De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 1: The Structure and Order of Aristotle's Natural Philosophy

Transcript
================================================================================

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and rouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas Angelic Doctrine, pray for us. And help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Perhaps we should situate the Dianima here. Among the books of natural philosophy, natural science, of Aristotle. And as Aristotle pointed out, at the beginning of the books of natural hearing, usually called physics and English now, we should consider things in general before in what? Particularly, right? And he also touched upon the fact that we're going to be going towards matter. As we go on in science. So, in the eight books of natural hearing, Aristotle is talking about natural things in general. He's talking about motion or change in general. If you recall, nature is defined by motion, right? So, here he's talking about motion or change in general. Now, in the other parts of natural philosophy or natural science, Aristotle takes up some particular kind of change. He distinguishes three main kinds of change. One being change of place. The second being change of sensible quality. Which change can lead to a what? Substantial change. You heat a man up too much. You cool him down too much. You kill a man, right? So, leading to substantial change. Though not necessarily leading to that. And then change of quantity in the concise sense of what we call growth. And this is where you start to study the living things, right? Because growth is what you find, and even the lowest kind of life that you find in the clients. Now, the first book, therefore, is the eight books of natural hearing, which are about motion or change in general. And then he descends to these particular kinds of change. But in the order of considering these particular kinds of change, he, to some extent, is still going from the general to the particular. Now, why do I say that, huh? Well, change of place seems to be more common than change of what? Sensible quality. Christopher Aristotle seemed to be this very much so, because, as far as he could tell, the sun, the moon, and the stars, they changed their place, but they didn't, what? Seem to change their quality, right? Okay? But even down here, where things do both change their quality and change their place, they can change their place without changing their quality. But for a quality of change, you have to bring them together in the same place. So, to some extent, change of place is more general and presupposed to change your quality. And so he considers this in the book, which in Greek, I think, should be translated on the, what? Universe, huh? Or about the universe. It's still referred to in Thomas as the T'Chelo at Mundo. So this is, you might say, the second book work. It's just four books that change to the book of the universe. The second one in the four universe dollars books. Now, why should the change of place eventually lead us to consider the whole universe? What's the connection between place and the universe as a whole? Ten places in the universe. The universe is, in a sense, the last place. The place is determined in relation to the universe. So we wanted to stop where we are and say, we're in this room, right? And this room is in this building, and this building is on this land, and in this state, and all the way up to eventually, where it is in regard to the whole universe. So that's about change of place. Now, in the book that's come down to us, the book on generation and corruption, this is where he talks about change of quality, and change of substance that this can lead to. And again, that is in some sense more general than growth, right? Because in order to have growth, you have to, what? Change the quality of your food, right? And eventually change it into your own substance, right? So, growth presupposes this kind of change, but there may be this kind of change, chemical change, you might call it today, in the non-living white world, right? Like, growth is only the living world. So to some extent, you're still going from the general to the particular, right? Even when you have an order there among the three particular kinds of change. Now, this was really the origin of the popular division we still have in experimental science today. We speak of physics and chemistry and biology, right? So, when I was in high school, you know, you could take a biology course, or chemistry course, or physics course, or, you know, all three if you wanted to, right? In colleges, we often have physics and chemistry and biology, right? And so physics was originally, what? Corresponding to the change of place. And then chemistry was dealing with, what? Qualitative change that could lead to more substantial changes. And then biology was dealing with growth and other changes that take place inside living bodies. So the original reason for the division into physics, chemistry, and biology goes back to Aristotle. But after it became customary, people didn't, what, know the reason for it anymore. But notice, the reason why you divide with different kinds of change is seen back in physics, because nature is defined by change. Okay? What happened, of course, in the history of science, as I said, they forgot, right? The reason for this. So the division became sometimes, what? Muddle, yeah, yeah. So if you take something like what we call today atomic physics, right? Because atomic physics belong here under change of place, over here with change of quality and substance. Belongs with chemistry, really. Now, sometimes, it's not too bad a way of speaking, sometimes today we lump these two together and we call them the, what? Physical sciences, huh? Okay? And the physical sciences, of course, have become very mathematical in the modern world, right? Okay? And so if you look at Heisenberg's, look at Heisenberg's different lectures, right? When he divides the physical sciences, one of the main things he has in mind is the kind of mathematical formalism that you have, huh? When you have different mathematical formalism, you have a different physical science, huh? You have a kind of a mathematical science of nature. But he will put atomic physics with, what? Chemistry. Not with mechanics, which is studying change of place. You have to do it, though. You have to do it, though. So the division of physical science, as I say, is modified from this division here because it's a mathematical science of nature and therefore it's very important the kind of mathematics you have and so on. But the oldest part of modern