De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 86: Wholes and Parts: The Soul's Presence in the Body

Transcript
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Like the decision of the Supreme Court in this time, they said, let them what? Apply or let them enforce it themselves. Well, it's not just that you pass the law, the president doesn't carry it out or vice, you know. You wouldn't have a government very long, would you, huh? If you divide government into monarchy and oligarchy and democracy and so on, well, then that's just, yeah, you see. So if you go through the arts and sciences, you'll see that in every art of science, we divide in these ways, huh? In the poetic science, we divide a plot into what? Beginning, middle, end. Or we divide a plot into tied the knot, untied the knot. What kind of divisions are those? Post-hole, right? Okay. You divide plot into tragic plot, comic plot. That's the second kind here, right? Okay. That's the fundamental, most fundamental distinction about holes, huh? But now, in the fourth or fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle distinguishes four kinds of holes and parts, huh? And he has universal hole in there, but he has three kinds of composed hole. And one we've spoken about before, the quantitative parts, right? Ah, so we divide the circle into two semicircles, right? That's the example of dividing a quantitative hole into its parts, huh? Or you divide the chair, right? Or you divide it into its parts. Or you divide the book into pages or chapters or something, right? Okay. And then you have this other sense that we spoke about earlier today. When you divide something composed of matter and form into what he calls its essential parts, huh? Okay? So the division of the word cap into the letters C and T is a different division than into the letters and the order, right? So, you have the quantitative parts, and then you have the central parts, matter and form. And then there's the third one, huh? Which is the parts of the definition. The genus and the, what? Differences, huh? Okay? But notice, all of those are composed, what? Holes, huh? So the semicircle is not a circle, right? Even the part of a line is not the whole line, right? You can't say to be the whole line of it. So a five-inch line is not a ten-inch line, huh? Although it can be a part of a ten-inch line, huh? And a genus is not a definition. Any difference is not a definition, but it's composed of things, right? Okay? So one way of dividing the different senses of whole and parts that Aristotle has in the fourth book of wisdom, he has three kinds of composed whole, and then the universal whole. Okay. Okay? Now, there's another way of dividing it. And that is, you could say, that of those four senses of whole and part, two are about wholes and parts of the world outside of us, and two are about whole and parts only in the mind. Now, the division of the genus in particular, the universal, right? Or the more universal, the less universal. That's found only in the mind, isn't it? Because outside the mind, all you have is singulars, right? So when I divide animal into dog, cat, and horse, and so on, this is in universal things, isn't it? Where do you find animal separated from individual animals? Only up here. Right? Where do you find the definition? Up here. And the definition is composed of the universal stool. So the division of a definition into its parts, and the division of the universal whole into its parts, those two divisions take place only in the mind. You only have those distinctions there in the mind. But outside the mind, in things, you have quantitative parts, and you have essential parts. In the rubber ball, you have form and batter, don't you? In the word cat in the board, you have the letters and the ordinary. And you obviously have quantitative parts of the world around you. You see? So if you examine those, it's rather interesting, huh? You can divide them into three in one, right? Three kinds of composed whole as opposed to the universal whole, right? But then, if you look at whether the whole parts are in the mind or in things, right? Two holes, there are parts only in the mind. Although they have a foundation in things, a remote foundation. But immediately in things, you have two kinds of holes, right? Now Thomas will refer to some of these, but not to others, right? So he doesn't talk about the universal whole here at all. But he talks about another kind of, what? Whole, which he calls the, what? Potential whole. Okay? Aristotle is kind of hitting at this through the Dianima when he talks about the parts of the soul. The soul is a potential whole. But Aristotle doesn't distinguish that part explicitly in the fifth book of wisdom. So let's follow Thomas' text here. And that the whole be in each of its parts. And this is the thing that's really puzzling, right? That the whole soul is in each of its parts, of the body. Can be considered here in this