De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 41: History as Incomplete Knowledge and the Undergoing Understanding

Transcript
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And Aristotle is not determining every question about the soul, okay? And that's the way Thomas understands why Aristotle uses that word there, right? Now, to me, apart from, you know, explaining Aristotle uses the word, right, it also shows what we mean by what? History, right? Why should this name history, which means originally, simply investigation, right, why should that be given to what we call history in college today, right? And if you go back to what Thomas says about the word historian, it's the nature of history to be, what, incomplete. That could be said by antonomasia of what? Of the investigation of human affairs, huh? You know? As one historian said, history is always more complicated than we think, see? And if you're trying to, you know, do the history of a country, there's always individual facts and so on that you get bigger enough, right? Even if you write the biography of somebody, right? You talk to everybody, you can find who knew him and get his letters. There are still things in a man's life that, what, will always, what, escape you, right, huh? You see? Nobody could possibly know everything that somebody thought or felt or did even, maybe, huh? In his whole life, huh? And, you know, apart from a man hiding these things, it's impossible, right? So, so, you know, I was talking to this one historian one time, Mr. Stage, you know, and he says, you go to a convention and they say, you know, what do you teach? What do you teach? What do you mean? I teach American history. Well, well, which century, you know? Which decade, you know? Which, you know? What aspect of the decade are you in? You know? It's kind of endless, right? You see? So, more than philosophy or science, it's the nature of what? Human history, right? To always be what? Yeah. And they're always kind of looking at it again and, you know, and I was kind of kidding one of my colleagues there who's an admirer of Lincoln, you know, was the recent book called The True Lincoln, right? You know? He's kind of down in the book, right? And I don't know if the book has really, you know, pulled out some things, you know, nobody knows so much about Lincoln or something, you know? But, I mean, they're always kind of, you know, going back with these people, right? Famous men like that, and they're trying to bring out something. There's always a new biography of Churchill coming out, there's always a new biography of Arthur coming out, you know? And, you know, the biography is coming out now of Kitty Roosevelt, and, you know, there's always going to be another biography of Kennedy or the biography of Roosevelt, or, you know? And, you know, revision things, you know? But it's kind of... In other words, this name, you're naming this investigation into human affairs by Antonio the Messiah here. Given that understanding there, right? That you're always searching, right? And they're quite, quite writhing at it, right? It's always... It's most of all incomplete, right? You know? It's the nature of this kind of knowledge, what I call it knowledge at all, to be incomplete, right? You see? You see? The way that geography is not, huh? You see theorems and that's it, you know? You know? You take these theorems and that's it, right? You know? You kind of reach some kind of closure, as they say, right? Right. But these other things you never do, right? You see? I happen to be rereading, you know, Keegan's book, The Second World War, and it's a very good historian, you know? You think about these things again and you realize how many of these little details, right? You forget, you know, how many more there are to be discovered and so on. And they're always digging in the ground and finding something new and devising their phonology and other things, right? And, you know, I read a lot of books on Shakespeare and I read a lot of editions of them, you know? Yet these ones are going to have these big introductions that you don't ever go through, really. And all the discussion, you know, of when Shakespeare wrote these plays, they're always disagreeing among themselves and they can never quite, you know, figure this out, you know? The same way the chronology, you know, the crucial category of Mozart is more or less chronological, right? But there's all kinds of inaccuracies they discover, right? You know, so that you might have a higher number that would be actually earlier, right? And sometimes they discover, you know, the original manuscript of Mozart, right, in some cases. And at different times of his life, Mozart used different papers because different paper was accessible, right? So sometimes they would make these things, you know, by the kind of paper that they wrote it on, right? And then they check revise, right? But again, then somebody else goes on and says, you know, but, you know, we found that there was this other kind of paper also, you know, at this town of Mozart was going through, you know? So he might have written it at this time, you know? You know? It's in this, right? Yeah. You see? You know? You see what I mean? Yeah. You get a sense of that. History is always more complicated