De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 76: The Unity of the Intellect Against Averroism

Transcript
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And I always say, you know, the scandal is that they should have tried to prove the existence of the external world, huh? But because they think that, what? They have a little bit of the truth here. They think that the thing known must be in the knower before it's known, right? So I know only what's in my mind, and you know only what's in your mind, right? Your mind's not my mind, so. We're never knowing the same thing, right? But I mean, you guys have studied geometry, haven't you, a little bit, huh? You see, and you've studied the saucy triangle, aren't you, and the teacher? Or the two of you thinking about this theorem, aren't you thinking about the same thing? Right? How can that be, right? You're trying to get some of your stuff in your mind to all mine. Yeah. And it's like, you know, if you have two mirrors here, right, your face could appear in both mirrors at the same time, right? So there's an image of both. There's two images of you exactly alike there, aren't you, two beings? And thus it'll be individually numbered. This argument's been seen a little bit differently than the moderns are. And it'll be understood in potency only, because the individual is only understood in potency. And it'll be necessary to abstract a common intention, a common thought from both, because from diverse things it is possible to abstract something common and understandable, which is against the notion of the understanding, because thus it would not seem to be distinguishing the intellect or the understanding from the imaginative power. Again, he's arguing here that it's going to be something individual, right? In your mind and my mind, right? It seems, therefore, to remain that there is one understanding of all men. Now, the fifth objection. When the disciple gets knowledge from the teacher, it cannot be said that the knowledge of the teacher generates knowledge in the disciple, because thus knowledge would be an active form like heat. So does this knowledge in the teacher generate knowledge in you, the way heat in the stove there generates heat in the water, the way it is? We wage. This is a clarity of false, right? Right. It seems, therefore, that the same in number is a knowledge which is in the teacher, and this is communicated to the disciple, which cannot be unless there is one understanding of both. It seems, therefore, that there is one intellect or one understanding for the teacher and the student, and consequently, there is one understanding of all men. On the sixth objection, let's do the problem for the text there. Norbert Gustin says in the book on the quantity of the soul, if I say there are many human souls, I will, what? Black human souls. Yeah. Okay. But he means there are not many, what, individual souls, he's going to laugh at, but many, what, souls in kind, right, huh? Right, complete substances. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, some of you might think that the white man and the black man have got a different kind of soul or something, right, huh? Oh, okay. You see? Right. Now, against all this is what the philosopher, and I guess that's by Antoinette Messiah, Aristotle, right? But against this is what the philosopher says in the second book of physics, the second book of naturalism, that as universal causes are to universals, so particular causes are to particulars. This is what Aristotle talks about, how causes and effects are what? Proportional, right? But it is impossible that there be one soul in species that is of diverse animals according to species. Therefore, it is impossible that the understanding soul be one in number, one in number, be of diverse animals, right? Diverse things according to number. So if you have many individuals or many particular animals, you've got to have many, what, particular souls, right? Because the soul is the form of the body. You see what he's saying? He's reasoning there from the proportion. I answer it ought to be said now, that for there to be one understanding of all men, or one understanding soul, right? Take it either way, is altogether impossible. Thomas got some sense. I'm sure Chet said I like this. And this, to be sure, is clear, if according to the position of Plato, right, man is the, what, understanding soul itself, huh? For it would follow that if Socrates and Plato, there's only one understanding, only one understanding soul, then Socrates and Plato would be, what, one man, right? And they would not be distinguished by, from each other, except by something that was outside, the essence, the nature, what it is, and both, huh? And therefore the distinction of Socrates and Plato would be not any other than a man, what, with his clothes and what? What's Kapati there? It says one man with a tunic and another with a cloak. Yeah, yeah. There's something outside, right? So, um, like between you and me, right? You've got that, black thing, and I've got this shirt here and pants and so on. That'd be the only difference between you and I, right? Because you'd really be one man, right? One understanding soul, which is absurdum. Which is omnino absurdum, right? It says, Thomas, I'm trying to prove that I'm not you. Right? And