way. Because since a whole is what is divided into parts, a whole is something that has parts, right? It can be divided into parts in some way. According to a threefold division, we can distinguish three kinds of wholeness, right? For there is a whole that is divided into quantitative parts, as the whole line of the whole body can be divided into quantitative parts. That's the first one that Aristotle will give in the fifth book of wisdom. There's also a whole that is divided into the parts of what? The definition, right? And of the essence, as it's defined into the parts of the definition. And the composed is resolved into matter and form. But those are two other meanings that Aristotle gives. And the reason why he puts those together, even though one is more in the mind, is that the genus is to the differences something like matter is to form, right? Just as wood can be shaped in various ways, huh? So when you add to, let's say, triangle, the differences of isosceles or scalene or equilateral, you determine, make actual something that's only potential in the genus there. As I mentioned before, how John Locke gets all followed up in this and Barclay, huh? Because John Locke tries to understand the universal whole as being composed of all the particulars. And so he doesn't know what to say, huh? It's all and none of these. Okay. So, in material things, the genus is taken from what is more material than the thing, huh? And the difference is based on something more formal. So he compares those two, huh? There are two different senses of whole part there, but they're analogous, right? Now the third whole, which is not explicitly spoken about by the philosopher in the fifth book of wisdom, is the potential whole, right? which is divided into the parts of the, what, power, huh? Okay. Well, can you speak of the whole power of something or a part of that power, huh? See? Okay. Now he says, because the first way of wholeness does not belong to forms, except perhaps by accident, huh? And to those forms only, which have a different relation to the, what, quantitative whole and its parts, huh? Example of whiteness, right? Which, in its definition, equally has it in a whole surface, in each part of the surface. So you look at the wall there, it's white. And white there, you could say, is not more in the whole wall than it is in the part. It's kind of different to white, whether it's on a small surface or a large surface. It's still white. But you can divide in some way the whiteness by dividing the wall, because the whiteness is in the wall. And therefore the surface being divided, whiteness is divided by accident. But a form which requires a diversity in parts, as is the soul, and especially the perfect animals, where if you divide them, you don't have little animals, but you have no animal at all anymore. As opposed to some worms, you cut them and then the parts, what, regenerate or something, right? They can go on living, huh? But you cut up a man and, you know, they're no longer a man, right? So he says, But a form which requires a diversity in parts, as is the animal, as is the soul, and especially of the perfect animals, huh? As opposed to the worm, does not equally have itself to the whole of the parts. Whence it is not divided, branching ends, by the division of quantity. Thus, therefore, quantitative wholeness cannot be attributed to the soul, either as such, nor by accident, huh? But the second kind of wholeness, which is to be noted according to the perfection of the definition and the nature of the thing, properly and as such belongs to forms. And likewise, that third kind he talked about, the wholeness of power, because form is the, what, principle of operation, huh? It's through your form you're able to do something, huh? Through your matter you're able to, what, receive, right? But through your form you're able to do something, do what, give, huh? Okay? Through my ability to know, right? And be able to receive something, right? But through someone else actually knowing something, I can be, what, taught by him, right? And act as, what, form as act, right? As opposed to ability. If, therefore, one were to question about the whiteness, within the whole, within the whole surface, and in each part of it, it would be necessary to distinguish. Because if one makes mention of the quantitative wholeness, which the whiteness has by accident, because it's in a subject that is quantitative, the whole would not be in each part of the surface, huh? Okay? So the whiteness on the wall over there, is the whole whiteness in each part of the wall? No. See? It's spread over the whole wall, right? And likewise, one would say about the totality of its power, because whiteness, as in the whole surface, is more able to move the eye than whiteness, which is in some part, huh? The only example of the white barn in the summer, huh? Well, the white barn is so big, when the sun shines on it, it's kind of, what? Blinding, right, huh? See? Okay? So