149. Understanding, Composition, Division, and Truth

Subscribe in Podcast App | Download Transcript

Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Two Acts of Understanding #

• First Act (Simple Apprehension): Understanding what a thing is (quiddity) without affirming or denying
• Second Act (Composition/Division): Forming affirmative or negative judgments by putting together or dividing concepts
• The human understanding must operate through both acts because it moves from potency to act
• Divine and angelic understanding grasp all perfections at once without composition/division

Why Understanding Requires Composition and Division #

• The human intellect acquires knowledge gradually and imperfectly, unlike God or angels
• Things that go from potency to act acquire perfection successively, not all at once
• When first understanding something (e.g., what a triangle is), the mind does not immediately know all its properties
• Properties and relationships must be “put together” with the initial concept through composition/division
• Example: Understanding that a triangle’s interior angles equal two right angles requires reasoning through multiple steps

The Role of Images and Time in Understanding #

• The understanding abstracts from images but must turn back toward them to act
• Images are continuous and exist in time (past, present, future)
• Composition/division therefore adds temporal reference that simple apprehension lacks
• The verb always signifies with time; the noun (name) does not necessarily
• Example: “Socrates walks” (present), “Socrates walked” (past), “Socrates will walk” (future)
• The Greek word ῥῆμα (rhema) and Latin verbum both emphasize this temporal dimension

Understanding vs. Sensation: The Parallel Structure #

• Like sensation, understanding has its proper object about which it cannot err
• The understanding’s proper object is the quidditas (what it is) of material things
• Just as the eye is not deceived about color (its proper object) but easily deceived about common sensibles (size, shape), the understanding is not deceived about the essence of a thing but can be deceived about composition/division
• Example: The eye is not deceived about the color of lines but easily deceived about their relative length

Truth, Falsity, and Composition/Division #

• Truth in understanding consists in conformity with reality
• Falsity occurs in composition/division when the mind asserts what is not or denies what is
• In simple apprehension alone, there is no error—only in the second act
• When someone appears to be mistaken in simple apprehension, they are actually either: (1) not truly understanding the terms distinctly, or (2) understanding only what the terms have in common
• Example: If someone says “a dog is a cat” while only understanding both as “four-footed animal,” they are actually stating something true in what they understand, not false

The Sophisticated Argument Against Errors in Understanding #

• Thesis: The mind cannot be mistaken in what it truly understands
• Argument:
  • If the mind is mistaken in saying “A is B” when A is not B, it must not see the difference between A and B
  • But to form the statement “A is B,” one must first understand what A is and what B is
  • If one truly understands both distinctly, one must see their difference
  • Therefore, either the mind is not truly understanding them distinctly, or there is no genuine error
• Corollary: Apparent errors in composition/division are failures of distinct comprehension, not failures of the intellect as such

Composition and Division in Things vs. in the Mind #

• In reality: Things that are composed are genuinely diverse (e.g., man and whiteness are distinct)
• In the mind: The composition expresses identity or sameness, not diversity
• When we say “man is white,” we mean “man has whiteness” or “man is one who has whiteness”
• The understanding signifies the unity of subject with accident, not their diversity
• Example: We say “Socrates is healthy,” not “Socrates is health,” because these are not identical things, yet the statement expresses that Socrates participates in the quality of health
• This distinction is crucial for understanding theological language about God

The Problem of Speaking About God #

• God is absolutely simple: whatever is in God is identical with His essence
• Creatures have composition: they possess properties distinct from their essence
• Our language is formed from material things and naturally expresses composition
• Therefore, speaking about God in human language is inherently difficult
• Example: Christ’s statement “Before Abraham was, I am” uses the eternal present tense to touch upon God’s eternity, not the temporal past tense
• Theological statements like “God is good” and “God is goodness itself” attempt to express divine simplicity while using compositional language

Key Arguments #

Argument That Understanding Cannot Err in Simple Apprehension #

1. To understand what A is distinctly requires knowing the defining characteristics of A
2. If one truly knows these defining characteristics, one grasps what makes A what it is
3. To then assert “A is B” would require not seeing the difference between A and B
4. But if one truly understands A and truly understands B, one must see their difference
5. Therefore, genuine error in simple apprehension is impossible
6. What appears to be error is actually incomplete or confused apprehension

Argument for Why Understanding Requires Composition/Division #

1. The human understanding moves from potency to act (unlike God and angels)
2. Things that proceed from potency to act acquire perfection successively, not all at once
3. Therefore, the human understanding does not at once grasp all perfections of a thing
4. It first grasps the essence (quidditas)
5. It then must compose and divide to understand properties and relations
6. Therefore, composition/division is necessary for human understanding of material things

Argument Addressing the Objection About Understanding Multiple Things #

1. Objection: Composition/division requires understanding multiple things simultaneously, but the mind cannot understand many things at once
2. Response: The mind understands many things “as one” through composition/division
3. The comparison or relation expressed in the statement makes them one
4. This is analogous to knowing parts of a whole through the form of the whole
5. Therefore, there is no contradiction in understanding multiple things through composition/division

Important Definitions #

Quidditas (Essence/What It Is) #

• The essence or nature of a thing
• The proper object of human understanding
• What is first grasped when understanding something
• Example: The quidditas of a triangle is “a three-sided rectilineal figure”

Simple Apprehension #

• The first act of the intellect
• Understanding what something is without affirming or denying anything about it
• Cannot be true or false in itself
• Involves abstraction from images while remaining dependent on returning to images

Composition/Division (Compositio/Divisio) #

• The second act of the intellect
• Composition (compositio): Asserting that one thing is another (e.g., “man is animal”)
• Division (divisio): Denying that one thing is another (e.g., “man is not stone”)
• Corresponds to affirmative and negative propositions
• Can be true or false

