De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 45: The Object of Reason: Essence and Universals

Transcript
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...undergoing understanding, because later on he's going to talk about another power called the act of understanding, okay, in the next chapter in fact, but forget about that right now, okay. Now, there's three main parts to this consideration of our reason or understanding in this fourth chapter, and the first part, which is down to about 328 during your text, part we looked at last time. And there he's showing that our reason or understanding is to begin with an undergoing ability, right? An ability that is acted upon by its object. And he makes a comparison there between our understanding or reason and the senses, not to the, what, vegetative powers, the powers of digestion, right, and growth and so on, right? And the comparison is there not only because the sense powers are knowing powers and the plant powers are not knowing powers, but also because the sense powers are undergoing powers acting upon powers, okay. Now, this is one way you could divide the powers or the abilities of the soul by whether their object originally acts upon them or they act upon their object. Now, if you stop and think about it, that seems to be a complete division. That either the object, right, acts upon the power, or the power or ability acts upon the object. If neither one or the other took place, there'd really be no connection between the power and the object. So, no reason to call this the object of that power if one didn't affect the other at all. If one neither acted upon the other or was acted upon by the other. So, in a way, he's saying something very general about the object of the understanding or reason. He's going to be more detailed in this 329 and 330 as to what the object is of the understanding, right? Okay. But in that first part, he's bringing out that it's an object that acts upon the power, and therefore understanding is an undergoing, as he says, okay, suffering but not in the original sense of suffering, a receiving in some way, and he brings out at the same time that because it's able to receive all the natures of material things, which is shown from the fact that it's able to receive all the natures of material things, which is shown from the fact that it's able to receive all the natures of material things, which is able to receive all the natures of material things, which is shown from the fact that it's able to receive all the natures of material things, which is able to receive all the natures of material things, which is able to receive all the natures of material things, which is able to receive all the natures of material things, which is able to receive all the natures of material things, which is able to receive all the natures of material things, which is able to receive all the nat that we know that we know that we know that we know that material bodies, at least in general, universally, and therefore open to receiving all their natures, that must lack any bodily nature. Okay, do you see that? Just as the sense organs lack the object that they receive to begin with. So in the example there, the eye, the fluid not having color, right? Or your tongue not being sweet or bitter or or salty or salty or something else, right? Because if it had some definite taste or flavor in my tongue, it prevented from receiving the flavors of the sweet and the bitter, the salty and the oily, receiving all the tastes of these things, huh? And if the eye had some color inborn or ingrained in it, that prevented from receiving all colors, huh? It would be like having on glasses tinted to green or red or something like that. If that was part of the eye, right? Everything would be, other than that, would be kind of impeded from being received in the eye. But because the reason or understanding has this universality, it's open to receiving all the natures of these things. It must lack any bodily nature. And therefore it's not a, what? A body, huh? Okay? It's not in the brain. Okay? And after this comparison and developing the consequences of that, at the end he comes back and points out a sign of the difference in the way the two receive. That when the sense organs receive an object is very strong, that kind of impedes them temporarily from what? perceiving other things because they are a bodily organ. And the bodily organ has been somewhat interfered with. But when the understanding or the reason considers something very understandable, when it turns to lesser things, it's not prevented from what? Seeing them. If anything, it sees them what? More clearly, right? So when I get through studying the Trinity, right, and I turn my mind back to the Isosanese Triangle, I'm not, you know, can't quite see the Isosanese Triangle for having considered the Trinity, right? If anything, it's easier for me to see now the truth about the Isosanese Triangle. And the reason for that difference is the one that we discovered there just before, that doesn't have a bodily, what, organ, huh? Now, in 329 and 330, he's going to go more into what that object is, huh? But you can see, in a way, he's going from the general to the particular when you begin with the fact that the object acts upon the, what, knowing power, right? But that's, in a way, common to the sense powers, huh? It's also common to the, what, desiring powers, huh? When we study those, huh? So that loving is really, originally, a, what, undergoing, huh? Of being acted upon by the object. And this is especially seen in things, too, like pity and sadness and so on that you're being acted upon, right? You're being moved, huh? You see someone