the larger white surface is going to affect your eyes more than a small white surface, right? Okay? In other words, the white being spread over a long surface has more power to move your eyes than the white over a short surface, huh? Okay? But if one speaks of the wholeness of the species and of the essence, the whole whiteness is in each, what? Part of the surface. What it is to be white, in other words, huh? It's found in a small part of the surface as much as it's found in the whole. But because the soul does not have quantitative totality, neither as such, huh? It's not a quantity. Nor by accident, right? It's not a form that can be, what? Be it a surface or in a body, and that body can be divine, you still have that form, right? Okay? Suffice it to say that the whole soul is in each part of the body by the totality of its, what? Perfection in nature. Not, however, according to the, what? Wholeness of its power, huh? Because the soul is not in each part of the body according to every power it has. But the power of seeing is in the eye, of hearing, in the air, and so on to the other parts of the body, huh? Now, this last paragraph is going to be important also for distinguishing what's going to be said here. Nevertheless, it should be noted that because the soul requires a diversity in parts, huh? It is not in the same way compared to the whole and to the parts, huh? But to the whole first, and what? To itself, as to what is proportioned to it, right? It's proper perfectible, right? So we define the soul as what? The first act of an actual body composed of tools, right? So this is what is, it's proper perfectible, huh? And what's proportioned to it, huh? But it pertains to the parts per posterioris, huh? What does that mean? According as they have an order to the whole, okay? So my soul informs my whole body, first and as such, huh? It informs my liver, or my head, in order to what? The whole. And so if my liver or my part get cut off, or taken out, so no longer had any order to the whole, it will no longer be informed by my soul. Okay? Let's see how he applies to the objections of the basis of this, huh? The one from the Aristotle, the text there, again, is a misunderstanding of the cause of the motion of animals, just like he had with Augustine in the previous reading, if you recall, right? Because Aristotle's speaking there about the moving power of the soul, the soul's ability to move the body, huh? And that's a, what? Power of the soul that is in one part of the body, huh? Okay? He's not talking about the soul as far as it gives, what? Existence, right? To every part of the body. The second objection was solved by that last paragraph you just read. Wherever the soul is in the body, which is an act, the objection again, but the act of a body composed of tools. Therefore, it is not except in such a body. But not each part of the body is a, what? Body composed of tools, right? Therefore, the soul is not in each part of the body. What Thomas is saying, it's in the whole body first and through itself, right? It's in the parts because they're ordered to the whole. Okay? Just like the, what? What is, what is, say, Alil say, huh? The Holy Spirit is the soul of the church, right? So we like this, isn't it, huh? What is it that the Holy Spirit perfects? First and as such, the church. Okay? But he also perfects as one of us, huh? As we are ordered to the whole, yeah. Only as far as we are part of the church, huh? So if I'm cut off from the church through my sin or excommunication or something of this sort, huh? Then I'm going to join to the Holy Spirit, huh? See? If you understand the way the soul is, you can understand why they speak of the Holy Spirit as the soul of the church. You can understand how the individual Christian, right, is united to, what? The Holy Spirit, huh? As far as they're a part of the church, huh? So there's some difference in which we would say that the Holy Spirit is in the church and the Holy Spirit is in, what? Us, huh? Yeah. The whole church is more proportioned, you might say, right? To the Holy Spirit, huh? I don't want to, you know, or extend that you like this, but I think it's very interesting to like this there. Yeah. Since we're on the Holy Spirit, I always had this discussion with certain individuals about... If you're... Baptizing the Holy Spirit is within you, in a sense, whereas if you're not a child of God, then it's not in the same sense within you, so it's maybe outside of you trying to impact you or something. Would you agree with that, or could you explain it in another way, or is there a difference? Well, I mean, there's certain ways that John Paul II, for example, was spoken more authoritatively on people who have never had the faith preached to them and so on, right? And who don't fall to their own, but who are trying to live. Because St. Paul says, you know, no one can please God without faith. And Thomas comes back upon that and says, well, how much