De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 92: The Ambiguity of 'Powers of the Soul': Subject vs. Source

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the same as spirit? Somewhat like that, yeah. And so, you know, Augustine will say, especially it's true when Thomas is discussing the image of the Trinity in us, and I think he quotes Augustine there, it's in the MENS, right? M-E-N-S. But that means what? The intellectual part of us. But that includes the, what? Will as well as the reason. And so, Aristotle sometimes speaks that way too and says that the will is in the, what? Is in reason, right? Meaning in that part of man that is not in the body. I think I mentioned, you know, the Canadian brain student, right? Who was trying to map the brain like they try to do. It's very confusing, I guess, to see what the brain, what is done where in the brain, right? But among things, they were, you know, stimulating different parts of the brain, right? And, you know, he's doing this and he's saying, what do you experience now when I stimulate that? He's saying, oh, I taste licorice. I think there's no licorice there, right? You know, why do you do this here, you know? But you could never find any place to guess, oh, I experience a choice or a choosing or an act of the will, right? So it seemed that there was no part of the brain corresponding to the will. And so kind of just deductively, he was concluding that the will is not something bodily, you see? So, now, you see, but the word soul is sometimes kept for the soul insofar as it has powers that are only in the body, right? In fact, the word for animal in Latin comes in the word for soul, because the animal, as opposed to man, has only powers that are in the body. So these cats walking around here, they don't have any powers that are not in their body. And that's the difference between us and them. And that's why, you know, they say that a man is on the horizon between the material world and the immaterial world. And he has some powers that are clearly material, other powers that are immaterial. So he seems to be right between the two worlds. And so you can call man a, what? A microcosm, huh? He has length and width and depth in common with the rock. And he has, what? Ability to nourish himself and to grow and reproduce in common with the plants, huh? And he has the ability to sense and to feel the emotions with the animals, huh? And he has the ability to understand and will in common with the angels and God. So he seems to have a little bit of everything, huh? So he's called a microcosm, a little universe, huh? And that's one of the reasons, you know, not the main reason, obviously, but one of the appropriatenesses of God becoming man rather than anything else. Because he's taking back, in a sense, the whole, what? The universe to himself, huh? He's taking a bit of everything. He takes on man, the whole material world, in a sense, and the immaterial world. And it's very appropriate that he do that. That's not the main reason, maybe, for the incarnation, but it's one of the reasons we mentioned, right? That's appropriate for God to take on man, human nature, rather than nature above or below that, huh? He's taking on a microcosm. But this is also the reason why Thomas often says that the study of the soul, and especially in these higher powers that are immaterial, that's the gateway for our study of the angels, and eventually for our study of what? Of God, huh? You have to see the immateriality of those powers, even in us, huh? And then you can understand how the, something about these immaterial things, like the angels and God, huh? I was quoting that one passage of Thomas, where he says, I studied the body so I can study the soul, and I studied the soul so I can study the angels. And I studied the angels so I can study God, and that's it. Okay. So the study of the soul, as Aristotle says in the beginning of the three books of the soul, is very desirable in itself because of the excellence of the soul among all things in the material world, at least, huh? But he says it contributes to all knowledge, huh? And one thing it contributes to is to a knowledge of the things that are better than us, these immaterial things, like the angels, huh? Remember, I was always wanting to study the angels there, because Sirius says, anytime, he says, we'll start. Anytime you're ready to aim, we'll start. I wanted to study the angels, huh? And, uh, uh, but, you know, it's very important for ethics, too, because you learn in the study of the soul the different powers of the soul, and some of these powers are the subjects of that virtue. So foresight or prudence is in reason, and justice is in the will, and courage is in one kind of emotion, what the Greeks called thumas, and the Latins called the irascible appetite, and temperance is in another power, the concisal appetite, as they call it in Latin, but epithumia in Greek, huh? So if you know the different powers of the soul, you kind of know the subject in which the virtues you're going to be studying are, what, found, huh? And, of course, when Thomas begins his premium to logic, he calls, he refers back to Aristotle's discussion of the acts of reason there, and that's the starting point, right, for the major premium to logic there at the beginning of his commentary on the posterior analytics. So it contributes to almost every science, ethics, logic, the study of the natural world especially, but also the study of wisdom, the study of the angels and God. So it's a very important key thing, huh? And the study is very much neglected nowadays, huh? I have colleagues who never talk about the soul. They talk about the self, whatever that means. They don't talk about the soul, right? And it's a