De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 61: The Soul's Nature: Essence, Powers, and Operations

Transcript
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Now, it's interesting now that the psalms, it's named, I guess, a musical instrument, you know, that David had, and so you would pluck a string and then you would pray, you know, okay? Like sometimes, nowadays, sometimes they'll sing the Our Father in church, right? Sure. But if you take the parts of the Mass, which are most of all put to music, right? Mm-hmm. Well, the five that you find over and over again is the, what, put the Kyrie Eleison to music, then the Gloria, and then the Creed, and then the, what, Sanctus, Benedictus, and then the Agnus Dei, right, huh? Well, the first and the last are, what, really prayers, huh? Mm-hmm. You're saying Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Christia Eleison, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy. That's a prayer, right? You're asking God to have mercy on you, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? And then the last one, Lamb of God, you know, you're asking Him to what? Mercy. Anus Dei, Kri Toast, Bekatun, Miserun Obis, right? And Dona Nobis Pachi, give us peace, right? So you're asking Him to have mercy again. Mm-hmm. But the Gloria and the Sanctus are more, what, praise, right, huh? There's a little bit of prayer in the Gloria, you know? But for the most part, it's praise, right? Mm-hmm. And that, huh? So you have the two things, praise and prayer in the sense of asking, right, huh? Mm-hmm. See? Now, the Kri to Christ is something different, huh? That's a confession of faith, right? Mm-hmm. But, you know, I've talked to you before, I think, about the symmetry of the Mass there, right? Mm-hmm. Because the way, the symmetry, you know, the expression there would be what? A, B, C, B, A, right? Mm-hmm. That's symmetrical, right, huh? Right. So, this thing here is different from all the rest. This is the creed, huh? Confession of faith. B here, the Gloria and then the Sanctus, right, before and after the creed, they are, what, mainly praise, right? But the Lamb of God, I mean, the, excuse me, the Kyri Alason and the Agnus Ditti are both prayers, asking for good papers. It's pretty symmetrical, right? Beautiful the way it was, huh? And I was preparing that, you know, to, you know, someone's explaining, you know, that the symmetry of Midsummer Night's Dream or Shakespeare is in the same symmetry that you have in there. You know, the symmetry there in Midsummer Night's Dream is it begins, what, in the court, right? And then it goes to the house of the peasants, right? It ends up in the forest. Forest. And you're back in the house of the peasants and find it back in the court, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? And that's the symmetry of those five works that I use in the Introduction to Philosophy, where you start with the, what, amino, and then you go to the Euthyphro, then to the Apology, then to the Crito, and then to the, what, Phaedo, right? Mm-hmm. The Apology is the odd work, right? It's really his defense of the courtroom, right? The Crito, the Crito, and the Euthyphro are both pithers, right? And these two works correspond, they're much larger, and they correspond in a number of ways, right? It's something that seems symmetry, but the more you study the works, the more you see that, huh? Mm-hmm. It's here you see the piety of Socrates, and here we discuss what piety is, huh? Mm-hmm. Here you have the introduction to logic, here you have the statement of the need for logic, huh? Here you have the argument for immortality, for recollection, and here you recall that argument when you add to it, right? So in many ways, it's symmetrical, right? Mm-hmm. What was the one with phyto? What's the opposite one? What's the word? The amino. The amino, yeah. Ah, mm-hmm. Would you say those are his most important work? Well, no, but they're kind of great together, right? Yeah. Because it kind of is around the trial of Socrates, right? Yeah. Here, you see what Socrates would normally do, right? Examine men and so on, and you have uh, Annetos leaving in a huff, you know, you know, angry at Socrates, and then here we hear that he's already been charged by Annetos, and he left his... That's Euthyphra? Yeah. Euthyphra. Yeah, and Socrates has gone down to the, the courthouse, right, to see what the charges against him are, and that's where he meets Euthyphra, who's gone down there to charge his father with impiety. Oh. Then here you have the actual trial, right? Yeah. And then Socrates is found guilty and sentenced to death. But here, Crito comes to him with a plot to spring him from prison, and Socrates decides that this is not the thing to do, see? Mm-hmm. And here is where he, he dies in prison right in the end, right? So they're all arranged around