De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 64: The Subsistence of the Human Soul

Transcript
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So, there's a famous text there in the Summa Congenitalis where he goes into the difference between being touched by a power, right, and being touched in the way a body is touched, right? When two bodies come into contact, right, they actually touch in two different ways, as he says. There's the touching surface, right, but then one body is also acting upon the other body and changing it, maybe, heating it or cooling it or something, right? And there it has contacted of another kind. And that first kind of contact, there can't be between something that is not a body and a body, right? But the second kind of contact, there can be, where one acts upon the other. But as Thomas explains, the immaterial thing can act upon what? The whole, even the interior of the body, right? Well, one body can act upon another body only through the surface. There was a heating pad, you know, if you're putting heating pads in there or sore muscles or something like that, right? Well, eventually it's going to penetrate to the interior, but it's got to, what, act upon the surface, and then that influences what's in contact with it and all the way in to maybe where your sore really is or something, right? Why the immaterial thing is not a body, right? So it doesn't have to act on the surface, right? It can act on the interior immediately, huh? Like that angel that we're imploring, you know, to help us, right? You know, to order our images, right? Sure. It doesn't have to work out here and then within right away. An angel is said to be in the material world where he, what, acts upon something, right? Where he applies his power, but he's not here or there in the sense of being contained in this or that place. Isn't that one of those classic problems? Because I, I mean, I have a long time thinking of how, you know, an incorporeal thing, like an angel, can do anything to a corporeal thing. Yeah, yeah. It would seem that, you know, like, like the angel, if he was going to pick up my watch, it's like his hand would pass right through it, kind of like my hand would pass through. Yeah, but he's not going to, you're thinking, you're, you're not transcending your imagination now. But no, no, no, when Thomas starts, um, in the Summa Garden Gentiles, we discussed this in part of Ling, he points out that, um, even in bodies, right, they come into contact in more than one way, right? You see, so, uh, my example there, you know, of, uh, this cat we had when I was young, right, and he smelled something cooking on the stove there. He decided to get some of it, so he started to jump up on the stove, and his paws hit the, uh, burner, electric stove, and I got singed, and the cat fell to the ground, and as I say, you know, the cat was wiser after that, right? Memory makes them, you know? And he never tried to jump, to my knowledge, on the stove again, right? He did occasionally, you know, jump on the dining room table when you're out of the room, right? Because, uh, suddenly the table would be set there, and nobody was in there guarding it, right? He'd jump up to the table and lick the butter. Now what are you going to do with the butter? I mean, I get the butter out there for the rolls or something, you know, and you can see the little licking, uh, things, you know? He left his, uh, tail tail. Um, but notice, huh? Um, uh, why did I mention that, huh? But the cat, when it jumped on that hot stove... It made the cat move. Yeah, it came on, in contact with the stove, not just in the sense that its surface was there, right? Yeah. But it was being acted upon, right? In a way that was rather disagreeable, right? And painful to it, huh? So, there's two different things there, right, huh? Uh, in which bodies have contact, right? But only one of them is going to be found in the case of an immaterial substance. So, maybe we should stop there, huh? It's getting cold. Because we should be getting into the second article there, huh? Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. It's not doing the right thing. That doesn't must be. Now, it's not by chance to use the word formable, huh? First of all, you want to see what these two have in common, accidental form and substantial form, huh? Well, you can say two things they have in common. Now, R, something else, namely the subject, huh? And by both, something else is in. So, my body is inability with respect to both health and, what, sickness, right? My body is able to be healthy and my body is able to be sick, right? So, health is an act there, right, huh? And you can say, by health, my body is actually, what, healthy, right? Okay? Or you could say that clay is able to be a sphere or a cube, right? Like the very first mean-bearer form. But it's actually a sphere or a cube by a certain, what, shape, right? So, that shape is an act of an ability that the clay has. And through that shape, the clay is actually a sphere or a cube, right? Now, what's the difference? Okay? Well, the subject of an accidental form is something already in act. The subject of an accidental form is something already, already, in fact, the subject there is a, what, actual substance, right? Like the clay, huh? Or my body, huh? Although the accidental form is an act, and by it, something in the subject, right, is something in act, act really belongs to the subject of the accidental form before it belongs to the, what, to get done, okay? And the accident, and that's why we say some accidents are caused by their, what, subject, right? But the subject, a substantial form, is something only in ability. In other