De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 105: Understanding as Passive Power and the Agent Intellect

Transcript
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Well, the thing that you use that for, you see, is to show that just living is not the best thing, maybe, huh? So it's a statement. Yeah, it's a statement. He says, I know a course other men may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death, right? But notice when you say those three things there in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, huh? Happiness is the ultimate thing there, right? But they're arranged in the order of necessity, right? You have to be alive before you can be free. You've got to be free before you can pursue happiness, right? But happiness is the ultimate end, and therefore the best, right? Liberty is next to the life, you see? But it's important to see that because when the pro-life people say that the right to life is the fundamental right, it is, right? Without life, you don't have anything, you see? You don't have liberty, you don't have happiness, even the pursuit of happiness. Okay, do you want to go on to the second article here now, or do you want to take a break? A little bit, or what? Yeah, do a little break. Okay. Thanks. Whether the understanding is a passive power, a power that is acted upon by its object. To second, he proceeds thus. Thus, it seems that the understanding is not a passive power. For each thing suffers or undergoes according to its matter, but it acts the reason of its form. But the understanding power follows upon the materiality of an understanding substance. Therefore, it seems that the understanding is not a, what, passive power. Moreover, the power of understanding is incorruptible, as has been said above. But the intellect, if it is passivus, is corruptible, as is said in the third book about the soul. Therefore, the understanding power is not possible or passive. Moreover, the agent is more noble than the patient, as Augustine says in the twelfth book on Genesis to the letter. And Aristotle says the same thing in the third book about the soul. These two great minds, right, say the same thing. But the powers of the vegetative part are all active. They're like an agent, right? Which, nevertheless, are the lowest among the powers of the soul. Therefore, much more, the understanding powers, which are supreme, are all going to be active, right? Active is better than ability, right? Interesting objection. But again, this is what the philosopher says in the third book about the soul. That to understand is a certain, what, suffering, right? A certain undergoing, right? Now, in the body of the article here, Thomas, following his master Aristotle, distinguishes, what, three meanings, huh, of the word to suffer, right? Okay? Now, you know, this is a problem we have when we read, um, get our philosophy from the Greeks and the Latvians, huh, that sometimes a word has been carried over from its first meaning to a second, you know, connected meaning, right? And even the third meaning and more in the Greek or the Latin, huh? But in the English word, it has been stopped on the first meaning, right? And I mentioned, um, how the word power is of that sort, right, then? The word power, which translates the Greek word dunamis, and the Latin word potencia, right? The word power in English seems to be limited to the active power, right? And we don't tend to use the word power in English for the power to be acted upon, do we? Okay? And it seems to be due to a lack of power, right? But the Greek word dunamis is carried over, right? And the Latin word potencia is carried over, right? Okay? Now, um, that's why sometimes I'll translate dunamis, or the powers of the soul, as we commonly translate it, as the ability, right? Because the English word ability has been carried over. And as soon as the English word able has been carried over, see? So it's not only the ability to act upon something, but also we use the word able for the ability to be acted upon. So I am breakable, beatable, burnable, and so on, right? And when you speak of breakable, beatable, burnable, um, you're talking about an ability to be acted upon, right? Okay? To undergo, right? Okay? The same way here. The Greek word, um, pate there, the Latin word passio, now you've got the verb forms here, the first meaning is suffering, right? Okay? But the English word suffering, as a translation of passio, you can see that when you speak of the Passion of Our Lord this week, right? The English word would be the suffering of Our Lord, right? Okay? And the first meaning of suffering, or of passion in Latin, is to be acted upon in a way that is harmful to you, right? That is destructive of you, right? Okay? That's unpleasant to say the least, right? Okay? Now, in English, the word suffering has been limited to that, but in Latin, and in the Greek, it was carried over to being acted upon in a way that changes you, right? But not necessarily for the bad. So if a piece of clay in the shape of a cube is acted upon, and it's put into a cylinder shape or something, or a spherical shape, right? That would be called what? Suffering, right? Okay? And then, finally, it was carried over, in a very broad sense, to what? Receiving anything, even something that perfects you, and completes you. You see? Okay? Now, sometimes I translate this in English, not by suffering, because that seems to be stuck in English on the first meaning. I use the word sometimes, what? Undergoing, right? Okay? Okay? Or being acted upon, right? Okay? And I think undergoing has somewhat the original meaning of passio, in that it means you're being acted upon in a way that's doing harm to you. And I point to certain expressions like, I'm under the weather, right? If you say you're under the weather, you mean the weather has acted upon you in a way that has made you sick, or not so well, right? And when we say, you know, about somebody that he's undergone a lot, it means bad things, right? You see? Okay? But I don't think the word undergoing in English is as tied to the bad as the word suffering, right? Right. See? Undergoing in English is almost the same as what? You know, being acted upon, right? Okay? And you can be acted upon in a way that would change you, but not necessarily to the worse, huh? And you could even be acted