De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 13: The Soul as First Act and the Definition of the Soul

Transcript
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good things that you depend upon him for getting, right? Give us this day I daily bread. Or evils that you're seeking to be removed from. Forgive us our trespasses. You know? Never have some evil and so on. Okay? But there, I'm thinking of what? I'm turning to God because of my needs, right? I need him for my good, for my good. I need him, you know, to escape from these evils that in most cases I got myself into, but anyway. You see? Okay? But, after he has answered my needs, right? Okay? He's giving me my sins and so on. Giving me my daily bread and so on. Then, I can go up to a higher stage, which is thanksgiving, right? See? And when I thank God, I'm not quite as selfish as I am when I just, what? Asking him for things, right? See? Much as you've got to thank someone before you can ask for more things. There's still some of that in there, right? See? But still thanksgiving, in a way, still looking back to what we received from him, right? But then you get to praise, you know? Then you're praising God for what he is in himself, right? You know, apart from what he does for us, right? So, but I think Christ, you know, says there, if I call me good, right? Talking about his human nature there, right? God alone is good, right? You know? Well, that way of speaking there is where you're thinking of, I'm not even thinking of your good anymore. You know? God alone is good, right? Huh? You know? So you honor him, you praise him, you glorify him, right? Huh? And then you're, but that's not the way you begin, right? You begin in need, right? Terrible need. A need for good things. A need to be, you know, free to be, you know, and go, right? Or in, right? And then you can have thanksgiving, right? And then finally, praise, you know? Kind of an ascending order, it seems to me, right? Now you can see that, in a lesser way, but in a similar way, in regard to what? Human what? Friendship, right? See? Because sometimes, a man turns into another man, out of need, right? Okay? But then the men get to know each other, right? And they get to enjoy each other's company, apart from the need, right? My father used to buy, my father had a company there, his manager. And he'd get pain from this one man, right? Okay? Obviously this man was interested in selling my father paint, because all these wagons, my father's producing his other stuff had to be painted, right? A lot of paint to be used there, right? Okay? So my father was useful to the paint salesman, selling a lot of paint, right? Or buying a lot of paint, right? My father needed the paint salesman, and he needs paint, you know, he can't make the paint himself, he needs the paint, right? But the two men became sort of friends, right? And they'd go out to the baseball game together, right? You see? And they would have to conclude a deal with some more paint, or something like that. But they'd judge all this company, and the, you know, you see? Okay? Or in St. Rose of Lima, right? You know, you read in the life of St. Rose of Lima, a young man who came courting her, because she was apparently a very beautiful woman. And she, you know, swayed him from this particular interest he had in there, but then she started to, you know, convert him, right, huh? And so, and he became, you know, kind of a saint himself, right? Okay? But I mean, he was, you know, attracting somebody because they're beautiful, or something like that, but then you get to know them better, right? And you see there's something, you know, better reason than that, to love them, right, huh? But you're first attracting them because of the outward, beauty of the, what was that even in this case, Do you see that? Yeah. So this is a kind of a, of a, um, order in which these things have to be realized, huh? Yeah. So, that's part of the reason why, um, we don't say that it's the substantial form of pure matter, I mean, of pure ability, you see? In a way it is, right? You see? But, pure ability, the first matter, is in potency to the soul, only in a certain, what, order, right? In other words, matter has to be already somewhat organized, right? Before it can, what, receive a soul, right? Okay? Whether it be from the parents, or the soul comes from God, right? The body has to be already, to a certain extent, developed, a certain level, right? So, you can see solid geometry only after you've already been perfected by plain geometry, right? Okay? But nevertheless, it's your reason that's being perfected by solid geometry, right? It's matter that's being perfected by the soul, but it's giving all the lower, right? Perfections, huh? And again, it's a little bit like friendship theory, you know, Aristotle distinguishes the three kinds of friendship, the useful friendship, the friendship of pleasure, right? And then the noble friendship, right? And he says that the noble friendship is based on what? On virtue, right? Okay? But will such a person be pleasant to be with? Will such a person be useful? Even more so, right? Okay? So if my friend is wise and courageous and so he's going to be more useful than my other friends who are just a little, pleasant and foolish and so on, right? And, you know, someone can be pleasant because they have the same, what, temperament that you have or something like that, right? Yeah? But the virtuous men are alike in things that are naturally pleasant. Like two thieves, you know, that are alike in their theory, right? Or two druggers who are alike in their big