must you explicitly believe in order to be saved? No one can please God without faith, St. Paul says. And Thomas says, well, does everybody have to believe as explicitly as everybody else? Because even the history of the Church, and I'll assume the mysteries of the faith, were more clearly defined as time went on, like, say, the back of conception in our time, or the assumption, or something like that, right? And I've read, you know, the Dominican there was Father Banez, right? Who was a spiritual advisor of St. Teresa of Avila, right? And a very holy man in his own right, huh? When it comes to this question about the back of conception, he's very strong about that, you know, the guy was heretical to behold this, right? But it not been officially or formally defined, right? Right. But after, it was defined, you know, if you look at the official text, I guess that's the one that uses the expression that, now if you don't believe this, you're suffering shipwreck, you're suffering shipwreck, you see? But what Thomas says, what must everyone believe to be saved, right? Who have not been introduced, you know, even to the teachings of the Church and so on, they must believe that there is a God, and that he rewards the good and punishes the bad. You must believe that, you must believe that, but you have a very implicit belief in our Lord, becoming man and so on, but you've got to be kind of careful, right? God can bestow grace, let's say, even outside the what? Sacraments, yeah, yeah, sacraments of grace, so we can limit God, right? So you've got to speak very carefully about those things, huh? But there could be a way in which, you know, might be different degrees in which someone can belong to the Church, huh? There are a lot of dead members, right, who might, you know, if they don't reform, be cut off, you know, like the pruning parable there, the Gospel, right? But then the guy comes along and says, well, you know, tear that up, he says, well, let's give him another year, I'll manure it a little bit more, and a little bit of stuff, you know? And that's what, I guess, some spiritual direction has to be a little bit like putting manure in something, right? You know? I remember this one guy in the Dominican, you know, talking about his spiritual directory, you know, and he'd come out there almost, you know, almost hitting the guy, you know? He was training you out, though, you know? He was manureing you and seeing if you're better the next year, huh? So, now the third objection is saying, using that proportion that Aristotle does, huh? That the soul is to the whole body as this power is to that part, right? And so it's saying, well, if you say then that the soul is in each part, the whole soul, would you be saying that each part is an animal, right? But that's what we're looking at, that distinction we saw there, right? At the end of the body of the article, that the soul is what? In the whole body, first and what? As such, right? And it's in each part of the body, in particular, because of the order it has to the whole body, right? And that's what I went to make that kind of analogy there to how that's used when they talk about the Holy Spirit being in the church and in each person in the church, right? So we're not saved as an individual, but we're saved as a part of the church, right? And yet the union of the Holy Spirit with us is something immediate, huh? He's not like the actual form of the church, huh? He's in the whole church, but not each one of us who are there. So he says, to third, it should be said that the animal is what is composed from the soul, the whole body, which is the first and perfectible there's proportion to it, huh? What does that mean? Well, the soul is able to perfect, right, the whole body and not just one part of the body, right? So this is the perfectible there's proportion to it, huh? They say less so with the church because the Holy Spirit could, what? You know, if it was something bigger than the church, he wanted it to, right? But certainly the church is more proportioned to him than the individual, huh? He's apt to be perfected not just of one soul, but of the whole church, huh? Thus the soul is not in the part, right? It's what is first and is proportionate and perfectible, right? Hence it is not necessary that a part of the animal be an animal, right? Any more than because the Holy Spirit is in me, if he is, right? I am the church. I am a church, right? I am by myself. Now the fourth objection is saying all the parts or powers of the soul are in the essence of the soul. If therefore the whole soul is in each part of the body, it would follow that all the powers of the soul are in each part of the body. So, Thomas in his reply says, first of all, to the fourth it should be said that of the powers of the soul, some are in it according as it exceeds the whole capacity of the body, huh? Maybe the understanding or intellect or reason and the, what? Will, huh? In that sense, Hamlet