De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 43: Universals, Reason, and the Immateriality of Mind

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

I think it does not all translate this, right? It would be much better to call it the world of forms, universal forms. Whereas Donald sees that as really nonsense, but he reasons against it very clearly in metaphysics, in the first and third books, in the seventh book. But where does the universal exist in separation from the singularity? In the mind, right? Okay, so it says, those who say that the soul is the place of species speak well, except they could be more precise and say it's the, what, understanding part, right? It's the mind, right? Okay. That things are what? As Boethius says, singular when sense, but what? Universal when what? Understood, right? Okay, so the reason is the, what, place of universals. Okay, man is universal when I understand what a man is. And I separated what's common to men, which I can do without falsity, right? Okay. There's nothing false in understanding what you all have in common. The falsity would come if I said that what you all have in common exists outside my mind and outside of you, too. You see? In other words, the falsity would come in by trying to ram these two things together, right? Now, Aristotle shows, after distinction, that the order in which you know things doesn't have to be the order in which things are. In fact, it can be, what, the contrary order, right? Without you being false, huh? So I'll start with a simple example in class. My students all say, I know you, a little bit. I know you before I know your parents at all. So you are before your parents in my knowledge. But in reality, your parents came before what? You. Now, am I false in knowing you before your parents? The falsity would come if I said that because I know you before your parents, therefore you must have come before your parents. Then I'd be identifying the way I know, in this case, the order in which I know you and your parents, right? With the order in which you are. Now, more generally speaking, huh? When Aristotle talks about the cause and effect, huh? Usually, we know the effect before the cause. And so every time we ask why, when we're puzzled, we know the effect, but not yet the cause. So, almost always, the effect is before the cause in our knowledge. Is our knowledge false because we know the effect before the cause? No. The falsity would come if I said that because I know the effect before the cause, then the effect must have given rise to the cause. So, Shaq Holmes says in the great detective stories, huh? I was reading a biography there of Chesterton, you know. Chesterton, quite clear that the Shaq Holmes are the best detective stories and much better than his father Brown was, right? He's quite clear about that, right? But Shaq Holmes says to Watson, you know, we have to reason backwards. And Watson says, what do you mean? So, you've got to reason from the fact back to the, what? Cause. But as far as reality is concerned, you're, what? Starting at the wrong end, huh? It's like seeing a movie played backwards, right? Okay. Not the best way to see a movie, but maybe I'll figure it out eventually, right? Why are they fighting? Well, I get to the reason. As the movie's played backwards, right? To get to the thing that led to the fight. Okay. So, is the detective, huh? When he finds a body, but he doesn't know who done it or when it was done, maybe, right? Is he false in knowing that someone's been murdered before he knows who done it? False would come if he thought that the dead body, which he sponsored whoever shot him, right? He should have. Just to reverse. So, the, we can truly know things in separation that don't exist in separation sometimes. And, we can truly know things in the reverse order, right? So, God is, what? In philosophy, God is considered in the last part of the last part of philosophy. It's the reverse of God who's knowing in a sense that God, by knowing himself, knows all the things. Now, what's just a little touching upon here, right? Just touching upon the fact that our mind or our reason knows universal. I'm going to bring this out more clearly in the next reading, but is that also a sign that our reason is not a body? That's not something, what? The part outside of the part, like the continuous, right? Well, let's expand that a little bit here. How is it possible to have two things of the same kind, exactly the same kind, huh? How on the board, for example, could I have two, what? Exactly the same kind of figure, two, let's say, circles, or two squares, huh? You have the same size circle, one here, and one, what? There, that's the way I can do it, right? That's because the continuous here, this continuous surface, has part outside of what? Part, right? So, what is we see in the continuous, like this is continuous, the two dimensions, the surface here, that you see either here or there, right? Okay? So, we see the continuous as tied up with the ability to have many individuals of exactly the same kind, because one is here, and one is, what, there, right? Okay? That's why in modern physics there, when they discovered in quantum theory that they couldn't pinpoint particles, right? It seemed to them that they began to lose their, what, individuality. Oh, huh. You can't say, one's here, one's there. Yeah. And the distinction, right? Mm. Of two of the same exact kind, right? Yeah. Being at the exact same kind. Now, the same thing is true in a sensible world. So, why could they have many window panes here, right? Of exactly the same kind. Or many chairs here, right? Of exactly the same kind, huh? Well, before you can have many window panes of exactly the same kind, right, you would need enough, what? Glass, right? If you have enough glass, you could make many window panes of exactly the same kind. If you want many metal chairs here of exactly the same kind, you've got to have enough, what? In the middle, right? If you want to make many Christmas tree cookies, you know, like your mother or grandmother makes, you've got to have enough dough, right? You've got to have enough dough, right? You've got to have enough dough, right? You've