lack of wonder. Okay. So now you can understand what the Bible means when it speaks of spirit and what? Soul, huh? And I've never seen really an explanation there of the first part of the Nificat, but sometimes I try to understand it according to this distinction, huh? And she says, My soul magnifies the Lord, huh? And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, huh? Well, it's in her immaterial powers, right? Her intellect and her will, which is rejoicing in God, huh? Contemplating God and keeping Him in mind, right? And loving Him and so on, huh? But insofar as she's the mother of Christ, that's in her body, right, huh? And so my soul magnifies the Lord, right, huh? And she gives birth to our Lord, huh? And sees Him, huh? Blessed art thou among women, he says, right? And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. That's referring to what? The powers that she has in her body, right? That's why I understand those words, huh? My soul magnifies the Lord, huh? By giving, conceited giving birth to Him. But my soul, but my spirit, right? My intellect and my will rejoice in God Himself, huh? Right? This is kind of very interesting what she says. Okay. Now, like I was explaining in regard to the first objection, right? Or when you speak of the powers of the soul, you might think that of the soul means what? Powers whose subject is the soul, right? But powers of the soul could also mean not only the powers of which the soul is a subject, but also the powers of which the soul is the beginning or the source for the body, huh? Okay? Of course, the word of has a number of meanings, as you know, right? You know how I rejoice in those infibli of those phrases like word of God, huh? The knowledge of reason. Let me study Shakespeare's exhortation to use reason and get a definition of reason. What's the two meanings of knowledge of reason? reason. Is it one, for instance, the knowledge that we gain from logic? Well, when you say the knowledge of reason, you could mean a knowledge whose object is what? Reason. Or you could mean a knowledge that is obtained by use of reason. Yeah, a knowledge which is in reason, right? Okay. So, geometry is a knowledge of reason in one sense, but not in the other sense, huh? So, the word of there can mean as an object, right? Or as a, what? Subject, right? Now, when you have the definition of reason, if you know the definition of reason, you know that reason is the ability for large discourse, looking before and after. Well, that definition of reason, if you understand it, is a knowledge of reason in both senses. It's a knowledge about reason, right? Had by reason. Do you see the idea? Okay. And when Aristotle speaks in the praying to wisdom there, that wisdom is a knowledge of God in both senses. See, wisdom is a knowledge that God alone, or God most of all would have, right? And wisdom is a knowledge about God. He reasons to both, right? See, all the great Greek philosophers thought that either we should say God alone is wise, huh? Or only God is wise in the full sense, right? That man is either not wise at all, comparison to God, or he has wisdom in some kind of imperfect way. But then he shows that wisdom is a knowledge of the first cause. The first cause is God, therefore wisdom is a knowledge of God. Now, when you study God, as maybe we'll sometime here, God's knowledge is a knowledge of God in both senses. The knowledge God has is a knowledge about God primarily. And it's by knowing himself, he knows all the things. Because he's the cause in some way of all the things. So the knowledge of God is a knowledge of God. Okay? Now why am I, you know, doing that? I'm just trying to point out to you how the word of has more than one meaning, right? Okay? And in this, these examples I was giving, the two meanings were, what, the knowledge that's in this, in God, or the knowledge of, we're pursuing now in knowledge of the soul, right? And this, we're getting a knowledge of the soul here, which is knowledge of the soul in both senses, right? It's a knowledge about the soul, and it's a knowledge had by the soul, right? Okay? Now here, when he speaks of the powers of the soul, he has two different meanings, right? One would be to say that you're the subject of those powers, right? The other meaning would be to say that the soul is the origin, the source of it, huh? Okay? So maybe they'll call this word, uh, President Bush's war, right? Okay? But what would be the meaning of that, you know, the war of President Bush? What does it mean? Hmm? What might mean the war that he, what, in a sense, was the instigator or he's the one who began this war to some extent, right? Hmm? Okay? Well, he'd say the Saddam when he began it. But, but you see that way of speaking, right? Okay? Um, so sometimes we use the word of referring to what? Not necessarily the subject, but to the one who is the beginning of the source of something. Okay? This is a book of Thomas Aquinas, right? Yeah. I don't mean it's a possession of him, because this belongs to doing breakfast, I guess, huh? You see? Got my name in it, anyway. I don't teach it because it used to say, you know, you go to the title page, he says, and you write your name like that cross there, because nobody wants to rip off the title page, you see? Oh, yeah. See, they might call my name there, but I haven't followed him. Yeah. You see, some of my old books, I, I, I, I write it on the title page, my name. Um, yeah. So, uh, when I say this is the book of Thomas Aquinas, what do I mean? Yeah, he's the source of this book, right? Okay? So, when you speak of the powers of the soul, I mean, this book is in, is in Thomas, that he's, he's, what, he ate this book or something, it's in him, it's in the subject, right? But he's the, in