speaks very formally, doesn't he? He's talking about his choosing Horatio as a friend, huh? He says, since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, it could have been distinguished, her election has sealed thee for herself, huh? As if it's the soul that is choosing him as a friend, huh? Because the ability to choose, which is the will, huh? He's in the soul, but not in the body. I think I mentioned, you know, how Bob O'Grow was talking to me there at St. Anselm's, one of my former students, you know, when he was studying some modern scientist, a man who was doing, you know, mapping the brain like they try to do, huh? One way they try to map the brain is by getting some victim or some volunteer, and they stimulate, I don't know, electrically or something, different parts of the brain, right? And it's kind of strange, because you stimulate them to say, oh, I taste chocolate, huh? You know? Oh, I remember my mother, you know, what's going to happen, right? But no matter what part of the brain they stimulated, the guy said, oh, I just made a choice. So he concluded that the ability to choose, the will, is not in the brain, huh? If it's not in the brain, it's not either part of us, huh? So, kind of interesting, huh? You get a little insight there. But we can show that the ability to choose is not in the body in the same way we show that the reason is not in the body. And that's in terms of its, what, of the universal it extends to, and it's extending to immaterial things, and so on, huh? So he says, Of the powers of the soul, some are in it, according as it exceeds the whole capacity of the body. And these are powers like the understanding and the will. So, whence powers of this sort are said to be in no part of the body, huh? Okay? But the other powers are common to the soul and the body, right? Like the ability or power of seeing, the ability or power to digest, right? Whence each of such powers is not necessarily in whatever the soul is in, but only in that part of the body that is, what, suitable for that power, huh? But only in that part of the body which is proportioned to the operation of such a power, huh? So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You see, when the soul is separated from the body, do you still have the power to see and hear and smell and taste and touch? No, no. Socrates in the Phaedo, right, when he alludes to the ghost stories that you had in Greece like we have, and like sometimes we associate these stories with the graveyard, you know, see? It seems that the souls of those who have died, some of them are from time to day hanging around the graveyard, and Socrates says, well, those are the souls that were lovers of the body. And they're cut off from the whole purpose of their life, right? Everything they enjoyed was tied to the body, huh? And so these souls, just when they get back in the body, they get more of those pleasures, you know? But they can't have the pleasures of the senses anymore, huh? They're separated from the body because those powers are in the soul, not as in a subject, right? But only as kind of a root, whatever, the source of these powers. But the power is going to actually be in the, what, body, right? Okay. So in a sense, this objection is kind of imagining that the soul would have all these powers in itself, it was all by itself, right? And then they'd be on every part of the body, right? But those powers have their root in the soul, but they're fully realized in this or that part of the body that is suitable for the operation of that power of the soul, which is an operation performed only in the body and through the body. That's the only kind of powers that the animal has in A4, 0, that the plant has. But man has these other unusual powers that are not in the body. And the last objection was saying that if in each part of the body there was the whole soul, each part of the body would immediately depend upon the soul. Therefore, one part would not depend upon another, nor one part would not be more principal than another, which is clearly false. He says, To the fifth, it ought to be said that one part of the body is said to be more principal than another on account of the diverse powers of which the organs, whose organs are what? Parts of the body, right? For that which is the tool or organ of a more principal power is a more principal part of the body, or even that part which to the same power more principally serves. So what we were saying the other day there about hope, why was hope metaphorically called the helmet of salvation? Remember that? The desire to think about things that you didn't have hope, I guess? Yeah, yeah. It was because by hope, we desire the kingdom of heaven, right? And eternal life is our end, is our goal, right? So in a way, that desire for the kingdom of heaven and for eternal life is going to direct us to the whole life, huh? It's by the head that we are, what? The other parts are directed, huh? So the