druggers, right? Are alike in something that is not naturally pleasant, right? And so it's going to be less pleasant, that friendship, than the friendship of Peter and John, let's say, right? Okay? So you're going to have what the lower halves, but in a, what? Higher way, right? My old teacher, used to make the comparison there between the animal that has blood, right? And the tree that has sap. And there's a likeness between blood and sap, right? Because blood does in a way for the animal body what sap does for the, what? Tree. I mean, it transports materials, you know, and enables it to grow and so on, right? But blood has all these recuperative powers, right? You know, and disease and so on, that sap doesn't have, you see? So the higher has what the lower has, but in a, what? In a better way, huh? I made a question? Or something, because of that which is naturally pleasing, is there a distinction between Yeah. Well, I'm just saying that there are some things that are naturally agreeable, right? Drunker is not, right? Sure. See? Or just take another example here, you know. Take, the virtue of courage, right? There's something naturally attractive about courage, huh? You kind of spontaneously admire somebody who's courageous, even if we are not courageous ourselves, right? You see? We admire the brave man, right? So if you are, and I are alike in being brave, right? We have more reason to like each other's company, than if you and I are alike in being both cowards. See? Because to be cowardly is not, you know, it's such, agreeable, right? And even the coward himself, you know, might not like his own cowardiness, right? We've been hanging around with another coward because they both want to avoid service or something, right? Do you see the same thing? The same way in being drunkard, right, huh? You know, to be a drunkard and towing up and all this other stuff is not naturally you know, you know, you know, you know, Present or agreeable, right? But you might hang around with somebody who drinks too much because you want to drink too much, too. It's annoying to have people say if you've had too much and you want to have some more. You see? But I mean, so you're alike in something that is not naturally agreeable. So you have less reason to enjoy each other's company than the two men who drink moderately have for enjoying each other's company. So you can go through the various virtues and see that, huh? Virtues. Yeah. So you have generosity, right? You see, generosity is naturally attractive. So even the stingy man might enjoy the generous man for obvious reasons, huh? So two generous men have more reason to enjoy each other's company than two stingy men have to enjoy each other's company. So this is a principle that you find in a lot of things, right? That something can be in potency or in ability for a number of things, but in a certain, what? Order, right? You see? And that's true in every kind of education, right? You know, I talk about, you know, the 5BX plan, which I have in Canada, right? And the Royal Canadian Air Force, right? Physical development, you know. Okay? I mean, you've got to find where your level is and then you start to, what? Build your body up, right? So is your body in potency to, let's say, 100 push-ups. Well, maybe you could build up to doing 100 push-ups, right? But maybe right now you can't do 100 push-ups, right? But you're able to do 10 push-ups, right? So you do 10 push-ups for a certain period of time and then you start to do, let's say, 15, right? And then you do that for a while and you do 20, you know? Okay. So you're in potency to 10, 20, 25, 30, or up to 100 maybe, right? But in a certain, what? Order, yeah. And maybe there's something like that even in the education of taste, right? You know, maybe you should read fairy tales or something like that when you're a child and, you know, Tolkien and people like that, right? And eventually build up to, you know, to Shakespeare or somebody, right? But your imagination isn't ready for Shakespeare. There's a little child, maybe. But there are forms of fiction that are appropriate to the child and that kind of dispose them for something better later on. But it's something like that in the education of the mind. The education of love we were talking about before, right? Okay. What did the cynics say? It says, a man looks upon his wife first as a mistress, right? Then later on, life is a friend and last of all is a nurse. See, the best friendship in the middle there, right? See, you know, true friend, right? Friendship as a mistress is friendship of pleasure, right? But as a nurse, it's like a need, right? But in a way, Aristotle makes the same point, right? He says the young are characterized by the pursuit of friendship of pleasure. And you can see that, you know. I mean, the parents say to the kid, you know, when they come home playing with the kid down the block, did you have a good time, you know? And if you had a good time, you didn't have a good time, right? But you like to play with someone, you have a good time doing it, right? Fun to play with so-and-so, right? Okay, so that's a friendship of pleasure, right? The old, he says, are characterized by the need for the friendship of utility because they're independent upon others, right? And so you have, you know, these old folks, you know, where, you know, each of them calls up to each other every day, you know, how are you doing, you know? And of course, they don't ask the phone, you know, when they call the medical team or something, you know, but it's kind of looking at each other, you know, but in a useful