words, you could say it's a substance in ability. The first matter we're talking about is an actual philosophy. And so, act belongs to substantial form before it belongs to its subject. So the order is just the reverse, isn't it? In the case of an accidental form, although it gives a certain act, right, accidental act, to its subject, actuality is found in its subject first. But in the case of the substantial form, act is found first in the substantial form. And through that, the subject has some actuality. Now, a further difference is that the substantial form is the end, or purpose, in a way, of its subject. That the subject, the matter underlying, you might say, is for the sake of the substantial form. But in the case of the accidents, it's the reverse. The accidents are for the sake of the, what, completion of the subject, which is an actual substance. Give an example of that, right? Is Dwayne Berquist, this man here, for the sake of his health, or is my health for the sake of my being healthy? Is my knowledge of geometry, let's say, right? Am I for the sake of my knowledge of geometry, or is geometry for the sake of Dwayne Berquist knowing things about triangles and so on? Am I for the sake of my accidents, in other words, speaking in general, or am I accidents for the sake of completing me? The latter. Yeah. And it's like the great Heraclitus says there, you know? He says, A divine nature has understanding, human nature has none. See? I understand, right? And especially, I actually understand, by reason, something added to my substance, right? The knowledge I've acquired and so on, right? So, without these accidents, I'd be rather incomplete felt, as I am. Even more incomplete than I am. Right? What is grace? Substance or an accident? Grace. Sanctifying grace. Yeah. And so, grace is there for the sake of the, what? Perfection of that substance, right? So, two things, actually, on the form of the substantial form, have in common, huh? Both are an act, right? And by then, something is an act, right? But then we compare them to the subject, huh? The one is in a subject that already is an actual substance, right? While the other comes to something that is only an ability. And then we see the second difference, that act is found in the subject of accident before it's found in accident. In the case of substantial form, act is found in the form before it's found in the, what? Subject, huh? And then a third difference, that the matter is for the sake of the substantial form, but in the case of accidents, the form is for the sake of the completion of its subject. Now, this is very important to see, because if the soul were an accidental form, then existence and so on, actuality, would belong to its subject before it belonged to the soul. But, if the soul is a substantial form, then existence belongs to substantial form before its subject. And that leaves the door open to this strange thing that we discover when we examine the operations of our soul, that we have an activity, understanding the universal, right? Understanding what a triangle is, understanding what a dog is. We have an activity that is not in the body. But you have to exist before you can understand, right? Even Descartes saw that, right? I think, therefore I am. But you can't do anything without being, right? So, if the soul, our soul in particular, has an activity not in the body, right? Then its existence is not just in the body. Then our soul has an existence that the body shares in, right? But an existence that the body doesn't fully share in. And because existence belongs to the soul, to a substantial form before its subject, right? What's unique about our soul is that the existence it has before the body, right, is not entirely immersed in the body, not entirely shared by the body. So, if the soul has some operations that rise above, what? Matter. And those activities are the activity of understanding the universal and the activity of choosing the soul and the access of the understanding of the will. I think I was mentioning, you know, the Canadian scientist who was doing all these tests trying to map the brain, right? And you can kind of stimulate the brain, you know, so a person will say, I wish I had a tasting chocolate now. There's something there in the brain, huh? And so, the patient, right, tells you what he's undergoing when you stimulate your parts of the brain. And then you see. But you could never find a part of the brain where the man says, okay, I just made a choice. And so, he concluded that the ability to choose is not in the brain. It's not in the body at all. And he's correct there, right? You know, coming at it from kind of an exterior experience on it. And, yeah. It seems to be correct to say that it seems pretty important considering the soul as the beginning of life. It would be pretty important to clarify what sense of before we're talking about and that maybe it would be the sense of, not the first sense, before in time, rather than before in being because if we're speaking about the soul being, having life before the body in time, you'd need that without the dogma of the soul being created. And before in causality, too. Okay? In other words, in the case of any substantial form, the actuality that the subject of it has, right, is all through the form itself, right? Or in the case of an accidental form, like my, say, geometry, right? Through geometry, it's not through geometry that I am. It's through geometry that I am a geometer. But it's not through geometry that I am actually existing. But it is through its substantial form that the subject of the substantial form, right, actually exists, right? So actuality belongs, in that sense, to its substantial form before it belongs to its subject. Its subject is an act only through the substantial form. That's not true of the accidental form. The subject is already an act before it receives the accidental form, right? And through the accidental form, it only has some actuality in some qualified way, right? Right? It's not through geometry that I begin to exist, right? It's through geometry that I begin to be a geometer. It's through logic that I begin to be a logician. It's through health that I am healthy, right? But it's not through any of these that I am. Right? There we go. Let's say our little prayer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our mighty men, guardian angels, strengthen 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. And help us to understand all the children. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. So, we're looking at Article 2, and maybe Article 3 today, huh? So, Article 2 is, whether the human soul, right, is something, what, subsisting, right? What does that word, subsisting, mean? Yeah, yeah, existence by itself, yeah. The first objection. What is subsisting is said to be a haq aliquid, huh? A this something, right? Okay? And that's a translation of what Aristotle said about individual substances. It's a todeti, huh? A this something, you know? Okay? But the soul, he says, is not a haq aliquid, but something put together from the soul and the body is a haq aliquid, right? Okay? Therefore, the soul is not something subsisting. Moreover, the second argument now, second objection. Everything that is subsisting can be said to what? Do something, right? But the soul is not said to do something because, as Aristotle says in the first book about the soul, to say that the soul senses or understands would be similar as if one were to say that it, what, weaved something or built something, right? Therefore, the soul is not something, what, subsisting, huh? Now, the third objection, which is perhaps the most interesting one. Moreover, if the soul were something subsisting, huh? There would be some operation of the soul without the body, but there's no operation of it without the body, not even, what, to understand, huh? Because it does not happen to understand without a, what, phantasm or image, huh? And the image is not without the, what, body, right? Therefore, the human soul is not something subsisting, huh? That's maybe the most substantial, the objections, right? Because the other ones are somewhat based upon how you understand haq aliquid, right? And he distributes his two senses, as you'll see in the reply. And in the second one, he says, well, Aristotle's not necessarily speaking according to his own opinion there, right? Yeah. And then he'll make some other ways of solving it, too. But the third one is the one that, in some form or another, that people will bring up, right? Mm-hmm. Like when I say, you know, a blow in the brain interferes with thinking. Mm-hmm. Therefore, people think the brain is the organ of thought and that sort of thing, right? So there's some connection between the brain, which is a body, and thinking, right? Sure. But most people think that the brain is the organ of thought, just like the eye is in some way the organ of seeing, right? Yeah. And he's going to solve it in the way that you see me solve it. Yeah. Okay. Those are the three objections. Mm-hmm. But against this is what Augustine says in the 10th book about the Trinity. Mm-hmm. Now, when you use the word mens there in Latin, right, it's used often not just for the mind, meaning the reason, but for the what? Oh, mind and will? Yeah, for the soul insofar as it is above matter, right, huh? Oh. Insofar as it's a spirit, as we say, right? Insofar as it has a reason that's not a body and a will that's not a body, right? Whoever sees the nature of the mind and that it is a, what, substance, right, and that it is not a body, who sees it those who think, right, it to be something bodily, right, that they err on account of this, that they join to it those things without which they're not able to think of any nature, namely the images of what? Bodies, right? So we never think without imagining, and we never imagine anything other than something that is like a body, that is continuous, right? And so if we never think about anything without judging it in a way by our images, right, we think of everything as bodily, right? So the nature, therefore, the human mind, the human soul, is not only incorporeal, but also a substance that is something subsisting, huh? Notice the word substance, epistemologically, comes from the fact that it stands under the accidents, huh? But subsisting is called more because it has existence by itself. Now we go to the body of the article, and Thomas says, I answer, that it is necessary to say that what is the beginning or the source of the operation of understanding, which beginning we call the soul of man, is a certain what? Principles. Beginning. In corporeal and subsisting beginning, right? Incipio. Now, how is he going to show this, huh? Well, by the main argument that Aristotle gave in the Dianima, in the third book. So, for it is manifest that man is able, through his understanding, to know the natures of all bodies, huh? And also a sign of that is the fact that we know, what? Body in general, right? What it is to be a body, right? And we distinguish between living bodies and non-living bodies, right? And we can go from the confused to the distinct, right? Talking about all these bodies in particular if you want to, right? So, our soul, you can say, through our understanding, is able to know the natures in some way of all bodies, huh? But what is able to know some things is necessary