De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 57: Deliberation, Goods of the Soul, and the Application of Universals

Transcript
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Find three things, as Thomas says in the commentary, in your imagination. The two things, right, as you're deliberating about which one you should do, and the third thing by which you're going to judge between the two. And it's necessary to measure by one, right? For it pursues, it tries to pursue the, what, greater or the better, right? Now, I was doing that this week with the students there, because you were reading the Apology of Socrates, right? Now, in the second part of Socrates' speech, he touches upon the division of all the goods of man. And the Greek philosophers usually divide all the goods of man into the goods of the soul, which would be the moral virtues, and the virtues of, what, of reason. And then the goods of the body, like, for example, health and strength and the beauty of the body and so on. And then the outside or exterior goods, huh? Okay? Like my clothing or my house or my car. Okay? My shoes, huh? And so on. Now, this is a famous division of all the goods of man. And the philosopher talks about that division, but he also asks which of these goods are better, right? And one place where Estelle talks about this division very explicitly is in the seventh book of the Politics. And he points out two things, the agreement and the disagreement among men. He says everybody knows that there are these three kinds of goods. Maybe not as explicitly as a philosopher makes it here, but they're aware of that, right? And I always give as a sign of this, the fact that even in our Mother Goose Rhymes, there are things like that where you've touched upon these. And I always ask, early to bed, early to rise. There's usually one student class and finish it. Wealthy, healthy, and wise. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, right? That's touching upon the three kinds of goods, right? Because health is perhaps one of the greatest of the goods of the body, wealth is an excellence of exterior goods, and wisdom is one of the greatest and not the greatest of the goods of the soul, right? So everybody, to some extent, is aware of these three kinds of goods, huh? And so the laws of the country, well, some concern health, some concern, you know, you can construct a building, there's certain rules you gotta follow, right? And there's certain laws about education, going to school, and so on, right? So to some extent, the laws will take into account these three kinds of goods, right? The second agreement among all men is that everybody knows we need some of all three. But now the disagreement comes between Socrates and Athenians, that Socrates is saying the goods of the soul are much better than the goods of the body and outside goods. But the Athenians act as if they thought the outside goods and the goods of the body were the main goods. So Socrates is saying get as much as you can of the goods of the soul and be satisfied with the minimum necessary of the goods of the body and outside things, right? Like St. Paul said, I've got a little deed and a little thing to put on. That's enough for me, right? As far as these things are concerned, huh? But for the Athenians, get as much as you can of the outside goods and the goods of the body and be satisfied with the minimum necessary to acquire or preserve these, right? Because a fool and his money are soon parted, you know? And if you've got a little bit of moderation, otherwise you're going to ruin your health right away, right? You see? So, we asked them which are, what? Are better, right? Okay. Who's right? Socrates is the Athenians. Well, if you want to say that one is better than the other, you've got to have a third thing to judge, right? Okay. So, one thing we argue, we say, well, if God is better than man, right, which is more like, what, God, the goods of the soul or the goods of the body, right? See, well, no one thinks the body is more like God than the soul. So, if God is better than man and the goods of the soul and the soul is more God-like than the body, then the goods of the soul must be better, right? Or another argument we give, we say, well, if man is better than the beast, is he better than the beast because the goods he has in common with the beast or by the goods he has that the beast doesn't have? Well, it can't be by the goods he has in common with the beast, huh? So, if man is better than the beast, then these must be better than the goods of the soul must be better than the goods of the body, right? So, you're using a third thing to say which of these two is better and more to be pursued, right? Okay? So, this is the rational imagination, right, huh? Okay? So, you have to be able to make one imagination from many images, huh? And the other animals can't do that and this is the cause so they're not seeming to have opinions, right? So, the cat doesn't seem to have any opinions. And it doesn't have what is from, what? A syllogism, which is the basic kind of argument, huh? But deliberative imagination, this rational imagination, right, has this, huh? Whence, appetite does not have the deliberative power, right? Now, sometimes, though, in man, even, huh? The lower wins out, right, huh? And, um, Aristotle's a beautiful comparison here to the old theory of the heavenly bodies, right, huh? Where the lower bodies and the lower spheres are moved by the higher ones, right? And it's like that in man when, what? His sense desire is moved by, what? His reason and by his will, huh? But when the reason or the will are moved by the sense desire, right, huh? Then you have, what? The incontinent