the trial, Socrates, huh? Mm-hmm. Which is the most famous work of Plato, and the most commonly good work in Introduction to Philosophy. Yeah. He has the most famous quote from Plato, an example of life is not worth living. Yeah. But then you see that, you know, these works are much smaller, these are much bigger. Even the size of them kind of shows the symmetry, right? But then you see subtle connections between these two and between these two, right? Mm-hmm. So you see kind of that symmetry that he has. I first kind of saw that symmetry because someone pointed out that the Midsummer Night's Dream of Shakespeare has a symmetry, right? It begins and ends in the court. Mm-hmm. And here it goes to the peasants' dwellings, and they're the peasants' dwellings. Here you have the central scenes that take place in the forest, right? Mm-hmm. So it's kind of beautiful the way it's arranged. It goes down. It's kind of a symmetry there. But then I started to notice this, you know, listening to the Mozart masses and so on, that those are the five parts that you, you know, put to music. Oh, yeah. You put the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus and Benedictus. Yeah. And then the, uh, Sanct, the, uh, Auguste, yeah, yeah. And I noticed in, in, in, uh, in Mozart's, um, uh, music for the Blessed Sacrifice, you know, the Venerable Sacrifice of the Altar, the litany, you know, he has several litanies set to music, right? Mm-hmm. But, you know, in those litanies, they'll begin the Kyrie Areis, like you do sometimes, and end up at the August of the Eighth. Oh. Well, in, in one of those litanies for the Venerable Sacrament, it's extremely beautiful, the, the music he has for the Kyrie, right? Oh. And it's so beautiful, he'll be kissed out to the, he brings back something of that, right? You know? But it, it, it's so striking, you know, because those are both asking for what? Mercy. Mercy, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the, um, the, the, in the Kyrie, it's kind of the Trinity, you're asking for mercy. Here it's the incarnate word, the Auguste Dei, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. See, you can't say God the Father is on the stage. Sure. See? I mean, the same, the same job. That's right. Behold the Lamb of God, right? Mm-hmm. And the same way here, you have that same thing here, huh? Mm-hmm. Because in the Gloria, it's divided according to the Trinity. Mm-hmm. To the Father, and then to the Son, and then to the, what? Holy Spirit at the end, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, here, you go to the divine and the human nature, right? Yeah. You see? To the Sanctus and the Trinity again, the divine nature. And then the Benedictus and the human nature, huh? Of course, that's why in Mozart, you know, you have, the music will change when you go from the Sanctus to the Benedictus, right? Mm-hmm. The music starts, you know, starts to be very, what, more gentle and sweet and so on. Because it's God's condescending to become man for our salvation, right? Mm-hmm. So it's kind of beautiful the way the music changes. It's very noticeable if you listen to the music carefully. And so it's just kind of beautiful that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But the reason why I mentioned this again in the Psalms, that the Psalms are musical and so, as the name implies, it's appropriate to have, what, praise, I mean, prayer and praise, praise and prayer set to, what, music, right? Mm-hmm. Now, as I say, Thomas is explicit about that. You know, you're not going to be eating or drinking in the next world, right? It's kind of strange to think that, but you won't have any great desire to eat either. Unless you're Muslim, then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But there will be, says, Laos Focalis, huh? Focal praise, huh? Mm-hmm. So Mozart and Palestina up there and so on, they're going to be, assuming they both made it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll be up there, you know. Leaving it. You know, you think, you know, that... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What did Christ say? He's talking to Martha and Mary and he says to Martha, Mary has chosen the better part and will not be taken away from her. Because the busy life here of fixing meals and so on, all this practical life will disappear with the next world, right? But the life of hearing God or listening to God, of contemplating these divine things will continue in the next world and be perfected, right? So Mary has chosen the better part, not the more necessary part, but the better part, right? And it will not be taken away from her, meaning it will be continued in the next world, huh? Well, one can say a little bit about the cook at Mozart, right? That Mozart has chosen the better part. The cook is more necessary than Mozart, right? We've got to eat. It's more necessary to eat. But the eating will stop with this world, right? When this world stops. But Mozart has chosen the better part, or Palestrina has chosen the better part, right? And that's going to continue to some extent in the next world, right? Mm-hmm. There will be vocal praise of God, huh? Mm-hmm. Now that, we don't know what the music will be like, but it will be more beautiful than the music, right? Yeah. You know, but, you know, some of the sayings of Mozart, you know, about Lacrimense de Tito, you know, one of the famous remarks was, you know, the music is so beautiful as to entice the angels, Alan, to listen to it. