De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 96: Powers of the Soul: Their Origin, Order, and Persistence

Transcript
================================================================================

Yeah, right? And all the steps, and MacArthur, you know, using kind of a sounding board, right? You know, this is the right decision he said, right? And then he went and picked up his Bible and read his Bible the rest of the night. You see? Okay. But there are men, even to this day, who maintain that MacArthur took an unnecessary, what? Risk. Risk, yeah, you know, I mean, they can argue it, you know, see? I mean, it was a success, a great success, huh? You know, shortly afterwards, you know, they saw the weakness of the enemy, right? Also, they started collapsing, you know, and it's not until the, you know, the Chinese came in from China, you know, but they really, you know, finished the North Koreans at that time, see? So, it's difficult to know, right? See? But the man of foresight, right, he can foresee, right, the consequence of doing this or not doing that. Right, right? You see? Or not doing it. So, really, you could say that, so, really, it's hard to use a syllogism on that, because in one sense, he's courageous if it works, but in another sense, he's a fool if it doesn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, again, the more you know the situation, right, you see? MacArthur, you know, as I say, he studied very carefully the tides there, right? He knew exactly how much time he had to get the things in, right? And, of course, the Admiral at first was opposed to it, huh? And, of course, he said, I have more confidence in the Navy than you do. And, finally, he convinced, you know, huh? And, finally, the Admiral said, a great plan for a great American, he said. Finally, he became convinced, right? You see? But those things are not, like, altogether certain, obviously, huh? And, but he said, the more you know the situation, you see? MacArthur studied very intensely what exactly the thing was, and he thought it could be done, right? But, precisely, because, what's kind of interesting, he compares it to Wolfe, right? Because nobody thought Wolfe could get up where he did get up. And, of course, in Machiavelli's History of Florence, he gives the example, you know, of nothing being more successful than doing something the enemy would think he can't do. Because they don't expect to do something he can't do, you see? And, and, so, I mean, it's a very important thing, see? So, again, you know, all the pieces of information that they might have in the federal government as to the connection between the terrorists and the Baghdad government, right? You've got to make an estimate, right, of how much that is, huh? Right. And what that means, and, you know? You know, Churchill all along, you know, leading up to the Second World War, he was always trying to get them to intervene before Hitler went too far, right? You know, the first thing Hitler had done was to disobey the, you know, what he agreed to, right, or what Germany had agreed to. And he reoccupied the Rhineland, huh? But we know from Hitler's own words, he said that if they, you know, opposed us, we would have left the Rhineland like a dog with his tail between his legs, right? It would have been, you know? And even I think we could have stopped them, you know? But Germany was coming up so fast, huh? See? But, I mean, that's an estimate, right, huh? You see? And certainly, what's his name, Chamberlain, who looks like a fool nowadays, right? He comes back and, you see these documentaries, you know, he's up there, you know, peace in our time, and everybody's cheering him, you know? And I was seeing on TV, you know, even London, the, you know, the, the peace demonstrations, right? And somebody had a, peace in our times! You'd think they'd avoid that, because everybody knows that, that, uh, Chamberlain, you know, was a fool when he held this thing up, you know? And, uh, the point is, um, as Churchill's always putting out, you know, this is not going to be peace in our times, it means you're going to have to fight him later on, and you're going to be in a much worse position to do so, than you would be if you did it now, right? And so, I mean, you know, that's really the way Bush sees it, I think, huh? That, that, uh, if you don't stop him now, we wait, you know, another year or two, you know, he's going to be much worse, you know? And nobody knows how bad he's going to be exactly, right? When he's going to Baghdad, it's just going to be terrible. Yeah. But, uh, but if you, you know, wait another year or so, it'd be even worse, right? Yeah. So I say, I say foresight is something, uh, that you can't, uh, you know, syllogize about, huh? You know? Right. It's part, it's part of the, an estimate, you know? Mm-hmm. And, uh, some people are better at sizing up a situation than others are, huh? Right. So there's a hard part of, in the sense of, uh, philosophy being like the, the, the, the hard sciences, but at the same time there's a soft part to philosophy as well. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no And the crowd was looking menacing and so on, right? Menacing. Menacing, to say the least. And Nixon said, I think we should turn off here. And two blocks away was a bomber to go off to blow the smithereens out of Nixon. You know, see? But he had that sense that this was not the place to be, right? You know, MacArthur, you know, and Patton in the First World War, they were both in the First World War, and they were standing together in a little hill there. You know, watching the battle scene. I think it's time to move on. And as soon as they left, the thing got hit with an enemy shell and these two great jumbos that we had in the Second World War, Patton and MacArthur had both been killed, right? But they seemed to have a, what, sixth sense, huh? I heard a different story, a version of that story. That Patton said that he was like a, you know, the captain and, of course, MacArthur was like a colonel or something like that. Yeah, yeah. All of a sudden this mortar barrage came. Yeah. Everybody hit the foxholes except for MacArthur and Patton. They both just stood there. Yeah. And after they were all cleared up, they both were still standing, and he said that's the reason why MacArthur will not have called him into the Pacific because he showed him up by standing up with him. Yeah. So, I don't know if we get into intellect here, you'll see this, huh? But foresight in art are in the practical reason. They're concerned about the singular contingent, huh? My philosophy is dealing with the universal. So, in the body of the article then, he's saying that there's an order among the powers, right? An order that goes back to the fact that the beginning of all this, the soul itself is in a way a cause of the powers, but it's a cause both in the way that an end is a cause and a mover or a maker is a cause, where the cause is more perfect, right? And it's also a cause in the sense of, like matter, the receiver, what it's susceptible, he says, of something. And so, starting from the soul, we can say that those powers that are closer to the soul in so far as it's more perfect, are in one sense before other powers, right? And those powers that are more susceptible, right? And prior to the order of generation, are in another way closer to the, what? Soul, right? Because the soul is receptive of these powers. So, you have two ways in which one power can, what? Come from the soul through another power in a certain order. Now, the first objection was about the powers being together, right? And therefore, one can't be before the other. To the first, therefore, it ought to be said that as a power of the soul flows from its essence, not through a, what, a changing of the soul, right, huh? Not through a transmutation of the soul, but as a kind of natural, what, result, right? And notice I was comparing that to the way in which to be half a four flows from being two, right? It's not like you have a two there, and then you change a two so it would be half a four. No, in producing two, you naturally, what? The natural result of two is that you have, being half a four, right? The natural result of a triangle is you have angles, you have two right angles, huh? The natural result for result, intersecting straight lines, is the equality of the alternate angles, huh? And therefore, it is, what, simul, huh? Together with the soul, right? Okay? Not before in time. So also is it the case of one power with respect to the other? So when you say that a power flows from the soul, we don't mean that it results from that the soul is there first and then you change it to get this power, right? But that naturally follows at the same time, right? Okay? Now, the second objection was saying, well, one power is not the subject of another power. And Thomas agrees that one accident as such is not the subject of another accident. But one accident is received in substance before another, and he gives the famous example from the categories. As quantity before what? Quality, huh? And that's part of the reason why we can consider quantity without quality, because it's before it. And in this way, one accident is said to be the subject of another. As surface is said to be the subject of what? Color. At least as we sense it, huh? Color seems to be spread over a surface, right? Okay? Insofar as substance receives, that substance by one accident, right, as a kind of middle, receives a what? Another, right? So insofar as I have a surface, right, I'm able to receive what? A color, right? Okay? Insofar as I have, you know, quantity, I can receive what? Shape. Okay? Shape presupposes quantity, right? And the same thing can be said about the powers of the soul. So the soul is receiving one power, in a way, through another one, right? In the one or the other of those two orders shown in the body of the article. Did you say shape is quantity, or did you say it that way? It presupposes quantity. Okay. See? So you might say that the, um, a