man, right, huh? But the man who has continence or self-control, his reason and his will are determining and are ruling over his sense appetite. But the scientific power, the one that knows the universals, huh, and so on, that doesn't seem to be moved, but it remains, huh? So the universal doesn't move us to action until it's applied to the, what? Particular, huh? You see, this kind of shows the reason why man has his conflict, especially since original sin, huh? Because, you go back to what we saw there in the training of the wisdom, when Aristotle was saying how the man of experience may succeed better than the man of higher science, science, and he gave us a reason for that, that art or science is of the universal and experience is of the, what, singular. And what you do is not universal, but a singular. And Aristotle's example was that the medical art, the doctor, he doesn't cure a man, he cures this man, right? And so if you have the experience of your own body, right, you might prescribe better for yourself than even the doctor. Now, I just mentioned a simple example there. My wife was giving birth to the children. After giving birth, they give them a dose of Demerol, right? And there's a standard dose they give everybody. In the case of my wife, that amount gives her a headache. And it doesn't make her more comfortable, it makes her more uncomfortable, right? Mm-hmm. So, the next time she's in for another baby, you know, I guess more experience each time, just give me half a bit of what they normally give. So she prescribed better than the doctor or the nurse for herself, because she knows herself, right? Okay? And so a lot of times, you know, we kind of know, you know, if our stomach is upset or some other little ailment, we might know what is going to relieve our thing better than the doctor would know, right? Because we know ourselves from experience. Okay? Well, another example here, huh? When you contrast reason and the senses, well, reason's object, as we saw earlier, is the what it is, right? And therefore, it knows directly the what? Universal. But the senses know directly the what? Singular. And the same with imagination. So the senses are closer to action one way than the reason is. And therefore, if the universal is not applied to the singular, right? You may pursue the singular without listening to universal, and you pursue it maybe because it's pleasing to your senses, huh? The senses know the good, not according to the universal reason, but according to what is agreeable to the senses. So the man who follows the senses will often go astray, right? Because he's pursuing what is agreeable to the senses, or he's avoiding what is disagreeable to the senses, right? Not considering that there's a reason, right? Maybe why you should avoid something pleasant to the senses. It's adultery, or it's fornication, or it's too much. Or there's a reason why you should maybe undergo something that is painful to the senses, like defending his country, or, you know, getting up and feeding the kid, or something, right? Going out of your way to help somebody, right, huh? Who's in need, and so on, huh? So that it might be disagreeable to your senses, right? To do this, but change the diaper, or something like that. It's disagreeable to the senses. But maybe it's something you should do, right? But sometimes the universal is not, what, applied, right? Okay? So the man is being tempted, right, huh? You see? If he's in conflict there, it's because he's considering under the universal that this comes under. This is fornication, this is adultery, this is murder, whatever it is, right? And that it's something good or something bad, right, for a reason. But he's also being attracted to it maybe because it's pleasant, or turned away from it because it's painful to his senses, right? And so sometimes the lower wins out, right? Okay? But you've got to realize that there's a certain strength that the senses have, and even the imagination, because they're closer to the, what, singular, right, huh? So reason says fornication is bad, this is fornication, therefore I should not do it. Or this is, you know, adultery, I should not commit adultery, right? Okay? Or this is murder, right, huh? You see? But then sometimes one doesn't apply to the universal, right? The moment he chooses to do something that he shouldn't do, huh? So he gets into it because of his senses, huh? But they have a certain strength there regarding to action because of the singular, huh? So you've got to put together the singular, or bring the singular into the universal when you make your, what, judgment, right, huh? And so people, you know, who support abortion, for example, they never put abortion, when they support it, under murder, right? That's really what it is, huh? It's kind of funny, you know, because people say, well, you know, if you use the word murder for this, I mean, they don't want you to use the word. They don't want to call a spade a spade, right, huh? You see? They talk about a woman's right to choose, which is, you know, a fiction, right? It's purely imaginary, right? There is no such right to kill your own baby. But they never talk about what it really is, huh? It's interesting that the courts are in a state of contradiction, right? Because if I beat a pregnant woman and her baby is killed, then I am held guilty of homicide, right? So in that case, they're saying that the baby is a human being and I have killed a human being. Therefore, I'm guilty of homicide, homicide at least, right? Not murder. And then yet, if the woman doesn't want the baby and goes and has it murdered by the abortionist, right? This is not homicide, right? So, you know? So, it's a right or a convenience in