that it have nothing of them in its nature. And what's the reason he gives for that, huh? Because what exists within it, naturally, in this case, would impede its knowledge of, what? Other things, huh? Just as we see that a tongue, right, of a man who's sick, right? That is infected with a choleric and bitter humor, right? And the same way you could say that if my tongue was, what, sugary, right? I couldn't taste the opposite, bitter, right? Everything would taste sweet, right? So, if you go back to the animo, and Aristotle develops this more slowly, he begins with the senses first, right? And he points out that the senses know by receiving the qualities of things, huh? So, the eye receives the colors of things around us. And the ear receives sounds and so on, huh? And that the senses have to lack, right, what they're going to receive. That if the eye had in itself, like in the Wizard of Oz, right, these green lenses and so on and green things, everything would appear to be, what, green to it, right? So, in order to receive all colors as it does, it has to be lacking in any color. The same way if I had Mozart built into my ear, that's how I would hear, which would be so bad in some ways, but it would prevent me from hearing other things, right? The same way if my tongue, in his example there, right, had that. So, he's saying, therefore, that because reason, the universal reason, knows all bodies, huh? It can't itself have, be limited to any body. So, if it was a body, it would be, what, screwed as far as knowing all bodies, huh? So, he says, if, therefore, the intellectual beginning or the source of understanding had in itself the nature of some body, it would not be able to know, what, all bodies, huh? For every body has some determined nature. It is impossible, therefore, that the intellectual principle be a, what? Body, huh? That's the first argument that Aristotle gives there in the Danima, if you recall, right? There's other ways that we can talk about if we have time today, where you might show that the understanding is immaterial, right? It's not a body. But this is the first argument that Aristotle gives, and Thomas appropriately gives that to beginners, huh? But it's a lot more accessible than argument if you've seen this already in the senses, right? The senses can be a body because they're not, what, knowing everything, right? The eye is just knowing color, right? In the sense of, my tongue could be red. It doesn't impede my tasting because the tongue is not knowing color, right? It's knowing the taste, right? But if my tongue had sugar, was sugary, or if my tongue was bitter or something, right? That would prevent it from knowing all things, huh? And likewise, he says, it would be impossible that it understand through a bodily organ, right? Because, again, the determined nature of that bodily organ would prohibit it from a knowledge of all bodies, right? Just as if someone, what? If some determined color was not only in the eye, but also in a, what, vase, right, huh? Glass dish. Glass dish. The liquor infused or poured into that thing would seem to be of the same, what? Color. Color, right? Like everything is green up there. I was in a vase if you read that story as a child, right, huh? Put in your special glasses, huh? Yeah. So this is the way he's showing that the, what, understanding the reason that knows the universal, knows all bodies, is not itself a body, right? Or in a body, huh? Yeah. Okay? So notice he is reasoning from, what, the operation, you'll see now, the soul to its, what, nature is subsisting, huh? Which is what we said about the order of reasoning, right? Can you repeat that again, what you just said? Yeah. As you see, especially in the next paragraph, he's going to reason from the operation of the soul not being in the body, right, to the existence of the soul not being tied to the body. Okay. The question I was thinking of, I was just trying to figure out, why did he, because the initial question of this article was whether it subsisted or not. Yeah. But then he went back to this notion, stressing it's incorporeal first. Okay. Well, if you go back to the thing we were talking about here, remember the famous Cartesian cogito, right, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? So Descartes said, I think, therefore I am, right, huh? Mm-hmm. But you could say, you know, I talk, therefore I am. Right. I walk, therefore I am, right? Sure. Okay? You must be before you can do something. Mm-hmm. Okay? But that's the order in things, right? But in this way of proceeding the cogito, you're going from what? You're doing something to your being, right? Okay? What do you mean? You're doing something. You're saying, I think, therefore I am, right? You can't do something unless you, what? Are. Are. And therefore if you're doing something, or undergoing something for that matter, right? You must be. You must be, right? Right. Okay? And that's common whether you're talking about material things or immaterial things, right? Sure. Okay? So, Aristotle mentions there in the ninth book of Wisdom, how motion seems to us most real. Right. Even though it's not, it's at least real. Yeah. It's all acts. But it seems to people most real, right? Right. As he says, things in motion, so to catch the eye, the what not stirs. And he says, people will say sometimes that I thought about something that doesn't exist, right? What does not exist can be thought about. What does not exist can be imagined. What does not exist can be wanted or desired. But does what not, does what does not exist? Does that move around? Well, no one thinks that it moves around, do they? No. So, we don't think that what does not exist, moves or does anything, do