De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 100: The Five Exterior Senses: Distinction and Principle

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

Nothing to get my teeth into, it's just... No matter of form, it's there. Yeah, just no substance there. But when I read Thomas, I really think I'm being fed, you know. I have that kind of metaphorical way of looking at it, being really nourished by this guy. So next time we'll look at the articles on the exterior senses and the, what, interior senses, huh? Okay, next two articles here. I always say it almost seems so important to every important people, especially priests, you know, to be fed on St. Thomas. If to come to St. Thomas' writings, any mind in a certain sense, to read it with understanding requires such a separation of the mind. Could it not be said that in some way it's kind of been made the preserve of an intellectual elite? To some extent, yeah. It's a very difficult situation. Now, so you look at Thomas' things, though, like, say, the Naples sermons, right, huh? They were addressed almost to the common man there, right, in Naples, huh? So you have that, and then you have the compendium of theologies you didn't complete, right? Mm-hmm. See, but that's not as full-blown as the Summa, right, huh? And sometimes you compare the Summa to the question is just be taught, right? Mm-hmm. Maybe ten objections on the other side, right? Well, that's, you know, brought down to maybe three objections against what he's going to determine in one said contra, right? Sure. So it's kind of an abbreviation of the question is disputate, huh? Wow. And maybe it takes the more important objections, right? Mm-hmm. But he may, in some of the questions, just be taught to go into a little more than he does even the Summas, right, huh? So, I mean, there's a kind of a build-up there, right, huh? Mm-hmm. But you see the, I guess you can get them now again, but, you know, the Sunday sermons, you know, those ones, those volumes that the Dominicans made? The Fathers in the church. Yeah. What they have is the Gospel of the Sunday, and, of course, it was simpler before when there wasn't as much variety there, right? You know, during the liturgical year. But they'd give you the Gospel that Sunday, and then they'd give you the golden chain of Thomas, which is taken from the Church Fathers, and then they'd have maybe half a dozen sermons, right, on it. And those things are proportioned to people, right, huh? Sure. And, you know, if one was giving sermons, you know, that would be an ideal place, you know, to be able to see something fresh and interesting, you know, that would attract the hearers, right? But also cast some light upon the text, huh? Yeah. And I know my mother now was not an educated woman. I mean, she never went to college, you know. But she'd come back, you know, from Sunday Mass sometimes. She'd be like, well, why isn't the priest, you know, explained, like, just puzzled by something in the Gospel or something, you know? Yeah. And there are all kinds of little things in there, right? And they could be explained, you know, and people could understand them, right? So, I mean, there's different, you know, levels to it. There's an awful lot of time wasted, too, though, you know, in high school and college, right? Where people could have been prepared for things with good things, huh? Yeah. Actually, you take something as fundamental education as Euclid's elements, right? Right, sure. Now, I guess in the Middle Ages, huh, in order to study theology at the University of Paris, which was one of the greatest schools of the time, right? You had to know the first book of Euclid, by art, right? Yeah. See? And that was a real training for the mind, huh? Yeah. See? And this is what trained Lincoln's mind, how they say. Yeah. Okay? He's reading of Euclid, right? Simplicity of that. Einstein said, if Euclid didn't arouse your youthful enthusiasm, you were not born to be a scientist. Now, when I first introduced Euclid, not in high school, they didn't, you know, very poor, the courses. I was already out of college when I first went to Euclid. My old teacher, Kasurik, says, Dwayne, get a copy of Euclid and read it. I said, why? I said, get a copy of Euclid and read it, he said. He didn't argue with it, you know? And so I started reading, you know, Euclid. My sister's reading makes it very interesting to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I think I mentioned that story there where my friend Roy Monroe was in politics, right? Right. And I got into high school with him and his friend. He said, what are you reading, Dwayne? I said, reading Euclid, he got a, you know, smile, almost sneered, you know, everything. And so I got into one of these interesting things, Euclid, right? Yeah. And, wow, he was, you know, he never made fun of me again, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is something that you could learn, you know? And my kids went to the trivium school where they do some of the Euclid, huh? And, as you had Thomas Aquinas College, they do Euclid the first year, right? Yeah. But people don't have that