that I differ from you only by the clothing I'm wearing. Something entirely outside what I am, right? Likewise, it is clear that this is impossible if, according to the position of Aristotle, the understanding is posited to be a part or a power of the soul, which is the form of man. For it is impossible of many differing in number that there be just one, what, form, right? Just as it is impossible that there be one, what, being or existence, right? Because form is the, what, beginning of being, the principle of being, yeah. So if my existence is not your existence, right, then the form by which I exist and the form by which you exist cannot be the, what, same, right, huh? Okay? You can now get a little bit of copy it here, but follow through here a little bit. Likewise, huh? It is clear that this is impossible in whatever way one posits the union of the understanding to this or to that man. For it is manifest that if there be one chief agent, huh, and two fools, there would be said to be one agent simply with many actions, as if one man were to touch diverse things by two hands. There would be one touching, but two what? Yeah. If, in reverse, the instrument was one and the principle agents diverse, there would be said to be many agents, but one, what, action, huh? Just if many by one, what, rope or something, huh? Were drawing a ship. There would be many drawing, but one, what? One drawing, huh? But if the agent, the principle agent is one and the tool is one, there would be said to be one agent and one actor. Just as one mason or whatever is carpenter, by one hammer strikes, and there is one striking and one striking. It is manifest over that in whatever way the ill intellect is united or joined to this or that man, it's clear the intellect, among other things which pertain to man, has what? Principality, right, huh? There's the chief, right? For the sense powers obey the understanding and serve it. If therefore it's posited that there are many intellects and one sense of two men, for example, if two men had one eye, there would be many, what, seeing, but one, what, vision, huh? It sounds like a trinity, doesn't it? Is there, in fact, is there three understandings or just one act of understanding? One. Just one act of understanding, yeah. Three understanding, huh? Yeah. But if the understanding is one, no matter how much I diversified other things, which the intellect uses as tools, in no way would Socrates and Plato be except one understanding. I'm always going through all this rigmarole, right? But see, Avera was trying to explain this in this way. He said that there's one understanding for all of us. Right. But you understand that what it is is something imagined, right? Yeah. And the images in your head are not the images in my head, right? Right. And therefore, he said, well, then my understanding is not your understanding. Thomas says, well, if you had one understanding, but different images in your head and in my head, I have an image of a triangle, you have an image of a square, so I understand the triangle and you understand the square. No. The diversity there of the tools, you might say the images, in which it considers what a triangle is, would not make, in the understanding itself, there to be two different understandings. It would just be one understanding for you and me, huh? Yeah. Okay. Okay? Okay. And he's going to compare later on the fact that I could imagine, what, a number of triangles when I'm thinking about what a triangle is. There's still one understanding, right? Yeah. Even though the triangles imagined are many, right? Yeah. Okay. See? So the same way as if you had an image of a triangle, I had an image of a triangle, there's only one understanding. I had two understandings because there's two images of the triangle. It would still be one and the same understanding for both of us. Yeah. Okay. He says, if the intellect or understanding is one, no matter in what way or to what extent I diversify other things, all those other things which the understanding uses were as tools, right? And also, he speaks of tools because when you try to understand what a triangle is, you naturally what? Imagine a triangle, right? Okay? And you understand what it is of the triangle you've imagined. So you're using, right, that image, right, in which to consider what you're understanding. Right. And he's saying, if those tools are multiplied in your head and my head, that wouldn't give us, just because of the multiplication of images, a different understanding, one for you and one for me, if there's only one understanding, right? And if we add, he said, what we've seen before, that understanding itself, which is the action of the understanding, okay? And maybe put in English so you see the grammatical difference. And if we add that to understand itself, right, or to understand itself, that is an action of the understanding that doesn't come about through some organ rite, except through the understanding itself, it would follow further that there is one agent and one action. That is that all men were one understanding, and there was one to understand of all of them. I say it with respect to the same understandable. Now, one could diversify the action of the intellectual action, mine and yours, through the diversity of what? Images. This is what Vera was trying