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, if you want to hear the music in heaven, probably such as, you know. Right. But that's kind of interesting, huh? Mm-hmm. When you get back our bodies up there, right? Mm-hmm. So, and what's kind of interesting is, in that sense, the music will remain, but I don't think fiction will, see? Oh. Fiction, you know, especially as we know it, fiction is tied to fallen man. Mm-hmm. Right. Tragedy and comedy are both the result of the fall. That our life is tragic or that our life is ridiculous, and it's both the result of the fall of man. Sure, right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. angels, speak in the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas Angelic Doctor, pray for us. Help us to understand the Lord you've written. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So let's look first at this little premium here that Thomas says at the beginning of question 75. Okay. So we kind of situate the part we're going to be studying in the whole summa here. He says, after the consideration of the spiritual creature, meaning the angels, right? Okay. And of the bodily creature, right? One should consider about man, huh? Who is put together from the spiritual, a spiritual and a bodily, what? Substance, huh? Have you ever seen this in some of the mechanicals of praise, like that of the three boys there in the furnace and so on? And some of the songs where you have this whole of creation being invited to, you know, praise the Lord, all your angels and so on? Well, they'll begin with the angels, right? And then they'll go to the material world, and then they'll end up with man. You have that same order in those psalms of praise that you have in the order of the summa here, right? You talk about the creature. You talk about the angels first. You talk about the material world other than man, right? And then you talk about man, who in a way brings the two together. So it's interesting that that order is, you know, peculiar to theology, right? That you find it in the psalms of, what? Praise and so on. And I was thinking again, last, since I saw you, I think I mentioned, you know, the connection between the Hail Mary and the psalms, and how in the rose, you know, you imitate the 150 psalms by having 150 Hail Marys, but that the Hail Mary, in a way, in its two parts, is like the two ways that the psalms proceed. When Thomas has his commentary on the psalms, he says, everything is presented in the psalms per modem orationis, by way of prayer, vel laudisa, of praise. So you're either praying, asking God for something, or you are, what, praising and honoring God, huh? Okay? Now, you know, sometimes we use the word prayer in a broad sense, and then they'll talk about the prayer where you're asking God for good things, and the prayer where you're asking for forgiveness, right? And the prayer where you're thanking God, and the prayer where you're praising God, right? But you could perhaps, you know, put those first two together, and put them under prayer in the strict sense, huh? The asking God for suitable things, whether it be forgiveness for sins or for the good things you need. And you can put, to some extent, praise and, what, thanksgiving, which is something like praise, together, right? Now, when you come back to the Mass, remember the symmetry I was explaining in the Mass, in the parts that are sung, huh? And it's A, B, C, B, A, right? Okay? But A and the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei are very much a prayer. We're asking God for his mercy, right? But the Gloria is mainly praise, and the Sanctus and the Benedictus are praise, huh? But the, what? Credo is not praise or prayer. It's a confession of faith, of what we believe. Okay? Now, which is closer to faith, prayer or praise? Yeah, thinking about that. I tried to talk to you about that again. Closer to faith. Hmm? It's closer to faith. Yeah. I was sort of thinking on praise, because prayer would be closer to hope, maybe. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And notice how the Gloria is kind of divided according to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, right? Mm-hmm. Which is often the way we divide the profession of faith, like in the Nicene Creed, and he used to be professed that, right? Sure. Okay? And once in a while, like in the Athanasian Creed, so-called, you divide it according to the divinity and humanity of Christ, like Thomas does in the compendium there, right? And that's what you do in the, what? Sanctus and the Benedictus, huh? So Sanctus is praising the divinity, the Trinity, and the Benedictus, the, what? Humanity of Christ, huh? So those are the two ways you divide sacred doctrine, or the Creed, huh? So it seems to me that praise is closer in the way that even the praise is divided, huh? I think of all that now because of this again, huh? That those psalms of praise, huh? There's one that I kind of noticed, like in the late, towards the end of the psalms, you know, in the late 140s, 147, or something like that, huh? 148, where you're praising God, right? And it has this order, where you begin with the angels, and then you go down to the irrational, material world, right? And then finally you end up with man, huh? And this other one that I kind of know is the one of the three boys in the furnace, right? Bless the Lord, all your works of the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever. Age of the Lord, bless the Lord. And then eventually you go to the, what? Material world, and then ultimately you end up with man, huh? Yeah. So in that psalm of praise, not a psalm of what? Of asking, but a psalm of praising. Oh, yeah. You have the same order that you have here when you talk about the, what? Preachers, huh? See? So sort of interesting there, again, the Mass, that the two parts of praise, the Gloria and the Sanctus and Benedictus, should be closer to the cradle and the, what? Prayer a little further away, right? I mean, they both proceed or both presuppose in a sense faith, right? But praise in some sense seems to be closer, right? And, you know, you can see that very clearly, of course, in the Our Father, right? The Our Father is divided according to, you know, the good things we ask for and the bad things we ask to be freed of, right? That's not really the division of faith, is it? No. But in the Gloria, you see the same division of faith that you have in the Nicene Creed there. And in the Sanctus and Benedictus, the same division that you have in the Athanasian Creed. So that's a little excursion there, but it's significant what St. Thomas says here. And, of course, when you get to the culminating in the last part here of the Summa, which is about Christ, right? As man. And when Thomas talks about many of the reasons why it was suitable that God became a man and not an angel and not a dog or something, right? There's obviously many reasons why he did. But among the reasons is that in uniting human nature to him, in a way he's uniting the whole of creation to him. Because man is composed of spiritual substance and what? Bodily nature, right? Okay. It's interesting, huh? I was looking at a text of Thomas the other day there where he's saying, is man more like a beast or more like an angel, right? Well, he says, according to his body, man has more in common with the beast than the angel. The angel doesn't have any liver and the cat has these things, right? Livers and heart and so on, right? But in terms of his, what, spiritual soul, right? Man is more like an angel. And then Thomas says, but as Aristotle says in the 10th book there, the ethics, something is what it's most of all. So the soul, right? Yeah. Is more man than the body. That's when someone dies, even the common man says, he's gone. Yeah. So what do you mean he's gone? The body's still there. But when the soul's gone, we say he's gone, right? Yeah. So man is, that's more like an angel than like a beast, although he doesn't always act that way, obviously. So now we're going to be looking at the first of the two parts that Thomas subdivides this consideration of man. And. First, about the nature of man himself, right? That's going to take up to question 89, if I remember right. Secondly, about the production of man. That's going to be going back to Genesis, right? And the creation of Adam and so on, Eve and their condition and so on. We're not going to be looking at that part, question 90 on, but this part on the soul, the first part. Now he says, as far as the nature of man himself, it belongs to the theologian to consider the nature of man from the side of what? The soul. Not, however, from the side of the body, except insofar as the body has a certain what? Connection with or relation to the soul, right? Okay. Now, why is that true, see? See, he contrasts what Thomas does here with what Aristotle does, say, in the Dianima and the books following him, right? As Aristotle goes from the Dianima, the three books on the soul that we looked at, on in the study of man, he starts to go down into the body, right? More and more down