upon by your teacher in a way that might actually improve you or make you better, right? And therefore, it's your org. You'd be acted upon by God, right? In a way that would be affecting you, huh? So, Thomas is distinguishing these three meanings, huh? And he says, in one way, and most properly, this is the meaning, when something is removed, when something is moved away from, you might say, from what is suitable to it according to its nature, or according to its own, what? inclination. Just as when water loses coolness, right? To being heated, right? And when man, when a man becomes, what? Sick. Sick, or when he's sad, huh? Okay? In a second way, less properly, one is said to suffer or to undergo. From this, that one is taken away from, something, or something to take away from it, whether it be suitable to it or not suitable, right? And according to this, something is said to suffer, to undergo, not only the one who, what? Becomes sick, right? But also the one who is, what? Healed. So I might be said to undergo an operation, right? It might actually make me better than I was, huh? Right? See? Yeah, yeah. You see? That's a bodily change, but it's not, it's actually improving me, you see? So in this sense, not only the one who is saddened, but also the one who is, what? Rejoices, right? Or in any other way, is altered or moved, right? Finally, you come to a third sense, which is most broad, huh? Something is said to undergo in a very common way, from this alone, that it is in potency, in ability to something, and it receives that which was in potency without losing anything, right? In which way, everything that goes forth from ability to act can be said to undergo, huh? Even when it's, what? Perfected, huh? And that sense, to understand, is a, what? Undergoing, right, huh? See? So the, think back upon the objections, and you'll see that in reply, they're based upon thinking that understanding is an undergoing in the first sense, or in the, what? Second sense, huh? Okay? Just got to read that book there by, by, what's his name? I want to say Peach now. The guy wrote the book, the book, Literary Converts, right, huh? Oh, Joseph. Yeah, Pierce, yeah. I mean, I'm going to say Pierce again. But notice, son, conversion is an undergoing, right? Something to undergo, but in the second sense, right? You're one thing, and now you're the opposite, right? Okay? But it's not necessarily something bad, right? If you're converted to communism, that would be bad, right? Right. But you could be converted from communism to, you know, the west, or from a sinner to a saint, or something, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? That's the second sense, huh? And the third sense is, or, what? You undergo, huh? Something when God acts upon you, right, huh? But he's perfecting your intellect and your will and so on, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay. There's, now, in the Dianima, he also says that, that sensing is an undergoing, huh? See? But this is an undergoing, that is, a perfecting of the one undergoing, huh? Could we go through this again? The three senses? Yeah. I'm trying to think of, um... No. Is it the sense of, there's something staying the same and something changing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's talking about, about, um, a word that has three meanings. Right. Sure. And one thing that you pick up about words is that the meaning that's closest to the senses, or that the senses take note of more, tends very often to be the first meaning, right? Because that's where our knowledge begins, huh? Okay. So you take the word seeing, right, huh? The first meaning of seeing is the act of the eye. But then, when we imagine something, or picture it up in our imagination, we might carry the word seeing over there, right? So, I can see my mother now, we say, or Hamlet says, I can see my father now, although his father's not there around the room, right? His father's dead, right? But I can see my father now. Can you see your father now? Yeah. And Hamlet says, in my mind's eye, meaning inside here, right? Okay. But then, when I was a little boy, my mother would say, you know, I see, said the blind man. But he couldn't see at all. He used to say that to me, I don't know why. But, uh, it'd make you stop and think, right? But that's the third meaning of the word to see, right? To understand. But the first meaning is the act of the eye, huh? Is the second? Is the, to imagine, to picture here, right? But notice that the second meaning is like the first meaning, more than the third meaning, huh? Right? And in a dream, we're imagining, but we think, we're thinking, we're seeing with our eyes, right? But even in a dream, we don't confuse seeing with the eyes by understanding, do we? It's too far away, huh? But that's the third sense, huh? Third sense is what again? To understand. To understand. Yeah, yeah. You see the way the order of the word goes there, right? Yeah. You know how Shakespeare plays on that with, uh, uh, King Lear there when the father is betrayed by one of his sons and the father's eyes are put out. And now he suddenly realizes, understands what it's all about, right? You know? But he didn't see when he had sight. Shakespeare's kind of playing in that, right? Okay. But notice to understand is more important than to see with your eyes, huh? But we name first the seeing with the eyes because that's more sensible, closer to the senses. It's an act of the senses. You see that? Or when I talk about a road in our knowledge, huh? I told you I asked my son Mark, or son Paul, when he was a little boy, what do you think of the basic road in our knowledge? And he says, there are cars and trucks on it. That's what he answered. As soon as he heard the word road, he thought of the first meaning of the word road. So we naturally, what? Do that, huh? Now, um, notice, huh? That your being acted upon when I'm sticking a pin in you is more recognized by you than that I'm acting upon you when you see me. Right? Do you see that? Right. See? Are you aware, and we don't really think about the fact that your eyes are being acted upon by how you surround us, right? Right. See? But if you had a bright light shining in you, huh? Turn that light down or something like that, you see? Because that's already starting to offend your eyes, right? Turn your eyes a bit, huh? Or