De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 42: Understanding and Sensation: The Immateriality of Mind

Transcript
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And I think, you know, we have a course in the catalog that says Metaphysics, but I think I should change the name to Meta-Ta-Fusica. Or even better, to Wisdom. The books after the books of natural philosophy, that's what it means, Meta-Ta-Fusica. Meta-after-Ta-Fusica. Because the road says these books belong after the books of natural philosophy, so I'll put them after. Well, I cringe when I go on Borey's bookstore or some other bookstore and you see occult sciences, you know, metaphysics. They kind of lump together one section. What do you do with what I'm teaching, you know? I mean, I don't want to be associated, right, with this use of the word, right? Right. So. Excuse me, Dr. Berkowitz. By the way, do I understand right that Aristotle didn't use that word, that that was someone who put together his books later? Yeah, it was Andronicus of Rhodes. Andronicus of Rhodes, who was kind of the catalog, you might say, of Aristotle's works, and he gave it that title, right? All right. And we think he understood something about the fact that these books were to be learned after the books of natural philosophy, right? So even in the, you know, if you get today the Macchaean there, the basic books of Aristotle, they'll put the metaphysics after the physics, huh? You see? But Aristotle, the name he uses in the beginning there, in the premium, is Sophia, wisdom. And then later on he uses the term, what, first philosophy, you see? And when he refers to the, what we call the metaphysics today, he always refers to it as, what, first philosophy, right? I like to call it the 14 books of wisdom, that's what it is. It's all much better than metaphysics, huh? Yeah. 14 books of wisdom. But you have to know the three books about the soul before you can get to the 14 books of wisdom, yeah? Okay. So he says, about that part of the soul by which the soul both knows and judges, huh? Okay. But notice the order there, right? Because judging is, what, comes second, but it's first in dignity or perfection, right? Sure. Okay. And that's why Aristotle and Boethius following him and Thomas Aquinas say you have to know the way of judging in different sciences, huh? And I mentioned how natural philosophy, mathematics, and logic, they all judge differently. Natural philosophy, mainly by going back to the senses, huh? Mathematics, geometry to the imagination, but logic has to go back to reason itself. That's why it's most difficult to judge in that way, huh? And notice, in theology, you would judge in another way, right? So you might go back to scripture or the magisterium or the tradition or something of this sort, right? So it's a different way of judging, huh? And you have to find the way of judging in each science that's appropriate to what you're studying and how your mind is towards that, huh? Now he says, whether that part be separable or not separable according to magnitude. Well, he's making an allusion here, Thomas says, to Plato, right? Because Plato or Socrates in the Republic, right, other places, he sometimes says that the, what, reason is up here, here, and the irascibles here, and the concubbles down here, vegetators down here. They're different parts of the body, right, huh? Okay? But actually, Aristotle's going to show that the reason is not bodily at all, right? And therefore, it's not in one part of the body, right? So he says, about this part of the soul, one must see by what it differs from the other parts, right? And how at some time, understanding can come to be. And how does he proceed here, right? Well, he's first of all going to make a, what, comparison, huh? Of reason and sensing. Understanding, I should say, rather, understanding is in some way like sensing. Okay? And then he's going to bring out from that the character, the nature of our understanding, of our reason. And he's going to end up by talking a little bit about the difference, right, between the undergoing of reason and the undergoing of the senses. But in that middle part, he's going to bring out that the reason or understanding is immaterial. If, therefore, he says, understanding is like sensing, either it would be a suffering something from the intelligible, I would say, the understandable, right? Or it would be something like this, huh? Okay? Now, let's stop on that, right? In what way is understanding like sensing? Let's bring out the way he's going to proceed from there as we go on, we'll see, huh? Understanding is like sensing in being, and, and you can use the word suffering there, but, again, in English, the word suffering that I mentioned before has been, what, stuck on its first meaning, right? So, I have to use the word, what, undergoing, right? Understanding is like sensing in being and undergoing, in being a, what, receiving, right? In a way in a being acted upon in some way, right? But not in the way in which matters acts upon. Because even the senses we