way, right? See? But then in the prime of life, you can have more of the friendship that is, you know, you don't have the need of old age and you're a little more mature than just the good time of the home, right? But who was telling me, was it somebody said, was it, I don't know, it was Tolkien, but it's something like this, something that's trying to go wrong. Something about how, you know, the strong friendship is usually framed or formed in early youth, right? You know? And see, the time you're out of college, let's say, right, you probably won't form as close a friendship as you did with somebody in high school or even college, right? You know? There's some truth to that, right? I mean, it might be too that those early friendships were first, you know, friendships of pleasure, right? Because the younger, I think, but then they meld into a higher kind of friendship, right? But the friendship of pleasure disposes for the highest one, you know? You see, when Aristotle speaks to friendship in the full sense, thou love somebody for their own sake and not for the sake of you, right? Okay? But if I love you because you're useful to me, right, that's further removed from loving you for your own sake than to love you because you're pleasant, right, to be with. If thou are more loving you for what's intrinsic to you than to love you because you're pleasant to be with, getting closer to true friendship or full friendship, right? So, so, yeah. You could now form somebody even giving them good things or teaching them true things but not in the right order. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite true. So body, now, here, that means in the definition of soul, would you say it means like a secondary matter or a formed matter or the, it means the... We're getting careful here because you don't want to say that the soul comes to a substance that is already what? Formed. Yeah, and there's a form on top of the form because then the soul would be an accidental form, right? Yeah. Okay? So the soul is going to be placed in the substantial form that's already there, right? Okay? In the older generation, huh? And it's going to, what? Give matter that perfection that the lower forms give, right? Okay? So that when the human soul, comes, you're going to have in a body not only what's peculiar to man but you're going to have sensation which is what the animal soul has, right? And you're going to have digestion and growth, reproduction which the plant soul has, right? but you have those things in a higher way, okay? So, you don't want to say that the subject of the soul is a body with another substantial form in it. That's a mistake that some of the Arab philosophers made, you know, from Apache and so on. Okay? And, or like Plato, we have one kind of soul in this part of the body, another kind of soul in that part. You have one soul and one body, it's one substance as you were saying before, right? So, if there's any substantial form in matter before the soul, that substantial form is replaced by the soul, right? Which gives the perfection that that lower form gave plus a higher perfection than that. Okay? then using that to name now a composing part of yourself. But if you said, I am a body and not an angel, right? I'm a living body, I'm a living body with sensation, I'm a living body with reason, right? Then you're thinking of body as a what? A species, right? Or a genus. Rather than a part of a species or a part of a genus. So, I mean, you've got to be careful there with the word body, I'm trying to warn you. Aristotle says in the book on specific refutations, the most common mistake in thinking is to mixing up the different senses of a word, right? And as he says in that same book, it's when a word is equivocal by reason, right? Rather than equivocal by chance, they're going to have to make these mistakes, huh? And especially with the more general words, huh? Like being and one, and body is fairly general. Another example of the equivocation of the word body is, sometimes body is spoken of as a species of substance, like we divide substance into body and angel, right? But it's also given as a species of quantity, huh? We divide quantity into discrete and continuous, and continuous in one dimension, line, two dimensions, surface, two dimensions, body, right? Well, body in the genus of quantity, and body in the genus of substance, two different meanings of the word body. But they're connected, right? And body in the genus of substance, as we said before, nature loves to hide, as Heraclitus said, nature loves to hide, right? And so we tend to identify this kind of substance. It's a body that has length and width and depth, right? It's a substance, rather, that has length and width and depth. We define a body that way, right? We're kind of defining it by its accident, right? Because the inward nature of it is kind of hidden from us, huh? But I think he used the word body rather than the word matter, because he wants to bring out that the soul is perfecting matter in a certain order, right? And so the bodily character is on the side of the subject, right? And involving all that order leading up to it. My soul is my body. And body there is naming the part, of course, yeah. But it's not just there, it's not just the matter, it seems it includes in the body. Yeah, you're thinking there, I know, more of how the soul is moving one part to another part, right? Or one power to another power. Let's wait until we get to the third book where he talks about that power, right? The power of locomotion, huh? Now, the way he begins in 114, at least in this translation, you'd