if somebody's got the radio or something on so loud, right, huh? You know? It's almost deafening, you know, turn that down, you know? Because it's acting upon you in a way that's kind of, what, destructive, they say, your sense of hearing. These kids are going actually a little bit deaf from hearing this, and they can actually tell, you know, the ear that they have closer to the thing is the one that's gotten somewhat deaf, right? So you're more aware of the fact that you're being acted upon. When it's contrary to your nature, when it's painful, huh? See? See? And I stick in that pin or that knife in your ribs, huh? You know, it's much more clear that I'm acting upon you than when my sounds are acting upon your ear, right? Or my face and so on is acting upon your eyes, right? So, uh, but the second sense here of undergoing is still, uh, more in the material order, huh? Than the third one. Now, that the understanding is undergoing is clear from this reason, that it has an operation about being in general. The reason is open to knowing everything in some way. One can consider, therefore, whether the intellect is an act or in potency, from this, huh? That one considers in what way the intellect or understanding has itself to being in general. Now, he says, there is found some understanding, which is the universal being, as the act of all being. And such is the divine understanding, which is the divine essence or nature, in which, originally, and in virtue, and in his power, the whole being, right, pre-exists as in a first cause, huh? That's why God says, you know, sometimes to, was it Moses or Abraham, follow me and I'll show you everything. I'll show you every good. And Thomas says, that is, I'll show you myself. They're all found in a civil way. And, therefore, the divine understanding is not in potency, but it's pure act. But no creative understanding can have itself as act with respect to the whole of universal being, because thus it would be a, what, infinite being, huh? See, in some way, the mind, the understanding of man, is able to, what, understand an infinity of things, huh? It's open to an infinity of things. But if it actually understood everything, right, it would be in itself, in a way, what? An infinite being, huh? God, yeah. Like God is, huh? Once every created understanding, through this that is not the act of everything understandable, is compared to... understandables as ability to act. But then he makes a distinction between the angelic understanding and ours, and by certain likeness there also to the ancient physics. But potency or ability is in two ways to act. For there is a certain ability which is always perfect to act. And that's like in the ancient physics, right, where they thought that the matter or the celestial body was, what, not in potency to anything further, was fully in, what, actualized by its form, huh? Okay? We don't think about that many things. But there's a certain potency which is not always an act, but it precedes from ability to act, as is found in general and corruptible things. But the angelic understanding is always in the act of its understandables. Now, the angelic mind is like our mind after it's been formed by the various arts and sciences. But the angelic mind is filled with every form that it's in potency to. On account of its nearness to the first intellect, which is pure act, as has been said. But the human understanding, which is, what, the lowest, huh, in the order of understandings, and most remote from the perfection of the divine understanding, is in the ability of respect to all understandable things. And in the beginning is like a, what, blank tablet, which nothing has been written, huh? That's why your mind is in the beginning, right? That's why you say, the students, I come into class, and you have a blackboard there that's got nothing on it. This is the human mind in the beginning. It's like a tablet, which is not even written. Which manifestly appears from this, then the beginning, we are understanding only in potency. Afterwards, we become, what, understanding in act, huh? And that's why, you know, Hamlet says that thing I quoted, huh? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, right? And could have been distinguished, right? Her election has sealed thee for herself, huh? But before he didn't actually understand the distinction among men, did he? Difference among men, huh? Thus it is clear that our understanding is a certain undergoing according to the third way of passion that he distinguished in the first part of the respondeo, and consequently the understanding is a passive power, a power that is acted upon by its, what, object, huh? Now the first objection which says that undergoing or suffering is, by reason of matter, it's thinking of the first and the second senses of undergoing, which we distinguished in the body of the article, reacted upon in a way that is contrary to your, what, nature, right, huh? Like I stick a pin in you, huh? Okay. Or the piece of clay, which is a sphere is molded into a cube, or vice versa, right? Okay. Those are the first two senses. But it's a passive power undergoing in the third way of passion, which is that of whatever exists in ability, right, that is reduced to act. Now the second objection is about what we call the intellectus passivus, huh? Which is sometimes taken not for the understanding of universals, but for that particular reason that was one of the internal senses, huh? And so Thomas is trying to clear up that. Various ways it's taken. To the second it should be said that the intellectus passivus, according to some people, is said to be the sense desire, in which are the passions of the soul, which also in the first book of the Ethics is called reasonable by what? Participation because it obeys reason, huh? You know how Plato compares reason is to the, what, emotions like a man to the horses, right? And you can tame the horses, right? And they will obey the man, right? And so the emotions can be to some extent tame, so they'll obey the reason, huh? And therefore they'd be rational by participation. But according to others, intellectus passivus means what? The virtus cogitativa, which is named the particular reason, huh? And that's one of the interior senses, right? Of course the animals have the estimate of power instead. And in both of these