  • This leads to skepticism and arbitrariness in knowledge
  • The will cannot naturally will anything; all willing becomes arbitrary choice

Logic’s Three Acts of Reason #

• First act: Simple apprehension; definition helps understand what a thing is
• Second act: Composition/division; statements necessary to understand true or false
• Third act: Reasoning (syllogism); putting together two statements to reason out a third
• Aristotle focuses on the first two acts because they are more natural
• Reasoning is more an act of reason as reason, more proper to logic

How We Judge Statements #

• By sense: “Socrates is standing” or “Socrates is not standing” - requires observation
• By understanding terms: “No odd number is even” - requires understanding definitions
• By reasoning: “Interior angles of a triangle equal two right angles” - requires demonstration
• Logic is most needed when reasoning must determine which of two contradictory statements is true

Key Arguments #

Why Truth and Falsity Exist Only in Statements #

• Simple understanding of what something is involves no truth or falsity
• Truth and falsity arise only when concepts are combined or divided in propositions
• The mind performs an act analogous to Empedocles’ Aphrodite (love/friendship) bringing things together
• Just as physical things can be artificially combined, the mind can unite concepts in statements

Why We Cannot Understand Multiple Things at Once #

• The intellect can only understand what is one
• If you understand a man, you are not simultaneously understanding a stone
• When making a statement (“Man is not a stone”), the mind makes something one out of man and stone
• When syllogizing, the mind makes one syllogism out of two premises, grasping their unity of order

The Relationship Between Divisibility and Understanding #

• A line is divisible but understood as undivided in act
• If you divide a line and understand each half separately, you have two understandings, not one
• The continuous is undivided in potency or in act - either it cannot be divided, or we take it as undivided
• Time itself is divided like the continuous: when understanding something as a whole, understanding occurs in undivided time

Important Definitions #

Undivided (ἀδιαίρετον - adiaireton) #

• The continuous taken as a whole without division into parts
• Understanding occurs in undivided time when the intellect grasps something as one
• An object can be undivided either in act (naturally indivisible like a point) or in potency (divisible but taken as whole, like a line)
• Contrasts with divided understanding where parts are understood separately

Composition and Division #

• Composition (σύνθεσις - synthesis): Affirming that one thing is another; forming affirmative statements
• Division (διαίρεσις - diaeresis): Denying that one thing is another; forming negative statements
• These operations of the second act introduce the possibility of truth and falsity

Simple Apprehension (also called simple grasping) #

• The first act of reason: understanding what something is without affirming or denying
• The mind grasps the essence or nature of a thing

Passive Mind / Undergoing Understanding (πάθητικος - pathetikos) #

• Part of the brain; the cogitative power or particular reason
• Knows the singular under the universal
• So long as the soul is in the body, it cannot understand without turning to an image

Examples & Illustrations #

The Line and Its Parts #

• A line is divisible but when understood, taken as continuous and undivided in act
• The essence “what a line is” is found equally in the whole line and in each part
• Breaking a line into smaller parts does not change what makes them all lines
• Unlike a line, the point has no parts and is understood by negation: “that which has no parts”

Understanding a Square #

• Understanding “what a square is” requires grasping equilateral, right-angled, and quadrilateral together
• Each property could be understood separately, but the square’s essence unites them
• The intellect takes them as one undivided understanding when grasping the square’s nature

Understanding the Human Body #

• When understanding the body as an organized whole, the intellect grasps it as something one and organized
• If you divide it and study the heart, then the liver, then the lungs separately, you have many understandings
• The body’s parts are ordered to each other; the liver is not the heart, yet both belong to one body

Two Contradictory Statements #

• “Socrates is standing” / “Socrates is not standing”
• Logic of the second act tells us these cannot both be true or both be false
• But to know which is true requires using the senses
• Shows the dependence of reason on sensation for factual matters

Odd Numbers and Even Numbers #

• “No odd number is even” / “Some odd number is even”
• Logic tells us these are contradictory and one must be true
• We know which is true because we understand the definitions of “odd” and “even”
• Shows how the first act (understanding what things are) supports the second act (judging truth and falsity)

Geometric Discovery #

• “The diameter of a square is incommensurable with the side of the square”
• No matter how small a line you take to measure both, it never measures both evenly
• This truth is discovered through reasoning, not sensation or simple definition
• Shows the third act of reason (reasoning/syllogism) at work

The Eucharist #

• When the host is broken, each fragment contains the whole Christ
• Christ is present according to substance, not according to quantity
• The essence “what Christ is” is found equally in the whole host and in each fragment
• Anticipated in how the essence of a line is found equally in the whole line and in each part

Knowledge by Analogy: The Point and Immaterial Things #

• Just as we know the point by negation (that which has no parts) and by comparison to the divisible line
• So we know immaterial things (soul, angels, God) by negation and comparison to material things
• We know composed things before simple; material before immaterial
• God is known primarily through negation: no composition of parts, no composition of matter and form, no composition of essence and existence

Mother’s Reaction to “Man is an Animal” #

• Berquist’s mother was disturbed when he said “man is an animal”
• Her concern: does this mean man is “just” an animal?
• The clarification: man is an animal with reason, not merely an animal
• Illustrates the proper relationship: man has what animals have, plus something more

Notable Quotes #

“When the soul is separated from the body, then the soul is going to understand in a way more like the way the angels understand… it will understand itself to itself… not by this long drawn-out discourse.”

“You have to imagine such a thing, right, in order to understand the what it is of it.”

“The object of our reason is that what it is of something sensed or imagined… it’s the what it is of a specific sensed or imagined.”

“Man is an animal with reason. He’s not just an animal.”

“Three is two plus one… not just a third one. Three has what two has, but something more.”

“You can’t understand many things at once; you only understand one thing.”

“Truth and falsity are more in the mind than in the things, because the statement is more in the mind.”

“Everything we said about him falls short… the last thing in our knowledge of God in this life is that everything we said about him is not adequate to understanding him.”

“The misunderstanding of that distinction by modern philosophers has had absolutely tremendous consequences.”

Questions Addressed #

Why Can’t Logic Determine Which Contradictory Statement Is True? #

• Logic can identify that two statements are contradictory and that one must be true
• But logic alone cannot determine which one
• Resolution: We must employ other faculties - sense, understanding of definitions, or reasoning

How Can the Essence Be the Same in the Whole and in Every Part? #

• If what a line is were divisible like a line itself, then dividing it would make parts that are not lines
• But in fact, each part of a line is equally a line
• Therefore, what a line is (its essence) must be found equally in whole and parts
• The essence is undivided even though the physical thing is divisible

Why Is the Point Understood by Negation? #

• The point has no parts; it is absolutely simple and indivisible
• Our natural way of knowing is through sensible images of divisible things
• Therefore, we approach the point negatively: as that which has no parts
• This anticipates how we must know immaterial substances

Why Do We Know the Composed Before the Simple? #

• Our intellect is naturally ordered to material, sensible things
• Material things are composed and divisible
• Simple, immaterial things require negation because we cannot sense or imagine them directly
• We proceed from the known (material composite) to the unknown (immaterial simple)

How Do Modern Philosophers Misunderstand Nature and Reason? #

• They treat the distinction as absolute, like the difference between a dog and a cat
• But the correct distinction is like the difference between two and three
• Three is two plus one; it has all of two, plus something additional
• Man is animal plus reason; reason is nature plus the capacity for opposites
• This error leads to denying that reason or will can know or will anything naturally