we? So, our mind sees that you must be before you can do something, or you must be before you can be moved or undergo something, right? Mm-hmm. But, as you know, as Sherlock Holmes tells us, and as Aristotle tells us, we usually reason backwards, right? As far as reality is concerned. So, Sherlock Holmes says to Watson there, in one of the stories, we're going to have to reason backwards. And Watson is a little bit slow. What do you mean? He says, we're going to reason from the effect back to the, what, clause, right, huh? Okay. So, you're reasoning from what comes after in things to what comes before in things. So, as far as reality is concerned, your thinking is, what, backwards, right? And so, in a sense, God is the last thing the philosopher reasons his way to, huh? So, what is before all other things is after thinking about all these other things, huh? Okay? So, this is an example of that in particular, right? As far as reality is concerned, you can say that a thing must be before it can move or do something. And a thing can be maybe without doing something, but it can't do something without being. So, being is before doing, huh? But, we become aware that something is from what it does, yeah. Okay? And so, when the question arises now, what kind of existence does the soul have, right? Does the soul exist only in the body and have no existence except in the body? Well, since you must be before you can do anything, right? If the soul's existence was only in the body, if the soul's existence was as we're immersed in the body, then the soul would do nothing except in the body and through the body, huh? But, reasoning out backwards, right? Yeah. If we see that the soul does something, like understand, huh? Yeah. Or choose, if for that matter. Yeah. Not in the body, huh? Right. Then its existence is not immersed in the body. Right. Its existence is not only in the body, right? Right. It has existence by itself, huh? Okay. Now, I was looking at the Theotetus again the other day of Plato, right, huh? And in the Theotetus, it's kind of interesting, huh? Because it reminds me a little bit of the third book about the soul. And Socrates is pointing out there to Theotetus that not only do we sense color and we sense, what, sound and we sense the flavors of things, right? But we also speak of color as being something different from what? The flavor of something, right? Well, do we say that by the eye, that color and sweet are something different? Or do we say that by the sense of taste? No. So Plato says, well, then the soul doesn't say it through one of these bodily organs. The soul says it by itself, that color is not what? Sweet, right? Okay. Now, notice what Plato's done there, huh? Or Socrates is done there. Right. He's gone from the outward senses to what? Something inward, right? Right. Which he says isn't to a body organ, right? Whereas, Tawel sees that there could be an inward sense, huh? Which he calls the common sense, right? The central sense. Because we not only know that what a color. Or what if flavor is not the same thing, which would be proper to reason, but we also sense the difference between red and sweet, and that seems to require something bodily, okay? So Aristotle doesn't go directly from the outward senses to the reason, but he goes to the common sense, and then he sees finding the difference between the common sense and the images and reason, okay? But Plato's kind of on the way, the way there, right? He's trying to see whether the soul has some activity not through a bodily organ, okay? And Aristotle completes that work that Plato began, okay? When you read the Platonic Dialogue, you see, sometimes you see, you know, questions raised that are not fully answered, right? When you pick up Aristotle and get the answer to the question, and sometimes you see, you know, in the Dialogues, you're on the way to it, but not going all the way. Well, you see, we don't have any of Plato's lectures in the Academy. All we have is the Dialogues, huh? And some people say the Dialogues are written to be read by people coming into the Academy. That you would read the Dialogues under the direction of a student already in the Academy. And after you had exercised your mind in the Dialogues, and you had all kinds of interesting thoughts and questions, then you wanted to get into the Academy. You're really an eager beaver student, right? But also, if you didn't really absorb the Dialogues, you would not have been into the Academy, huh? And so it's supposed to have been a sign of the Academy, too. Let no one ignorant of geometry come in here. Right. See? But did Plato, in the lectures in the, what, Academy, get further than in these problems, or in these questions and answering them, than in the Dialogues, right? See? Now, we see that Aristotle got further, huh? Yeah. But what took place in the Academy, Aristotle was there 20 years in the Academy, huh? See? And did Plato go further in the Dialogues? We have no information, really, about that, huh? You know? Yeah. We kind of think he didn't get further in the Dialogues, but who knows, right? Mm-hmm. You see? But there is a kind of continuity between these two great thinkers, huh? Mm-hmm. And Plato is supposed to have said, Aristotle is the mind of the school. Oh. And some of the later Dialogues of Plato, some people think there's already an influence of Aristotle there, but, you know, but we can never know those things exactly, right? Mm-hmm. See? But there is a kind of development there. And the more you read Aristotle, the more you read Plato, if you know Aristotle, you're how Aristotle develops this thing further in some work, huh? Sure. And you realize how much he got from Plato, right? I