than you think, huh? I'm going to say, in the same history book, it'll say, give you three different scenarios, and this person thinks it happened this way and this is why, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I was reading Keegan there again, and what he was saying, you know, when you stayed at the Second World War, the first thing you come to is the invasion of Polar Reich, you know, on the Molotov, the Ribbentop thing, you know, so the Russia invaded from the other side. And then you have, the next year there you have the invasion of France and the collapse of France, right? The British getting out by this, what do you say? And then what's the next thing coming up after that, see? Well, it involved down in the Balkans, right? And, you know, Churchill was carrying him some troubles down in the Balkans and Greece and so on. And finally Hitler, you know, invaded, you know, Macedonia and went down to Greece and so on. Took it all over, right? And then they had this kind of a disaster, they finally took over Crete, you know, lost a lot of men. But, you know, I read many stories and say that this is what delayed this invasion of Russia, right? And the delay, the invasion of Russia was crucial, you know, because they were like twenty miles from Moscow when the snow came. And then the Germans, you know, didn't have winter equipment or anything, winter clothing. I mean, Yodol, I guess, you know, had refused to issue your winter clothing because they didn't want to give away the idea that we could fail to get Moscow before the winter came. And there was, what, you know, was it frostbite, the Germans, you know, and it was like five thousand men had to tow the amphitheater and he was like, oh, you know, because the Russians had the right boots, you know. So the Germans really stopped there, you know. So you could say, you know, another two weeks maybe they would have been able to, you know, you know. But he says, no, the start of the war with Russia was determined by the weather pattern, right? And they had to wait for the spring rains to dry up and so on, right? And so on. And nothing to do with it. It didn't come down at all. The Greece didn't think at all. Why everybody else would be in the same reverse, right? Well, I don't know. For sure, you know. We didn't start the invasion earlier. But, you know, so I mean, they're constantly rising, these things, right? So it's the nature of this very much, instead of the historian, to me, but incomplete, huh? Mm-hmm. And, yeah. Oh, okay. So I just mentioned that, right? Then that's kind of it. But, so in the Summa Theologiae, right? Thomas is always had a sentiment. He distinguishes four inward senses, right? And one is called the common sense, and one, in the case of the other animals, is called the, what? Estimate of power. That's what I could call instinct, in a way. And, see, the common sense knows, what? That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. I say sensibles, right? That's a common center of all the, what's perceived by the ultimate senses. But the estimated power perceives something that the ultimate senses don't perceive as such, that something in this shape is a, what, enemy? Something in this smell is to be fed or to be eaten or not, right? So, you know how an animal maybe smells something and they're a smother young, you know, and they don't have to feed them, right? So this is the power. And then, use the word imagination here, and here I think we use a memory for this, right? For the, to retain these, right? Okay? But, we might use a memory for what retains this, the image today, right? We might use the imagination, not for something other than this here, but for the, what, ability to manipulate these images, right? Okay? So, we would use, to remember the imagination maybe, the image was, for memoria and imaginatia, a different way, right? So, we've got to just bear in mind, then, what he's, what he's distinguishing, right? And, and the distinction between these two is one reason, right, for distinguishing between these two, and a different reason for distinguishing between these two and what? These two, right? And, and, and, and here the difference is that the animal seems to know what to do, right? When it senses certain things, right? Mm-hmm. But, um, it doesn't sense here something is an enemy, right? Or a meal, something to fight, or to pursue, or to eat, or not, right? Mm-hmm. Um, that's not perceived by the senses as such, right? Right. See? So, you know, you know, the, you know, the sheep might see the, the, the shape of the fox, right? Yeah. And, uh, then it, um, estimates that that is something fearful, right? See? But the shape of the fox is not dangerous, right? Mm-hmm. And so, so, um, this seems to be, um, apprehending something, but this is not, right, then? Something that's not sensible as such, right? Yeah. Okay. So that something is an enemy, or, or food, or, uh, someone to be fed, right? You know? Okay. Um, is something that another power, um, knows in some way, when you sense, right, a certain shape, or a certain color, or you get a certain, what, smell, and so on, right? And of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Glad our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Amen. Help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Amen. Okay. In