science is the mechanics, the part that Caldeo and Kepler were dealing with and Putin unified. And that was basically its study of what? Change of place. If you go back to what we saw in the Greek philosophers before Aristotle, change of place was the only kind of change that some of them admitted, right? They couldn't understand this more inward change. But again, it's a sign that Aristotle is proceeding here from the more known to the less known. The word is more known to us, that is to say, right? To what is less known. Change of place is more known to us. But he's still to some extent, as we saw before, proceeding from the general to the particular. And we're accustomed to call this over here sometimes, the life sciences. So the physical science and the life sciences, after the eight books of nature here. Now, the three books about the soul are only part of what Aristotle wrote. And Thomas, in the beginning of his commentary on the sense and the sensible, right? The sensutsusato, gives the division and the order of all Aristotle's books on living things. Don't try to maybe write all this down, but just to give you an idea of this. So, he says, as the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, some people learn that one. As things are separable from matter, right? So they concern the understanding, huh? Now, we're going to learn in the third book about the soul that the reason or the understanding is immaterial. That it's not the brain. That's not a body, right? And that's going to be the basis for the statement, then. As things are separable from matter, so they pertain to the understanding in some way. For each thing is understandable to the extent that it is, what? Separable from matter. Whence those things which, by their very nature, are separated from matter, are understandable in act, huh? By themselves, as such. Not to us, though, right? The things which are abstracted from material conditions become understandable in act through the light of our act of understanding, which we'll talk about in the third book also. And because the habits of some power are distinguished in species by the difference of what is, per se, as such, the object of that power, it is necessary that the habits of the sciences, by which the understanding is perfected, that these also be distinguished by the difference of separation from matter. And therefore, the philosopher in the sixth book of the metaphysics, which we'll see eventually, distinguishes the genera of sciences according to a diverse way of separation from matter. And he's going to divide them in the sixth book of metaphysics into what? Natural philosophy and mathematics and metaphysics or wisdom, right? But the basis of that division is going to be diverse, what? In materiality. For those things which are separated from matter in their being and in their definition pertain to metaphysics or to metaphysician. Those things which are separated in their definition, but not in their existence or being, pertain to mathematics. But those things which in their very definition involve sensible matter pertain to, but, natural philosophy. So notice, there's three possible sciences there, right? One that's about material things and it's going to define them with matter, not with your individual matter, but matter in general. Another science that's about things that are in the material world, like quantity and shape and so on, but which defines them without matter, like in geometry, mathematics. And then finally that science, wisdom or metaphysics or first philosophy, which is about things that are what? In their very nature, not dependent upon matter. Now, there can't be a fourth possibility that something would not depend upon matter, but would be defined with matter. Because there'd be no reason on the side of the thing for using matter in its definition. And because the understanding is immaterial, there'd be no reason on that side, right? The odd animal is mathematics, right? Which in a way reflects the immateriality of the mind, that it considers things like sphere, right? Or cylinder and so on, without any what? Matter. Okay? So Aristotle, in the second book of natural hearing, he distinguished mathematics and natural philosophy, right? But it's not until the sixth book of wisdom he distinguishes wisdom from those two. You see all three of them, right? And as, he says, the diverse genera sciences are distinguished by this, that things are in diverse ways separable from matter, so also, he says, in each of the sciences in particular, and especially in natural science, the parts of the science are distinguished according to a diverse separation. Or, he used the Greek-clatin word, concretion, right? Application. A diverse way of being separated or applied to matter. And because universals are more, what? Separated from matter. Therefore, in natural science, one proceeds from the more universal to the less universals, as the philosophy teaches in the beginning of the physics, the beginning of the natural hearing. Whence, Aristotle begins to consider natural science from those things which are most common to all natural things, which are motion or change and the principle of motion. And then he proceeds, by way of concretion or application of common principles to some, what? Determinant or particular global things, of which some are living bodies. Now, he just sends down there because he wants to subdivide this in particular. About which also, in a similar way, he proceeds, distinguishing this consideration into three parts. He's going to distinguish this into three parts. And the first part is going to be the three books about the soul. And there you're going to be considering the soul in a kind of separation from matter. Not completely, because you can't understand the soul without bringing in matter. But you're considering the soul to some extent by itself. Then there'll be a second group of books where he considers on the side of the body, right? When they kind of get you on the way. And then finally, a third group of books of Aristotle where he descends down to individual, particular kinds of animals and what? Planets, huh? Okay? For first, he considers about the soul, secundum se, by itself, as in a quodum abstractioni. It's not a complete abstraction, you see. But it's a kind of abstraction. Secondly, he makes a consideration about those things which are of the soul according to a certain concretion, he says, or application of the body, but in a somewhat general way. Third, he makes a consideration by applying all of these things to the particular species of animals and plants, determining what is proper to each species. So Aristotle has an awful lot besides the animal. And