say, well, is he talking about natural bodies as complete substances? See, whence all natural bodies sharing in life, this is 114 now, whence all natural bodies sharing in life will be substances, substance are with us as a composite. It seems to be the opposite of what I was saying, right? Okay? He seemed, you know, in 113 to be starting off with bodies as substances, right? He doesn't say bodies seem to be part of material substance. He says bodies seem to be substances, right? Okay? But not unless he goes down. He's going to make the transition, I think. But since they are bodies of such a sort, for they of life, the soul could not be the body. For the body is not among things which are according to an underlying subject, but are rather as underlying in matter. Now he's taking body as, what? A composing part. Okay? Therefore, it is necessary that the soul is substance as the species or the form of a natural body having life, what? Potentially. So he's concluding that the soul is in the genus of substance as species or form, okay? Of a natural body having life, potentially. Substance or order in the sense of actuality. Therefore, the soul is the act of such a body, huh? So he first speaks of it as a substantial form as it were the body, right? And that's the way the text there and the church council speaks of it, right? There's a form of the body. Okay, we'll look at that text sometime. We'll look at that next time. No, I can complete this consideration of this definition here before we bring it to the church, you know? All things in order, right? And then he goes on to say that this is, what? Actuality, right? It's act, huh? And then in 115 he recalls the third division on the side of the soul. The division of act into what? What we call first act and second act. But this act is said in two ways. The one is science, the other is, what? Considering according to that science which you acquired it. It is clear, therefore, that the soul is as science. It is as a first act, right? Rather than the act of the operations of life. For it is in the soul's presence that both sleep and waking are, right? Very concrete, right? For waking is analogous to consideration while sleep is analogous to having science and not, what? Using it, right? So when one is asleep, one seems to be not operating except perhaps on a plant level, right? Okay. But one is still alive, right? So the soul is still a soul, right? So the soul is an act but that's the first act, right? Okay. See that? Okay. Rather than the operations of the things of life. But in the same person, science is prior and generation. So that's why I was saying it's going back to the first sense of before, before and time. Because before and generation is before and time, right? Although I may have something in the second sense too that you said. Whence the soul, and here you see now the phrase, the first act. Whence the soul is the first act of a natural body, huh? Having life, what? Potentially. And he says having life potentially he means the operations of life. Now, but such a body is what would be organic. Now, Aristotle's going to change the phrase from an actual body having life potentially to, and I don't like the translation here. The comic, you know, taught us how to translate that. You see, we get the word organ, and later the word organize, and so on, right? We get it from the Greek word organon. The Greek word organon is the common word for tool. So a hammer is a tool. A hammer is a what? Organon, right? Okay? A knife, huh? Is an organon. A knife is a tool, right? So, Aristotle doesn't say in Greek that this is an organic body, as some of the translators have, or organized body, right? The way organic would translate is a body equipped with tools. Okay? The way I translate it usually is a body composed of tools. So the eye is a tool for what? Seeing, right? And the ear is a tool for hearing. And the heart is a tool for what? Pumping blood and maybe doing other things, right? is a tool for hearing. is a tool And the ear is a tool and the hand is a tool for grasping and so on right the teeth in front are tools for biting and the teeth in back are tools for what chewing right huh okay if you go through the body you can see that a living body is a body composed of what tools okay this is the common phrase was equipped with tools but you might say you know because we got the idea that it's actually composed of tools right because you might say you have to put my guns on you know the soldiers going to battle they put all kinds of tools so they go to the battle but but the living body is what composed of tools right that's a very interesting thing because even the plants in the way huh the roots and the leaves and so on they are what for different functions right then it's a very concrete way aristotle has a speaking in this translation and in all the other translations you see in english they use the word organic or organized and that completely loses the concreteness of what aristotle was saying and later on when aristotle was attacking the uh false position there of the uh pythagoreans and some platonists you know the transmigrations of souls so the soul can go from one body to another body right i guess you know the story is told of pythagoras right he's walking down the street and somebody was beating a dog you know with a stick or something and uh dog was walking he says stop stop i recognize the soul of my old friend so-and-so this dog right shakespeare you know shakespeare who's that you know that's a pathetic thing right when uh where they they uh trying to pretend that the guy's