ways, passive is taken according to the, what? First two ways of passion. Insofar as understanding thus said is an act of some bodily organ. But the understanding, which is in potency to understandables, which Aristotle, on account of this, calls the intellect, what? Possible, right? Is not passive except in the third way. One is acted upon in a way that is, what? Perfective of the thing, right? And reducing it from ability to act, huh? Because it is not the act of a bodily organ, so it doesn't have passion in those first two senses. And therefore it is, what? Incorruptible, right? Mm-hmm. Now notice the senses can be acted upon in the way the reason is acted upon, and that's when they know. They can be acted upon also in those first ways, can't they? So if I shine a bright light into your eye, and once you close your eye, you'd go, what? Blind, right, huh? You know, if you had your, these loud sounds in your ear, you'd go deaf, right? And we could have some strong peppers here, and destructive of your senses, what? Taste, yeah. So the, um, because the senses are a bodily organ, they can be acted upon in the first or the second sense of undergoing, as well as in the third sense, huh? Let me see that. But the understanding can only be acted upon in the third way, because it doesn't have a bodily organ. Now the third objection is a little different, huh? Because the first two objections are really based upon not understanding the different senses in which we use the word undergo, right? Mm-hmm. In the different way the possible means to use there. But this third one is saying, isn't it more noble to be an agent than a patient? And Thomas says, well, if it's to respect to the same thing it is. He says, the agent is more noble than the patient if to the same the acting upon undergoing are referred. So the teacher is more noble than the student, right? If he's acting upon the student's mind, right? Mm-hmm. And the student is undergoing, right? Or the cook is more noble than the, than the pie, right? Mm-hmm. If he's acting upon and perfecting it, right? Mm-hmm. But not, however, always, if to diverse things, huh? For the understanding is a passive power with respect to the whole universal being. In fact, Aristotle, as you recall, says in the third book about the soul, that the soul is in some way all things, because it has sense and it has understanding. So I can receive the natures of all things of understanding in the form of a, what? Definition, right? Yeah. But the vegetative powers, they're active, yeah. But only with respect to one particular being, namely the body joined to it. Whence nothing prevents something passive to be more noble than something, what? Active, right, huh? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, speak in the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Praise, praise, praise. And help us to understand how it's your written. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. Looking at a text here in the Epistle of St. Jude, huh? Mm-hmm. And he's speaking, first, you know, of bad people, right? And he says, just to read the English here a bit here. But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. How they told you there should be mockers in the last time, huh? Those who mock, I suppose, who these things are. Who should walk after their own ungodly lusts, huh? Now, verse 19. These be they who separate themselves, and the translation here says sensual, right? Having not the spirit, okay? Now, the Greek word, of course, of spirit there is just, what? Pneuma, right? And it could be taken for the spirit with a capital S, like that one translation has here, right? But the interlunic translation just translates it spirit, right? With a small s, right? Okay. Now, the next verse, you know, you'll be talking about praying in the Holy Spirit. And I use the term, the Holy Spirit, so that's obviously, what? Yeah, okay, okay. But the other one, not necessarily, you don't have to be taking that sense necessarily, right? Right. And what's interesting in the Greek word here is that they translate it into one translation here, that these bad men are sensual, having not the spirit, right? Actually, in the Greek, there's no article there. The Greek has psuchikoi. Psuchikoi. That's what? Which comes from the word for what? Soul. Psuche. Yeah, psuche, right? Soul, see? So it says, now, the interlinear translation doesn't know how to translate it either. It says natural for psuchikoi. And the other translates it as what? Sensual, right? No. I'm just noticing the word psuchikoi, which is taken there in a bad sense, right? Okay? Which wouldn't necessarily have to be taken in a bad sense. I mean, my soul magnifies the Lord. But here in the context, psuchikoi, there are psuchikoi, but pneuma, meaning spirit, right? I get the word nomadic, huh? Pneuma, agreed. Pneuma may eklentes, right? Now, you could take it in the sense of having no, what? Having not the Holy Spirit, right? As one transition takes. Or if you just translate spirit with a small s, it'd mean that they're, what? Psychic. In the sense that we mean here. Yeah. But they have no spirit, huh? What does that mean, huh? They're beasts. Yeah. In other words, when you contrast the soul and the spirit, huh? And you're thinking of the soul in so far as it informs the body. And so someone who's concentrated, you know, in this bodily sense, which the way the word sensual has something in the meaning of that, right? You see? And these people would not be, what? Cultivating these higher powers, these immaterial powers that are in the part of the soul that has powers not in the body, huh? The pneuma, huh? What verse is that? It's verse 19 there in Jude, huh? Jude 9. Okay? The verse comes after. It's very twisting, but I don't want to get into it right now. Okay? But it's kind of a, I was looking for a particular passage, you know, I wanted to use here. And I've been running across some passages in Jude here. Okay? It shows you kind of the use of the word there, right? You see? Now, notice, the plant soul, or the living soul, or the feeding soul, it has no ability except in the body, right? All of its abilities it has in the body, huh? And the animal soul, the sensing soul, right, has all its abilities in the body, right? Although, as Thomas says, the sensing abilities are not as depressed as the plant