man or a dog or a tree is receptive of shape through being receptive of quantity. So my guardian angel that's helping me think now, I hope, uh, he has no shape. I wouldn't say he's out of shape, I'd say he has no shape. Right? Because he doesn't have a body, doesn't have quantity, right? So he's not receptive of shape. But I'm receptive of shape, or bad, through my having quantity, huh? Having a body. In the same way for the dog and the cat and the tree and so on, huh? So, um, when Aristotle gives the categories, he gives substance first, which stands under everything else, huh? And then quantity, right? Which is before some qualities, like color presupposes surface, huh? And, uh, shape presupposes, what, quantity in general, huh? See that? So I'm receptive of one thing to another. Just like you're receptive of solid geometry through being receptive of what? Plain geometry, right? Yeah. You have to, you know, if you make a prerequisite, make sense to have plain geometry and prerequisite to solid geometry. And natural philosophy, prerequisite to wisdom, huh? Now the third objection was saying that the powers of the soul are divided by opposites, huh? But Thomas says they are opposed to each other by the opposition of perfect and what? Imperfect, huh? Just as the species of numbers and figures, huh? Like two and three, right? Are they, then you do each other two and three? Well, in a way, in three there is a two, isn't there, right? But three is not just two, it's two plus one, right? And like I used to say, you know, man is an animal, and my mother said, I don't like that way speaking. You know? And I'd say, well, mother, I don't mean that man is just an animal. He's an animal with reason. Well, okay, that's better. But in some way, man is an animal, right? He's not just an animal, right? So he says, this opposition does not impede the origin of one for another, because as has been said, the imperfect naturally proceed from the what? Perfect, huh? You understand it much better when you do the Ninth Book of Wisdom, huh? And that's why you'll find out that the first cause is most perfect. The first cause is universally perfect, huh? So let's take a little break now between the two articles. That seems like the natural planks, but not too long of right here. To the eighth he proceeds thus. It seems that all the powers of the soul remain in the soul when it's separated from the body. For it is said in the book about the spirit and the soul, right? This is the famous book that some people, I guess, wrongly attributed to Augustine, right? So it has certain authority because they thought it was by what? By Augustine, right? They can go down through, you know, the history of human thought and you'll find certain books sometimes falsely attributed to somebody, right? So there's some books attributed to Aristotle. They don't think I'm by Aristotle. Some attributed to Thomas. They're not by Thomas, right? And, you know, there's all kinds of opinions to who wrote these things, huh? And my little footnote here speaks of an anonymous member of the Sturgeon Order, but others think it's Elkarim back in 1169. But anyway, Thomas will always say this book is not of great authority, right? Right. But people sometimes quote it thinking that it's by Augustine or something. For, as it's said in the book about the spirit and the soul, you have those two words there, huh? That the soul, when it recedes in the body, it takes with itself or draws with itself sense and imagination, right? Reason and understanding. And the concupiscence and irascibility on the emotions. Well, Thomas will be saying, you know, that as in a subject, only, what, understanding and will, right? Right. These other ones are going to remain in the soul as in a root, right? Right. But they won't be actual there because you don't have the body, huh? These are powers that can be only in the body or in the composite of soul and body, huh? But you have the root of them still in the soul. This is what I'm going to point out in regard to the second objection. More of the powers of the soul are its natural properties, just like half of, what, four, right? It's a natural property of two. But as you'll point out in the reply to the objections, they naturally fall, some upon the soul by itself and some upon the, what, soul and it's united with the body. But a property is always existing in, property in the strict sense. It's all that in logic. And it's never separated from that which is a property. So half of four always belongs to two, right? It always belongs to a triangle to have its interior angles into the right angles. Therefore, the powers of the soul are in it after death, huh? Whoever the powers of the soul, even the sensitive ones, are not weakened when the body is weakened because, as is said in the first book about the soul, if an old man could get the eye of a young man, right, he would see just as well as the young man. But weakness is the way to corruption. So if they're not really weakened, huh, the power itself, then the