got to have enough dough, right? You've got to have enough dough, right? You've got to have enough dough, right? You've got to have enough dough, right? like a dozen or two dozen or whatever you need huh you need enough what dough okay you want you know wooden chairs here right you need wooden chairs of the same kind you want you need enough what wood notice enough there touches upon what quantity right and what kind of quantity the continuous so you have some kind of matter that is what quantified right and because of that you have part outside of the part and you can cut it and make many chairs many window panes many christmas tree cookies and so on right huh many rolls and so on right you see that so it's matter as subject to continuous quantity huh which is really what you mean by a body right because in a body you have what matter and you have lengthened with depth right huh so what is received in the continuous huh what is received in matter as continuous is received in there as universal or as singular what's ever received in the continuous is received either here or there or there right and this piece of dough or that piece of dough this piece of wood that piece of wood so it's received not as circle or square in general but as an individual right square a singular square or an individual window pane a singular individual pane right okay so if reason is the place of species huh if something was received in reason and especially when it's received fully in the form of a definition if it's something universal right is it received in a body in the continuous well whatever is received in the body continuous is received as here or there right and any triangle you put here or there in the continuous will be what singular so it's received as universal and not as what singular therefore it's what that's a sign that the mind or reason is not a what body if it were a body continuous right was received in it would be received in the continuous and therefore it would be received as what singular as singular right individual and not as what impersonal so though aristotle doesn't make it explicit here at this point he does see that and thomas of course makes that explicit in other places when he talks about this right but i see the connection there is seen now aristotle is pointing out there's a connection between saying what we said here in 324 and 325 that reason or the understanding is not a body right because it's able to receive the natures of all bodily things and what he's saying in 326 that it's the place of what the universal right it's where the universal is it's where things are universal it's not in this world of forms of paedo thought right but in the what reason itself that they are universal and therefore they're received in an immaterial way they're not received in the what continuous yeah with sensing though sense receives particular right yeah but yet the sense isn't well it is the senses there's a certain immateriality in the sensing but insofar as they receive only the singular they receive in the way that the continuous receives yeah but because reason receives these things in the universal form and it's not receiving them in the continuous yeah it's becoming more clear when he gets into the to the object of reason more explicitly in the next uh reading here really starting in the 329 there you know but um it's anticipate that a bit huh if you understand what a line is right and that's what reason does as opposed to the imagination imagination imagines a line right um but in understanding what a line is is what a line is continuous as it's understood by reason but it understands it to be continuous right yeah but is it understanding it as continuous uh the way of understanding it if it were then what a line is how long would it be see you have to get some length right yeah and then it wouldn't fit all lines right yeah so what it is to be a line is to be two feet long no it wasn't be one foot long but if you try to give what it is to be a line some definite length you're going to end up making it not fit all lines right yeah okay the same way you understand what a triangle is right if you try to you know imagine a continuous triangle you're going to make it either equilateral or saucy's or scaling either right angle up you can't make it all of these at once end up like like that dummy you know sort of thing block saying it's all and none of these right okay okay now there's other ways huh that uh we can reason from the continuous to reason not being continuous huh and we talked about the thing before a bit didn't we um when i understand let's say what a triangle is or understand what a square is take an example there i understand what a square is in the form of a definition right so a square is a what equilateral and right angled quadrilateral now is this definition of square which has these three parts right the genius and the differences is this definition of square is the definition itself continuous we saw before it's not divisible forever oh that's right and do the parts meet at a common boundary is the definition of square a line or surface or a body can't say one or the other right so the definition definition is not continuous yeah so reason understands the continuous in the form of the definition right so it understands the continuous in a non-continuous way okay now you ask why does reason understand the continuous in an non-continuous way is it because of what is understood or is it because of what understands well it can't be because of what is understood because what is understood it is continuous that's understood to be continuous right what's understood in an uncontinuous way so the reason itself must be what non-continuous and that's why it understands continuous things in its own way in an uncontinuous way okay so if reason itself is continuous then it would understand continuous in a continuous way way like my eye does my eye you know in a sense when i see you right i cover up half of my eye maybe i see only half of you right you see and so in a way i see part of you with part of me another part of the other part of me right you see and uh part of you is outside of part of you of you inside me even right you