powers are, huh? But it's only the human soul, the understanding soul, that has abilities that are not in the body, huh? Now, how many abilities does it have that are not in the body? That's why we call those abilities, right? Okay? Well, let's put them on the board here for the sake of being there. One, of course, is the ability to understand, right? Okay? And to be more precise, we can bring out that you're talking about, the ability to understand what something is. Okay? And notice that what something is, like, at least what it is of things that we know at first, is always something universal, huh? So what a circle is, is common to all circles, right? So it's something universal. What a cat is, is something common to all cats, huh? A set of all cats. What a chair is, right? It's common, right? So it's his ability to understand what something is, which you could also say is an ability to understand the, like, something universal, right? The definition, of course, is a very distinct knowledge of what something is, right? Okay. Okay? But you might understand what something is in a kind of vague way, at least, right? Before you define that. Okay? So this is one ability that the soul, the understanding soul, the human soul has, that's not in the body, huh? Okay? Because everything that's in the body there is in the continuous. It's here or there, and therefore it's, what? Singular or individual. Yeah. Okay? Now another ability that the soul has, that we'll be talking about later on in this course, is the ability to choose, huh? Okay? And this is the will, huh? Okay? Now, there's a third ability. What is that? What might we call that third ability, right? We're going to be talking about it starting today in this article, right? To illumine the phantasm. Yeah. Yeah. We might call this the ability to make understandable what is in the image. Okay? The ability to make understandable, and we make understandable now actually understandable, huh? What is in the image. Okay? So when I imagine a triangle, right, I imagine an individual triangle. Or if I imagine a circle, I imagine an individual circle, and that individual circle is not yet actually understandable, because it's singular and not universal. It's not simply what a circle is. And so this third ability, which is often neglected now, is the ability to make understandable and would act to separate, in a sense, or to abstract, as they say sometimes, the universal, right, from the singularism. And so this is the ability that we're going to be talking about here today. And that's compared to light, a bit, huh? Yeah. And... And those are various ways of understanding light. But if you think of light as making the colors of the different things around this room actually visible, right? Yeah. As if the colors around this room would not be actually visible, but only visible in ability or in potency, without light. But light makes them actually visible, and then they can be, what, actually seen by the eye. And so, this third ability here is what makes something actually understandable, and therefore able to be, what, understood, by the ability to understand. Let's look at the Article 3 here, now he's starting to tell us. Where there's necessary to, what, posit that there is an active understanding, right? Or an acting upon understanding, if you want to use the English word, huh? Sometimes you see the Latin thing, Asian intellect, they'll call it sometimes in the translations, right? But this active understanding of the acting upon. To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that it is not necessary to lay down that there is an active or acting upon understanding. And the first objection says, For just as the sense has itself to sensible things, so our understanding has itself to understandable things. Aristotle himself sometimes uses a proportion of that sort, right? He's bringing out the fact that understanding is an undergoing, right? Just like sensing is an undergoing, huh? And so in some way, the sensible is to the senses, like the understandable is to the understanding, huh? But because the sense is in potency to sensible things, one does not posit a, what, active sense, right? But only a sense undergoing, right? Therefore, since likewise, our understanding is in potency to understandables, right? It seems that one ought not to lay down an acting upon understanding, but only the possible one. That's the second power I have on the board, in potency to understand, right? I call it possible because it undergoes in order to understand, huh? It's an active one. Because at first it's only understanding and ability, right? And notice, huh, this argument is based upon a likeness, and there's certainly a likeness between the two, right? But are they that much alike, huh? Yeah. But you can see how the mind is easily, or the great Plato says, and the sophist, I think it is, that likeness is a slippery thing, huh? And especially when you have a likeness between things that are distant, huh? And that's why, and I always give a very simple example to students of the point that I'll say, four is to six as two is to three, right? But two and three are two prime numbers, right? It's a ratio of a prime number to a prime number, right? So four to six is the ratio of a prime number to a prime number. Oh no, that's not true, is it? Or two to three is the ratio of an even number to an odd number. Therefore, four to six? No, no, no, that's wrong too, right? See? So I said, what does it mean to understand the proportion, right? To understand in what way they are what? Proportion. What way they are like, right? And four is to six as two is three, that four is the same parts of six, that two is of three, right? If you imagine the six say they have three twos, four would be two of the three parts, right? So it's the same parts of, you know? So it's interesting in the dialectic there where you have the fourth tool of dialectic, which is a tool of likeness, huh? And where especially the ability to see a proportion is very important. And Aristotle will speak of it as the skeptics, you know, of the likeness, huh? Which kind of means what? The consideration of the likeness, huh? Because you've got to kind of consider exactly in what way are they, what? Well, alike, huh? Okay? You see, the scientists are using the likeness of a wave, huh? And there's