mean, Aristotle was no fool. He wouldn't have spent 20 years in the school of Plato if there wasn't something to be learned in that school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He left when Plato died, huh? Mm-hmm. So Aristotle came in at the age of, what, 17 and left about the age of 37. Oh. Okay. But Pusippus there, the nephew, I guess, of Plato, took over the academy, but he had to be an Athenian citizen, which Aristotle was not, right? Mm-hmm. But later on, Aristotle came back to Athens and set up his school, the Lyceum, right? So, that's where you get that word, Lyceum, huh? Mm-hmm. You read Lincoln's speeches, right? And you see his speeches at the Lyceum here in this or that city, right? Yeah. Kind of a place where people would go for some cultural event, so to speak, right? Mm-hmm. But that name Lyceum is derived from Aristotle's school. When I was a little boy in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the downtown movie theaters was called the Lyceum Theater. I didn't know it was named after Aristotle's school, but, okay. But the academy is such a famous school that the academic world is named from that. And I went to a high school called an academy, and many people did go to schools called academies, but the name comes from Plato's school. So, as I tell the students, you know, you should know something about Plato. Yeah. Okay. So, he says, therefore, the intellectual principle, which is called the mind or the understanding, has an operation, per se, right, by itself, right, meaning not in the body, right, to which the body does not, what, communicate, right? Now, he reasons from that to the kind of existence it has, which is its subsistence, right? But nothing is able to, what, do something by itself, right, that does not subsist by itself, right? See the way he's reasoning? Sure. See? He's reasoning backwards, huh? Okay. For to do something only belongs to something, to a being that is actually existing, right? Okay. Whence in the way something acts or operates, in that way it is, right? Or something acts in the way that it is. Oh, yeah. Can you consider... Whence in that way something, what, operates, in which it is. Okay? But it's the idea that if the soul's way of existing was only in the body, right, then it could only do something in the body and through the body, right? But if it does something not in the body, right, and through the body, then its existence, right, which is presupposed to its doing this, right, is not just in the body. Do you see that? Make sense? Can you go through that sentence again? The one I just read? Yes. Non-enum. Okay. For it does not... Non-enum est. Something is unable, you could say, really. Okay. To operate, unless there be a being and act, right? Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Sure. Whence ill-modal, in that way, right, something operates in which it is. Something operates in which it is. Yeah. I don't understand that. In which it is, quote, as... Well, you're saying there, huh? In the way something exists, right, it operates, right? Because it has to exist before it can operate, huh? So if it exists only in the body, if its existence is only in the body, then it's going to only operate in the body. Body, yeah. But, in fact, it operates in understanding, not in the body. Therefore, its existence is not only in the, what, body. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Does that quo go back to eomodo? Ingo. Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah. Eomodo is referring to operata, right? Once in that way something operates, right? Yeah. Quo est, in which it is. Right. Okay? The word over there is a little more Latin, huh? Yeah. We used to always joke about it, because people who read Thomas a lot, when they write their philosophy in English, you know, you'd kind of see the influence, you know, of the word order or the Latin grammar, you know, and it's a little bit strange, right? Sometimes, huh? But, I'm translating it very literally the way the order goes here, right? You could say, in English, in the way a thing is, so does it, what, act or operate, huh? Yeah. Okay? So, notice what he's doing, huh? He's reasoning from the operation of the understanding, right, to the understanding itself being immaterial, right? Mm-hmm. And, because the soul has a power or an ability that's not a body, right, that shows its existence is not just, what, tied to the body, huh? Okay? Yeah. Expression of agere sequitoresse, right? Is it more or less? Yeah. Yeah. That's what he's saying here, in the study of different words than what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. You must be before you can do something. Okay? It's the only joke, you know, where these people have been kind of confused by modern philosophy, you know, and they always tell the story. The student raises his hand in class, and he asks the professor, you know, do I exist? The professor says, who's asking? Hehehehe. Hehehehe. Hehehehe. Hehehehe. Hehehehe. Hehehehe. Hehehehe. Hehehehe. So, you've got to be somewhat slow if you don't see the points, you see. But obviously if you're asking something, right? You're in that kind of an activity, right? You don't have to be understanding something, just asking something, you must, what? Exist. Exist, right? Yeah. Now, you could develop a whole series of arguments for the understanding, the universal understanding being immaterial, if you understand the, what, connection between the body and the continuous, right, and the non-continuous character of what? Thinking and thought, right? Okay. Now, one thing that we see about the continuous, what's the definition of the continuous? I think we studied that before, didn't