to do, right? Because other is the image of stone in me, and other in you. If that image, according as it is other in me and other in you, were the very form of the possible understanding, right? The ability to understand. Yeah. Because the same agent, by diverse forms, produces diverse actions. Just as by diverse forms of things with respect to the same eye, there are diverse, what? Visions, right? Well, as we saw before, the image is not the form of the understanding that's able to understand. Yeah. But it's the understandable form that is separated from the, what? Images. In one understanding, from diverse species of the same kind, there is not abstracted except one understandable form, just as in one man it appears, in which there are able to be diverse images of a stone, or diverse images of a, what? Circle or triangle, right? Mm-hmm. And nevertheless, from all of these, there is separated or extracted one understandable form of, what? Stone. Stone. Through which the understanding of one man, of one operation, understands the nature of the stone, notwithstanding the diversity of, what? Images, right? So he said, if therefore one understanding were of all men, the diversity of images, which are in this man and that one, could not cause, right, a diversity of the operation of understanding itself, right? Right. Of this man and of that man, as a commentator, and that's what? Antonomousia for, what? Averwes. Averwes. It's not that Thomas would more willingly, would be more, what, appropriately called the commentator, right? But he was commonly referred to as a commentator in those days, right? Because among the Arab philosophers whose works had come into Europe, right, he had commented on, I guess, just about everything he was still written, right? Or more so than anybody else said, right? So he became known as the commentator, right? Okay. But that's Averwes, right? But notice what he says, as a commentator, finget in 3D anima. Now, how does your text translate, finget? I don't see where you are. I almost said it was at the end of the body of the article here, right? Yeah. The commentator might say Averwes. I don't see that at all. I mean, I see reply to objection one. Are you above that? Yeah. I'm still in the body of the article. Last couple sentences. Right before it remains there for that altogether impossible. It's the last sentence. So I don't see a commentator. Did your text use the word commentator in there or not? Did you see Averwes? What did they say? This is the last sentence. Yeah, either commentator or commentator. Yeah. What do they translate? It's a modern English one. I mean, I don't know. It wouldn't mean anything to anyone. Yeah, it looks like they don't... Just leave it out. They don't name it at all? Yeah, they don't... They drop that sentence. They go from, Therefore, if there were one intellect, follow a man of the diversity of phantasm, which are in this one and that one, would not cause the diversity of an artificial operation in this man or that man. It follows, therefore, that. Oh, okay. Now, they looked it out. Okay, that's strange. Let's see. Let me see you again. Yeah. Yeah. It says, Si ergo, if therefore, unus intellectus, esset. There was one understanding, right? Yeah. Omnium hominum of all men. Right. The diversity, diversitas phantasmatum, the diversity of phantasms or images, right? Which are quesud and hokin and illo, which are in this man and that one, right? None poset was not able, causare, to cause, a diversitatum intellectualis operationis, a diversity of intellectual operation, who use et ilius homis, of this man, that man, right? Right. As the ut commentator, the capital C, phinjit, f-i-n-g-i-t, which means? In 3D animal. Well, that's the same word, the word friction from, right? Oh. Phinjit, right? See? Yeah. And, uh, In English, you know, fiction, in the native English, more we speak as something is what's made up, right? Yeah. But it's the idea of the imagination, right? Now, see, he imagines it because you have a different image than I have. We have an image in you, an image in me. But therefore, the understanding of you and of me would be, what, different, right? But the images are not in the understanding, right? Right. And what the understanding knows is something separated from the images, something universal. So there'd be one thought for both of us, right? And not two thoughts because there are two images. And Thomas makes a comparison there, right? When I look at that first theorem, say, in Euclid there, you know, the first theorem there where he says, on a straight line to construct an equilateral triangle, right? Remember that theorem? Not really. You mentioned it earlier, right? Well, it's the first theorem in book one, okay? All right. Okay, he says, now, he says, take this end point here of the line as the center of a circle, and this is a radius, and rotate this line around here, right? Yeah. Okay. So you get a what? One circle. Circle, right? Yeah. And then he says, take the other end point, and the same radius, and construct another circle by rotating that line around that end point, right? Yeah. And then he says, when the two circles intersect, that point draws a straight line to the two end points. Yeah. Okay? That's the way you construct an equilateral triangle on a straight line. But now, you have