a certain likeness between all ways, waterways and soundways, right, and lightways. But then there are certain differences, huh? In the way they're propagated and so on. Moreover, second objection. If it be said that in the sense there is also some agent, for example, light, huh? To which we're going to compare the agents like they are honoring, right? Against this, huh? Light is required for sight insofar as it makes the, what? Medium. Yeah, middle, yeah, medium. Lucid in act, huh? For color itself, by itself, is a motive of the lucid, huh? That's another way that some people would understand the role of light there, huh? Thomas will mention that, I think, in one of the objections, right? But in the operation of the understanding, one does not posit some medium which is necessary to come about and act, huh? You don't understand through a medium like you see something through the air, you're right, huh? Okay, or you smell something, and so on. Therefore, it's not necessary to lay down an agent understanding, huh? Third, Morbor, huh? The likeness of the agent is received in the patient according to the way of the patient, huh? That's the old principle. Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver, huh? Something you learn as a teacher, right, huh? You give the same lecture, you know, to 30 kids, and then you give them an exam, and one guy gives you back perfectly almost what you said, right? Another guy, you know, part of what you said. Another guy has got the thing wrong that you said. You know, whatever is received is received according to the mode of the, what? Receiver, huh? Okay. But notice, I mean, they say, you know, you put butter in the fire, and you put a rock in the fire, and the butter, what? Yeah, it's received in a different way, huh? Okay. Mode there, does that mean the... Way. In English, you tell us that it's way, yeah. But in a sense, the Latin word mode has got the entomology of measured, either way Thomas and Augustine take it. Okay, so you kind of measure, right? You know? You shouldn't measure exactly what I say, right, but the measure of the student's mind. It's a little bit like you had different cups, right? You had the water pouring there, and one's going to receive more water because its measure is different, huh? How is it going to receive less, huh? Does that mean it's some kind of act, then, in the receiver? No, it's an ability or capacity or disposition to receive either one, right? The mode. And we're all going to be filled by God, right, to the next growth, huh? Everybody goes to heaven anyway, right? But each according to our, what? Disposition, right, huh? We die it, huh? Okay. But then it's kind of a form, disposition. Now, disposition is always reduced to what? The genus of material cause. It may have been matter in the strictest sense of matter, right? But disposition on the side of the receiver is reduced to that, huh? Because matter receives, huh? Okay. That's what I understand in the Hail Mary, right? You know? Full of grace, the Lord is with thee, huh? Well, full of grace is a disposition, right? Whereby she is what? With God. The Lord is with her, yeah. Yeah. Disposition to receive him, so to speak, huh? Okay. And that's why the Holy Spirit, too, is given, you know, with charity, huh? Which is disposing us in a way to receive him. Okay. But the possible understanding, this is the understanding now that understands, and possible means that it's, what, an ability, right? It's going to undergo it first. It's an immaterial power, right? But it's immateriality is enough for it to receive in it forms in an immaterial way. But from this, some form is understandable in act. That it is. That it is. This, what? Immaterial, huh? Therefore, there is no necessity to posit an acting upon understanding in order that it might make, what? Inact understandable forms, huh? Okay? Now, of course, as Thomas will be explaining, if there were, for our mind out there already, a portion to our mind, understandable forms and act, we wouldn't need this, what? Acting upon understanding, huh? In other words, if Plato was correct in saying that there is the world of forms, right? The world of these universal forms out there already, then they would be, what? Understandable and act, huh? You see? But is there, you know, what man is, what dog is, and what cat is, existing in the world by itself, apart from individual men and dogs? Well, Aristotle argues against that in metaphysics, huh? And that's what he was forced by the truth itself, you might say, once he had seen something wrong with what Plato was saying, right? He was forced to recognize this third power in us, huh? Okay? Because both Plato and Aristotle had some understanding that the understanding is immaterial, right? And the understandable is something immaterial. And therefore, if there's something there actually understandable to act upon our mind, just as if there's something actually sensible to act upon our senses, you don't need this power that we're going to talk about here today, huh? But if all that's out there is those images, right, which are understandable only in, what? Ability, huh? Yeah. Then you need some power to make actually understandable those that are only understandable in ability, huh? Okay? Those that are understandable in ability only can't act upon the understanding, huh? It's got to be an act to do so. But against all this is what the philosopher, and that's again referring by Antonia Masia, huh? To Aristotle himself, huh? But against this is what the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, that just as in every nature, so also in the soul. There's something by which it is able to become all things, and something by which it is able to make all things. Now what does he mean by something by which it is able to become all things? Which of these abilities is that? The second one there. Yeah, the ability to understand, huh? And Aristotle said later on in the third book about the soul, the soul is in a way all things, right? Because by the senses it receives all sensible forms, and by the understanding here, he sees all understandables in some way, huh? And so when I have the definition of what? Dog or cat. I have dog or cat in a way in my mind, right? And since my mind is open to knowing all things in some way, right? In some way through my soul and its ability