saw before were acted upon in a different way than, what, matters, huh? Remember my example here, I said, if we have Michelangelo or somebody around here, through his effort, a piece of wood or a piece of marble could receive your shape, right? Right? Okay? Okay? But my eye also receives your shape, huh? Now, does my eye receive your shape in the same way that marble or wood would receive your shape? When the marble or wood receives your shape, it loses the shape it has, right? There's a counter-eye that you can have, and your shape becomes now the shape of the marble. That's not the way I receive your shape, that I lose, my eye loses its shape, right? Okay? Okay? I receive your shape, not my own shape, right? What is your shape? Okay? And so, he's saying, understanding is like sensing in being an undergoing, huh? Just as the senses are acted upon by the sensible, as the eye is saved by color, and the ear by sound, each one by its object, so the understanding, the reason, is acted upon by the, what, understandable. It's receiving the understanding upon, okay? It's undergoing this, huh? Now, what's the basis, what's the reason for saying that understanding is like sensing in this way? Well, it's because in the beginning, we're able to sense, we're able to understand, before we actually sense, huh? Before we actually understand, huh? Now, the philosophers before Aristotle, like Empedocles, huh? Maybe we caused a discussion there briefly of Empedocles. Empedocles says that we, what, know earth, air, fire, and water, and love and hate, because we actually have these things inside of these life, because we're made up of these things, right? Okay? But in that case, if we're actually composed of these things, and that's the way we know them, then we'd always know these things, right? And I wouldn't need the exterior objects in order to, what? Sense, for example. Okay? But I don't always actually know these things, right? And I'm never actually going to know the taste of licorice unless I ate some licorice. Unless it... I don't know the taste of licorice. I don't know the taste of licorice. I don't know the taste of licorice. I don't know the taste of licorice. you know, acts upon land, and if I never see blue, I'm never going to know blue one, okay? So he sees the eye, then, in all the other senses, as being in potency to, in ability, to having their objects, rather than actually having them, right? Well, the same thing is true about our reason, or our understanding, as you call it, it's able to know before it, what, actually knows, right? So it must be receiving its object, right? And therefore understanding, like sensing, is a kind of what? Receiving. To put it another way around, a kind of what? Undergoing, right? I use the word undergoing because it captures a little bit of the spirit of the Greek word, where the first meaning is that of a receiving that is painful or contrary to you, right? Okay? And then it became generalized, the word, right? For any kind of receiving, huh? And even for this kind of immaterial receiving that you have in sensing, and even more immaterial, as we'll see in the case of what? Understanding. So he says, if therefore understanding is like sensing, it's in potency or in ability, right, to receiving its object, huh? Either it would be suffering and undergoing something from the understandable, or it would be something like this. It might be a receiving, right, that is not really, what, a suffering, in the strict sense, right? It's not really an alteration, huh? I remember this friend of my brother Richard's, you know, his first teaching philosophy, you know, and he described the impression of the, he got from the student's face, you know, why are you doing this to me? So, the students act as if you're acting upon them in the way that they are, what, suffering, right? Because of the way you're acting upon them. But that means all the more so that, that's why the word was carried over, right? It's kind of a striking thing, huh? Okay? It's more clear that I'm acting upon you when I'm sticking a pin in you, right? Than when you see me, right? You don't think about the fact, you know, that I'm acting upon your eyes when you see me. You don't think of that, do you? But if I was here jabbing you with a pin or a knife or something, you'd be very much aware of the fact that I was acting upon you, and that you were undergoing something as a result of this, right? But in some other sense of undergoing, right, you are undergoing something when you see me, right? Your eye is undergoing something. And your ear is undergoing something, right? I hope your nose is not. But that happens sometimes, too, you know. People, right, huh? Okay. You know. I'm going to go to a meeting. I don't want to have too much garlicky food for dinner, right? I mean. You'd be persona non grata, you see. It's a close thing, huh? Therefore, it must be something impassable. He means impassable in the sense in which matter undergoes, huh? But it's receptive, huh? It's able to receive the species of the form. And as such, as