into the body of man and the body of the other animals too, right? The theologian doesn't care about that, right? That's quite secondary, at least, to the theologian, and because especially the soul of man is made in the image and likeness of God. And everything in theology is considered in reference to what? God, right, huh? So there's a special reason to consider the soul, right? At some length, huh? Much more so than the body or matter because the soul is made in the image and likeness of God, huh? You ever read the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, right? He said, well, no, just two things, you, God, and the soul. Well, interesting emphasis, right, huh? And therefore, the first consideration will be about the what? Soul, right? Now, this question, 75-89, how is it going to be divided, huh? Well, he takes a quote here from the famous Dionysius there, and he says, and because, according to Dionysius, in the 11th chapter of his book on the angelic hierarchy, right, incidentally, Albert the Gatorade, has a commentary on the book on the celestial hierarchy, right, the angelic hierarchy. Thomas is quite familiar with the work, too. In fact, he uses a lot when he talks about the angels, huh? But Thomas has a commentary on the Divinus Dominibus, right, on the divine names, huh? So, Albert did on the angels and Thomas on the divine names, these two famous works of the great Dionysius, huh? The portrait has exist, Thomas exists. Oh, yeah, I have a copy of it. Yeah, the Divinus Dominibus, yeah. Yeah, I've read that more than once. And because, according to Dionysius, there are found three things in spiritual substances, namely the essence of the nature, right, virtus, the, what, powers, right, and third operation, right? First, we will consider those things which pertain to the, what, essence or nature of the soul, what the soul is, okay? Secondly, those things which pertain to its virtusa, its virtue or its, what, powers, right, powers, its abilities, and third, those things which pertain to its, what, operation, right? Yeah. Excuse me, Dr. Burgos, but if you could indulge me for a moment, when I was reading this, I just want to say that, you know, I know we're reading St. Thomas, and he's quoting Dionysius, but my mind just rebels at it. There are three things in spiritual substances. Why not two? Why not four? You know, who is Dionysius to tell us that with certainty? Can you speak to that at least a little? I mean... Well, no, the reason why he quotes Dionysius, he could quote Aristotle, too, right? Okay. Because we saw in our study of the soul there, in the beginning of book two, Aristotle tries to find out or to define the soul itself, right? And he went through a number of divisions to arrive at the definition of the soul. Remember that? And then he had a demonstration of the definition of the soul. Okay. But, I mean, apart from all the details of that, the first thing he's determining, you might say, in book two of the soul is the, what, nature of the soul. The essence of the soul, as Thomas calls it here, right? Okay. Then he goes through the various, what, powers of the soul, right? Okay. So he talks about the feeding powers and the powers that we share with the plants and then the sense powers and eventually he talks about the power of understanding and so on and then the power of moving from one place to another, right? Now, one thing you've got to bear in mind here is that this order here, which seems to be also the order that Aristotle has in there, it could be misleading, right? Because you might think that we know what the soul is before we know anything about its powers or abilities. Yeah. And we know the powers or abilities of the soul before we know something about its operations, right? And actually, as Aristotle pointed out, and Thomas often himself notes, it's through the operations of the soul that we come to know its, what, abilities, right? Yeah. Powers or abilities. And then through the powers or abilities we come to know the nature of the soul, right? Okay. So the order in which Aristotle proceeds, and this order here, might at first sight seem to be just the contrary of what the order that both Aristotle and Thomas teach, right? And what's the solution to that, right? You know, that apparent contradiction, right? Well, as you will see, in studying the nature of the soul, he'll make reference to the powers and the operations of the soul. When Aristotle demonstrated, right, that the soul is the first act of the body, right, the middle term was taken from the operations of the soul. Okay? So, what does this mean? It means that in understanding what the soul is, you come to understand what the soul is through some knowledge, right, of its powers, and therefore also through some knowledge of its activities, right? But after you've come to a knowledge of what the soul is in