to understand, I am all things. I can see the natures of all things, huh? And that shows kind of the tremendous superiority of man to the other animals, huh? And in general, of something that knows to something that, what, has no knowledge, huh? Because something that doesn't know is in every way limited, you might say, to its own nature, right? But something that has understanding especially can receive the natures of other things in this immaterial way that we call knowing. And so in some way it seems to be, what, all things, huh? It's a kind of anticipation, you know, of what God would be in a very simple way, huh? You know, when Thomas is taking God's words to Moses, you know, come follow me and I will show you every good. Thomas says, it asked himself. That is himself, right? Because all these things are containing God but in a very simple way, right? But you see, the nobility of the soul, then in some way it seems to, what, be open, right, to containing everything, huh? Okay? And you see that from the universe out to the mind. I know the difference between something and nothing, right? And so everything is something, right? And so I'm confused when my mind is taking into account everything, huh? Okay? And I'm making statements about everything in a way. When I say something is not nothing, right? Now Thomas again here in the response here is putting out this difference between Plato and Aristotle. I answer that to be said that according to the opinion of Plato, Plato, there would be no necessity, huh? To lay down an understanding, an active understanding, an active understanding, an acting upon understanding, right? They're going to call this. For making things, what? Understandable act. Okay? Except, perhaps, to giving some, what? Understandable light to the one understanding, as we said below, but let's do the other side, huh? Why no necessity for Plato? Because Plato laid down that the forms of natural things subsist without matter, right? And consequently, that they were, what? Understandable, right? Okay? And consequently, that they were understandable. Because from this, something is understandable in act, that it is, what? Immaterial. And he called these things species, which means, what? Form, the form that can be seen, in a sense, huh? Or eidos in Greek, right? And sometimes they badly translate that in English to idea, which doesn't have the sense at all, but it means, huh? It's better translated with a capital F, you know, forms, huh? By the participation, or from the participation of which he said, also bodily matter was formed, right? To this, that individuals would be naturally constituted in their proper genre and species. And also intellect, right? Was informed by these things that might have, what? Knowledge about the genre and species of things. Okay? Now, although we're going to reject that position of Plato, nevertheless, it is soon like as to what the truth is about God and the, what? Angels, right? And then, what we call the ideas in God, right? The forms in God, whereby he makes things, right, huh? Okay? He makes the material things and he, what? Puts ideas, you might say, into the angelic minds, huh? They partake in some sense of God, right, huh? Okay? And so they have a knowledge in that way, huh? Okay? And the likeness consists in this fact that, unlike us, we get our knowledge of the material world from the material world through our senses, right? Mm-hmm. The, what? Angels have a knowledge of the material world through thoughts that arise from God, right, whose thought originally is a source of the material world. Mm-hmm. Okay? And that's sort of interesting, huh? That possibility, huh? Yeah. You know? In a sense, you can realize there's three ways that my mind could have a truthful thought about these material things out there, right? Or in general, you can say there's two ways that thought and the material things there could, what, be in harmony, right? One would be if the thought produced the material thing. The other would be if the material thing, what, acted upon the thought, right? The other would be if there was a thought that, what, produced material things and produces the thought, right? And you have all three possibilities there, right, huh? Okay? God knows, what, the material world through his word, through his thinking because his thought is productive of the world, right? We know the material world because it acts upon us, right? And the angels are the third possibility, huh? Covered all the possibilities. Okay? Now, why did Plato posit those forms? Now, this is maybe a little bit off for you to say it, but there's perhaps two ways you could say that Plato arrived at that thought, huh? And one was because of the answer he gave to the central question, right? Okay? He thought that, what, truth required that the way we know be the way things are. Yeah. And therefore, if we truly know, by definitions, as Socrates was showing that we were, right, and by definitions we know the universal and separation that the way we know that the way we know that the way we know from the singulars, right? Then they must truly be that way, right? Okay? Remember that? Yeah. That's why he posited these two other worlds. He had the mathematical world corresponding to the mathematical sciences where he thought he had truth, right? And then you had the world of forms corresponding to the definitions. Now the other way he would approach it, I suppose, would be by saying that what is so through another presupposes something that is so through itself, right? So if my coffee is sweet but not sweet through being coffee, it must be sweet through something else, right? And if that's sweet through not to itself, it must be sweet through something else, right? So eventually you've got to come to something that is sweet through itself, right? So is Socrates a man because he's Socrates? Is it through being Socrates that one is a man? No. Otherwise you and I would not be a man or we'd have to be Socrates, right? So none of us are a man through being ourselves, are we? Therefore there must be something that is man to itself. And that would be... If you look at Plato's Greek, sometimes it would say man himself to himself, kind of almost like... Redundant there almost, huh? The man himself to himself. That would be the four, right? No kidding. But Aristotle says, how