to prove that the triangle so constructed is equilateral, right? Right. Right. And you can prove that this line and this line are equal because they're radii of the same circle. Circle. So you put it in the form of a syllogism, right? Radii of the same circle are equal. Yeah. These lines are radii of the same circle. Therefore, they're equal, right? Yeah. And then you can prove that this line and this line here are equal. Yeah. Because they're both radii of the same circle. Yeah. So you have exactly the same syllogism, right? Yeah. Radii of the same circle are equal. Yeah. These two lines are radii of the same circle, right? Yeah. Now, do I have two different thoughts of what a circle is when I do that? No. See, I've imagined two circles, right? Right. I have two circles exactly the same size or anything. Right. But what a circle is, is one. And because they have two images on them, and if I had a circle here and a circle here, if you have the same size, I'd still have one thought of what a circle is. Yep. And so, what understands as one thought, no matter how many images are the same, you have. I don't have two thoughts of what a circle is, because you have two images, right? Right. I don't have two thinking what a circle is. Right. There's only one thing in this place. Right. Well, then, the commentator, Averro is trying to say, because you have an image of a circle, right? Right. And you have an image of a circle, and your image is not his image, right? Right. And then both of you understand what a circle is, through this common reason or understanding that you share in some way, right? Right. And you're connected with it, because you both have an image, and this mind is understanding what it is of that thing imagined, right? But is there two thoughts in this one common mind, and two thinkings, because there's two images out there? There will be one thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Thomas is saying, he's what? He's being like a poet, right? Yeah. See? He's making this up. If you read the De Unitat de Intellectus, Contra Veravista Sam, that's one of Thomas' major works, right? On the unity of the intellect, right? Right. Against the Veravista Sam, at this time. It's a very common mistake, those running to the universities, huh? Okay. So, just like we're always talking about the eve of abortion, right, huh? Okay? Because it's a common thing in our time, right, huh? Okay. Go back to Thomas, he'll talk about the eve of abortion, maybe someplace, but he doesn't constantly, what? Not coming up everywhere, you know? But this is coming up everywhere because the Veravists are, what? Over the place. Over the place. Yeah. Okay? Mm-hmm. And this is like Plato's, did the Veravists get this idea from Plato? Is he mixing that up? Well, I'm saying there's a little confusion in Plato or in Socrates, right? If, on the one hand, he holds to the theory of the forms, right, and sees that in complete immaterial substances, right, they're kind of two of the same kind, right? Right. And then, either he's going to have to think that the human soul, like Aristotle, whom has a truth hazard, is not a complete immaterial substance, right? Mm-hmm. But it's the, what? The one. It's the first act of an actual body composed of tools. Or he's going to have to, what? Say, there is something complete, but we have only, what, one soul then, right? Only one understanding substance here. Well, then you've got a problem. How do you understand? And not just the immaterial substance, this angel, right? It's like when I was a little boy, I used to have these pictures there, you know, you've probably seen the pictures kind of, he said we could do some time to time. There's a little boy and girl going across the bridge, right? Yeah. And there's a garden angel there over there, you know. Like you had one garden angel for the two kids, right? Okay. But you had this one separated substance, right, that is doing the thinking for both of you. Well, then, how does it become the thinking of both of you? Well, if Ereus has to finge it, right, he has to imagine some way that it is, right? Right. Well, he sees what Aristotus says there, that the understanding understands of what it is as something imagined, right? So if there's a multiplication of images, then there's a multiplication somehow of what? Understanding, right? Well, that has many defects in it, because the thought and the understanding is not in the image, right? Right. As he argued before, the image is more like the object, right? Yeah. And before something is actually understandable, it has to be separated from the image and become what? Universal. So insofar as it's in the image, it's not actually understood. And vice versa, insofar as it's actually understood, it's not in the image, right? So he's kind of imagining that this multiplicity of images somehow or other enables us to have what? Two understandings, right? Because I have this image of a triangle, then I partake of the understanding of the separate substance. And you also have an image of a triangle, so you also partake of this, right? Like, so-and-so doesn't have an image of a triangle, she doesn't understand a triangle yet. But then, even if we did understand it by this other mind, it would be, my understanding what a triangle is, would be your understanding what