the species is, impotency, but not, what? As an act, huh? Not this species, huh? And it must have itself similarly, as the sensitive, or as the senses are to the sensible, so the mind to the, what? Understandable. The intelligible is the Latin word, right? Okay? To the understandable. Well, excuse me, what is impassable? Yeah, he's using that now in the stricter sense of the way matter undergoes, right? Okay? Okay. I'm strange. Yeah. So something is, if something is impassable, it can undergo something, is it? Well, he means it's not changed in the way matter is, huh? Okay? See, in his first meaning, undergoing, Yeah. refers to something bad, right? But then, even in his second sense, if you have a piece of clay in the shape of a sphere and you mold it into a cube, right, then we say this thing has, what, undergone, right, undergone a change here, huh? Okay? Well, sensing and a fortiori understanding is not an undergoing in that way, is it? It's really more perfecting of your knowing power rather than a, what, change, right? Although, in some way, like a change, right? Because you are able to see something before you actually see it, right? You are able to understand something before you actually understand it, right? But you come to sense something or to understand something by, in a way, receiving that thing, huh? Okay? But you're not being changed from what you were to something different, right? Which is what happens when matter receives, huh? But you're being really, what, more perfected by this, huh? I see, some people get stuck on that first meaning of what, acting upon and undergoing, huh? Or even that second meaning where it's still tied to the way matter undergoes. I mentioned, was it, um, some of their, um, Gabriel Marcel there criticizing, uh, Jean-Paul Sartre, right? For Jean-Paul Sartre, any receiving is opposed to your sovereignty, right? It's imposition to receive anything. Well, uh, even Gabriel Marcel can see there's something wrong with this, right? And, um, it really would make, what, not only teaching, but parenthood, even friendship among equals. Uh, impossible, right, huh? Because a friendship that's fruitful, you know, in some cases, you know, um, one friend is acting upon the other and sometimes it's the, what, reverse, right? You know? Because one friend sees something or is stronger in one area than another friend, another one in something else, right? And so they, what, act upon each other, um, molding each other in a sense, right? But, what, perfecting each other in some way, right? But Sartre can't see that, right? Oh, here I see it, he's ultra, right? Hells is others, right? To be acted upon by another, right? Have them imposing themselves upon you in some way. It's, it's contrary to your freedom and so on, right? So he's always stuck with the first meaning of under goal, right? Which is to suffer. It's bad to suffer. It's bad to be acted upon in a way that is harmful to you and painful to you and contrary to your nature, right? But to be acted upon in a way that changes you, well, it's, could be good or bad, right? But to be acted upon in a way that fulfills you, perfects you, completes you, right? That's what sensing and understanding are like, right? Do you see that? So, that's why he has the hesitation in the words there, right? Because in the original sense, they're either something bad or at least something that involves an alteration of the thing. Or in the last senses of it, it's merely a what? In a sense, increase in what you already are. You're able to understand and now you're actually understanding by reason of being acted upon in this way, right? You're able to sense but now you're actually sensing as a result of being acted upon in this way, huh? Do you see? He's not really condicting himself but it might seem at first with the word there, right? But he's going back to the original meaning. But it's simply receptive of the species or the form. And such as the species is in potent, and it's such as the species in potency, huh? It's able to receive these. But it's not, it's not an act like the pedigree's thought, right? Do you see that? So this is the, this whole paragraph of a sense is bringing out this likeness of understanding and sensing, right? So it must have itself similarly, or I would say likewise, right? As the sensitive or as the sense is to the sensible, so the... mind is to the what? Understandable. Now, he's going to reason from that, a little bit like you did about the senses, he's going to reason from that to the immateriality of the what? Reason or understanding, and it's not having a bodily order. Now, how's he going to reason that way? Well, you've already seen the case of the senses. If my tongue was actually sugary, if I had by nature a sugary tongue, would I taste sweet and bitter and salty and spoily and so on? Everything would taste what? Sweet, huh? If my tongue was salty, everything would what? Taste salty, right? So my tongue has to be neither sweet nor bitter nor what? Salty nor oily, so I can taste all those tastes, right? You see