training, huh? And I know when I teach logic, I sometimes give them a few things in Euclid just to see if they can analyze them, you know? Oh, you know, oh, my God. You know, they have no training, and they could have done this at an earlier age, right? Sure, yeah. And I know myself, you know, I've done some talks in the parish and so on, you know, and people do like these things when they hear them, huh? Right. You know, I told you at the time I was doing the parables, right, huh? Because my wife, the good old school teacher, you know, she has a good influence upon me, you know, as far as proportionate people. She said, now what you should do, Dwayne, is give them the parable to read, right? Uh-huh. And let them sit around their tables, blah, blah, blah, and about the parable, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then bring them back together and tell them what it really means. Yeah, right. So, I just remember one incident there, the one about the man who's there at the wedding feast without the wedding garment, he gets cast out. Yeah, right. Of course, if you read the church fathers, you know what that means, huh? Yeah. But they're talking, you know, at the table there, you know, I think it's awful mean just because, you know, he didn't have a wedding garment, he had to throw them out, you know, and put ropes around him, and it wasn't very nice, you know, maybe he couldn't afford a thing like that, see? But I, you mean the church fathers, and the wedding garment signifies, what, charity? She's a man who doesn't have the love of God and neighbor, right? What are you doing in here? You know, you see? And that's very profound, you know. But they're completely missing the point because they haven't read the church fathers, huh? And, you know, Cajetan says, you know, at the commentary there on the Summa, that Thomas so venerated, right, the church fathers, huh? I mean, he read them very carefully and frequently and so on, that he seems to have inherited the mind of all of them. And you can see something like that about Aristotle with regard to the first philosophers, right? He read them so carefully that he seems to have inherited the mind of all of them, huh? And so these things are proportioned to people, you know. The parables put an awful lot in them, you see? And yet they're easy to kind of read, huh? And kind of think about, huh? Yeah. But then as you start to unfold something meaningless, that becomes interesting for people, huh? That's kind of scary, though. Because I've heard, obviously, that scriptural text and math stuff many times. And I never heard that, you know, wedding garment symbolizing chariot. I never heard that in any time of these. I know. Except when I read the Bible commentary. Then I read it in that commentary. I said, oh, so basically what it comes down to is a lot of priests don't know the church. Yeah, I know. I remember when the year was, you know, when I had this, I had this four volume, you know, just followed right through the liturgical year, right? You know, try to read those sermons for that Sunday, you know, and be kind of familiar with these Gospels, right? And it would have to contain aurea, too, you know, which gives you, you know, it's a chain map of little nuggets from the church fathers, right? So you get, you know, by the idea of that, huh? And then, uh... Did you say you've seen some place has it available? I think it's been reprinted now by Ignatius Press, huh? Oh, really? Yeah, I think... Because we only have... Yeah, I think, yeah. So my one was regular. When I first picked it up, it was already kind of getting... And I found three of the four volumes at a bookstore, right? Yeah. So I bought them. And then a friend of mine, Jim, he found the other visiting volume. So if you look at it, it's got a little different, the backing is a little different in the colors, you know. But I had all four volumes in, see. But I think Ignatius Press has that. Just seeing from the Art of Times, I think that's what it is. But it was usually put out by a new regular, you know, then it hasn't been repented. But those things are very interesting, what they say, you know. Sure. And the sermons of Leo and the Great, you know. Yeah, sure. And Augustine and... I agree. You know the famous thing of Thomas there when he came over to the city of Paris. Sure. I mean, again, the guy says, what would you do? You're going to possess this whole city. It's a wonderful city down there. Thomas said you'd give the whole city, you know, for a copy of Chrysostom's homilies on the Gospel of St. John, right? Of course, you read Thomas on the Gospel of St. John there. So looking at two this morning, you know, I got a ticket about the passage there. But, you know, it's mainly he's following Chrysostom and St. Augustine, right? You know, occasionally somebody else, but those two guys especially, right? You know, one of the great doctors, principal ones in the East and the West, you know? So it's very interesting to read these things, huh? Very interesting. Do you have any idea what the big thing was with the modern geometry? Geometry. That's what I had in high school. And