a triangle is, right? It wouldn't just be the same in kind, it would be the same understanding. Yeah. That when I understand what a triangle is, and you understand what a triangle is, it would be the same, what? Understanding. Numerically. Right? It's not just that I have a similar thinking to your thinking, but my thinking would be your thinking. Right, yeah. And he's in some sense wants to say that my thinking is not your thinking because my image is not your image. Yeah, okay. But that doesn't suffice, as Thomas says, to give you two, what? Thinkings. Yeah, that's right. Any more than the two triangles here suffices to give me two thinking of what a circle is. Okay? Very subtle, right? Yeah. But he was dealing with the very, very subtle, very subtle, very subtle, very subtle, very When Thomas goes through, if you look with the Unitatium Delectus Controverisitus, he begins by saying that just as man has a natural desire to know the truth, he has a natural desire to avoid error and to repel it when he can, right? That's when he begins to attack the Averroists and then, you know, he will refute their position, right? But because they try to also use the authority of Aristotle, right? He goes through the text of Aristotle and the dynamic shows that he doesn't agree, right? And it's very thorough, what Thomas says, it's very convincing. And Thomas says, finally, you know, he wonders, quam leviter errant, how likely they err. But it's amazing, you know, I mean, the likes that some of these mistakes or errors have. Yeah. It's amazing. So Thomas, you know, often you read the Comenters of the Dianema, he'll make, you know, a digression of the text he's through commenting on Aristotle's text, he'll make a digression there, and refute again the Averroists, right? So, it's such a common thing. He speaks in the Latin Averroists, he says, they speak as if wisdom began with them. Kind of a strong phrase, huh? You see? This is what every modern philosopher writes, huh? Really? It's like Conrad writes in his introduction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as if he's been lucky, you know, to hit upon the truth, you know, and everybody else has missed it up to this point. It all starts with meaning. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of curious, too, that all that came out of the Muslim world, it's not really a philosophical religion. Yeah, yeah. It's a disdain reason. Yeah, yeah. You know what that, yeah. Maybe they're just considered heretics on their own. Some of them are, yeah. There's a controversy, you know. What was that quote again? I speak as a... Wisdom began with them. That was St. Thomas said that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. About the other one. Okay. Now let's look at the reply to the objections here. The first objection was that there can't be many immaterial substances of the same kind, right? And the soul is an immaterial substance. Well, Thomas would agree that if you have a complete immaterial substance, right, there can't be two of the same kind. But the soul, although subsist and able to exist by itself, is proportioned to this body, as the form of a body. So he says, First, therefore, it should be said that although the understanding soul does not have a matter from which it is, right, in that way, just like the angel, right, nevertheless is the form of some matter which does not belong to the, what, angel, right? And therefore, according to the division of matter, there are many, what, souls of one kind, huh? So it's proportioned to that, right? But many angels of the same kind is altogether impossible, right? There are not able to be many angels of the same, what? Species. Yeah, same exact kind, huh? Mm-hmm. And the second objection was saying, Well, if you multiply the souls by the bodies, then when the bodies are gone, Yeah. then the distinction of the souls would disappear. Mm-hmm. And I was making that homely comparison there of the nuts and the bolts, right? But the bolts are made for this nut, right? Yeah. But it doesn't mean that the bolts would not be distinct one from another if the nuts were, what? Gone, yeah. Yeah. But still, it still has proportion to that particular bolt, nut. But to the second it should be said that each thing in this way has unity, in which it has being, huh? And you get to the fourth book of wisdom, you'll see this more fully. Aristotle will show how unity and being go together, right? And that's why things try to preserve their unity, just as they try to preserve their, what? Being. Being, yeah. So you divide something, right? And you destroy it, huh? So he's coming back to that principle. Each thing in that way has unity, in which it has being. And consequently, there is the same judgment about the multiplication of a thing, it's one or being many, and about his being. But it is manifest that the understanding soul is, according to its being, united to a body as a form. And nevertheless, as we saw in the previous question, we saw that the soul is subsistent. Nevertheless, with the body being destroyed, the understanding soul remains in its being. Well, in the same way, right, for the same reason, the multitude of souls is according to the multitude of the bodies. And nevertheless, the bodies being destroyed, the souls remain multiplied in their, what? Being, huh? So