that? Okay. My eye, right? You know, if I had that fluid in my eye so it was all green, everything would what? Look green, a little bit like in the Wizard of Oz, you know, where you put on these special glasses, right? But if that color in the glass was the color of the eye itself, the eye had some definite color there, then that would prevent it from knowing what? All colors, huh? So the eye has to be lacking in any color, but able to receive all. It needs to lack all colors if it's going to be able to receive all. Just as the tongue must lack all taste if it's able to receive, right? Okay? And the same in the ear. If I had, you know, a sound, you know, once that's something you always play in the ear, then I wouldn't be able to hear other things, right? You know, sound in your ear. I'll prevent you from hearing other things. So we see how the senses, in order to receive their object, to be able to receive the whole of their object, all of their objects, they have to be lacking in what? What they're going to receive. Begin with them. Thanks with the possible exception of the sense of touch, which can't be completely, what, lacking in hot and cold, can it? But the senses, the sense of touch, senses what it lacks, right? Something that's warmer than it, like the weather or something, or something colder, the weather's colder. You sense the things, right? You don't have those, right? Okay? So, I was going to reason from this that the mind is, what, not a body, right? And he's making a comparison now to the thinking of Anaxagris that you, some of you have seen there when we did the reading from Anaxagris. But Aristotle's argument is similar, but it's different from Anaxagris's, huh? It is necessary, therefore, since it understands all things, it's able to understand all, what, these material things in some way, that the mind be, what? Unnext, right? Something like Anaxagris says that it might command. But this is necessary that it might know, huh? Okay? And notice the comparison he's making there. As some of you may recall what Anaxagris said, huh? Anaxagris was talking not about so much the human mind, but this greater mind is responsible for the, what, distinction and order in the parts of animals and plants and so on. And Anaxagris said that this greater mind, responsible for the order of natural things, it can't have any matter in it. It can't be mixed with matter. Remember that? And he gave a very good reason why it couldn't be. They couldn't command and direct and order all things if it was mixed up with them. That would prevent it from what? Ruling order them, right? Okay? And that's what he's saying here. Saying that the ruler must be distinct from the rule, or the ruler must be separated in some way from the rule. Put another way, the ruler must not be mixed with the rule, because this is prevented from what? Ruling. Okay? Now, you may recall how we manifest that a bit, huh? I take the example, say, of human affairs, of a judge, right? Okay? Well, what's the first thing we demand of a judge if he's going to rule between two conflicting parties, huh? Yeah. The first thing we demand of a judge is that he be impartial. Now, translate that in English. Impartial means what? Not a part of. It's going to get in the way of his ruling well, right? And the same way in the army, right? You know, when you make a distinction between the man who commands and the man who obeys, huh? And if you command the man who obeys, huh? And if you command the man who obeys, huh? And the same way in the army, right? And the same way in the army, right? You know, when you make a distinction between the man who commands and the man who obeys, huh? And if you command the man who obeys, huh? And the same way in the army, right? And the same way in the army, right? And the same way in the army, right? And the same way in the army, right? You know, when you make a distinction between the man who commands and the man who obeys, huh? And if you command the man who obeys, huh? And the same way in the army, right? You know, when you make a distinction between the man who and the man who obeys, right? And so on, huh? And so on, huh? And so on, huh? And so on, huh? And so on, right? Okay? When the president comes in, they play Hail to the Chief, right? They make a kind of distinction there, right? And if the mother tried to join her teenage daughter's party to be one of the girls, then she'd lose her what? Authority, right? Or if the father tried to be just one of the boys, right? He would lose his what? Ability to command, huh? So, the same way we're talking about judging, remember? Judging is a separating of what? The truth and the false. But by something outside of them, right? By some beginning in our knowledge, huh? So what rules distinguishes must be something other than the things being ruled or distinguished, right? And Aristotle says, We're going to reason, right? We're going to reason, right? We're going to reason about the human mind, huh? And our argument's going to be somewhat different, right? We're saying, in order to know