mad he's trying to make any sane because he has to believe the preservation of souls because he's very supposed to that right but um one of the reasons aristotle is here is that the soul is like a what an art and one art cannot use the tools of a what another art you see so um my wife when she makes a dress let's say or something like that she's going to use a needle and thread right now okay and uh but my brother-in-law he makes something out of wood he's going to use a hammer and a what saw and so on and my wife can't really use a hammer and nail together the grass and my uh uh brother-in-law can't use the needle and thread and sew together the house and so on um so one art cannot use the tools of another art right the carpet can't use the piano the pianist can't use a hammer and saw them so we'll say they're wrong you know for one soul you know it's in this body to go into another body right would be like one art using the tools of another art you can't do it right but all that's lost and you use the word what organic or you know we have even today you know we shouldn't speak of a a living body as an organism right then you have the term organic chemistry right because organic chemistry is about chemicals that were originally found as far as the natural world is concerned uh only in living bodies right although we later on maybe synthesize some of these but but uh organic chemistry is about those but organic doesn't mean anything in this way um but the original meaning that organ is tool that's why we mentioned before in magic um that if you look at aristotle's logical works they'll often call them the organon right meaning the tool because logic is the tool of philosophy yeah it's not for its own sake right it's for um acquiring the other parts of philosophy especially looking philosophy so so it's just saying a body that's um able to operate right it's alive and potency he says it's a body composed of what you don't realize that these words that we use in natural philosophy actual science they're usually taken from what human art right just like the word law you know is taken from uh the practical huh so you go back and look at the names of the body right sometimes and go back to the origin the greek or latin words they have for the names of our bodies that the biologist or the the doctor might use they usually have a what an origin right from human art because these things were named in human art first and then we carried them over right pulling some key all kinds of strange ways these things are named but the the basic one here for the living body is tool right tool first name is usually something like a hammer a saw a knife a ballpoint pen right but then in a way you can say the living body is a body composed of what tools huh yeah but it's a natural body right that's not an automobile or something like that okay so this is the definition of the soul then you can say that the soul is the first act of a natural body composed of tools the kind of say would say equipped with tools right i have to say composed of tools indicate their parts of the thing right it also says it's a substantial form right of a natural body composed of tools i don't know what the soul is so difficult it is to define the soul right hundreds of years to define it right but oliver wendell holmes say about aristotle you know it took centuries to understand what he what he's saying it took other centuries to unlearn everything he said it'll take again many centuries to learn what he said that's true what did you say again about the phrase having life potentially well it doesn't it's not taken there in the sense of of uh of not being alive the body right having the operations of life and potency i think was taken to me in there i'm sorry not not as what not as is that the body's not alive but it has the soul oh yeah okay so uh one of the things too is that really this sentence in the beginning of 116 is really part of the definition well yeah he's in a sense going on to modify a bit not modify but express a little differently that a natural body having life potentially is a natural body composed of tools right yeah okay see in the greek you know you have organiku right it's in the genitive there and telekea right what's the greek word for act one of them a prote right it's the first act right somatos that's the genitive of a body right you get the word soma there in uh bring the world right somatos fusiku which means what natural right organiku this is the genitive of a natural body that's organic this is the genitive of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body of a natural body right but in the creek you can see the word there supposed to tools so you can explain the plants there right above there that even the plants you have that you'll say organa de kaitaton futon meri tools right organa see also taton futon that's the genitive meri the parts right and even the parts of a plant are tools okay because the root has a different what function right and then the leaves let's say right trunk at a different function right it compares the roots to what the stomach right this is i mean to mouth this will be taking our nourishment through our mouth so the plant draws things to its right it's like upside down right upside down man okay notice he says in 117 that this would be the most common definition of soul right if ever one must say something common about all souls meaning what not in man's soul but the animal's soul even the plant's soul right it would be the first actuality the first act i suppose did they say in english they tell me that's not good english