he's arguing, just as the being of the soul, right, is shared by the body, but it's a being that the soul has by itself, right? Not only in the body. So since unity falls upon being, the two go together, the soul has a unity, right? That the body shares in, but that the soul has by itself. And so the same way for the multiplicity, which is a number of, what? Many ones, huh? So there are many souls, there are many existences, there are many unities, right? And therefore, if the existence is independent of the body, then the unity is. Okay? But nevertheless, you can say that, what? It's made for that body, right? Mm-hmm. Proportional of that body. In the resurrection, you don't have to worry about my soul getting into your body, or vice versa. Like I have these stupid TV dramas sometimes. Now, the third objection was based on the fact that if my understanding is individual, right, then how do you understand the universal, right? Thomas says, To the third it should be said that the individuation of the one understanding, or of the form by which it understands, does not exclude the understanding of universals. Otherwise, right, since the separated understanding, the separated substances, are subsisting substances and therefore individuals, they would not either be able to understand the universals, huh? So by having a separated, what, substance that understands for all of us, he's not going to avoid that substance being an individual, right? And so the same objection would apply to that. But the materiality, huh, the material character of the one knowing and of the form by which it knows is what impedes knowledge of the, what, universal. The fact that it's in this or that part of matter, right? For just as every action is according to the mode of the form by which the agent acts, as heating according to the mode of the heat. So knowledge is according to the mode of the form by which the knower knows. But it is manifest that the common nature is distinguished and multiplied by the individuating principles, which are on the side of matter. If, therefore, the form by which there is knowledge were material, not separated from the conditions of matter, it would be a likeness of the nature of the species of the genus, according as that nature is distinct and multiplied through individuating principles. And thus it would not be able to know the nature of the thing in its community. But if the species is separated from the conditions of individual matter, separated from the continuous, it would be a likeness of the nature without those things which distinguish and multiply it. And thus it would know the universal. And it does not make any difference, as far as this is concerned, whether there's one understanding or many. Because even if there's one only, it would be necessary for it to be some individual, right? And the species to which it understands is something individual. So the species being something immaterial can be a likeness of the, what, universal, right? What's common to many. In the same way, if you look at the definition, right? What's the definition of circle? It's a plane figure contained by one line, every point of which is equidistant from a point interior called the center. Now, is that a definition of this circle over here on the left? Or is it the one on the right that's the definition? Oh, it's both. Well, in a way, it's neither, right? Because what separates the here or there is left out of the definition of circle, right? The definition is a likeness of what is common to both of those circles, right? So though my definition is in my mind, right? In that sense, it's a definition, an individual definition, right? It's a definition of what is universal. It's a likeness of what is universal. And so the understandable form, the form which I understand, it's a likeness of the universal. If it were material, it would have to be a likeness only of a what? Individual. Because it would involve that which makes something individual. Now, the fourth was something like that, the same difficulty there. To the fourth, it should be said that with the understanding as one are many, that which is understood as one. For that which is understood is not in the understanding by itself, right? But according to its likeness. For the stone is not in the soul, as Aristotle says, but the form of the stone, as it said in the third book about the soul. And nevertheless, the stone is that which is understood, not the, what, species of stone, the form of stone, except by the reflection of the understanding upon itself. Otherwise, the sciences would not be about things, but about the understandable forms. But it could happen that to one thing, diverse things could be assimilated by diverse, what? Forms, huh? Just like when I take that cookie press, right? All these cookies are what? Like the one, what? Form cutter. Yeah, yeah. So it's possible for many things to be a likeness of the, what, same thing. And because knowledge comes about through the assimilation of the one knowing to the thing known, it follows that by diverse things, huh? Excuse me. That the same thing is able to be known by diverse knowers, right? As is clear in the case of the senses. For many seeing the same color, for many see the same color by different, what? Likenesses, huh? Or they hear the same