all material things, right? In order to be, therefore, in what? Ability to receiving all material things. It must lack any material things. It must lack any material nature itself. Just as the eye, to be able to receive all colors, must be lacking in any color of its own, huh? And just as the tongue, in order to receive sweet and bitter and oily and salty and so on, must be lacking in any of these, what? Tastes or flavors, huh? But because reason is all together universal, you know, being an ability to know everything in the material world, huh? It must lack any material nature in order to be able to receive all in this way that you receive it. So it's a very, what? Fundamental argument. It's not the only argument, by any means. But it's the fundamental argument, right? And it comes right out of seeing the likeness between understanding and sensing, and what we learned about the senses, that they lack what they're going to receive, huh? You see that? It would like to be said, you know, if you wanted to, what? Show all colors in this glass, right? You can pour in a blue liquid and show blue, right? Or you can pour in a red liquid or a green liquid or a yellow liquid and show those colors, right? In order to show all colors, this mug has to be what? Transparent, right? If this was green, that would get in the way of it showing all what? It's like that with the mind, you see. The mind, in a sense, has to be what? Transparent, right? In order to receive and to show all what? Material things. It must be lacking, therefore, in immaterial nature. That's really a marvelous way of seeing this, huh? Not the only way, but the first way to see it, right? Notice, Enx Egrus was the first one of the Greek philosophers who seems to have begun to see that the mind is something immaterial. And then Plato and Aristotle continuing that and developing it, right? So you can see Aristotle's great respect for what? Enx Egrus, huh? If you read the dialogue called The Fate of the Earth, Socrates talks about how excited he got when he first read Enx Egrus and heard about the mind, huh? Enx Egrus is the man who brought philosophy to Athens, right? He came to Athens and became the friend of what? Pericles, right? So he says in 3.24, It is necessary, therefore, since it understands all things, it's able to understand all things, that the mind be unmixed. Something like Enx Egrus says, right? In order to command all things, right? It has to be, what? Unmixed with them, huh? But we're saying this is necessary, that it might know all things, right? In other words, it be able to receive, huh? The natures of all material things. It must be itself lacking the nature of any material thing. For if there was one of, if it had some definite material nature, as it would if there was a body, what is present in it would hinder and what? Screen out, as it were, the, what? Others, huh? You see that? Just like in the things with the eye there, right? The Wizard of Oz, right, huh? Everything looks green, right? Not just your neighbor's yard, but everything looks green. But it screens out other colors, huh? Once there is no one nature of this part but this, huh? That it is, what? Dunatan, right? It's, what? Able to receive, right? It's ability, huh? Okay? Therefore, what is called the mind of the soul, I call the mind that by which the soul thinks and assumes, is none of the beings, none of these material things, enact before it thinks, huh? This is exactly contrary to what Empedocles thought, right? But because he thought that we're composed actually of earth, air, fire, water, love, and hate, that's why we actually know all these things. We don't actually know them at first at all, but we're able to receive them in some, what, immaterial way, huh? But if we had definitely some, what, material nature for the mind, that would prevent it from, what, receiving all things, huh? Okay? He says things and assumes, is that significant, those two words? Well, I'll see what the Greek says there, because probably, he's thinking a little bit of that knowing and what? Judging. Grasping, yeah. Grasping and judging, yeah. Grasping and judging. Grasping and judging, yeah, yeah. Which is not really a bad translation, huh? The word dia noia has some of the idea of discourse, like in Shakespeare, right? Dia through knowing something else, right? If you look at the, again, in the Posture Analytics, Aristotle uses the adjective, all analogous dia noelike, he says, is through pre-existing knowledge, right? Okay? And hypo lambane, the other word, which they translate here as assumes, yeah, hypo lambane is often taken in the sense of, what, opinion, right? Take up something, right? But it has a sense of opinion very often in Greek, huh? So, assumes is fairly close, even etymologically, right? In Latin, right? So, hypo lambano, in Greek, and assume in Latin, the English equivalent, etymologically, is to take up, right? And we do use that expression sometimes, to take up a position, right? Sure. Okay? And when you say take up a position and defend it, you're not necessarily