but i'd say it anyway it's the first act of a natural body composed of tools okay interesting you know how the greek order the greek grammatic order is closer to the logical order right because when he gets down that place there in the greek he says um it's something common epipasis suitcase of every soul data game eion entelekea it's the act hey prote so act is more general right hey prote the first so you put hey prote after into the here you know and then he says when he gets to the side of that of which it is the first act right so matas body fusiku natural organiku so in a sense the grammatic order in the greek is closer to the logical order right same thing in latin you know we can put the the adjective after the noun right we have to do the reverse right and the genus comes first in our thinking and then the difference huh so you first you know say what's the square what's a quadrilateral what kind of quadrilateral yeah the difference is well you state it grammatically you'll say it's an equilateral and right angled quadrilateral you have to put the adjective before the noun right in english but in our thinking what's signified by the noun comes before what's signified by the adjective so some way the grammatic order you don't want to confuse the grammatic order with logical order but the grammatic order is closer there to the logical order which makes things in some way more clear right so it ends with uh composed of tools in the um well it's in the greek it says organic right right so they just turn that organic but you don't see the word tool in there the way you would in english i mean if you wanted to make it one word in english you should say it's a first act of a natural tooled body right right right you know but that's i think it's a little more clear to say that it's composed of tools sure because tools may not be as clear as but he said just before that you see he's talking about the plant there and i was definitional applied into that he says that uh in the greek there that the parts of plants are also what tools right so obviously he's understanding by organic who any body that has tools right okay but i could say composed of tools to bring out that the tools are really parts of the body that doesn't just have tools like when you have a you know a belt here you know when you're all the tools in your belt and so on i'd like to cover this down organa organa so that's a plural organa organa kaita uh mary the meros is singular for part mary okay but they're much more simple he says right design things simplify now now in 118 there he answers a certain problem that is a terrible problem for plato obviously and for dick kark and everybody else who doesn't understand what the soul is whence also one need not ask that the soul and body are one or how they are one right this is a problem for plato right if the soul is is one thing and the body is another thing right and each is is is a complete substance in itself right well how is the soul and the body one huh there'd be no more one than a man and his what yeah that's what they always describe position as you know the sailor in the boat the man in the car right yeah you see or even if you you know like people imagine the soul sometimes to be a an air-like substance right and more or less in the shape of the man right well what would be the unity of these two things as long as you see it represented the movies you know where the the soul of these and and the you know in some of these humorous movies too you know but you know you have the air-like thing there standing next to the what would make the two one right how can you even be in the same place right and uh dick kard had this absolute distinction between mind and matter right huh which we try to find some connection there in some part of brain there you know where the soul is getting yield to act upon the body but it's just like me you know finding the the place of my car out there right you know you know me in the car one through that that you know that uh starter there right but when you when you have um matter and form right then it's like asking you know he says he gives example what the wax there right now the wax in its shape right or everything's happening with the clay and its what shape right because the form is not like a what another complete thing right if you have two action in the body in another actual thing two actual things are going to be juxtaposed or sit alongside each other or you have to what you know screw them together or tie them together or glue them together or something like that right but form is nothing other than the act of the ability of the matter so just as the the shape of the of the clay or the shape of the chalk or the shape of the wax right um uh is nothing other than an act of the ability of the other so likewise the soul is not quite quite in the body like two actual things but one is the act of the other's what ability so it's in that way that our style is able to understand the unity of man the unity of body and soul but nobody else can understand that if they're thinking of the soul as an actual substance by itself and the body is an actual substance by itself right then you have to have some third thing i get two you know boards that we have to screw together or glue together or tie together or something like that sort right okay but they're not naturally one together okay like the bricks there in the fireplace right you gotta cement them together right they're really two different actual things just think of one other through those bricks so i think you can put something like that