music, right, huh? And likewise, many understandings understand the same thing understood. But there's this difference between the sense and the understanding, according to the position of Aristotle, that a thing is sensed according to that disposition which it has outside the soul, in its, what, particularity, right? For the nature of the thing which is understood is outside the soul, but it does not have that way of being outside the soul in which it is understood. For one understands the common nature, leaving aside the individuating principles. But it does not have this way of being outside the soul. So the thing is universal when it's, what, in the understanding, right? Outside the understanding, it's singular. But according to the position of Plato, and in World of Forms, right, the thing understood in that way is outside the soul, which is understood. For he posited that the natures of things are separated from matter and even outside of our soul, right? That goes back to that central question of philosophy. Remember that one? Does truth require, right? I know if you're off of it, that's what you did before. I'll back to your kitchen. Thank you. I don't think I was here for this. Does required we know be the way things are? Require that the way we know be the way things are? I call that the central question of philosophy. I call it the central question of philosophy because just as all the radii of the circle meet at the center of the circle, right? So everything the philosopher talks about and his goal come together in this question. Because the philosopher talks either about the way things are, like the way the soul is, for example, right? Or the way natural things are, or in political philosophy, the way political things are, and so on. Or we talk about the way we know, like the magic and so on. And the end of the philosopher is to know the truth. So this is a question that brings together what the philosopher talks about and his inner goal. Now, there are two possible answers to this question, which are... Yes. Yes and no. Plato seems to be answering yes, and Aristotle is answering. So this is something that separates the two chief philosophers. And you could go down through the history of philosophy, maybe the history of philosophy before, but to go down through the history of philosophy, you could say, does Plato or Aristotle have more followers? And probably you could point out more people who are following Plato. Yeah. Now, in Aristotle, I think the reason why we'd be apt to answer yes to this question is because we all have in mind the truth in some ways, the agreement of the mind with things. Yeah. The harmony of the mind with things. And so that might make you think that the way we know has to be the way things are, otherwise the mind is not in harmony or agreement with things. Well, what the soul or what the reason says about things has to agree with them, right? So, when reason says that what is, is, and what is not, is not, then it's saying the truth. Right? When it says what is, is not. Or what is not is, then it's saying falsehood, right? But, the first place where we saw there in natural philosophy, Aristotle touching upon this, was when he talked about mathematical abstraction and so on. And he raised the question there, can reason know in distinction? Can reason truly know in distinction, in separation, things that don't exist in separation? Now, when Thomas explains that, you'll start with something, we have two things that are joined accidentally. Like, for example, I am a philosopher and I am a grandfather. Okay. Now, can you know that I am a philosopher without knowing anything about my being a grandfather? And vice versa, can the nurse there at the hospital know me truly to be a grandfather and know nothing about my being a philosopher? Yeah. So, by being a philosopher or my being a grandfather, both of which are found in me, one can be known without the other, right? Or my being white, huh? Without my being a philosopher or vice versa, right? Okay. Now you see this in a way in the senses beforehand. The eye knows the whiteness of the sugar without its sweetness. The sense of taste knows the sweetness of the sugar without its what? Now is, you could say, the knowledge of the eye is incomplete. It doesn't know everything that's in the sugar, right? But is it false? No. Incomplete knowledge is not the same thing as being false. Now if I said, you know, that the sugar is not sweet, then I'd be false, right? Or if I said the sugar is not white, I'd be false. But saying it's white, leaving out that it's sweet or vice versa, there's no falsity there, right? So, Aristotle's pointing out that we can know things in separation that don't exist in separation, right? Now in the case of mathematics, if I had an ice cube here, and a wooden cube, and a plastic cube, and so on, Aristotle would say, you can understand that shape of cube without plastic, without wood, without what? Now, in the world, does there exist a cube that is not wooden or plastic or some other material? Or you can understand a sphere without rubber ball, without steel, ball, or marble, like a marble you played with as a kid. Even though it doesn't exist in the world, even though it doesn't exist in the world, a sphere that isn't either a glass one or a rubber one or a wooden one or a