see but that's not the way these things are right and in fact equilateral um is really what determining how the four sides and quadrilateral are right so if it was outside of quadrilateral it could do that looks like saying it's this and this and this one part of this page is outside another part of this page right so one part of this page is not determining what the other part of the page is making actual part of the page what about the end of 326 airworks as nor is it the species in actuality that in potency what he's saying to begin with he's talking about reason originally right yeah okay it's all things in ability right he said back in 324 it's sure possible but dunaton dunaton is a greek word for able right okay but i know that's the best translation in latin they call it intellectus possibilities right but it means the intellect that is able to receive huh so her style sometime later on he compares it to a blank tablet which nothing is written but it's able to receive all right uh-huh so her style doesn't develop this argument i've just been giving you but but in a sense he sees the connection here between uh what was shown in 324 and 325 that it's not material and the uh uh the fact that it's the place of the universal right where the universal is that's how concrete our style is you use the word place there right it's in the greek too topos right but of course um that's the first sense of it in place right and then you carry the word in over in all those different meanings that we mentioned before about but he keeps place there right be very concrete a little bit like very very great right instead of uh saying that um anger disturbs you know the part of our soul that sees or understands he says uh anger disturbs the the mind the eye of the soul a very concrete way of speaking huh what aristotle was saying here he's not just in place in the original sense right i can speak of the place of the body right but it's that in which the what the universal is universal is not in place in the original sense of the word place there'd be something what some singular body right an individual body yeah question about the meaning of another word we used today yeah the mind yeah it seemed in the beginning of this lesson that we equated with understanding or reason yeah isn't mind sometimes meant intellect and will the higher part of this yeah it's used in that sense sometimes yeah yeah and there's always in that sense sometimes too because sometimes you'll say the will is in the mind right or even the will is in reason right meaning the the rational part yeah so we thought it would be only part of the mind in this sense yeah yeah yeah sometimes you use the word mind for the the the part of the soul or all the parts of the soul that don't have a body organ right so that's going to include the what he's talking about here and the will and this active understanding he's going to be talking about in that and understanding that's what he's talking about yeah well let me just explain the word there right um the greek word is noose and that's translated in latin by intellectuals and in english or intellect or by the native word understanding right now understanding sometimes names the act right and sometimes it means what is able to do that so if you're using understanding in the sense of what is able to understand right okay then you see man has an understanding right okay now um but when we come to talk let's say about the angels or about god right they're able to understand much more than we understand and before we're able to understand very much we have to do an awful lot of thinking we have to think about things a lot to understand them we have to think things out right then okay so that man's ability to understand is kind of imperfect and so some medieval writers said he has an overshadowed under understanding okay um so sometimes they'll divide understanding meaning the ability now to understand the act now they'll divide that into understanding for the angels or for god and they'll give a new name to man's understanding and call it reason now remember this way of naming things i don't know if you're there and you talked about this sometimes uh a name that is said of two things is kept by one of them right as its own name and the other is given a new name right now there's two ways that that happens sometimes when the common name belongs uh equally to both but one of them has nothing noteworthy in addition to that right while the other one has something very noteworthy then the noteworthy one gets in the name okay i'll give you example what i mean there all right if you take the word animal you mean by animal a living body right that senses right well that seems to be said equally of man or a dog or a cat right we're all living bodies and sense right okay so animal can be said of man or of the beast the dog the cat the horse right but the beast doesn't seem to what have anything greatly noteworthy beyond the fact that it is a living body that senses but man is something very noteworthy maybe he has reason in addition right so sometimes the beast instead of being called the beast the beast will keep the name what animal and man will get the new name you see because he has something noteworthy in addition to what's common so sometimes we'll say man is an animal we're not insulting you at all other times we'll say you're acting like an animal and we're insulting you right or maybe tell the truth i don't know uh but the word animals been used in different senses there right so i always tell my mother didn't like me to call man animal you know it didn't seem right there to call man animal yes sir a mother i don't mean he's just an animal okay you see but sometimes we use the word animal word animal to mean what the town says to mean just an animal nothing more The other way is where what is meant by the common name is had not equally by both, but it's had fully or completely by only one. And then that one keeps the name. And the one that has only an imperfect way gets the new name, right? An example I often give is the word cat or the word dog. Now if my little boy or girl or grandchild, no, if they said, what's the difference between a kitten and a