fully committed to that, but you maybe see something in that expression, right? Okay? It's kind of an interesting thing to take up, huh? It's kind of the opposite side of what you have in the definition of syllogism, right? Remember the definition of syllogism? It's speech in which some statements laid down, another follows necessarily, because of those laid down, right? But before you can lay down a statement, you have to take it up, right? Okay? And you see this very much in dialectic, the way dialectic proceeds, because as Aristotle defines the dialectical premise, he says it's an asking of the probable, right? So, the man you're speaking with in the dialectic conversation, he can take you to the affirmative or the negative, right? He takes up one of them, right? You see? If he doesn't take up one, then it's a problem, right? It's not a premise, huh? It's going to be something to reason about, right? But he has something to reason from. And so he says, now, you know, I've conceived you that a cat is a four-footed animal, or a cat is not a four-footed animal, yeah? And you say, well, if you give me a choice between those two, I'd take up that a cat is a four-footed animal, right? Do you think the earth is flat, or what? Round, huh? Do you think water is inch too low, or something? I think it's a simple substance, huh? We might take up one of these, right? Okay. You might not know it, right? If you do so, right? Okay. But you can take something up without knowing whether it's, strictly speaking, knowing, being certain, right, that it's true or, what, false, right? So I've got to take up something, and then I can put it down in my argument, huh? Use the word take, you know, when you define it, too, see? If you want to define, let's say, square, right, the first thing you should take is its, what, genus, right? What's this genus of square? Quadradana. Yeah. So I put that down, quadradana, right? Then I've got to take up the differences, right? Eventually I'll take up right-angled, right? And equilateral, right? And I'll put these down, and I'll make my definition. So it's a little bit like, you know, what you do with statements, right? You take up statements, and you place them down, and then something else follows from that. I think I mentioned how, I think the best explanation of that word in the definition, laid down, is one word in Greek or in Latin, is by Thomas in the commentaries on St. Paul. Well, and where Thomas explains that laid down, well, something doesn't lay itself down. Something else lays it down. But laid down implies what? It's an infirmness, right? And then an order to something else, right? And it's kind of marvelous, because, you know, when I say to the kids, I'm laying down the law. The law doesn't lay down itself, right? I'm laying down the law, right? You shall be in bed by nine o'clock, right? Okay? I'm laying down the law. And there's an infirmness in that, right? When somebody lays down the law, it's not just a suggestion, right? This is serious, because they have consequences, right? And that law laid down expects us to... in a certain course of what? Action, right? Informity with it, right? See? That's practical reason, laying down the law, right? Okay? But in the syllogism, you lay down a statement from which you're in a reason, right? So you lay down these statements with a certain firmness in the mind, right? But you lay them down in order to draw a certain what? Conclusion, right? Okay? But they actually lay it down firmly, because if I lay down the major premise and that runs away and then I take up the minor premise, I can't syllogize, can I? I've got to get them both together firmly, right? So, but again, you know, one could take maybe thinks and assumes there. If you take thinking a little stronger, maybe a little stronger word than think, you could maybe use that same distinction that Thomas used before, right? Grasping and judging, you know? So, it's none of the beings in act before it thinks. It's none of these material things before it thinks, huh? And then, whence also it is reasonable that it's not mixed with the body? For it would come to be qualified somehow, either cold or hot, or there would be even some organ is insensitive. But as it is, there is none, huh? Notice the reason for saying there is none is that it's what? Able to receive, huh? The natures of all material things. Therefore, it must be lacking, right? In the natures of all material things. Now, it gives a kind of a corollary of that in 326. And if you look at this corollary of it, you can see the beginning of another argument for saying that the, what, reason or mind is, what, immaterial, not a body. And therefore, those who say the soul is the place of species speak well, except that not the whole soul is the place of species, but the intellectual part is such. Nor is it the species in act, but originally only in, what, potency or ability. Now, what does all that mean, right? Well, you get the words here. The Greek word for species there, of course, is idas. Species is a Latin word, right? And