some sense, the author of this book, right? The source, right? So, the, the phrase, powers of the soul, which we use to cover those five general powers that Aristotle distinguished there in the five books about the soul, which, which we'll be developing again here when you get to, uh, the first article in the next question, you know, 78, you know? Just look at the title of the one, I don't want to go into it now, but just, okay? He's going to distinguish five general powers of the soul. What does that mean? Of the soul. Well, five general powers of which the soul is the, what, first source, huh? Okay? But it doesn't mean that these are all powers of which the soul is the, what, soul subject. No. Only some of them would be, right? But many of them, if not most of them, would be, what, in the body, but the body has these things because it has a soul in it. As Aristotle says, when a man dies, his eye is no more an eye than an eye in a painting or a statue is an eye. It doesn't have the operation of an eye anymore. Huh? Yeah? But at the same time, it wouldn't be the same because maybe someday they'd be able to transplant that eye and use it to someone else. Yeah, but then you'd have to have a soul there that would form that eye, you see? Okay? So, I'm just mentioning here that Thomas is going to talk about these two senses of of, right? And, as I say, there are other senses of of too, like we were talking about the object, right? Okay? So the word of is kind of a interesting preposition, I guess you'd call it, huh? Grammatically speaking, huh? See? So, in those amphiboles, those phrases that have many meanings, like, in the Bible, I like to call it the word of God, huh? And word of God has two meanings, right? Okay? But knowledge of God has two meanings. Okay? So he says, very simply, to the first, therefore, it ought to be said that all the powers are said to be of the soul, right? Not as of a subject, right? But only the ones that, you know, like understanding will, but what? As a beginning or source, huh? Do you see the distinction? See? It's like we see that this is the war of George Bush. We don't mean that he's undergoing the war himself, right? He's not maybe on the battlefield there fighting it. So he's not fighting it all by himself, right? But he's the, what? The beginning, the origin, in some sense, right? He's pushing the button, see? Okay? Okay? I might speak of the Napoleon's victory, right? Because he directed the army, right? Although he didn't maybe do all the fighting, he didn't do all the fighting, did he? Or the charging, whatever it was. So you've got to be careful about that phrase, powers of the soul. What does it mean? You might think that powers of the soul means what? Subject, yeah. Yeah. So they're not of the soul, all of them, as a subject, but as a beginning, right? A source. Because through the soul, the, what? 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Now, the second objection is similar, answered in a similar way, because it's saying that the powers are in the soul before they're in the body. He says, well, that's true as in a principle or a source, but not as in a, what, subject, right? Well, he's saying the sense powers are not in the soul by itself first, and then later on they're in the body, right? Okay? But that the soul is the source of that power being in the body. It's a result of the soul being in the body that the body has this power, huh? Actually, what I meant was, how is the second, you know, how is the second part different from what you just said in the first part? Well, they're both being solved in the same way, aren't they? Yeah. That, um, in both cases you're saying that, um, these are to be understood of the soul as a beginning, right? Not of the soul in the sense of a, what, subject, huh? And when you say that, Dr. Roos, sorry I'm slowing that take here, but when you say of the soul as a subject, could one say that that means only in the soul? Yeah, yeah, that's the thing you made in the body article, right? There are some powers that are only in the soul as a subject, right? Only in the soul as a subject, like... Power of understanding and the power of willing, right? So those are, of the soul as a subject. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. But all of these powers of the soul, right? The five gen is going to distinguish the powers we have in common with the animals even, right? And with the plants, they're all of the soul in the sense of a beginning or a source. Yeah, yeah, okay. So you see that distinction there? So the knowledge that is in my mind as a subject, for example, might have its source in some, my teacher, right? Okay? So it'd be a difference, right? Is it my knowledge or his knowledge? Well, it's my knowledge now in the sense that it's in my mind now, right? Well, it's not my knowledge in the sense that I was the discoverer of this knowledge, I was the origin of it, right? Okay? Do I have Aristotle's logic in my head? Yep. But if I call it Aristotle's logic, what do I mean? Principle. Yeah, Aristotle's the father of logic, so-called, right? Okay. But Aristotle's logic is in my head or my reason, I should say, as a subject, huh? Mm-hmm. You see? And the geometry of Euclid is in my head to some extent, too, right? In my mind, the reason. Now, the third objection was the one from Augustine, right? And if you know a little bit about Plato, huh? Plato, in a sense, is getting into one extreme, right? And truth is often in between two, what? Extreme. Extreme mistakes, huh? Mm-hmm. So there are those who say that all powers of the soul are only in the body, right? There are many people who think the brain is the organ of, what? Thought, right? Okay? Plato thought there were, what? More powers that are