chapter four here now, on page 36 of your text, there's always beginning the consideration now of the part of the soul by which the soul knows and judges about our reason or understanding he's going to be talking about here. And Thomas points out that, if you want to take the division of this part as a whole, he'll go through everything he has to say about the mind or reason, and then afterwards, he'll talk about what should be said about the soul on the basis of the fact that it has both sensation and understanding. So if you look just a moment ahead there, to page 44, chapter 8 there, page 44 there, beginning of chapter 8, it's in this text, the 13th lesson in Thomas, 13th reading. Okay. Now, however, summing up the thing said about the soul, let us say again that the soul is somehow all beings or all things, right? For beings or things are either sensible or understandable, right? Okay. And I'm not going to go into that now, but that's what he's going to do when he finishes talking about the, what, reason or understanding of man. He's going to talk about what can be said about the soul, right? Especially the human soul, from the fact that it both senses and understands. And the amazing thing will be that in some way, it's all things. Okay. Do you see that? Okay. So Thomas divides that eighth chapter, or his division there in the 13th reading, against these readings leading up to it, starting with the one we'll be doing today here. Chapter four, right? Now, how is that part divided, huh? Well, there he divides kind of the consideration of the understanding of reason by itself in these first chapters here, four, five, six. And then in chapter seven there, or really the second paragraph in chapter seven, which is the beginning of the twelfth lesson in Thomas, he's going to compare reason or understanding with the, what, senses, huh? Okay. Now, again, how is the first part of that divided, huh? Well, he's going to talk about the reason or understanding that he sees. He's going to talk about an active understanding, we'll see, in chapter five, and the result of the two in that same chapter five, huh? And then in chapter six, he's going to go into some more details about the different operations of the, what, soul, right? And Thomas Aquinas, when he writes his premium to logic, he comes back and it's chapter six, huh? First, I'll distinguish some of the operations of reason. Okay. So what's four? So, chapter four and chapter five are talking about the reason or understanding, but as we'll see when we get to the fifth chapter, there's an active understanding as well as a, what, undergoing understanding. Okay? That's kind of an interesting thing to find out, right? And then the result of these two together, huh? That's the way it's going to be divided, huh? Okay? But the second and the third of those things come up in that fifth chapter. But today, and probably next time, we'll be looking especially at this chapter, what, four, huh? Okay? And in the seventh reading here, and going out into perhaps just the first paragraph there in the eighth reading there, that's 328 in your text, he's going to be talking about reason being what? An undergoing power, right? Okay? What can be said about it because of what undergoes and so on. And then in the eighth reading there, starting in 329, that part there, he's going to talk more precisely about the object that acts upon the undergoing understanding. And then in the ninth reading in Aristotle, or in Thomas, starting with number 331 here, he's going to talk about a, what, a little difficulty, right, that arises, huh? Okay? So chapter four really corresponds to 7, 8, and 9, those readings in the way Thomas divides the text, huh? I don't think the chapters or the readings go back to Aristotle, but different people define them in different ways, huh? But 7, 8, and 9 are about the, what we'll call the undergoing. Enjoy. understanding, what they call Matins sometimes a possible understanding. Intellectus possibilities, right? The part of us that knows and judges, as he says here. So let's look now at the beginning here of chapter 4. About that part of the soul, that power of the soul, by which the soul both knows and judges. Now if you have access to Thomas' commentary, he sees a little distinction there between knowing and judging. Although it might be more clear if he'd use the word, what, grasping and judging. Because that's a distinction that Thomas is, what, seeing in knowing. I think we mentioned that before. Usually when Thomas talks about it in his own words, he'll speak of, in knowing, there's two things, huh? And one is grasping, which in Latin would be called apprehensial, huh, grasping. And the other is, what, judging, huh? Okay? You can see that perhaps most easily in the case of the mind, huh? That when you read an author, for example, it's one thing to grasp what he's saying, right? It's one thing to grasp his meaning, huh? And it's another thing to, what? To judge whether it's true or, what? False, huh? Okay? And you've heard my complaint about the modern philosophers, huh? And about other authors, right? Right in an obscure way, right? And Aristotle himself complains about the so-called theological poets, huh? Who kind of expressed their thoughts in a