then my same experience with you is I didn't know about Euclid really until I met with Father Anthony in the monastery. So, but anyhow, now I was trying to think back. It's like, what exactly were we learning in this modern... Yeah. What was their main... No, see, the emphasis is upon what they call logisticae, right? The art of calculating, huh? Oh. So it becomes a kind of a practical tool. Hmm. And even the name calculus, for example, you know, indicates that it has a kind of a practical purpose to it, right? When I began high school, you know, the thing that happens in a freshman in high school is algebra. Yeah, right. And you go on from there, you know? Yeah. And I did very good in algebra, I remember that first year there. And they had a kind of national test there, you know, they were testing us, and three of us got a 99 percentile. And one guy, I think, became an engineer, one guy became a professor of math. Uh-huh. I became a philosopher, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, I kind of lost interest in math after a while because of the character of the knowledge, right? Yeah. You see? And when you pick up Euclid, you know, it's kind of interesting to think about the things. And I like to use the old word, the theorem, right? It's something to look at. Yeah. Yeah. Theory, yeah, theorem. It's interesting. Yeah. Um. The theorem that I got this friend of mine kind of going on with the whole thing right now. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds. Lord and illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Praise God. Help us to understand all that you've written. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. Amen. So, we're in Article 3 here of Question 78. To the third, one proceeds thus. It seems that the five outward or exterior senses are not suitably distinguished, huh? For the sense is, what? Knowledgeable of accidents, right? Now, sometimes you contrast that, because what's the object of the understanding or reason? Yeah, substance. Yeah, substance, yeah. Okay. And it kind of contrasts out the senses knowing only accidents. But this one is starting off from the fact that the sense knows accidents. But there are many genres of accidents, as we saw, for example, in what? Study of the categories, huh? You have quantity, and then you have quality, and then you have relation, and where, and when, and so on. And even there are many kinds of qualities, but all of these are found under one particular kind of quality. Since, therefore, the powers are distinguished by their objects, it seems that the senses should be multiplied according to the number which there is in the genre of accidents. It should be nine senses corresponding to the nine genre of accidents or something of this sort. Yeah. So, what is there special about these accidents that makes them the object of the senses and not other accidents? That's the question. Moreover, magnitude and figure or shape and the other things which are called the common sensibles are not sensible prachidans, but they are divided against them in the dhyanima. You may recall that, huh? We took the word, what, sensible, and we said some things are sensible as such, right? Mm-hmm. And other things are not sensible as such, but there's something that something else in us knows when we sense, huh? And then they subdivided the sensible per se, or as such, into those that are private to one sense, like color, sound, and so on, taste. And then those that are common to more than one sense, not necessarily at all of them, like shape, huh? And magnitude, huh? Motion and rest and number and so on, huh? Okay? Okay? So this is taking from that distinction there. It says, the diversity of objects per se diversifies powers. Since, therefore, magnitude and figure differ more from color than sound, it seems much more ought there to be another, what, sensitive power that knows magnitude or figure, as well as one that knows color and, what, sound, huh? Okay? Now, just a minute, recall from what they're in logic, right? The first highest genus was what? Substance, right? And substance can be divided maybe into material and immaterial, right? Okay. Mm-hmm. And then the material can be subdivided into living and unliving and animals and plants and down to us, right? Then the second genus, if you recall, was quantity, huh? And that was divided into continuous quantity studied in geometry. Mm-hmm. And discrete quantity, like numbers, studied in arithmetic, arithmetic. And then you had, what, quality, huh? Can you see some doctor purpose? Yep. I'm really sorry, but I'm already really confused here, because I thought you were talking about the categories of accidents, but what is substance doing up there? Well, I'm not viewed as a category of accidents, but I'll just enumerate the categories here a bit, right? Sure. To make this point more clear, right? Substance is a category of accidents? No, that's a substance, right? Yeah, it's the first category we're talking about in logic, though, huh? Okay. The one that underlies all the accidents, huh? It stands under, and that's why it's called substance, right? Okay. No, it's okay. So substance is the first category. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Then we have quantity, quality, and then we have relation, and so on. Mm-hmm. And just taking these first four ones, which are the ones he takes up at some length, when he takes up quality, he divides quality into four kinds. And the first is called havoc, or disposition. Mm-hmm. Incidentally, you know, if you want a place where Thomas talks about this division that Aristotle gives of quality into the four I'm going to give here, he does that in the Prima Secundae, right? He's going to pick up the virtues, because the virtues are going to be qualities, and under which of the four species of quality they come. Well, of course, he's going to show that they come under the havoc disposition. But he'll go back to this visionary stuff, right? Then you have what we call natural ability. Mm-hmm. The ability to understand, and the ability to walk, and so on. And then you have these sense qualities, we call them. And these are really what were called in the Dianima, in the second book about the soul, the proper or private sensibles, right? Those that are known to be only one sense, like color, sound, smell, sort of thing. All right. All right. the taste or flavor of it, right? And then the objects that are tactile. And then the fourth species of quality was figure or shape. Well, these objections are saying, hey, the difference between quantity and quality is greater, right, than the difference between different sense qualities. Why don't you have, you know, if the senses are about accidents, why don't you have a sense for this, as well as a sense for that, and maybe a sense for other accidents. And then this one here is referring to quantity and figure or shape. Why aren't they more different? Figure or shape, after all, is a different subspecies here of quality from sensible qualities. Why color and sound and smell and taste are a subdivision here, right? So these divisions are under that. Well, this is a greater division, isn't it? So why don't you have a different sense for figure or shape and a different one for what? Quantity, you see? These are, we'll call it in the second book, common sensibles, right? But if the difference of object, right, gives you a different sense, if, for example, the difference between color and sound, which are two kinds of sense qualities, give you two different senses, sight and hearing, well, then figure or shape even more so, right? That's even greater distance, huh? And quantity even more so, right? Okay? That's a second objection, huh? Oh, I understand. Since magnitude, which would be under quantity, right, along with number, it's an entirely different genus, right? And figure or shape, which is a, what, different genus under the higher genus quality, right? From sense qualities, would be even more different, right? Why, color and sound would be subdivisions of, what? Sense qualities, huh? Okay? So obviously, things that come under sense qualities are closer together than figure and shape is to any sense quality. And if we say, oh, this is in a higher genus, huh? So why don't you have more, right, differences among the senses for objects that are further apart, right? That's the objection, huh? Yeah. Okay. And the first one is taking into account that there are many gender accidents and subdivisions of them. Why don't you have many more senses than just these so-called five, right? Where did the nine come in? Did you mention there were nine? Well, quantity, quality, relation. Then you have the last six. Where, when? So those are the nine what? Gender of accidents. Thank you. Nine gender of accidents. Yeah. These are the ten highest genus if you include substance, right? But one genus of substance and then the nine gender of accidents. Now, the third one is a particular, what? Difficulty about the sense of touch being one of the five senses. Moreover, he says, one sense is of one contrariety. The contraries are the forms that are, what? Furthest apart, huh? In the same genus. So, white and black are furthest apart, huh? The genus of color, which sight knows. But touch is knowledgeable of many contrarieties, huh? For example, cold and hot, right? Hot and cold. Wet and, what? Dry, right, huh? Therefore, there is not one sense, the sense of touch, but, what? Many, right? Therefore, there are more senses than the, what? Five, huh? Moreover, he says, a species is not divided against a genus. You don't divide dog against animal, do you? But, as Aristotle often says, taste is a tactus quidam. It's a certain, what? Kind of touch, huh? Therefore, one ought not to lay down taste as, in other sense, besides, what? Touch, huh? So, his last two objections are problems that arise with touching away, but also taste, because it's said to be, by Aristotle, a kind of touch, huh? But, against this is what the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, that there is no other sense besides the, what? Five, huh? Now, Thomas talks about the difficulty people have in trying to assign the reason for this distinction in a number of them. I answer, it should be said that the