powers of the soul are not corrupted when the body is corrupted, but they remain in the separated soul. Now, in the fourth one, you're getting more into the equivocation of the word memory. Because memory, in one sense, is a sense power, right? Yeah. In another sense, we speak of memory in the reason itself, but it's tied up with the universal. Moreover, memory is a power in the sensing soul, as the philosopher proves the book on memory reminiscence. But memory remains in the separated soul, for it is said in Luke chapter 16, that the wise man, right, when he was, what, existing in hell there, right, according to his soul, remember that you receive good things in this life. You know the famous story that was in the Gospel there, last Sunday, the Sunday before. So you remember how Lazarus, right, you remember how Lazarus was suffering, now he's, you know, at ease, right? Thank you, Richard. But now, he's suffering, right? He wants water in his tongue, right? Of course, he wouldn't have any tongue, would he? Therefore, memory remains in the separated soul, and consequently the other powers of the sensitive part. Now, joy again in sadness, huh? Well, the names of the emotions, you see, are borrowed to name things that are like them in the will. But it's very hard for the average person, or anybody for that matter, to distinguish, huh, between, let's say, the love that is an emotion and the love that is an act of the will. And I know when I teach the love and friendship chorus, which I teach again this fall, I sometimes come in and say, what is love? And some of them say, it's emotion. I say, well, so is hate, so is anger. But there's some love that is not an emotion, too, you see. But they think of love right away as a, what? Emotion, right? And they think of joy or sadness right away as a, what? Emotion, right? And because we're the animal that has reason, what is sensible is more known to us. And so we name the emotions before we name the acts of the will. And rather than give an entirely new name to the act of the will, what we do often is to borrow the names of acts of emotions and keep somewhat likeness to that original meaning, but we drop off the bodily aspect of it. If you ever have a chance to study the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, when Thomas is talking there about God's will, and then you have, what, a third step, right? Because some names of emotions can be carried over to the acts of our will with dropping out the bodily aspect of the emotion. And some of those names can be carried over to God's will, but not all of them, huh? And some can be carried over properly to God, and others only, what, metaphorically. And Thomas will explain all about which ones are which, right? So the same thing with joy and sadness. It's hard for students to see the difference there, but I came into class there the other day that they mentioned that, and it was a logic class there. I was kind of early there, so there's just one student in there, that they arrived, really. So I said, is falling in love and choosing to love the same thing? You know, puzzled now, what do you say to this, huh? I said, well, see, you fall in love, you don't seem to have too much choice about it. But falling in love names more something in the, what, emotions, huh? But choosing to love, a chosen love, you might call it, huh? In Latin, you see, you have two words, you know, and English doesn't have as many words, huh? But in Latin, you have amor, which originally names an emotion, right? And still has something of that connotation for us even today. If we say amorous, right? We're probably thinking of, you know, romantic love or something of this sort, right? And then they have a word Latin, dialectio, huh? Which is tied up with the word for choice, dialectio. So sometimes I'll translate this in English as a kind of sense love, and this is a, what, chosen love, huh? Now, you know, and as you like it there, huh? When Phoebe falls in love, like often happens in the great poets, it's love at first sight, huh? And Shakespeare has a testimony there to Marlowe's love poem. And Phoebe says, Dan Shepard, right? Referring to the poet, right? She sees the wisdom now of what his saying was, huh? Whoever loved, the love not at first sight. That's probably this sense love, right, huh? Struck us up the first time to see him. But now, when you find our friend Hamlet, huh, saying to Horatio, since my dear soul was mistress of her choice and could have been distinguished, her election has sealed before his health, right? He chose Horatio as his, what, friend, right? But notice that's more in the soul, in the will, which is in the soul. Now, what is the soul mistress of her choice? Well, you can distinguish things and see which is better, right? Of course, he goes on to say why he chose him as a friend. For thou hast been as one, suffering all, suffers nothing, right? A man that fortunes, buffets, and rewards is paid with equal thanks, huh? I just see that in Thomas' commentary there in the