powers that are in the head especially are the sense powers, right? But not just these outward senses, huh? But the inward senses too, huh? The memory and the imagination and so on, right? So you're being directed by these powers here, you know, these other parts, huh? And therefore, this is a more principal part of my body, my head. If I lost that, I'd be at a loss. Then if I lost a hand, which would be not good either, but I wouldn't be maybe finished off with a missing leg or a hand or something like that. But then you're talking about how, what? The powers that have their bodily seat here are directed to the powers that have their bodily seat somewhere else, huh? Okay. And again, the heart doesn't get a principal part too, maybe, huh? Because it's diffusing, what, blood throughout the whole body, huh? You're in trouble if your blood stops going to your brain too, huh? Those are two principal parts, huh? So that's why Thomas, when he explained those words there, put on the, what, breastplate of... Justice. But also the breastplate of faith and charity and the helmet of hope, you know? We want to protect the heart and the head as kind of principal parts in battle, right? But then he goes back and says, well, why is it that faith and charity are metaphorically, you know, spoken of the breastplate, which protects the heart, and why is the helmet, right, applied to hope? Well, the particular thing he sees is that hope, insofar as it's the theological which we desire at the ultimate end, it's kind of directing us, as we said earlier, right? As the head directs to the body, huh? But the heart especially seems to be the source of what? Of life, huh? And Thomas says, well, the life of the soul is Christ, huh? And as St. Paul says in the epistle there, it was Ephesians, I think it is, one of the epistles, St. Paul says, have Christ welled your heart through faith, right? And then he affords your way through charity, you know, you are in God and God is in you, right? So he applies the word breastplate to faith and charity. It's two virtues that Scripture sometimes speaks of, as through which Christ dwells in you, right? He's your life, right? If you preserve your life by faith and charity, but you preserve your head by hope, huh? So it's interesting. You have another metaphor for hope. It's called the anchor. A little different, though, huh? But the anchor, you know, is what keeps you from getting adrift, huh? So if you keep your eyes as your goal on what the final end is, right? Praise the end, as they say, right? You know, whatever happens, you know. They were talking on the radio there today, I guess they found some Al-Qaeda, you know. Plan to, I don't know how confirmed this is yet, but that they were planning to, simultaneous, right, assassinate a number of important Americans, you know. This is the shock that would have of the country, huh? If several very prominent Americans on the same day are all of a sudden, you know. Sure. It's kind of clever on their part, too, because you can't protect these people that much, right? Right. I mean, if somebody wants to, at least, you know, you know, as John F. Kennedy said, you know, and so it's a good history, he proved it. He says, if somebody wants to trade his life for mine, there's not much I can do about it, you know. It'd be very hard to protect all these prominent citizens, you know. But, you know, for the shock effect, you know, you see. You know, just one man is killed, that's shocking. Maybe if he had suddenly 10, 50, 20 very prominent Americans, damn, it would be a shock to the country. I mean, you know. That's what I knew, that shocking effect, you know, upon us. So, uh... I think it affects that one, I'm sure. I'm sure, yeah. It affects a lot of people, yeah. So, next time we can go on to question 68, where he starts to descend to the hours and take them up in some detail, right? 77? Yeah. We'll try to do two articles a weekend, right? Yeah. So, you can prepare the first two articles in question 77. And, uh... In 77, as he says here, he's considering the powers of the soul in general, right? Mm-hmm. And then he's going to descend to, uh... some of the powers in particular, right? The most relevant to this part of theology. Mm-hmm. So... He calls it, um... to use the English-sized word here, Historia. Okay? Now, Historia, in Greek, means kind of investigation, huh? Okay? And Thomas says the reason why he calls it an investigation is that it's the nature of investigation to be incomplete. And Aristotle's not going to determine all the questions about the soul. Let's say he didn't cue on Thraida. Okay. To me, that's kind of interesting what Thomas does because he explains what we call history as a separate discipline. It's the nature of your history to be incomplete. Well, history is especially incomplete, huh? It's what historians said, I think, truly. History is always more complicated than we think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.