what would be the English word for idas or species? Species, huh? Right. Yeah. Actually, you could translate it by form. It's often translated by form. But the Greek and the Latin word have a reference to the eye, right? It's the look of the thing, right? Okay. But probably the use of it in English, we use more the form thing. So, this was used in logic, huh? The word idas, and later on species, huh? What did it signify in logic, idas, or species? Well, it signified a particular kind, or something. More precisely, you could call it a particular kind of one general, which they called, what, in Latin, in Greek, the genus, right? Or in Latin, the genus, huh? Now, in English, we tend to use the word form for that, huh? Take, for example, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, are different, what, of government. Yeah. So, we say democracy, democracy is one form of government. Now, in Latin, or in Greek, in Greek, democracy is one idol, right? In Latin, you say one species, right? And then we should say one form of government, right? Sometimes I speak of the forms of fiction. By the forms of fiction, I mean the particular kinds of fiction, like maybe the novel, right? Or the short story, or the epic, or the drama, or the play, right? Or I might take play in reference to what? Tragedy and comedy, huh? And say, well, tragedy is one form of what? Drama, one form of play. Comedy is another form, right? I think Shakespeare has at least four different forms of drama. Now, they tend to use the word romance, right, for one of those, huh? But not the word romance in the contemporary usage, right? But more the classical sense, going back to the, either the Greek romance or the medieval romance. I call them the mercy romance, this time. Okay? The love romance, it's the two different kinds. But anyway, these are different forms of fiction. Now, what did Plato do? What did Plato do about these forms, huh? Well, one thing about these forms, are they something individual, singular, or are they something universal? Yeah, yeah. There's something common to many, right? Okay? So there might be many democratic forms of government, right? Either the same, you know? In kind, right? So you have the same kind of government, I'd say, in 50 states here, right? Yes. Right? Okay? So, what's the exception of, like, the Nebraska? Nebraska? Louisiana? Nebraska is in the Senate, I don't like that. They must have a, one house there. I don't know, like, the Cameron Ridge station. Anyway. But it gets to stuff you're a credit for the government, right? Okay? So the Iodactrius species is something, what? Universal, right? Okay? And it's really the Iodactrius, what? Definition. Because when you define, what do you do? You give what the thing is in general, and then you give the differences and separates it from other particular kinds of that thing. So what you define is called a form, or an Iodactrius species on the language, right? So that goes back to the, what? I used to go get, right? I used to do with genus and species and difference and property and accident, right? And species is the name of what is defined. And genus is the name that begins the definition. And difference is the name, or kind of name that completes the definition, right? And so on. Now, Plato had a kind of a strange position, huh? Remember the answer he gave to the central question of philosophy? What was that? Things, the way things are is the same as the way we... Yeah, remember the central question of philosophy, I think, just a little bit of information here, but irrelevant to what I want to say here, eventually. Next year. What was the central question of philosophy? What's the central question? Are the way things are the way we know? Well, in a way, yeah. Does truth require, right, that the way we know be? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? Now, I call that the central question of philosophy because it brings together, right, the end of the philosopher, which is to know the truth, right? With whatever he talks about. He talks either about the way things are or about the way we know. So in natural philosophy, we talk about the way natural things are, right? In political philosophy, we talk about the way critical things are. In logic, we talk more about the way we know, right? Now, does truth require that these two be the same? As I always say to the students there, what are the two possible answers to this great question? Yes or no. Yes and no, yeah. And Plato and Aristotle seem to, what, disagree, right? Plato seems to be answering yes, at least implicitly, right? And Aristotle is saying no. And you go down the whole history of philosophy, right? Right into the 20th century, right? And you'll see philosophers answering either yes or no, not maybe explicitly, but at least implicitly, in their thinking. But probably you'll find more philosophers apparently agree with Plato than with what? Aristotle, right? Okay. And I've given the reason why I think they tend to agree first with Plato, one, and that is that we all have this common