Philippians, right? That the good man, when bad things happen to him, as they will in life, right? He's not overly depressed or, you know, suicidal or something, you know? But vice versa, when something good happens, he doesn't, they're all excited and carried away, right? Like people do go crazy when they win the big money pot or something, right? And they end up being more miserable than they were. It's their golf video. He goes on to say, give me that man that is not a passion slave, huh? Now we're in my heart of hearts. So I do this, all right? So that's really a love that is in me, what? Will, right, huh? You see? But it is kind of hard, you know, for the average student to see the distinction between those two, huh? And of course, you might have for someone something a bit of, what? Both, right, huh? So I'm saying to students, you know, in a marriage, does a priest ask you, you know, have you fallen in love with her? No, he doesn't ask that, right? He's asking her, him and her, to what? Do you choose this person as your husband? Do you choose this person as your wife, right? You see? Presumably, you'll fall in love, but that's what he's asking for that. He's not asking for that, right? You see? Choice is something different, huh? And here it's now it talks about the philosopher, the person, for the other in Latin, in Greek. He says that the philosopher differs from the sophist by his choice of life, huh? The philosopher is a lover of wisdom, and the sophist loves the fame, he loves to be a liar, you know, he loves all that sort of stuff, see? And the philosopher would rather be wise than appear wise. The sophist would rather appear wise than be wise. So he's not really a lover of wisdom, he's chosen really fame and glory. So we don't have two words in English, but sometimes we'll carry the word, you know, we use the word love, and we'll be tied with that, but then we can carry it over and apply it to the will. Speak of the love of wisdom, right? The love of God, right? I thought you were saying it, I thought you were saying it, I thought you were saying it, and I thought you were saying it, and I thought you were saying it, and I thought you were saying it, and I thought you were saying it, and I thought you were saying it, and I thought you were saying it, and I thought you were saying it, it was an argument which some statements lay down that one follows necessarily. It was to frustrate this little Polish philosopher, right? So one day, he says, Mr. Berkowitz, he says, do you have an emotional attachment to the syllogism? I just laughed, and I said, I could have an emotional attachment to a girl, but not to the syllogism. like that. So, so, I mean, you know, there's, and it's not easy to separate those two kinds of love, right? Or the same way the joy that might be in the, what? The will and the joy that might be in the, what? Yeah, yeah. And sometimes, you know, when they talk about you must love your neighbor, right? They're not talking to me so much about you must be emotionally attached to your neighbor, but you must love them in your will, huh? That's really where charity is, huh? And, sense of, memory um doesn't augustine have this thought of maybe like providing this all the three parts or something what is that with it when he has doesn't he have like intellect will and then memory yeah we'll get into that in the next question here next week okay okay um so he says joy and sadness are in the concubiscible which is one of the two kinds of emotion which is a power of the sensing part okay the concubiscible appetizer is called in latin is the ability that follows upon sensing something agreeable or disagreeable to the senses and so if something is pleasing to my senses huh and i have a kind of pleasure if it's painful to them pain kind of a joy or sadness and then i want it or i want to avoid it or something right but that's more bodily thing huh but it's manifest that the separated souls are sad about their punishments or rejoice about their rewards therefore the concubiscible appetite or power this concubiscibides remains in the separated soul huh moreover augustine says in the 12th book upon genesis to the letter huh until there don't fool around this time no loose commentary that he's accused of doing by jerome huh um because the soul when the body what lies without sense not yet entirely dead it lives or sees a certain what some things according to imaginary vision so also it is separated entirely from the body but the imagination is a power of the sensing part therefore the sensing the power of the sensing part remains in the separated soul and consequently all other powers this is an argument simply from authority right augustine seems to say that the soul is going to imagine something right in the same way that hamlet says there when he's thinking of death or suicide there you know to be or not to be and then of course you know not to show it happens after death right what knows what dreams may come when we will shove it off this portal coil right but dreams is