Nomen/Onoma (Name) and Verbum/Rhema (Verb) #

• Nomen (Latin) and ὄνομα (Greek onoma): A vocal sound with no parts that signify by themselves; kept as the name for the noun
• Verbum (Latin) and ῥῆμα (Greek rhema): A name that additionally signifies time; the distinctive name for the verb
• The verb “always signifies with time” in both Latin and Greek
• Both can be called nomen in the broad sense, but the verb gets a new specific name because it adds something beyond the common meaning

Privation #

• The absence of a form or quality that something is naturally capable of having
• Known through knowledge of what is present
• Example: Blindness is understood through knowledge of sight; the indivisible is known as a privation of the divisible

Examples & Illustrations #

The Wine Tasting Example #

• Someone who is not experienced with wine says “they all taste the same”
• A connoisseur says “this is Cabernet Sauvignon, that is Pinot Noir”
• The inexperienced person only understands both as “dry red wine,” so they are not mistaken in saying one is the same as the other—they truly understand only what they have in common
• This illustrates how apparent error is actually incomplete understanding

The Heineken Beer Story #

• A beer connoisseur praises Heineken while drinking it
• While he leaves, someone replaces it with cheaper beer in a Heineken bottle
• He continues praising it as excellent Heineken
• He is not truly understanding the difference between the beers; he only understands “beer”
• This demonstrates that mistaken assertions reflect confused or undifferentiated comprehension

The Thumb Among Fingers #

• When asked “How many fingers do you have?” most answer “five fingers”
• Sometimes people say “four fingers and a thumb”
• The thumb gets a new name (“thumb”) because it stands out in some way from the others
• This illustrates why the verb gets a new name from the noun: something about it makes it stand out, namely that it signifies time

The Optical Illusion of Line Length #

• Two lines of equal length are drawn
• When arrows are added to the ends pointing outward, one line appears shorter
• When arrows point inward, one line appears longer
• The eye is deceived about the common sensible (magnitude) but not about its proper object (color)
• This shows how sensation can err about what is not its proper object, paralleling how understanding can err in composition/division but not in simple apprehension

The Dog and Cat Distinction #

• If someone says “a dog is a cat” and is mistaken, they either:
  • Don’t truly understand what distinguishes a dog from a cat
  • Are only understanding both as “four-footed animal,” in which case they are truly saying “a four-footed animal is a four-footed animal” (which is true)
• If they understand dog as “a four-footed animal that barks” and cat as “a four-footed animal that meows,” they must see the difference and cannot sincerely assert they are the same
• This sophisticated argument shows that genuine error requires incomplete understanding

The Vicegerent and Vice-President Analogy #

• The prefix “vice” indicates a substitution or deputizing
• Both a vicegerent and a vice-president get special names because they add something beyond the common meaning of “regent” or “president”
• Similarly, the verb gets a special name because it adds time to the basic meaning of a name (nomen)

The Thumb Wearing a Veil Etymology #

• The word “woman” was possibly derived from “man” with an additional element
• One explanation: the word involves the idea of “fluttering” and women wearing veils
• Women have something in addition (a face covered by a veil) to what men simply have
• Therefore they get a new name
• This illustrates how new names arise when something distinctive is added to a common concept

Questions Addressed #

Q: Can the understanding be false in simple apprehension? #

A: No. The understanding cannot err when grasping the essence or “what it is” of a thing. If someone appears to be mistaken about simple apprehension, they are actually not understanding the terms distinctly. Falsity arises only in composition/division, the second act.

Q: How can the mind understand many things through one act of composition/division? #

A: The mind understands many things “as one” by grasping the comparison or relation between them that the statement expresses. The composition makes them one through the unity of the judgment, just as the mind knows the parts of a whole through the form of the whole.

Q: Why does the verb get a new name while the noun keeps the old name? #

A: Because the verb adds something beyond the common meaning of a name—specifically, it always signifies with time. Since it signifies something additional, it receives a new specific name (verbum in Latin, ῥῆμα in Greek), while the noun keeps the general name (nomen, ὄνομα).

Q: If the understanding abstracts from images, how can it add time to composition/division? #

A: Although the understanding abstracts from images, it does not understand “in act” except by turning itself back toward images. Images are continuous and exist in time. Therefore, from the side of the understanding’s turning toward images, it joins time to composition/division.

Q: How does understanding signify identity when understanding composition? #

A: When the mind says “man is white,” it does not assert that man and whiteness are the same thing (which would be false), but that man has whiteness or is one who has whiteness. The composition signifies that what is understood as subject is unified with what is understood as predicate in the reality, even though they are diverse things.

Q: Why is it difficult to speak about God using human language? #

A: Human language is formed from material things, which have composition—their essence is distinct from their accidents. God is absolutely simple; whatever is in God is identical with His essence. Therefore, when we use compositional language about God (“God is good”), we must understand it in a transformed sense (“God is goodness itself”) to avoid falsifying the divine nature.

Notable Quotes #

“The understanding, what abstracts from the images now, that’s true, but nevertheless it does not understand in act except by turning back again towards the images.” — Aquinas (presented by Berquist)

“The verb always signifies what? With time.” — Berquist, on the essential difference between noun and verb

“Understanding is always right.” — Aristotle, De Anima, Book 3 (cited by Aquinas and Berquist)

“Everyone who fails or is mistaken, in that which he fails, does not understand.” — Augustine, 83 Questions (cited by Aquinas)

“Before Abraham was, I am.” — Christ (John 8:58), cited by Berquist to illustrate how God’s eternal present tense differs from temporal language about creatures

“Whatever God has, He is. Really.” — Berquist, emphasizing God’s absolute simplicity as the reason human compositional language must be transformed when applied to God