can you have man himself? It's the very nature of man to have a body, right? If he was material, he wouldn't be actually under... He wouldn't be in this world of forms. But anyway... So that... That's a question maybe for the metaphysics to answer, but I mean... Just Plato's application of that statement, what's going on in Christ's... Yeah. There's a lot of truth to that, right? You can see how people can be led to that, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? There's obviously a problem in this case, right? Because... What a man is obviously involves matter, huh? Okay? Okay. Maybe I'm a man not to having soul and body in general, but having this soul and this body, right? That's the way you have to understand it, huh? Mm-hmm. But anyway, I'll leave that to the system. But because Aristotle did not lay down that the forms, the natures of natural things subsist without matter, and forms existing in matter are not understandable in act, it follows that the... What? The natures or the forms of sensible things, which we understand, are not understandable in act, huh? But nothing is reduced from potency to act except by some being already in act, just as a sense comes to be in act through something sensible in act. It's necessary, therefore, to lay down that there's some power on the side of the understanding, right, that intellectual part of us, which would make understandables in act, right, through the separation of forms from the material conditions. And this, he says, is a necessity of laying down that there's this acting upon or act of understanding, right? This ability to make understandable in act what is in the, what? Images, right, huh? Okay. This is a very subtle thing in our stylist part, huh? Yeah. Although, Thomas says, we have some awareness of that act in us, huh? Yeah. You see? We're starting to study some geometrical figures that we haven't studied before, right? We're looking at the figures, you know, and then we're separating out what they have in common, huh? He has some experience of that, huh? But it is something that's kind of obscured nevertheless, right, in our inward experience. Okay? So this is sort of his own discovery, this one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But in a sense, Plato had seen something already, right? He had seen that the understandable in act is something, what, immaterial. Yeah. But he had these things ready there, right? That could act upon our minds, you see? The forms, huh? Yeah. But once Aristotle rejected the idea for good reason, that you don't really have a man himself by himself, but only this man or that man, huh? Then he was forced, you might say, by the truth itself, right? To see that we had this other ability whereby we could separate it, huh? So that the universal man is, is, is a man is universal. It would be said of many only in our mind, huh? And that's why the great, Albert the Great, you know, he says, the first thing to be considered in logic, he says, is universal. See? Because logic, in a way, is about things insofar as they're in our mind, huh? And what happens to them, right? For being in our mind, huh? And the first thing that happens to them is to be, what, universal. And you go through logic and see that Albert the Great has, in a sense, hit the nail on the head, right? Because everything there presupposes some kind of, like, universality. One of the first things we study in logic, like in the Isogogia of Porphyry, we try to make it a little more sensible because of our dependence upon the senses, but we talk about names said of many things. That's the first thing to be considered in logic. and then in Afortziori and you get to the syllogism, you're talking about if A is said of all B, A is said of whatever B is said of. If A is denied of all B or said of none, then said of none of what B is said of. But you see the universality there right away. Now, to the first objection was saying was based on that proportion, right? That the sensible is to the senses as the understandable as the understanding. Well, he's pointing out now. To the first, therefore, it should be said that sensibles in act are found outside the, what, soul, right? And therefore it's not necessary to lay down a, what, acting upon sense. Okay? So the reason why you had to posit it here was because outside our soul, right, you don't have an actually understandable man. You're not actually understandable in case you didn't know that. Okay? It's kind of funny, you know, if you try to say something about somebody, right, everything we end up saying about him is really universal, isn't it? Okay? And it could be found in somebody else because it's still universal, right? This is the problem that Hegel has, right? He's trying to get the singular from putting the results together, right? Maybe if you said, you know, Berkowitz is a, is a, um, a philosopher, he's a, um, Christian philosopher, he's a, uh, he's a husband, he's a grandfather, he's a brother, he's a, you know? Even that whole combination is still something that could be found in somebody besides, what, Berkowitz, start, you see? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. I can just point, that's Berkowitz, right? You know? But then you're going back to your senses, you see? You know? What you understand directly, what you understand directly of me is something that could be in someone other than me. Yeah. So there's singular things that we would say, like, you went to this school, you graduated, you stay, you live at this house? Back to the senses, yeah, yeah, yeah. Take somebody's word for it. Oh. And there's a little summary of doctrine that Thomas gives at the end of the first, we apply the first objection. And thus it is clear that in the, what, nourishing part, right, the feeding part, right, the three powers you have in the, what, plant, right, all powers are, what, active, huh? In the sensing part, all powers are, what, passive, huh? And that's true of both of the, what, the senses and sense-desired emotions, huh? Okay. Okay. But in, but assuming of all the senses, in the understanding part, huh, there is one power active and one, what, passive, right, huh? Uh-huh. See? Now, notice you could divide the powers you wanted to into the active and the passive, right? Uh-huh. You say, well, the first ones we study are active powers, right?