a form of what imagining right you know what dreams come after death but dreams came after death then some of the sensing powers would remain in the soul right because that's a kind of thing okay now but said in the book of ecclesiastical dogmas huh it's a little bit like an ingredient symbol arm i guess something medieval equivalent of that man is constituted from two substances the soul with its reason and what the flesh the body with its what senses right now so you don't take the senses with you when your soul separates from your body except as in a what principle or root but you don't have the actual senses there huh but you do have your understanding and your will that root just means potential in a sense yeah in other words um if you have the body again joined to the soul then the power will flow from it yeah okay yeah i answer it should be said that all the powers of the soul are compared to the soul alone as to a beginning or a source right but some powers are compared to the soul alone as a subject and those are the immaterial powers the understanding or reason and the what the will and these powers necessarily it's necessary that these powers remain in the soul when the body is what destroyed right and later on when you take up the understanding again you find very interesting the different way in which the soul understands when it's in the body and the way the soul understands when it's what separated from the body doesn't understand exactly the same way but we'll find out what that is huh and the way it understands when it's separated from the body is more like the way the angels understand so that's what i need you about that okay but some powers are in the what conjunction of the soul and the body is in a subject this is all the sensitive powers well the powers the sensitive part and the what feeding power you know somebody say the nutrient power but i have to be more concrete say the feeding power huh but when the subject of the power is destroyed right or when the subject of an accident is destroyed the accident is not able to remain right once when the conjunction of soul and body is corrupted these powers are not to remain in act but in virtue or in power only right as in a beginning or root of them huh okay that's a nice carry on the word root huh yeah right yeah he's that sometimes they're talking about uh theological virtues yeah which one do they call it now i just keep thinking of the form much as charity yeah yeah do they use that the same way right i don't know i have to check it again but i think maybe the charity is called root yeah yeah yeah but notice the difference between being there as in the root huh or principle and being in there as a what subject right where the thing exists is in act then you shouldn't mean you think that ephesians says that rooted in love could be yeah yeah because it's not a virtue without charity you have to have charity to be a virgin yeah okay and then thomas goes on to say and thus it is false what some people say that these powers remain in the soul when the body is corrupted huh and it'd be even more false to say that the acts of these powers remain in a separated soul because there's no action of such powers except through a body organ huh so right now i get the ability to adjust food you know that i have the ability to grow i guess i might be done most of my growing now right and the ability to reproduce huh you see but i'll have none of those abilities if i separated soul actually huh and even more so he says i won't have i'll be adjusting any food right the same way for the sensing powers right huh i won't have the ability to see in my separated soul to hear smell taste or touch and i won't be seeing hearing smelling tasting or touching i'll be understanding and willing right those huh until i get my body back again huh so that song there oh god you are my god who might seek for you my flesh pines and my soul thirst right see the flesh also wants to be in on this and therefore in the resurrection right and thomas says explicitly that in heaven there would be laus vocalis huh there would be vocal praise huh i was saying to somebody the other day they said music in some way is the origin of poetry and you can see that in the famous words like tragedy which means what goat ode good song comes from ode meaning song comedy huh comes in the word for song you have things like lyric poetry and we still use what other words huh dante's famous work is divided into what three contos huh oh there's 33 contos and 33 and the one's got 34 to make up 100 right free number huh but those are called contos huh huh and so spencer has that too in his thing so contos uh so the sense music is behind what poetry fiction but there's not gonna be any fiction experiment huh now coming watching tragedies and comedies huh i think the more you understand about tragedy and comedy in different ways they reflect the fallen nature of man tragedy and comedy oh something tragic and something comic about man and his fall but that will be removed