that way, right, then you take up each of the powers, right, to know each power more distinctly and more completely, right? And, of course, in the animal, where you're concerned with all these souls, right, in so doing, you come to know the plant soul more distinctly and in particular through knowing the plant powers more particularly, right? And you know the animal soul through coming to know the sensing powers more particularly, and you come to know the human soul more fully, right, in particular through studying the understanding powers in particular. You see that? Okay? Now, you may recall when we were studying, say, the power of understanding, right, when Aristotle first determines, huh, that the power of understanding, the ability to understand, is immaterial, he's reasoning from its activity, you see? But after he's discovered, you might say in general there, the nature of the understanding is an immaterial power, right? Because in some way it, what, knows all material things, right? So he's reasoning from its operation. Later on he goes into some details about the operation and the difference between understanding what something is and understanding the true or the false, right? You see? So it's not as if he had come to an understanding of what the reason is, what the understanding is, not to some knowledge of its activities, right? But he'd come to a certain knowledge of what the understanding is through some knowledge of its operations, right? But then later on he comes back and takes up the operations and brings out some very particular things about that. Okay? Do you see that? Yes. So you're going to see that all along. That's very helpful. Yeah. And incidentally, myself, sometimes when I've taught this, you know, you know, the dynamite and so on, sometimes, you know, just to avoid people getting misunderstanding and order, right? Sometimes I've begun talking about the powers first, right? Even some details so they get some knowledge, right? And then finally come and say what the soul is, right? Okay? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How is that gone when you've done it like that? Well... Do you think they caught on it in a more easy way? As much as they ever catch on, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay? So I say both between the Dianima and seeing the order of the Dianima, right? Where presumably you talk about what the soul is before you talk about its powers, you know? You might misunderstand how we know the soul at all and what it is, huh? Okay? Of course, in particular, you'll see here, you get down to question, what, 84, that he's talking about mainly just some of the operations in particular, those of understanding, huh? And the ones like willing and emotions, he's going to leave that for the second part of the Summa, where he's taken up the moral life, right? And there's more relevant to that, huh? Okay? Oh, yeah. Notice what he says at the beginning of question 84 there. Consequently, we're not to consider about the acts of the soul as far as the, what? Understanding powers and the desiring powers. The other powers of the soul, like the ability to, what, digest and so on, right? Do not pertain directly to the consideration of theologian, right? And then the acts of the appetitive part pertain most to the consideration of moral science. And therefore, in the second part of this work, we'll tweet about them in which we'll consider about moral matter, right? Okay? So, I mean, sometimes, you know, people use that term moral theology, but that's more in the second part of the Summa, right? And dogmatic theology is more the, what, first part, right, huh? So, even there, he's not going to consider all the acts of the soul, right? But he's going to take up the understanding powers of their operations in great detail, right? We'll see that when we get there. Okay. Now, the first of those three parts, now, right? He says there's going to be two full considerations. One is about the soul by itself, right? Secundum say. And the second about its union with the, what? Body. Body. So, question 75, which we're going to be getting today, but not going to go through the whole thing, is considering the soul in a kind of, what? Separation from the body, right, huh? Not considering the body. But then we're going to consider it in reference to its union with the body in the question, what, 76, huh? Now, this question 75 is divided into seven articles, huh, which is appropriate, huh? Seven is a sum of wisdom, huh? Mm-hmm. Doesn't mean all the article questions divided into seven, no. Yeah. Over here. First, he's going to ask whether the soul is a body. Okay? Of course, the answer's going to be, it's not. Okay? But in the objections, we'll see why people would think that it's a body, huh? And of course, most people imagine the soul to be a kind of air-like substance, and