reason for the distinction and the number of the exterior senses, some want to take this from the side of the organs, huh? In which one of the elements dominates, as water or air or something of this sort, huh? So, you want to say, that's as many kinds of organs as you can have. And they try to explain this in terms of the four elements, of which element dominates, right? In each one, huh? Some try to take it from the part of the medium, huh? That through which it senses, which is either conjoined, as in the case of touch, right, might be your flesh, or extrinsic, as the air, when you see or hear something through the air, right? And this is either air or water or something of this sort, huh? Some want to explain this, huh? From the diverse nature of sensible qualities, according as one is the quality of a simple body and the other one of a complex body. So, you know, in the ancient physics there, you had, what, earth, air, fire, and water. They were simple bodies, right? And they were distinguished by hot and cold and wet and dry. And so those would be qualities of simple bodies. But taste, right? You're having that salad dressing in that French wine sauce or something of this sort. That's a, what? Not a simple body, right? But a complex body, huh? And things, eh? So Thomas mentions some of the common ways people try to approach this. But Thomas says none of these, in his opinion, is a, what? Suitable way, right, huh? Now, the first way he objects to, huh? For the powers are not for the sake of the organs, huh? But the organs are for the sake of, what? Power. The powers, yeah. Whence there is not an account of this diverse powers because there are diverse organs, huh? But therefore nature instituted a diversity in organs that they might be suitable to the diversity of the, what? Powers. So notice the power, in a sense, is to the organ a bit like, what? Act. Yeah, like form is to matter, right? And matter is for the sake of form, huh? Okay. Or a bit like the tool, right? Because organ non means tool, huh? Okay. And the tool is for the sake of the chief agent, you might say, huh? Okay. So in both cases, the organ seems to be for the sake of the power, and therefore there's a diversity of organs to correspond to a diversity of powers and not to be versa. Okay? So it's because nature wants to give you the ability to see that's giving you an organ that is suitable for the ability to see, right? Because it wants you to hear, it's giving you an organ suitable for the ability to hear, right? And so, you're taking what's putting the cart before the horse, right? Yeah. If you distinguish the powers by the, what? Organs, huh? Okay? Yeah. Just like you can see, you know, in the different animals that nature wanted the higher animals to be able to move from one place to another to get their food and their shelter and so on, right? Yeah. So, nature wanted them to have the power to move from one place to another and therefore provided them with suitable, what? Organs, right? Yeah. To move, but some it gave wings and some it gave fins and some it gave, you know, and so on, to fit their needs. And likewise, he says, the diverse media through which the object comes are attributed to the diverse senses according as was suitable for the acts of those powers. And he says, this distinction, that's the second way people had of approaching it, right? The media now being like... The air or the water, right? Yeah. To which you smell or taste. But the third way, the natures are sensible qualities, whether they're base-sensible bodies or complex bodies. It doesn't belong to the senses to know the nature of these sensible qualities, but to the, what, understanding them. So, Thomas now says what he thinks here. He says, therefore, the reason for the number and distinction of the exterior or outward senses should be taken according to that which belongs properly and per se or as such to the senses. Now, what is he saying there, right? Well, he says the sense is a certain, what, passive power, right? It's a power that is apt to be, what, acted upon by its object, huh? So, our style says sensing is an undergoing, huh? So, my hearing sound is a result of sound acting upon my ear, not of my ear acting upon, what, sound, huh? And seeing is a result of light or color acting upon my eye, right? So, he says the sense is a passive power, which is apt, naturally apt, to be changed by some exterior sensible thing. Therefore, he says something exterior that's able to change the sense is what, as such, is perceived by the sense. And according to the diversity of this, the sensitive powers are, what, distinguished, huh? Now, notice there, you know, just take that principle of the sense, huh? That piece of paper acts upon me because it's, what, white, huh? Not because it's a piece of paper, right? Okay? And if your skin was white, huh? It would act upon me because it's white, huh? Not because it's a face as opposed to a page, right? See? So, he says you've got to take what is moving the sense as such, huh? Of course, you can see this especially if you compare one sense to another sense, because if I look at sugar or salt, let's