very obscure way. So no one was exactly sure what they meant, huh? Well, sometimes you find modern philosophers doing that, right? In fact, I guess they have a letter of Hager where he admits that he's writing in an obscure way, because if you wrote in a clear way, nobody would think he's wiser than them, right? But if he writes in an obscure way, he tends to impress them, right? I think I told you a little anecdote about Deconic, I guess, when he'd go around sometimes and get his public talks, as he did with 12 children. He sends a stick in for the fun of it a sentence that had no meaning at all, not even to him. And people would come after him and say how much they enjoyed his talk, and they'd single off this sentence, right? But it's all something kind of screwy about the human condition, right? That we admire something we don't understand, right? And so that's why it's always a difficulty, it seems to me, in trying to explain something, right? To make it plain, you know, they don't admire it anymore, right? I see that sometimes in Sherlock Holmes there, you know, where he explains it. And it's, oh, it's so simple, you know? But no one else could, what? Figure it out, you see? So, anyway, you have these two things, grasping and judging, you know? And so, when I defend some famous things, like, maybe you remember when we were talking about whether nature acts for an end, you remember that? The question whether end or purpose is a cause in the natural world? Well, a lot of people misunderstand what that means, to say that. And they reject it because they don't understand what it means. They haven't grasped what it means, huh? But grasping what it means is presupposed to what? Judging whether it's true or not, huh? So if I say, for example, that the interior angles of a triangle, or you could do right angles, if you don't know what a triangle is, or what a right angle is, or what an angle is, period, you're in no position to begin to judge whether that's true or not, huh? You see the idea? So it's kind of an interesting distinction that Thomas makes there between grasping and, what, judging. And as I was saying about the moderns and in general, the greatest difficulty should be in judging whether what someone says is true or false, huh? But there's something maybe disproportionate there if you have to spend so much time trying to grasp what somebody means and you're still not sure what he means and not in a position to what? Judge. Judge, right? And so we try to, or should try to, express ourselves as clearly as possible, right? And as simply as possible and spend our time more in trying to what? Judge, right? Now, notice, repeat the definition here, judging, right? Judging is the separation of the true from the false by some beginning in our knowledge. So the very first beginning of our knowledge, of course, is our senses, huh? And sometimes we go all the way back to our senses to make the judgment. So if the question was, is Brick withstanding, or is that true or false, Brick withstanding, you have to go back to your senses, right? In order to judge that, huh? Of course, that's the way you judge, especially in, what, natural science, in philosophy, to go back to the senses, huh? But in an abstract science like geometry, you might judge by going back to the, what, imagination, huh? Like something like, you know, between two points, how many straight lines can you draw? I think you see that in your imagination, right? That could be many curved lines, right? But only one straight line, huh? The rest of our mind. Or as they say sometimes in the notes to Euclid, you know, there were lines at two end points, right? Everything lies evenly along there. There can't really be two. But you've got to see that in a way in your, what, imagination, right? Or as my brother Mark used to say, you know, the fourth theorem of Euclid is not really the theorem may be in the strictest sense, huh? Something a little more obvious than that, right? Well, if you have two triangles, right, with an equal angle contained by equal sides, well, if you imagine this triangle placed on top of that one at this point, right, and this line laid on that line, they'd obviously, what, coincide because they're equal. And because the angle's equal, this line would fall on that line, right? And because it's, what, equal, it would coincide. And then the third side, you can see, would have to coincide, huh? There's only one line between the two points, right? Okay? But you see that in your imagination, right? Which is the beginning of what? Geometry, huh? That's why, as my brother Mark pointed out, the axiom there, not the axiom, the apostolate there about parallel lines, it's not really about parallel lines, it's about lines that actually, what, meet, huh? You know, that apostolate there from Geometry. It falls upon straight lines and makes, what, angles, what? Less than two right angles, then those two lines extended will meet. You can imagine two lines being extended and meeting, right? Yeah. But in the case of the parallel straight lines, where they're equal to right angles, right? They don't mean to extend it to infinity, right? We can't imagine something going on forever. We can talk about it, but we can't even imagine it, right? So you have to go back to something you