else's misfortune there, right? Some little three-year-old girl that runs out in the traffic there, everybody's looking at the newspaper there, you know, and she's feeling sorry for this little girl and the parents and so on, right, huh? Okay? So you're moved by the object, huh? Some way, huh? And that's why, you know, even the poets thought of what? Cupid there, right? You know? Well, the arrow's acting upon what? The heart, huh? You've been wounded, as they say, right? In your heart, huh? But even, you know, talking about the dating or social situation and so on, you say, you made a big impression upon her. Or she made a big impression upon your friend, huh? But impressed means what? You've acted upon this other person's heart, huh? Okay? So that it's an undergoing power, right? But now in 329 and 330, he's going to be more particular, more precise now as to what is this object, right? that acts upon us. What is the object of our reason of understanding, huh? And you've got to read them very carefully here because he unfolds himself, huh? So let's look again at 329 there. But since the magnitude or a magnitude is other than being magnitude, huh? Now, and water and being water. Now, as I mentioned that phrase being magnitude, actually in the Greek it's a infinitive, right? To be magnitude, right? And a magnitude to be water, right? But that to be is a contraction of the formula that Aristotle uses very often he talks about what a thing is. And the Greek phrase that you'll find if you take the whole phrase is what was to be. What was to be. In fact, he uses later on there that whole phrase, huh? Let me see if he's got a transit, yeah. He's got a little different translation in 330 there. but the what it was to be, right? The Greek is to, you know, actually the article. Te, what, in, was, ina, huh? The what was to be, right? And it's always a little bit hard to see why he uses that phrase more than the phrase what a thing is. I tend to use the phrase what a thing is, huh? But Aristotle uses this the what was to be. And I can give what I think is the reason why he uses that phrase, huh? But because of its unfamiliarity and why he uses it the familiarity of that a lot of times I just translate it as what a thing is, huh? I was looking at the beginning of the book about places there the so-called topics in English there when he's talking about a definition instead of using what a thing is he uses it that same phrase the what was to be. Okay? Now I think part of the reason why he does that is this if you go back to our distinction of the four kinds of causes, huh? The first kind of cause and the most known kind of cause was called matter, huh? and if you recall the definition of matter it had two parts matter is that from which something comes to be and then he adds existing within it huh? Okay? This is the definition of matter it had two parts that from which something comes to be but you have to add the second part existing within it so a wooden chair for example comes to be from wood right? and the wood is inside the wooden chair right? Now sometimes we say that something comes to be from its opposite like the wet comes to be from the dry but the dry is not the matter out of which the wet is made it doesn't exist within it and we might even say at some time that the chair came from the carpenter okay? It came from this factory right? And these workmen right? But they're not a cause in the sense of matter they're a cause in the sense of like maker and the maker is not within the thing he made so you have to add the second part now is wood from which a chair comes to be is that wood what a chair is? It's the form that the wood acquires that makes it to be what a chair is and so Aristotle defines form he defines it as the definition of what was to be okay? the definition of what was to be so that's I think the origin of this phrase what was to be you're thinking of the fact that the matter the wood for example was able was able to become a chair a table or a door right but it's through its form that it's actually a chair and table or a door right and so to say what was to be you're looking back to the matter that it came to be from right but the matter was not yet what it what was to be it wasn't yet what a chair is or what a table is or what a door is so it's kind of interesting the way Aristotle I think he arrives using this phrase a lot but then the second thing that makes it more difficult for us is that sometimes he just contracts it to to be okay being the same thing in I in Greek to be right so that formula itself I I I I It's not as clear to us maybe as this right here, right? And then when it's contracted, you have a double thing, right? Okay? So now let's translate a little bit here, right? But since a magnitude, right? That could be a line, or it could be a square, or it could be a sphere, right? Okay? Any continuous thing like that. Is other than what it is, huh? Is a line, and what a line is, identical? Is a circle, and what a circle is, identical? Is a sphere, and what a sphere is, identical? Well, the fact that you have, what? More than one circle. More than one straight line. More than one cube, or more than one sphere. Each of them is a cube, or each of them is a circle, or each of them is a line, right? And you can say, of each of them, what it is, right? But can you identify with any one of those individuals? If a circle, like this circle right here, if this circle, and what a circle is, were exactly the same, there's no distinction between a circle and what a circle is, could you have another circle next to it? No. Then, to be a circle, would be this circle, would be the same thing, right? Yeah. And then it couldn't be another