understanding of truth as being the agreement of our mind with things, the harmony of our mind with things. So if you say Berkwist is standing now, you're speaking truly. If you say Berkwist is not standing or Berkwist is sitting now, you're speaking falsely, right? So there's got to be an agreement, right, between your mind and things, for truth, right? And therefore not thinking too much beyond that, it seems that if the way we know is not the way things are, we don't have this agreement of the mind with things. Now, you may recall that in the second book of natural hearing there, Aristotle was talking about one place where he sees an exception to this, right? And that's very important for this part here. He spoke there of how one can know, in separation, things that don't exist in separation. And the simplest example of that is where you have two things found together in the same thing, but you know one without knowing the other. So he had this even in a way in the sense system. If sugar is both white and sweet, is the eye false in knowing white without sweetness? It's knowing whiteness now, the whiteness of the sugar, in separation from its sweetness, isn't it? But, in fact, the two of them go together, right? And is the sense of taste false in knowing the sweetness of the sugar without its whiteness? Aristotle says, if one is knowable without the other, there's no falsity in knowing one without the other. The falsity would come if I said that this white thing is not sweet. Or vice versa, this sweet thing is not white. But the eye is not saying that. The sense of taste is not saying that, right? The same with the human being, right? You might know me to be a philosopher and not know that I'm a grandfather, right? Someone else might know me to be a grandfather, leaving out that I'm a philosopher. I'm sure the nurses down at the hospital there, they certified that I was, in fact, a grandfather before they let me take care of the grandchildren, but they didn't at all know that I was a philosopher. I'm sure my students in class, some of them don't know I'm a grandfather, though the grandfather examples start to come in, willy-nilly, but they know I'm a philosopher, right? You see? Now, are they false in knowing me to be a philosopher, leaving out my being a grandfather? That's part of what I am. I've got a little Cecilia's picture right there where I read, consoling me and keeping me enthusiastic about life, see? Or is the nurse mistaken in knowing me to be a grandfather, leaving out by being a philosopher? Or is one of these noble without the other, right? The falsity would come if you said that because I know him to be a philosopher and nothing more, then he's nothing more than a philosopher, or vice versa, right? Or especially if you said, this philosopher is not a grandfather, or this grandfather is not a philosopher. Then you would be, what? False, right? Okay? If you say this man is a philosopher, leaving out as being a grandfather, that's not false. It's not a complete knowledge of me, right? Is it false? Is it? Is it? If I'm not saying that's all that there is to you, right? You see? So it is possible to know in separation things that don't, what? Exist in separation. Now, what about the universal, right? This is something universal now. Can I know what you all have in common? Leaving aside your individual differences? You're all monks, let's say, right? Or you're all, what? Students, huh? Or you're all human beings. You're all men, right? Now, when I understand what a student is, can I put Thomas here in the definition of what a student is? Are you part of the definition of student? No. Are you part of the definition of student? No. Are you part of the definition of man? The definition of man leaves out every individual man, right? Socrates is not part of the definition of man. If you had to put every man in the definition of man, you'd never be able to complete the definition, right? Now, is my mind false in separating and knowing in separation what you have in common? Is there really out in the world a man himself that isn't some individual man? Well, you see, Plato thought that Socrates had shown that we really do know through definitions, right? But through definitions, we know, in fact, what? The universal in separation from the singulars. So if we truly know through definitions, and the way we know must be the way things are when we know truly, right? If we truly know, therefore, the universal in separation from the singulars, it must truly, what? Exist in separation from the singulars. And so here you have what could be called the world of, what? Universal forms. That apart from individual men, right? There's the form of man himself, and the form of dog himself, and the form of cat himself. And sometimes that's very badly translated into English, because, you know, don't speak of the tonic ideas, right? Don't speak of the tonic ideas, right? Don't speak of the tonic ideas, right? Don't speak of the tonic ideas, right? Don't speak of the tonic ideas, right? Don't speak of the tonic ideas, right?