can imagine in a sense, because that's the starting point in what? In Geography, right? Okay. Now, when you get into logic, when you try to judge the truth in logic, well, what's most basic in logic is, as Albert the Great says, the universal one, and can you... Sense or imagine universal? That's a problem that we mentioned with John Locke there, right? He's trying to understand the general idea of triangle. If he's trying to imagine a triangle, it's common to all triangles. What a triangle you imagine would be, what? Either equilateral or isosceles or scaling, right? And for that matter, a singular scaling or a singular one. So you can't really imagine universal. And in the Permanides there, you know, when Socrates is a young man talking to Permanides, and he's trying to imagine the universal like a sheet spread over all of us, right? Like man covers all of us. Well, is that the way man covers all of us, like a sheet does? Because then you have only part of what a man is, and you have another part of what a man is. And so, behold, what is signified by man is found in each of us, right? So you can't really imagine the universal. And you can't, if what's the right sense, be the universal. So you have to judge by going back to reason itself. And that's why Monsignor Dianne said that in one way, logic is more like the way you're judging wisdom when you're judging about immaterial things, right? Because you can't judge them by what you can sense or imagine, right? Yeah. Because they're not the sort of thing that is continuous or extended, right? So, this is what Thomas, he sees those two words there, huh? He takes knowing there in the more narrow sense for what? Grasping, right? And then the other for judging, right? That's kind of interesting distinction, huh? In English, sometimes we take understanding as a part of knowing, huh? And therefore, we mean the same thing as grasping, right? Other times, you take understanding as a form of knowing, as opposed to sensing, right? That's two different uses of the word understand. It's easy, simple to grasp. Yeah, they're always easier to grasp somebody in the original language, yeah. Even in terms of gross reading of Latin, Thomas is much easier to read, say, than Augustine or Cicero, or some uses a more sophisticated style, right? Sure. Now, if you look at Thomas's, the golden chain there, the golden chain was commanded by Urban IV, was it? It's one of the polis. And you have the dedicatory letter to Urban IV, right? And then Thomas writes like Cicero Augustine. He could do that, right? But, you know, that's to me much harder to read than what he's saying, you know? It's a difficult Latin, huh? But I noticed Thomas there was in the commentary on the Psalms, you know? Well, there's three styles we have, you know? And he extinguishes the three styles. And so, I mean, one is this ornate one, right? And then the other one is this more simple everyday one. So when you speak philosophically, right, you should try to use the more known word, right? And usually the native word in your language is more known than the, what, word that's come in from Greek or Latin, huh? Well, sometimes you don't have the exact equivalent, so we have to use the word syllogism, right, or something. But if we have a word in English, right, then it's more clear, right? I always give a simple example there. We used to have, you know, for senior majors in different majors, they'd have kind of a senior seminar, right? And they used to have three professors in the seminar. And two of them would be from your major, and the third would be from some other department, right? And so I was on the ones for a lot of the science majors, huh? So, a student is giving, reading his paper, right? Yeah. He's saying, desiccation is a greater problem with land animals than with water animals. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha So I don't tell the students that wisdom is theoretical, philosophy, it's looking philosophy. People kind of, you know, choke at that thing, but that's all theoretical means in Greek, you know, theorea. So theoretical would be the Greek word, speculative would be the Latin word, right? Looking would be the what? English word, right? A theorem, you know, that's a beautiful word, I like to use it myself, but a theorem is something, what? To look at. Theorea. Of course, theoretical and speculative, besides not being so clear, they have all kinds of other connotations now, you know. Speculative thinking now means, what? Guessing, right? Speculation, stock market, or something of that sort, right? And theoretically has something, you know, got to do with the real world somehow. See? While you're looking at things, it's what you're really doing. You see? So, there's a corrupt intellectual customs, huh? We don't know how to use words anymore. As I say, sometimes you don't have any word in English to name something, and we have to maybe borrow words in some cases, huh? And the word syllogism is an example of that, but it's not so, you know, good for that reason, huh? I always tell the students, you know, when you hear the word metaphysics, it's not one word, it's three words. I always tell the students, you know, good for that, but it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not one word, it's not