we? Yeah. One definition. Yeah, and the categories Aristotle gives that definition of the continuous, huh? That whose parts meet at a common boundary. If you take the left and the right side here of the line, those two parts meet at a point, right? And Aristotle contrasts that with the discrete quantity of a number, right? So if you take the number 7 and take any part you want, let's say 3 and 4 or 2 and 5, do they meet at a point or somewhere, the 2 and the 5 or the 3 and the 4? No. So that's the way it distinguishes between continuous quantity, which is studied in geometry, right? And numbers, discrete quantities it's called, which you study in arithmetic, right? Rhythmic technique. Now, you could have something continuous in two dimensions, okay? Like a circle or a square or something, right? But if I take the left and the right side of the circle, they meet at a what? Line, right? I could take the left and right or I could take the diagonal here, right? But if I take the diagonal of the rectangle or the parallelogram, the two sides meet at that what? Yeah. Okay? Now, what's the other definition of the continuous, huh? Which is divisible? Forever. And so, if you just consider the straight line, you can divide that in half, or you can take half of the half and half of the half, right? And the only way that could stop would be if you cut it into, what? Two nothings. Or if you cut it into two points, right? But so long as you cut a line into shorter lines, they can always be, what? Divide it again. As long as you have length, right? But those other two proposals there, could you cut a straight line into two nothings? Could something be made out of nothing? No. No. So when you cut a straight line, you don't end up with two nothings. Could you have a straight line composed of two points? No, because it's not continuous. Well, the point is that if two points touched, right, the only way they could touch you would be to coincide. You couldn't have two points, you know, overlapping, like two circles can overlap, because then the point would have some, what? Cut. Size, right? Okay. And you couldn't have the whole one touching part of the other, because they don't have any parts. And you can't really distinguish between a point and its, what, edge, because then you'd be imagining the point to be a little circle. Sure. So the point has no parts, it has no length, no width, no depth, but it does have position, right? Okay? So, if you bring, you put two points together, they're going to coincide. And in that case, they'll have no more length than one point, which is no length at all, right? So, that's the other definition of the continuous, that which is divisible forever, right? And that's also contrary to what you have in the case of the number, because you can divide seven into three and four, and four into two and two, and two into one, one, but the one is not, what, divisible, huh? Okay? Let's go back to the top of one line, we've been talking about the continuous, right? But the one that's the beginning of a number is simpler than a point. At least a point has position. But, in fact, sometimes the ancients would say that a point is a unit having position. So there's more involved in the point than in the one. So if the point is indivisible, the one is indivisible. So, you could also say that the number, its parts don't meet at a common boundary, like in the first definition, and it's not divisible, what, forever. And therefore, in the first book, and I probably didn't read it, the Danima, Aristotle says that thoughts are like, what, numbers, huh? Okay? Now, why are thoughts like numbers, huh? Well, when you define, huh, or when you reason, huh, are these divisible forever? Does every statement have a statement before it? Well, if every statement was in need of being proven, no statement could be proven. Right. Yeah. Right? Right. Because someone would say, well, the statements you use to prove any statement, before you use them to prove it, you've got to prove them first. Yeah. And then the same thing would be said about the statements used to prove that, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? So there'd be an infinity of unproven statements if we're in a statement. Mm-hmm. So you never know any statement, right? Yeah. But do we know some statements? Mm-hmm. I'd like to say, statements exist. Mm-hmm. I know that's true. And if someone wants to say the statements do not exist, he's making a statement, right? Mm-hmm. So it's very frustrating, right? Mm-hmm. To say we know no statements, huh? So it's those statements that are known that show us that not all statements are native proof. And therefore, it's not visible forever, this reasoning process. You can't keep on analyzing it into previous statements forever. The same with definition, right? You know, sometimes, you know, I tell students, you know, Shakespeare's exhortation used reason. It's written in blank verse. And I say, now, you all know what blank verse is? I know. Well, I say, well, blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter. You know all know what an im is? No. Well, an im is two syllables with the accent on the second syllable, okay? Now, you all know what an accent is. But if this went on forever, right, and that every part of every definition was in need of being defined, could you ever define anything? Then definition would be impossible, right? But that means you wouldn't know what a definition is either, could you? You wouldn't understand what that sentence means. Mm-hmm. The guy who says that every definition, he supposed a definition, what does he mean by definition? Because he couldn't know what it means without defining what a definition