he says, the first consideration is contained in the book about the soul, the three books about the soul, that he's giving you these selections from. The third consideration is contained in the books which he wrote about the animals and plants. He's thinking now of the book called The History of Animals, and the book called On the Parts of Animals, right? And On the Generation of Animals, right? And in the work on plants, which some people think might have been written by Theofrascus, but it's in the school there, right? But this book, De Sensuit Sensato, and the Sense and the Sensible, is in that middle group of books, which he's going to now divide, right? The middle considerations contained in those books, which he wrote about certain things which pertain commonly, either to all animals, or to most of their genera, or even to all living things, about which the present book is concerned. Now, do you recall something else you're going to learn in the Deionima? Once it should be considered, then the second book about the soul, Aristotle determined or distinguished four grades of living things, of which the first is of those things which have only the nourishing part of the soul, to which they live, as are the plants. The next grade is those things which have also sensation, but they don't go from one place to another, without progressive motion, as those imperfect animals, like the clams, and so on. Aristotle was a marine biologist, among other things. Some, however, have, in addition to this, progressive local motion, from one place to another, as the more perfect animals, as the horse and the cow. And some above those have also, what? Understanding, as men. Aristotle does mention a fifth group of powers, the desiring powers, but that doesn't give you a separate grade of life. Because with sensation comes the desiring powers that we call the emotions, and with understanding comes the desiring power called the will, right? So it doesn't give you a separate grade. Now, of these parts, the last one you mentioned, the understanding, is not the act of any part of the body, as is proved in the third book about the soul. So the only consideration in natural philosophy of the understanding of reason, the universal reason, is going to be in the dhyana, right? You can't go now and consider it in the body as if it had some organ there. Of these parts, it says, the understanding is not the act of any part of the body, as is proved in the third book about the soul. Whence it is not able to be considered by concretion or by application of the body or to some bodily organ. Its greatest concretion is in the soul. Its greatest abstraction is in the, what, separated substances, the angels. And therefore, apart from the book about the soul, Aristotle did not make a book about the understanding and the understandable. Or if he did make such a book, he would not pertain to natural science, but more to the metaphysician, to whom it belongs to consider the separate substances. But all the other powers are acts of some part of the body. And therefore, of them, there can be a special consideration by application to the body, or to the bodily organs, in addition to the consideration which is had about them in the book about the soul. And I said, it is necessary that this middle consideration be distinguished into three parts, of which one part contains those things which pertains to the living thing insofar as there's living. And this is to contain the book which he wrote about life and death. De morte vita, lo orca. In which he also determines about breathing in and breathing out, right? By which in some animals life is conserved. And a third book on what? Youth and old age. The witch has diversified the status of life. Likewise, in a book which he wrote on the causes of the length and the shortness of life. And in the book which he wrote on health and sickness. Notice all those little books are about life in general, right? But they're going to be looking at it now in a general way, but nevertheless bringing in the body now, the way it was not right in the Dianima. And in a book on nourishment and the nourishable. These last two books he says have been lost, but we haven't mentioned them in the ancients. Then he wrote other books pertaining to the motive power from one place to another, which is contained in two books. In the book on the cause of the motion of the animals, and the book on the forward motion of the animals. We have those books. In which he determines about the parts of animals that are opportune for motion from one place to another. And third, he has those books which pertain to sensation, about which it should be considered, both what pertains to the interior act of the senses and to the sense of the exterior. And as far as this consideration, sensitivity is concerned, he wrote this book on the sense and the sensible, which is the one that we have here. And about, under this is also contained the book on memory and reminiscence. So in this particular edition here, I have Thomas' commentary on the Dianima, and there's commentary on the sense and sensato, and then the one on memory and reminiscence. And because it also pertains to consideration what makes a difference about sense and sensing, he determined about sleep and being awake. In the book about sleep and what? Being awake. So this is that middle group of books, right? And they're shorter than the books in the third part, right? But they're either talking about life in general, right? Or they're talking about locomotion, the organs of locomotion, in a general way. Or they're talking about senses, right? And the memory and reminiscence, and so on. Sleep. Now, Thomas says, how should you order these middle books? Well, instead of ordering them from the general in particular, Thomas has another way of ordering them. And notice his principle. And because it is necessary, per margi similia, ad similia transire, to go from things that are more alike, right? To things that are more unlike. This seems to be reasonably the order of these books. That after the book about the soul, the three books about the soul, which we'll be looking at, in which he determined about the soul by itself, immediately they should follow the book on sense and the sensible. Because to sense pertains to the soul more than to the body. After which should be ordered the book about sleep and being awake. Which implies a, you know, gathering up or an untying of the senses. Then follow the books which pertain to the motive powers, which is more near to sensation. And ultimately ordered the books which pertain to the common consideration of life. because it's, because it's, because it's, because it's, because it's,