circle, right? Now, the same thing is true about a natural thing, like water. See this water, see this water, okay? Now, is this water, and what water is, entirely the same? Or can you, in some way, distinguish between this water, and what water is? Yeah. Because, I'm sure you have other water, you know? The pond out there, and other things, right? Okay? And the pipes, and so on. Now, why is that so, right? That what a circle is, or what a sphere is, or what a cube is, is not identical, right? With a circle, or a sphere, or a cube, right? Why is it that you take a natural thing, like water? Why is it that a dog, what a dog is, is identical, right? Why is that so? But it has something to do with the fact that these things are material, in the case of sensible things, natural things, or at least that they are in the, what? Continuous, in the case of the mathematical things, huh? You can get two circles, right? Because you can put one here, and one, what? There. That's where you get two circles, right? Okay? Now, you can get many individual window panes of exactly the same kind, because you have enough, what? Glass, right? You can get many chairs of exactly the same kind, because you have enough wood, if they're wooden chairs, right? Or if they're metal chairs, you have enough metal, right? But, in general, because you have enough matter of some kind, right? And enough, there, refers to what? The fact that matter is, what? Subject to quantity. It's continuous, right? It is part outside of part, huh? Okay? Now, remember the definitions of the continuous that we gave in natural philosophy before, huh? The first definition of the continuous is that whose, what? Parts meet at a common boundary, right? So, the parts of a line meet at a point, right? The parts of a circle at a line, huh? The parts of a solid at a surface, huh? A plane, huh? And, notice what's implied in that is the parts are outside of each other. Okay? And, because of that, you can cut it up into many pieces, right? Or you can place something here, or something somewhere else, right? But, if you did away with that matter, or did away with that continuous quantity, could you have many things of the same kind? Would there be a distinction between a thing and what it is? Like, there is a distinction between a dog and what a dog is. A circle and what a circle is. If you take away quantity, right? Which is what it didn't matter. If you take away that part outside of part, you couldn't have many individuals of the same kind. Now, it belongs, of course, to the wise man, to wisdom, to consider those immaterial things. It doesn't belong to natural philosophy or even geometry, to consider those immaterial things. But Aristotle hints that there are some things where the thing and what it is are identical and not different, huh? So, look at what is in parentheses in the translation here. And so it is also in many others, like, I'll say, besides water, a dog and what a dog is, right? A cat and what a cat is. A man and what a man is, right? But it's not so in all. Meaning, not so in all things, right? For in sum, they are the same. Right? And that's why when Thomas Aquinas, for example, talks about the angels, in a fortiori about God, right? There can't be two angels of exactly the same kind. And likewise, there can't be two gods. The Church is very careful in saying there are three persons, right? But these three persons are one, what? God, right? And each one is one and the same, what? God, right? Remember the prayer of our Lord there in the 17th chapter, was it, of the Gospel of St. John? And Christ, you know, addresses the Father, you, the one true God, right? And of course, some of the heretics would say, well, he's saying the Father was the one true God, but he's not really the true God, he's just the highest creature or something, right? Okay? And you have a similar phrase in the Creed there, you know, Tu solus, you alone are the most high, right? Okay? And there are various things to be said about that, but one thing that Thomas does there in the Commentary on John is he quotes something that St. Augustine says, right? Okay? And Augustine says, there are some who say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together are one God. If you can't say the Father is God and the Son is God, the Holy Spirit, only all three of them together. Well, that's their critical. The Father alone is God. And the Son alone is God. And the Holy Spirit alone is God. Each one is God, but one and the same God. Okay? Not in the way with Socrates alone is a man, and Plato alone is a man, right? It's a different individual man, right? But it's one and the same individual God, right? But there can't be, in the immaterial nature, like the divine nature, any difference between God and what God is. And that'd be one of the articles there, right? In the question of simplicity of God, right? That God and what God is are identical. That's one of the eight articles there in the question three of the Summa. And you have the same thing in the Summa Contra Gentiles, and he takes up the simplicity of God. Okay? But this is also true about the angels, because they are immaterial. So there's no two angels of equal rank. You know what teacher Kisirik used to say? God hates equality. There's no truth about that, right? Yes, sir. And so he's hinting at that, right? Now, notice something else here, too, that when you distinguish between, say, a magnitude and what a magnitude is. Yeah? Question? Why do you say every angel is a different species? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is every circle a different species, then? No. No. You can have, in circles, many circles of exactly the same kind. Many squares of exactly the same kind. Just like in the first theorem in what Euclid, right? You construct two circles that are exactly what? Equal, right? But one's here, and one's there. See? See? It has to be a circle, and a circle, same thing. Any species of circles, yet what it is to be an angel, and what an angel is, are not to be the same thing. Yet we do have every individual as a different species. Yeah, each kind of angel. In other words, Gabriel. Gabriel, right? Right. And what Gabriel is, identical. And Raphael, right? Right. And what Raphael is, is the same, right? But Socrates, and what Socrates is, a man, and identical. See? Because we're made out of flesh and blood and bones. There's enough flesh and blood, enough flesh and blood and bones to go around to make up a number of us. See? See? Okay? So it's matter, as subject to continuous quantity, which is divisible, right? Or where one can be here and one there, right? So that's the difference. Yeah, that's the reason for it. So many circles not be of material. Well, it'd be better to say that's the reason why you can have many circles of exactly the same time. See? Because one can be here and one can be there. It's because of the continuous, huh? So notice now, when he's distinguishing here between, maybe you'd better say a magnitude than the magnitude, but between a magnitude and what a magnitude is, between a circle and what a circle is, a circle would be an individual circle, right? But what a circle is would be something, what? Universal, okay? And this is another way that we see that the understanding is immaterial. What it's knowing directly is the universal, and the universal is separated from the continuous. So, when we know continuous things, we know them in a, what, universal way, and therefore not in a continuous way, huh? By the senses are bodies, and the bodies are continuous, right? So they receive only, what? The singular. Because what is received in the continuous, from that very fact, is going to be here or there, and therefore singular. So this is another way that we come to know that the understanding of reason is not a body. If it were, a body would be continuous, and it would receive that condition of things that are received in the continuous, which would be to be received as, what, singular. So the fact that we receive it is something universal, because of what it is, it's something universal here. Not the what it is of God, see? Not the what it is of Raphael, but the what it is of a circle, or the what it is of a dog, right? It's something universal. The fact that we receive it in that way is a sign that our understanding of reason is not a body. It's not something continuous. It's a very subtle thing, huh? Now he goes on here. This is a very subtle thing he's going to say now. Since there's a distinction then, right? Between a circle and what a circle is, right? And water and what water is, right? Or a dog and what a dog is, right? And he gives another example in the next part of the sentence, right? Between what? What flesh is and some flesh, right? The soul will know what flesh is and some flesh, either by different powers, right? Or by one having itself differently. Now what does that second refer to? And why does he bring that in there? Well, let's look at the first part there, right? Well, let's look at the first part there. Either I know what, what flesh is, by one power in me, by my reason and my understanding, I understand what flesh is, right? And I know this flesh, or that flesh there in your hand, right? By another power, by my what? Eye, or by my finger, right? Okay. By one power I know what water is, namely by my understanding or reason, and by another power, by my what? Sense, like by my eye or by my finger there, I know what? This water, right? Yeah. Okay. By my reason I know what a cat is, and I can't let these cats in here come around here sometimes to my class. I know this cat, right? Or a cat, right? Do you see that? Okay. But now someone might say, what about the fact that we compare the universal to the singular? So when we talk, for example, about lowest species there in logic, if you recall, well, the lowest species is not divided into different kinds, but it's said of many, what? Singular individuals. So we understand the relation, let's say, a circle to this circle, that circle, and the next circle. Or the relation of man, let's say, to me and you and the next man, right? Okay. And if you go back to the argument that we had in the discussion of common sense, you couldn't speak of the comparison of the universal to the singular unless it was possible for one and the same power to know what? Both, right? Both, right? Okay. So it wouldn't be enough for reason to know the universal and the senses to know the singular, when you're comparing the universal to the singular. It's got to be the same power knowing both, right? And that's why he adds that, right? Because not only does our reason know directly, as he's going to say, what a man is, right? And the senses know directly this man, right? Okay. Our reason knows directly what a circle is, and the imagination, right? Pictures this individual circle, right? Okay. In which case you have different powers going in. But sometimes we are aware of that connection between the universal and the, what? Singular, right? We know that the universal is said of many individuals. Like man is said of many individual men. Or circle is said of many circles, I might imagine, in my imagination, right? And in that case, the reason is in some way knowing the singular, but not, what? Directly, huh? And Aristotle uses the word, what? Reflect, huh? Because it's coming back upon, what? The origin of the universal, which