not in the body, but in the soul alone, more than just the reason, the will. He didn't put the sense powers in there, too, huh? Okay? Or the power to move the body, he put that in the soul, right? By itself, huh? So he went, in a sense, to the opposite, what? Extreme, huh? But Aristotle, huh? He avoids the two extremes, huh? I think I told you that about truth before, haven't we, huh? What does Kent mean in King Lear? He says, All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so. Mm-hmm. Or Falstaff says in Henry IV plays there, If they say more or less than the truth, they are villains, he says, and the sons of darkness, huh? What does it mean to say more or less than the truth? There's two ways of being false, right? To say more than the truth, and to say less than the truth, huh? And you say more than the truth when you say, What is not, is. And you say less than the truth when you say, What is, is not. Okay? For example, How many students did you have today, Mr. Berquist, up at the monastery? Oh, I had ten students. See? I'm saying more than the truth, aren't I? I'm adding four people who are not here, and saying, Who are not here, are here. Right? Suppose I said, Oh, I only had two students today. And saying that some who are here, are not here, right? Mm-hmm. There's two ways of me departing from the truth, huh? Mm-hmm. And, of course, this comes out very clearly when the theologians talk about the two chief mysteries of the faith, the Trinity and the Incarnation, right? Because you have heretics who say that as there are three persons in the Trinity, so there are three, what, natures. Mm-hmm. Well, that's adding to the truth Mm-hmm. in being false, right? Mm-hmm. You're adding two natures when there's only one nature there. Mm-hmm. And that's what, that's what Arius and people like that did, right? Mm-hmm. And then you have the other one, like Sibelius, huh, who says, as there's one nature, there's only one person. Mm-hmm. So he's subtracting from the truth, huh? Mm-hmm. He's saying less than the truth. There's one nature and three persons. And that's in between these two extremes, right? There's one person, one nature, or three persons, three natures. Now you have the same thing with the incarnation, but you have the reverse, right? There you have the unity of not nature, but the unity of person, right? One person subsisting in two natures, huh? And so some say that as you have two natures there, you have two persons. And this is the heresy of what Nestorius, right? And he puts it up in the church, and Constance opened and said, we shouldn't call her the mother of God, we should call her the mother of Christ. And they all started throwing things out of it. And there's something wrong with this, see? But Nestorius spoke as if, you know, God dwelt in a special way in this human person, huh? Being Christ, huh? So he has two natures and two persons. Then the opposite extreme would be to have what? One nature as you have one person. So the man who says you have one nature, like you have one person there, is subtracting from the truth of the incarnation, huh? The one who says you have two persons, like you have two natures, is adding to the truth, right? And as I mentioned, that's really the meaning, although most people don't know it, of the pledge you make there in the court of law, to tell the truth, right? The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, huh? Some people think you're just, you know, reiterating. No. You say, to say the whole truth, you mean you're not going to subtract from the truth, right? You're not going to say that what is, is not. And you say, and nothing but the truth, you're not going to add to the truth. You're not going to say that what is not, is, huh? An example I was given in class, a very simple example. If they want to know who was at the bar between 9 and 10, that's an evening. And let's say John and Thomas were there at the bar and nobody else. I'd be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, when I say John and Thomas were there. But if I just said John was there, anybody else? No, just John. I'm subtracting from the truth, right? I'm saying what is or what was, was not, right? But I could also depart from the truth and say John and Thomas and Paul were there. See? And now I'm adding to the truth, right? Okay. So, there are some powers of the soul that are in the soul as a subject, namely the ability to understand, the ability to will, and also what is called the act of understanding, if we'll meet again. But all the other powers are in the body. Now, some people say that there are what? No powers that are not in the body, you see? And others start to take some of the powers that the other animals have in common with us and make them in the soul alone. So, for Plato, then, you know, the soul of the animals would be also immortal, you see? The truth is in between two, what? Excesses, huh? And that way the virtues of reason are something like the moral virtues, you know, where courage is in between cowardliness on the one hand and, what, foolhardiness, huh? It's closer to foolhardiness, by the way. But, you can see it very clearly on Shakespeare's plays, huh? I mean, Coriolanus, right, who talks about this, huh? Well, likewise, the virtue of reason, which is to know the truth, is in between two, what, mistaken states of mind. The one which is adding to the truth and then subtracting the truth, huh? And, as you mentioned before, this is why the truth can explain falsehood, see? If there are three persons in God, but one nature, you can see why somebody might think there's three natures, see, to correspond to the three persons. And vice versa, you can see why somebody might think there's one person, like Sebelius