therefore as a kind of continuous body, huh? And that's the way Homer represents them, right? Mm-hmm. And even Dante, although he knows it's not the way it is, he represents the souls, right, in purgatory as a kind of air-like substance that has the same shape and so on as the man, huh? That's how you recognize it. So if you ever read Dante, you read Dante? You know, but he sees the souls, the people he's known in his life, you recognize them because of their shape, right? And of course, he wants to hug them and embrace them, right? And how can you hug the air, right? It's kind of frustrating, right? So that's going to be the first. Second article is whether the human soul is something, what? Subsistent, right? Which in a way is asking whether it's something, what? Whether it's a substance, right? Whether it's something substantial, right? You may recall the distinction there between substance and what? Accident, yeah. An accident is a thing that exists only in another, it's in a subject, it can't exist apart from it. Why, the substance is a thing to which it belongs to be, not in another, right? Okay. What's the... Why would you use the word subsistent then? Yeah. Instead of substance? Well, because he's going to show that the human soul is not a complete substance, right? Okay. Okay. Now, you're going to learn in that first article, again, which you learned in the Dianima, that the soul is the form or the act of the body, right? But in the second article, you'll learn that it's a form that's subsistent, right? And therefore, it's what we might call a substantial form, okay? Now, I may have mentioned, in fact, I've been talking about it in class recently, in the Introduction to Philosophy, I do the Phaedo of Plato, right? And you meet, in the Phaedo of Plato, the two main opinions about what the soul is, before Aristotle, right? Now, if you read the first book, let's say, about the soul in Aristotle, which we didn't do, but after the premium, right? Aristotle recounts the opinions of all his predecessors about what the soul is, and how they arrived at those opinions, and he does a kind of critique of those opinions, right? And then, in the beginning of the second book, he determines the truth about what the soul really is. But I think, in some ways, the Phaedo is a good work, because it kind of singles out, you might say, the two most probable opinions about what the soul is. And one opinion is the opinion that Simeos brings in from the Pythagoreans, that the soul is the harmony of the body, right? Okay? And, in general, you have this opinion that the soul is somehow the order or the organization, right, of the body, huh? And as I tell the students, you know, the modern biologist would not use the word soul, right? But if he asked them, why is this body alive, and that body is not alive, he would say that the living body, if you break it down, you find in the living body the same materials you find in the non-living world. So the reason why the body is alive, he would say, right, is the way these materials are combined and ordered together, right, huh? You see? Just like in a piano and tune, in a piano out of tune, there's the same material parts, right? But they're not ordered and arranged or harmonized, right, in a way that's going to function well, right? And the same way in a car that's out of tune, right? It's a tune-up, huh? So, Simeos is bringing in from the Pythagoreans one of the most common and probable opinions about what the soul is. That it's a form, but an accidental form of the body, right? They're thinking of the body as being composed of many different material substances, right? And the way that these things are arranged or put together is what makes it alive. And they think, therefore, you know, if we were clever enough, we're not clever enough yet, we could take all the materials out of which a cell or something is composed and we could make it what? Make a living thing out of it, right? By combining them in the right way and the right ratios and the right things, eh? Okay? See? Now, Socrates in the Phaedo defends another idea about the soul, right? That it's a complete, right, immaterial substance, huh? Somehow imprisoned in this body, huh? Okay? Now, I say these are the two most probable opinions about the soul. There's evidence for both of them. But, like many probable opinions, they don't contain the whole truth, either one of them. But they both contain a very important part of the truth. The opinion brought in by Simmias that the soul is the, what, accidental form, the organization of the body, something like that, the harmony of the body is that term, has an important truth about the soul. The soul is a form, right? The soul is an act, huh? But it's not an accidental form. That's what's a mistake, yes, huh? The soul is an act. The soul is an act. The soul is an act. The soul is an act.