one case. In the other case, it's a homicide. Obviously, a contradiction, you see? But the courts won't face up, in fact, you know? I always think of that with Socrates, because Socrates always go around, he finds you in a contradiction, right? Sure. Or even if Perry Mason finds that the witnesses and contradicts himself, something he's saying is false, right? Sure. See? So they want to have their cake and eat it, you know? They want to say it's homicide in this case, in the other case, it's a right. But in both cases, it comes under the same thing. You're taking the life of an innocent human being. That's what murder is, huh? So, but they have all the use of missions to escape the singular input under the universal that it belongs under. So, he says, universal opinion or universal thought doesn't move us, right, unless it be applied to the, what, singular, huh? You see? And, of course, when the moral law is not taught very explicitly anymore, you know, you have no universal to apply, right, huh? It is, you know, kind of a moral chaos that they live in there. So, the universal, in a sense, kind of moves us in a remote way, but in an approximate way, the knowledge of the singular, right? So, if the universal is not applied to the singular, then reason is not really being used there. You do what you feel like doing. It feels right. Now, these last chapters here, the chapter 12 here, and 13, which I'm going to do there next time or not, but 12 and 13, Aristotle's kind of through going through each of the powers, right? And in 12 and 13, or 17 and 18 in Thomas' Lectio, he's going to talk about the order among the powers now, right? And so, in a way, he's distinguished and defined the different powers, and that naturally comes before seeing the order among them, huh? Just as, in general, distinction comes before order, right? Are those the last chapters for the soul? Yeah, that's the end, yeah. It's right here at the end of the book Gama here, book three, huh? You may not get through both of them next time, but... Okay, then what is, then where do we go from there? Well, I was going to talk to you about that. There's two things we can do, right? We could go on to another part of philosophy, right? Okay, or we could study the soul some more. Well, you could study the soul some more. Well, you could study the soul some more. You could study the soul some more. Using Thomas' treatise on the soul there in the Prima Pars, right? It might be good to see the soul more, you know, but do you people have a Latin one, at least an English one, you know, so you might want to go and do the treatise on the soul, really, in the Summa, you know? And you'll meet, you know, things you learned here, but also other things you'll bring out, not explicitly, right? Some of the questions you'll go into, you know, and it might be good to do that, you know, because the study of the soul is so central, and the study of the soul is really kind of a necessary gateway for talking about the angels and ultimately talking about God, right? And if you don't talk about the soul, you're kind of almost—you almost end up being a materialist, right? Yeah, soulless. The Arab philosophers, you know, who came after and learned from Plato and Aristotle used to say that the human soul is on the horizon between the material world and the immaterial world, huh? And so it's kind of the gateway to understanding the immaterial world, huh? Mm-hmm. You know, it's kind of funny when you think about our thing, you know, that after we die, right, huh? Our soul is separated from our body, right? Yeah. And so we're going to be living in this immaterial world. Yeah. Well, up to that point, we're living kind of in this material world, right? Right. Really. And—'cause I wonder, you know, in the next world, too, whether we recall much about this life, you know? You wonder, you know, huh? Remember what we did? Remember those classes we had up in Peter Shum, you know, and he said, you know? But none of these buildings will be around. They don't think, you know, my house will be here, these buildings will be your Assumption College will be—you know, you know, in the Resurrection, you know? There'll be a new and glorious Assumption College. You wonder where there were people who would sit around and talk about, you know, the old times, you know? The time when we had this morpher body and so on, you know? And the time when he got sick and had sniffles and ulcers and whatever else we had, you know, what's wrong with us, you know? You know, I can't—you know, how we remember things, you know, in our past, you know, and our sins and our boo-boos and embarrassing moments and unpleasant moments and so on, you know? And for Twitter, we'll—I don't think we'll call the past too much, you know? Remember that, Mike? Yeah, in those days, so— I think even St. Thomas said that since the object of our knowledge here on the earth is generic, all the innocent species will know everything in heaven about that, but— Yeah, well, in seeing God face to face, we'll know everything we naturally desire to know about the natural world. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. So, otherwise, we'd have to completely, you know, be satisfied, right, huh? We'd have to completely reached our end, so that's very interesting, you know? But we won't know the thoughts, right? But the, you know, the singular contingent of the matter is not really important, right, huh? To know who married whom and, you know, how many wives, this Hollywood actor he had, and so on. There's no reason why we'll see those things, you know, or, you know? Yeah. So we won't know those secret thoughts, we've ever done that one. No, no, no, that's not part of our natural, you know? Yeah. You know? I mean, Thomas goes so far as to say, you know, I mean, it's kind of strange, his teacher has been saying, you know, it doesn't pertain to the perfection of my mind, right, to know what you understand or don't understand, right? So, as a teacher, I mean, you're obviously trying to help you to understand, and you want to know whether they understand anything of what you said, you know? You want to know what they do, you know? But I mean, it's not really a perfection of my mind to know what you do or do not understand, right, huh? You know? It's a concern for me as a teacher, right? But it's not, you see, or to know, you know, whether you're diligent or lazy or what, you know? As far as action is concerned, you know, in action, the singa, there's something about that, right? But it's not really a perfection of my mind to know that one way or another, to know whether you're wiser or not as wise as me or, you know, even that's a part, you know? But in a practical way, you might want to know who's wise, like Aristotle or somebody, you know, so you can learn from them. But the singular as such is not a perfection of our mind. Can I ask you to go over something that you've touched on before? Sure. The distinction of why it's important that we know God as truth and also as true, for instance, while we use the adjective and also the abstract noun. If you just use one, you're not sure. This goes back to what we're saying there that the proper object of our mind is that what it is is something that senses to imagine, right? So especially what it is of a natural or mathematical thing. Well, these things are all composed of matter and form or something like matter and form, right? So that's the things we naturally understand. And that's why we have the so-called concrete and abstract word, right? So we have, you know, the word health and the word healthy, right? And healthy, health signifies something like a form, right? It's in some kind of matter or subject, right? Mm-hmm. But that matter or subject, when it has that form, is said not to be health, right? But to be what? Healthy, right? Okay. And that's like the matter? Well, that's the matter of the subject, yeah, I see, in which the health is, right? So you can't say that my body, when it's healthy, you can't say my body is health, can you? No. No. No. You can say my body has health, right? Right. But there's a real distinction there between the have or the had. Yeah. Okay? And so when we say my body is healthy, we don't mean my body is health, we mean my body has health, right? Okay. Now, when we turn to God, right, God is in no way composed. He's altogether what? Simple, right? That's what Teresa of Avila says, right? God is altogether simple. And the closer you get to God, right, the simpler you become, right? But you never become altogether simple like he is, huh? Mm-hmm. So, our words and way of understanding doesn't really fit God, right, huh? Because whatever God has, is God. Yeah. See? God is whatever he has. Right. So, what are we going to say? Yeah. If we say God is wise, we seem to be saying that God has wisdom, right? Mm-hmm. And therefore, we seem to be, what, making some kind of distinction between God and the wisdom that he has. Yeah. Okay. See? Right. But there is no distinction between God and the wisdom that he has, otherwise he'd be composed, right? Mm-hmm. Well, if to avoid that we say, well, then God is wisdom, right? You know, to signify there's no distinction there between the two, right? Mm-hmm. But then it seems that God is not wise, but he's that by which something is wise. Is health healthy? Or is health that by which something is healthy? Oh, yes. Right? So, either way we speak, we fall short of God, right? When we say God is wisdom, we don't seem to be saying that he is wise, right? But he's that by which something is wise, right? Yeah. If we say he's wise, as he is, then we seem to be saying that he has wisdom, and therefore he's not his wisdom, right? Right. Right. Right. Right. So, Thomas says that all of these words are inadequate to express God, and we can both affirm and deny them of God, right? We can say God is wise, because he really is wise, but we can deny that God is wise if that means that he has wisdom and he's distinct from his wisdom. We can say God is wisdom itself, because there is no real distinction between God and his wisdom, right? But we can deny that God is wisdom if, you understand by that, he's that by which something is wise rather than being wise himself, right? In the same way we can say God is good, right? God is good, right? But good signifies, its way of signifying is different from that of goodness, right? To be good means to have goodness, right? Well, God has goodness, right? He is good. So, but yet, to say that he has goodness seems to, what, imply a distinction there between the have and the had, right? So, we say God is goodness itself to bring out his, what, simplicity, and there's no real distinction between his goodness, right? Right? But we say that God is good to bring out that he really is good, right? He's not just that by which something is good. So, we're kind of tied to our way of understanding in this life. Yeah. And so, we have no way of understanding or speaking of God that is perfect, right? Is it because we're just participating of his being and we only see that? Well, it's because what Aristotle said here, what he learned here, that our reason is the reason of a soul that is the form of a body, right? So, it's naturally turned towards the body, and so the proper object of our reason is what it is of something sensed or imagined, right? And so, we, the way we form our thoughts, right, is a