say, in the bowl over there, huh? My eye maybe won't tell whether it's sugar or salt, right? See? But it doesn't act upon the eye because it's sugar or because it's salt, right? But it acts upon the eye because it's, what, has a color, namely white, huh? Okay? So, you have to see what it is that moves or changes the sense as such, huh? And it's the difference of that that's going to give you a different, what, sense, huh? Because you have an object that acts upon us in a different way somewhat, huh? Okay? So, he says the exterius, exterius ergo immutativo. What, you might say, from the outside, right, is able to change the sense, right? What, from the outside, as such, is able to act upon the sense, right? That's what's going to give you different senses corresponding to differences in that. So, he says, what immutativo, that means, is able to change, right? Able to act upon in an exterior way, is what is perceived by the sense per se as such. And therefore, according to the diversity of this, the sensitive powers are distinguished, huh? Now, Thomas is going to speak here now of a two-fold, what? Changing. Yeah. Two kinds of way of acting upon, right? And one he calls natural, and the other spiritual, right? Now, spiritual doesn't mean supernatural now, right? Okay? Now, what does he mean by these two here, huh? Well, natural, according as the form of the one change you act upon, is received in the change according to its natural existence. As heat is received in the, what? Thing that is heated, right? And, of course, things that don't sense can receive in that way. In fact, do receive in that way, right? Okay? Are you sure about the pot on the stove? What? The pot on the stove. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the spiritual acting upon is according as the form of the one acting upon or changing, is received in the one acted upon according to a kind of spiritual being. As the form of color is received in the pupil of the eye, which does not, through this, become, what? Colored, huh? Okay? Now. Is this an aso-sharp thing, right? No, no, no. Sometimes they describe it in this way, they'll say, they'll call that natural reception. They'll call it a material reception sometimes, right? Okay. And the spirits will want a kind of immaterial reception. Oh, yeah. And they'll say that matter receives in this way. They'll say matter receives the form of another, meaning the quality of another, right? As its own quality, right? As its own quality, losing whatever quality it might have had. So if the water, let's say, I put on the stove is cool, right? It's going to receive the heat of the, what? Burner. Burner, right? As its own quality. It itself become warm water, right? And it will lose the coolness that it had. Okay? But this other kind of reception that he calls spiritual here, sometimes they'll call it immaterial, right? And that's where you're receiving the quality of another, not as your own quality, right? But as the quality of a, what? Another. But you keep whatever quality you might have had. Now, we mentioned that before when we were talking about the sense of touch, because this is the most material, in a way, of the senses. And so when your sense of touch is acted upon by the water, let's say, of the shower, there's both kinds of reception going on. But as we said before, you feel the warmth of the water more when you first get in, huh? And after you've been in the water for a while. And that's because as you're in the water for a while, your skin is also receiving the warmth of the water as its own quality now, right? And not as the quality of the water that's running off, you see? And the same way in the reverse example where I was taking of going into the ocean, you know, where it takes me a little while to get accustomed to the cold of the water, right? Even the southern, you know, down there in Rhode Island or something, right? But you have to do Hampshire to swim or something like that, and it takes you so long to get into the water. It's already worth a while to drive up there, you know? But again, when you first go into water, it's chilled, right? And I have to get the water, you have to get a bit of breath and adjust to it, and then it doesn't feel so cold anymore, right? So I feel the coolness of the water more when I'm receiving it not as the temperature of my body, but as the temperature of something other than my body, right? See? It's a very subtle thing, right? You're receiving, they'll say the form, meaning in general by form, the quality, right? Of another, as your own, losing the one you have, that's material reception, or what he calls natural reception here. Or receiving the form of another, as other, well, what? Retain the one you have. So, like the difference between the way my eye receives your shape, let's say, and the way marble would receive your shape, if Michelangelo should chip you out in marble, right? See? Because the marble would lose the shape it had before he began to chisel, right? And it would receive your shape as now the shape of the marble. So, like the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble, the marble