puppy? Sometimes you'll find with a child calling a puppy a kitten or a kitten a puppy, you know? No, no, a kitten is a cat, right? A little cat. And a puppy is a little dog, right? Okay. So, in one sense, you can say a kitten is a cat, right? And a puppy is a dog. But other times, we divide the cat against the what? Kitten. Okay. Or we divide the dog against the puppy. Okay. Like we divide man against the boy or something, right? Or a woman against the girl, right? But other times, we might say a girl is a woman and a boy is a man, right? Now, why does the dog keep the common name and cat or the man keep the common name and the kitten or the puppy or the boy keeps, I guess, a new name? Well, it's because they don't have fully yet what makes one to be a dog or a cat or a man, right? Where they're able to be reduced and so on, right? Okay. He's just a boy. He's not a man, you know. I'm excusing him, right? Okay. So, this is quite different from that over there, isn't it? Aristotle in the categories there. You have the word disposition, huh? Now, some dispositions are easily lost. And he keeps the name disposition for those, huh? But if a disposition becomes firm and hard to remove, right? Then it gives a new name, right? Because it has something beyond, not only disposed, but you, what? In a firm way, right? And so he calls that a habit, huh? You see? So, this disposition, in this sense, would be like a mood, right? He's in a bad mood today, right? Maybe he'll disappear, right? You know, people's mood changes, you know, sometimes in an hour or so, right? You won't see a nice calm down, you know. His mood is different. But a habit is something that's not easily removed, huh? A vice is a, what? A habit, right? And virtue is a habit, huh? It's a firm disposition, huh? So, in one sense, Aristotle would call habit disposition. It's a firm disposition. In other case, he'd speak of, he'd divide habit against disposition, huh? But Aristotle didn't invent this. This is something that we naturally do in language, huh? So, sometimes you'll see, Thomas will say, that the angel has an intellectus, an understanding, and man has a roxio, or a reason, right? That's because what's meant in general by understanding is something that, what? Man has in a very perfect way. Man doesn't understand very much, right? He actually understands very little. And in order to understand a little bit more, he's got to really, what, think and reason and struggle, right? See? He's the angel, but his mind is full to begin with. He doesn't have to learn anything. My son, Marcus, is a little boy. And I said, why can't we be born knowing everything? I don't have to go to school and study and all that stuff. I said, you want to be an angel. That's the name you have, right? He knows everything. He understands everything. He naturally understands, able to understand right away. So, he keeps the name understanding, right? He's able to understand, right? We're, get a new name, right? This is like a, in Latin they say, intellectus, abu-raqus, huh? An overshadowed, kind of a dark understanding, huh? You can see how weak the human understanding is. So, we give it a new name, because it doesn't have a common thing in a full way, but in a very imperfect way. Now, sometimes people are amazed, you know, when people, literary people, when they, at the translators of Homer, it's a great epic song, they'll say, the Iliad is a poem in, I don't know how many thousands of lines, right? People are kind of amazed that they call this grand epic a poem. Because when they think of a poem, they think of a, what? A little sign, a little, right? It's in shape. But notice, huh? The word poem could be said of epic, as well as these little Shakespearean signs, for example, right? But, there you go, right? Sign keeps the name poem, sometimes, right? And we give to the Iliad a new name, like it's an epic, you know? It's an heroic epic or something, you see? Because it adds something very note-worthy, right? Something that goes beyond a little poem to do, you see? Representation of human life here is so much more full, you know? It's more impressive, it's so much more moving in a big epic where you're going to play than it is in a little, like, home, right? The same when you go to the, what they call the nursery, you get a plant, right? If you're going to buy a plant, you usually think of these little things, right? If you're going to buy a tree, you don't just say, I want to buy a plant. I'm going to get a tree, you know? This is a major thing, right? So the tree gets, what, the new name, and sometimes the little things, they keep the name plant, right? See that? That's this kind of thing here. But then there's this other way of naming things where one has fully, right, what is signified by the common name, right? A man has the ability to understand very weakly, right? Kind of stumbling, you know? And he has to reason and, as Shakespeare says, discourse, right? He has to go from one thing to another, right? And come to know gradually one thing to another, right? So, man gets a new name, right? That signifies, is what? We've got the fact that he has imperfectly what is meant by understanding. Inbuilt, he understands, I don't know. So to say, man is more able to, what? To think than to understand. We're always thinking about things that we don't understand or barely understand, right? You see? And so reason is that ability to think, yeah? But it's not so much the ability to understand except in a perfect way, yeah? If we could think out something, we start to understand it a bit, huh? It takes a long time. But nevertheless, you could say that reason is an understanding, right? In the same way you could speak of a kitten as a cat or a puppy as a, what? A dog, yeah? Now notice, up to this point, he's done two things, really, huh? He started with this comparison that understanding is a bit like sensing, right? Okay? That it's an undergoing and receiving, right? And then in the middle here, he brought out that the receiving and understanding is going to be not in the body, right? That it can't be mixed with the body, huh? Otherwise, it couldn't receive all natures. Now, in the last paragraph in this particular reason,