did, corresponding to the one nature. But, neither of those positions could explain the other position, right? If the whole truth is that there's three natures and three persons, why would anybody think there's just one of each? There's no basis in the truth, in that case, right, for someone else thinking the opposite, huh? And vice versa, if there's only one nature and one person, why would anybody think there's three persons and three natures? You see? There'd be no part of the truth at all, right? But if the truth is there's three persons and one nature in God, then there's an element of truth in the man who says there's three persons and three natures, right? Maybe there are three persons, right? And there's an element of truth in the man who says there's one nature and one person, because there is one nature, right? Do you see that? And that's a sign, as Aristotle himself said, that you can not only show the truth, but show why people are mistaken, right? What element of truth they saw, right? But they didn't see the whole picture, right? Okay. That truth would be more based on, you know, the scriptures, the teachings of the church, as opposed to natural law. Yeah, but it's the same principle, though, in a sense. You know, when you study history of philosophy, right, you have some guys who are deterministic philosophy, right, where everything in the world is necessary. And you get, you know, sometimes the rationalists, so-called, who are very much into mathematics and mathematical science, right? And they say everything is necessary. Then you have the existentialists, on the other hand, everything's contingent, everything's up for grabs, right? Nothing's, no definiteness anywhere. Well, the truth is that there are some things that are necessary in the world and some things that are contingent, huh? And so some people, you know, seeing one part of the world, right, boast of having seen the whole, as Empedocles says, huh? See? But if the world was completely contingent, why would anybody think it's completely necessary? Right? If it's completely undetermined, you know, why would somebody think it's completely determined? And vice versa, if it was completely determined and necessary, why would anybody think it's all up for grabs? It's all chance. It's all luck. See? They can't explain each other. Mm-hmm. See? But the man who realizes that the universe is composed of things, some things are contingent and some that are necessary, he can see what both of these extreme errors are based on. It's very important to see, huh? So when you go through the history of philosophy, in a sense, you'll see that the truth is always in between two mistakes, huh? As Aristotle said in Ethics, that reason should rule the emotions like a father rules his son, not in the way a master rules his, what, slave, right? Well, you've got the one hand, the Epicureans, right? Yeah. And I think Epicureans is not necessarily, you know, exactly historically, but certainly the Epicureans that we have are all around us here, right? Mm-hmm. Who think that, what? If it feels good, do it. That's our first principle, right? So they don't accept any rule of reason over the emotions, do they? Okay? And then you have, on the other hand, the Stoics, right? Whom Shakespeare calls stocks, right? Stocks. Yeah, like, well, they have no feeling at all. Oh, oh, yeah. He makes that kind of a pun in them, right? Mm-hmm. And the Stoics, you know, say, you know, they're torturing your wife and children, you know, but can't do anything about it, so, you know? Yeah. Or like the Greek philosopher, a Stoic, I guess he was, you know, they came to him with the news that his son had died. He said, well, I always knew he was mortal. Yeah. You see? In other words, there's kind of a crutching, you might say, right? They want to, in a way, eliminate the emotions, huh? Sure. It's a little bit like a master ruling his slave, right, huh? You see? Well, the truth lies in between those two, huh? And that's why, you know, in bringing up children, you introduce them to good music, huh? The music of the Baroque period, the music of Haydn and Mozart, and so on, huh? Because this enables reason to rule the emotions as a father rules his son. And also good fiction, and so on, huh? See, the difference between a father and a son and a slave is that the slave is ruled only for the good of the master. And he's nothing to say about what he does. The son is ruled by the father for the good of the son. And the son has something to say about what he's going to do in life, huh? That the father directs him and so on, huh? So, again, you know, it's something like that. Just like when you rule a father ruling a son. Sometimes the father makes a mistake of trying to force the son to be the same thing that he was or what he wanted to be, right? See? So, sometimes if the father was a doctor, he wants the son to be a doctor. If the father was a lawyer, he wants the son to be a lawyer or something of that sort, right? Sure. And sometimes you see the son being pushed into something that he's not really fit for, right? Mm-hmm. But the other thing is just let the son go out and, you know, give no direction at all, huh? And you have to hit kind of a mean between two extremes, huh? So, by way of, you know, reply to the third objection, I'm mentioning that Plato, in a sense, has gone, what? The truth is that only the human soul is immortal. The truth is that only the human soul, right, has powers that are not in the body. Now, the two extreme mistakes are, is what? No soul is immortal, right? No soul has any powers that are not bodily, right? And the other extreme would be to say that not only the human soul, but maybe even the animal soul, huh, the sensing soul, has powers not in the body.