plastic or some other material, right? Okay? Aristotle says, if it can be understood without that, right? Now notice, that piece is different from the white and the sweet, because I could understand a sphere without rubber ball, but I couldn't understand a rubber ball without a sphere. So one is understandable without the other, but not vice versa, right? Well, likewise, can I understand what's common to you and I, leaving aside the differences between you and I? Can I know what a white man and a black man have in common, leaving aside whiteness and blackness and the other color that a man might have? Aristotle says the falsity would come if you said the way we understand man, in separation from black and white and all the colors, we're to say that therefore, in reality, there's a man that is neither white nor black nor yellow nor any other color, right? But I can understand what's common to you and the black man and the yellow man, right? Leaving aside your, what, differences, huh? Now the same way you can say about order, right? Can I know things truly in the reverse order that they come in reality? Well, Chuck Holmes says we're going to have to reason backwards, huh? And Watson says, what do you mean? We're going to have to reason from the effect back to the cause. Is our mind false in knowing the effect before the cause? When in things, the cause is before the effect. A murder has been committed, whodunny. We're working our way back, right? As I say to the students, I know you before I know your parents. And I might know your parents before I know your grandparents. Am I false in knowing you before I know your parents? When your parents came before you, right? But in my knowledge, you come before your parents. The falsity that would come is if you attributed to things the order of your knowing. Because you are before your parents in my knowledge, therefore in the real world, you came before your parents. That's what Hegel does. So, you can see a bit in those things, huh? That the way we know doesn't have to be the way things are. We can know things in distinction that don't exist in what? Yeah. We can know things in even the contrary order, which they are, right? We know the effect before the cause, huh? Okay? Or I know what? Water before hydrogen, right? But if water is in fact H2O, then hydrogen is before water, right? But after in my knowledge. Is my knowledge false? No. No. The falsity would come if you identified the two. Now you read Spinoza, right? Spinoza says, the order in our thoughts and the order in things is the same. And Hegel takes it over from him, right? And since we tend to know the, what, general before the particular, right? Then Hegel makes the most general and the most confused idea of our mind, the idea of being, the beginning of all things. And so he identifies the most confused thought in our mind with the one who said I am who am. Confusing those two different senses of general, right? We talked about the Shakespeare puns on, right? So, he's alluding to this, huh? In a sense, what Plato's doing, huh? Plato thought that because I know things, right? Truly, by definitions and so on, right? And the definition is of the universal in separation from what? All singulars, right? If we're truly knowing through definitions, as he thought he were, right? Then, truly in things, the universal must exist in separation from, what? Singulars. Otherwise, the way we know would not be the way things are, and there'd be falsehood there, right? So, in order to make it to the way we know, which is by definitions, right? Correspond to the way things are, he said that just as in the definition, there's nothing of the, what, material singular, whether, so in things, there's a world of form, right? Which correspond to our definitions. And likewise, he had this mathematical world, right? Corresponding to geometry and arithmetic. He ends up with a three-decker world, so to speak. Sensible material world, the mathematical world, and then the world of the, what, forms, huh? And, in a way, it's because he's convinced that we have truth in geometry, as we do, and that we have truth through definitions, as Socrates showed, right? But if you add a yes to that, you're going to have to conclude that there is a mathematical world in addition to this world and the world of forms. Now, you see, those who follow Plato answering yes sometimes have quite different positions, like Ockham in the 14th century, he answered yes to this question, really, but he knew that there wasn't a world of forms. So he said, well, we don't know anything. See? And so that was the skepticism that spread to universities in the 14th century. I think our skepticism is bad, which is very bad, too, at our universities. But in those days, it was a big scandal, right? Outside of them, we don't know things the way they are. It's outside of our mind. It's only seen to theirs, right? And all our knowledge is universal, or all our scientific knowledge is universal, so there's no truth there in any of our knowledge. Forget about it. And you find that somewhat, you know, in a less radical form in English empiricists. So, as he's alluding to there at the end of the reply to the fourth objection, but according to the sententium of Plato, or the position of Plato, right, the thing understood he's alluding to it.