reflection of the fact that that's the proper object of our reason. And these things are all composed and they have, what, this composition of matter and form, right? Or it could be a subject and accidental form, right? Proper object of our reason is something of matter and form. Yeah, what it is is something sensed or imagined, okay? It's either a sensible matter or at least this imaginable matter, this extension, right? So, we have, but our mind is apt to what? To distinguish between the matter and the form, right? Mm-hmm. See? And remember how we spoke long ago with the definition of reason. Reason is the ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, right? Mm-hmm. And I mentioned how that when reason, if reason is able to look before and after, it's also able to look for distinction or differences of things. That's included in the ability to look before and after. Remember we had the axiom of before and after? Nothing is before or after itself. Mm-hmm. So, there always has to be some distinction before, you can have a before and after, right? So, if you go through all the senses of before, you can see this more clearly. Today is before tomorrow and after yesterday. But can today be before today? Or can today come after today? No. Nothing is before or after itself, right? Okay? Now, that means, therefore, that before you see a before and after, you have to see two things, at least, right? Mm-hmm. And if you have to see some distinction or some difference before, you can, right? If I didn't see any difference between today and tomorrow, I could say the day is before tomorrow, right? If I saw no difference between today and yesterday, I couldn't say that today is after yesterday. If I didn't see any difference between wine and beer, could I say that wine is better than beer? So, reason is the ability not only to see order, but to see distinction, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Remember how we said that Shakespeare defines reason by the ability for large discourse? Mm-hmm. I raised the question, you know. But reason is even more capable of a small discourse. So, why does he define reason by large discourse rather than small discourse? Yeah, it shows its ability, its extent, the greatest. Yeah, yeah. So... Yeah, the very basic principle there. We define an ability by the utmost of what he can do, see? So, if you ask, you know, how fast can my car go? Yeah. You know, that would be the greatest speed it could go, right? Mm-hmm. If you ask, you know, what's my weight-lifting ability? Well, what's the largest weight I can lift, right? So, if I can lift 200 pounds, that includes the ability to lift 100 pounds. And see, it needs to lift 100 pounds at 200, right? Sure. But you wouldn't give the full ability of my weight-lifting power if you said 100 pounds, then I could actually lift 200, but not 211. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You define the ability by the, what? The, it's utmost, right? So, he defines it by looking before and after, rather than by looking for distinctions, right? He includes, right, the ability to see distinction, huh? Like, I was giving an example there, John Dryden, right? He said, when he was a young man, there would be, you know, two or three plays of Fletcher reformed for every one of Shakespeare. And it's only gradually that you realize that Shakespeare was better than Fletcher, huh? So, he must have seen some distinction or difference between the plays of, what, Shakespeare and Fletcher before he saw that Shakespeare's plays were better. Sure. The same way, I would have two students in my class, right? And I can distinguish between them, at least outwardly, without knowing yet which one is a better student, right? See? And sometimes it might take a long time before you know which one of two students is a better student, right? Yeah. But I couldn't possibly know which one is better if I didn't see any difference in the two. Sure. You see? Mm-hmm. But sometimes, you know, when someone asks you, you know, which of these two students is better, and you're kind of, you know, you're kind of weighing, you're not exactly sure, right? You know, sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes it's not obvious, and you're kind of weighing in your mind which is better, right? So, you can see a distinction between two things without seeing it before and after, but not vice versa. You know, these two students in front of me, one of them is older than the other. You know, their birthday is probably not the same day, right? One is older. You know? But I don't know which one is older. I look younger than my age, right? So, people might think I'm younger than I am, right? And they might realize I'm older than this person, but I don't look older. See? So, he knows the difference between the two of us, but he doesn't know that I'm before this other guy in time, right? See what I mean? So, the ability, so you can see a distinction without seeing it before and after, but you can't see it before and after without seeing the distinction. So, I always mention that thing about the wine tasting, right? You know, that they will, if you don't know, you know, that this is Carbonet Sauvignon and this is Zinfandel, you can't tell them apart. Then, even more so, can you not say that Carbonet Sauvignon is better tasting than Zinfandel, right? Make any sense, wouldn't it? It's just all wine, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, if I say, you know, that Carbonet Sauvignon tastes better than Zinfandel, and you say, okay, now we're going to give you a glass of each without it being labeled, right? You tell me which one is a Carbonet and which one is a Zinfandel. I can't tell which is the one.