is, but he couldn't define what a definition is without defining its parts, and he couldn't define those without defining their parts, and so on forever. So you can never begin to know what anything is, huh? And you know the other thing that I take sometimes, huh? It's like this, I'm a little more concrete. When I'm reading, say, and I come across a word whose meaning is unknown to me, in English I'm really sure. I'm really sure. in Greek or something like that. I go to the dictionary, right? And the dictionary explains to me that word, right? Using other words, right? Now, did we learn the meanings of all words in that way? Well, you come into this world knowing no names, huh? Knowing no words, right? So the first words you learn, can you learn them from other words? So there must be some words that are learned not through other words. And those words, of course, are the ones that we learn through our senses, right? By associating a certain sound with something we sense, huh? Want a cookie, huh? I used to have a tape of that with my little firstborn. So you can't know every word through other words, right? If that was so, you'd never know, what, any words, huh? Couldn't get started to know words, right? Okay? So thoughts are like numbers rather than like the continuous, huh? They're not divisible forever, huh? Now, what about the other definition of continuous, huh? Do thoughts meet at a common boundary? Yeah. But one number comes before or after the number, too, right? Is there a, like the definition of triangle, right? So it's just a triangle is a three-sided plane figure. Now, does three-sided and plane figure, do they meet at a point? If they did meet at a point, this would be a, what? A line, right? Do they meet at a line? Do they meet at a plane? So the definition is not, what? Continuous, is it? Okay? But I'm defining a continuous thing here, aren't I? So I know a continuous thing in an uncontinuous way. Do you see that? I know a continuous thing, a triangle, in the form of a definition, right? That's the way I know distinctly what a triangle is. But the definition is not continuous. So I know a continuous thing in an uncontinuous way. Now, is that because of the thing I'm knowing? The thing I'm knowing in this case is something continuous, right? So if reason knows a continuous thing in an uncontinuous way, it's not because the thing known is not continuous. It must be because reason, then, is what? Not continuous. And it's not continuous, it's not a what? A body, right? Do you see that? So that's one way, right, huh? Do you know what a straight line is? I think you all know what a straight line is, don't you? Yes. Okay. Do you know what a straight line is? Now, how long is what a straight line is? You mean this is not a straight line? How long is what a straight line is? Is it one inch long or is it two inches long? Or what is it? If what a straight line is was a straight line, it would have to have some length, right? In which case, what a straight line is would not be common to all straight lines, would it? Okay. So I'm understanding what a straight line is. I'm understanding something that's continuous in one dimension, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm understanding it's not, what? Continuous, huh? Hmm. Now, another way of looking at this, you know, if I say, for example, in syllogism, if I say that every mother is a woman and no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a mother, right? If you affirm the same thing, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a woman, no man is a Just like in numbers, right, after three there is a next number, which is four, right, but in straight lines, is there a next longest line, is there a next longer line, and that's what the word next means, n-e-x-t, if I speak to my next door neighbor, right, the next door, is there any house between me and the next house? No. See? Okay. And, um, if I start here and I say this is the first chair, and then this is the next chair, right, is there any chair between this chair and the next chair? No. No. See? Well, in the case of straight lines, though, is there a next longer straight line? No, because any longer line I take, that difference in length is divisible forever, right? Yeah. So there's a line that's closer to the, when you started with, when I divide the added length, right, and there's one closer than that, and because it's divisible forever, is there the next longer line? In numbers, there's a next bigger number, right? Okay. There are many numbers bigger than three, but four is the next one that's bigger, right? Uh-huh. So thoughts, again, don't seem to be continuous, right? There's a next thought. Mm-hmm. See? There's no place to stop between these two statements, every mother is a woman, and no man is a woman, and the conclusion, no man is a what? Mother. In the same way of defining, right? If I start off with, let's say, quadrilateral, right? How many thoughts to get from quadrilateral to square? There are two, yeah. Equilateral and right-angled, right? There I am. There's not an infinity of thoughts between quadrilateral and, what, square, right, huh? There's a limited, right? No place, you can't, in other words, between two thoughts have an infinity of, what, intermediary thoughts. But between any two straight lines, one of which is longer than the other, there's an infinity of in-between points, huh? So the more you study this, what the continuous is, the two definitions of the continuous, the more you see the thought is not something continuous, and therefore it's not something, what, bodily, because the body is always something continuous. 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