goes back to the singular. So it's not knowing the singular directly, because it'd have to be a sense parted to know that, right? But it knows it indirectly as the, what? That from which, right, its universal was taken. So he speaks of it as knowing it reflectively. So it's coming back upon its origin. But directly it knows the, what? Universal. Okay? Now he says that, and as he goes on, you'll see the words that he uses. For the flesh is not without matter, but like the snub, it is a this in this, huh? Therefore the soul discerns the hot and the cold by the sense of power, and the flesh is some ratio of these. But it discerns being flesh by different power, either by separate power from the one that knew the singular right, or by one which has itself as the bent has itself to itself when extended. Okay? That's what he's saying there. Beautiful way of speaking there, huh? He's saying that what the reason of understanding knows directly is the what it is, right? And therefore the universal, right? But because the what it is, is the what it is of something, what? Singular, right? Okay? And it was taken from that, right? Well then it can, what? Come back upon its origin. And so it knows the singular as the origin of its what? Universal. See? But he doesn't know it what? Directly, right? And that's what he said in there. Or by one which has itself as the bent has itself to itself when extended, huh? Now in 3.30 there he's coming back and talking about the same thing in the mathematical. Again in beings in abstraction. Now that goes back to what we saw before. What is the difference between mathematics and natural science? Well Plato thought, you know, that what? In natural science you're knowing the sensible world, right? And in mathematics you're knowing another world out there, the mathematical world, right? And apparently the reason why Plato thought this was that he was convinced that you had truth in geometry. It's so clear, the definitions and demonstrations of geometry. And he thought implicitly that truth would require, right? That the way you know something be the way it is. And in mathematics, in pure mathematics that is to say, in geometry you are knowing something in separation from ordinary matter. In separation from the sensible matter. So in geometry, say, when I consider what a cube is, how it's bound by six squares and so on. Does that cube in geometry have any matter in the ordinary sense? Is it hard or soft or hot or cold? Is it a wooden cube or is it a, I have a plastic cube in my office or is it an ice cube or what is it? All that's been left behind, right? It's abstracted or separated from matter. Aristotle didn't think the mind would be false in understanding cube in separation from wood, like a little wood cube as a child maybe, you know, your toys, and the ice cube and the plastic cube that I have or whatever other material cube that might be in this world, right? Because that shape is understandable without wood, without plastic, without any sensible matter, right? But you can't understand it without the, what, continuous, right? Because these geometrical things are continuous, huh? And because of the continuous being there, you can have many individuals of the same kind. Like many circles, as he said, one here, one there. And therefore, right, just, or it's like in the cube itself, right? You have six squares, right? But one's here, one's there, one's here, one's here, one's here, one's there, right? Because you have part outside of part. So, because you have the continuous there, then a cube or a square, and what a cube is, or what a square is, are not, what? Identical, right? So he's pointing to the fact that the, for the straight, like in the straight line, it exists with the, what? Continuous, huh? But the what it was to be is other. If being straight, again, being straight is a thing that's contracted, and a straight are different, right? As if what a straight line is, let's say, or what a line is, and a line, right, or a straight line, are not identical, right? Let it be duality, that was Plato's notion, right? Point is one, the line is two, and the triangle is three, and the pyramid is four. Therefore, therefore, the soul discerns it by something different, right? Now, in this case, huh, the soul would be knowing what a line is, or what a circle is, by reason, or by the understanding. And by the imagination, you would be imagining an individual circle, right? A circle, a line, right? In that case, it would be knowing them by different, what? Powers, right? And as Thomas says in the commentary, you're seeing, in a way here, the difference between reason, or the understanding, and both the senses, right, and the imagination, huh? Because the senses and the imagination know only a man, right? A circle, right? A circle, right? See? Why, the reason or the understanding knows what a man is, or what a circle is, right? So that reason is neither what? Sense nor imagination. But sense and imagination both have a bodily organ, and that's why they receive only the singular. Because they receive, according to the conditions of a body, which are the conditions of the continuous. But reason directly knows the universal, which is separated then from the continuism, and therefore separated from matter. So we're understanding a material thing in an immaterial way. We're understanding a continuous thing in a non-continuous way. We're understanding a material thing in a non-continuous way. We're understanding a material thing in a non-continuous way. We're understanding a material thing in a non-continuous way. We're understanding a material thing in a non-continuous way. We're understanding a material thing in a non-continuous way.