De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 107: The Agent Intellect and the Necessity of Abstraction

Transcript
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right and judging right and he attributes grasping more to the images where you get something to grasp right but judging more to the active understanding right yeah but in essence the perfection of knowing which is judging comes more from the active understanding than from the images right but having something to grasp right comes uh more in its content from the images now the third objection huh why can't man always understand right if he has the active and the passive thing there right he says to the third it should be said if the active understanding was compared to the possible intellect as the object acting upon it is to the power right as a visible in act is to the sight it would follow that at once we understood all things right you see that since the agent elect is that by which all things are made huh understandable now however it does not have itself as the object right but as making the objects an act right you see that for which is required besides the presence of the acting upon understanding the presence of the images huh and also the good disposition of the sense powers huh an exercise in these works huh as i found out i was trying to do solid geometry right you know my imagination wasn't really forming the images that i needed to do this right and so i i constructed a few things with these little you know pieces of cardboard right yeah and we had one of them hanging down from the the light of the kitchen there for months you know huh i was trying to get my imagination up to that's all the geometry right and jocitium they're going on this coin this did it jocitium they're trying to more and more form these crazy figures in my imagination huh didn't have that problem solid plain geometry but solid geometry really gets some some problems there to decahedron right huh um and because through what one thing understood other things become understood right as through terms propositions become known right and through the first uh propositions or principles conclusions be known on like the three acts of reason that we talk about and as far as this is concerned it does not differ with the agent intellect with something of the soul or something separated see that what the objection is saying right the objection is saying hey if this is the one that receives this the one that acts upon it why doesn't it always what fully act upon it and then uh always understand everything well it's not the object that acts upon the thing but the one that makes uh the object in potency be actually the object huh so you need the images right and the proper dispositions in those internal senses huh in order for them to be a proper what tool right of the reason huh you know in the great monstein you know and he explained some of these words like the the word beginning there in the fifth book of metaphysics there um you notice in a lot of these words the first meaning of the word is something sensible huh and then as you move into the later meanings of the words you get to something that's not sensible and we have a dependence all the way back upon that sensible meaning in order to understand the later meanings huh that's you kind of see the dependence there of us upon the image all way back there right and dion saw that thing very clearly you know what anybody ever really saw it so well you know they brought it out so well um so in that sense the uh it's not like you know seeing god you know huh you say god's not making something else understandable he's what's going to understood he's going to be seen face to face so which is the collating power before the intellect can well already you already you see something of the influence of reason in its discursive ability right huh um in the senses right in the interior senses right what they call the cogitative power right huh and uh you see an experience right and you never stop it because you know experience is something mainly that man has right or the other animals huh because an experience is a kind of a collatio these latin words are bringing together right of many images huh and then you have things like recollection you know that take place in the memory sometimes which is like almost reasoning you know from one image to another like what were you doing you know yesterday at four o'clock you go i don't know but then you go back and you say well i went to chapel at two and then i came out and that right and you kind of you know i worked your way back right to what you were doing at four o'clock yesterday huh but you couldn't remember at first right but kind of like that kind of like reasoning in a sense so you said who's that guy okay came on a chapel the other day and there's a guy standing he said he's familiar i don't know who he was turned out to be a student from he'd gone to anna maria and had come down taking one of my courses one time just look at me i i knew he's who you know i think i couldn't place who the heck he was you know but you know but uh so what you call the particular reason a couple yeah yeah or the cogitative part they call it sometimes particular reason right that's why i was clear to say universal here right because sometimes we use the word reason equivocally right to name the cogitative power is what they call it too but it's it's it brings together individual images right something like universal reason brings together universal thoughts so so when the understanding abstract you say it gets a universal universal it's the imagination just from a cogitative power what is when it when it brings the things together what do you name what it gets just an experience experience yeah yeah and be careful because experience is sometimes used you know for sensation too by people you know but when you give the order of sensing memory and then experience experience means a collection of many memories of the same sort of thing yeah okay okay okay so fan the latin phantasm phantasm is is the is a the greek derived word for image okay okay yeah so let's see the word images got so many uses in in latin you know you know you know that sometimes they want to talk about images in this sense in the inward senses they they want to use a word word that's more tied right you might say the statue is an image that's an image of somebody the statue over there or the painting is an image of somebody right and uh so they tend to use a lot of time the greek word there but okay and of course we get our word fancy you see from that you say because the connection between uh and fancy came to mean you know do you fancy her but because you know the connection between imagination and irromantic love huh now these things get stored that we form these experiences for a particular reason they get stored in a a form of sense memory then yeah yeah yeah yeah Aristotle compares it you know in the rhetoric in the in the second political post-analytics you know to these scenes in homo you know where the troops are fleeing you know and one guy turns around makes a stand right and then that encourages the others another guy turns around makes a stand another guy you know another guy right and all of a sudden you got something firm there right you know that's that's experience you know it's where one image you know sort of just you know flipping through your head all of a sudden one stops right and then you know another one stops in long naked you know and finally you know get a whole army there that's experience So you need, he puts experience between the images and the... Well, you see, what you have is sense, memory, experience. That's the way he speaks in the premium to wisdom, right? Yeah. And then you start to have analogy universal after that. Okay. Yeah, so it's not just directly, simply one image or maybe... No, no, no, no. Okay. Now, the fourth objection, again, is important because the fourth objection was saying that how can the soul be, what, both an act and an ability, right, with respect to the same thing? Well, it's not exactly the same way. To the fourth, it should be said that the understanding soul is in act, immaterial, but it is in potency to determine what forms or likenesses of things. But the images or phantasms are the reverse, right? They are in act, right? The likenesses of certain species, right? But they are in potency, what? Immaterial, huh? Whence nothing prevents one and the same soul insofar as it is immaterial in act to have some power through which or by which it makes things immaterial in act by separating them from the individual conditions of matter, which power is, of course, called the agent intellect, and another power receptive of these species, which is called the possible understanding insofar as there is in potency to these, what, species. So it's not with respect to the same thing, is it, huh? It's not like the agent intellect had in act these forms, right? And the passive intellect had these forms in potency, right? So you have the forms in act and you have them in potency. No. No. In the soul you have, what, actual immateriality but not the actual forms, right? In the images, right, which are in the body, huh, you have the actual likenesses but not universal or immaterial, right? So one thing is in act and the other is in potency but not the same with respect to the same inside the soul, right, huh, okay? So there's really kind of a tricky thing there to see, right, the role that the images play in giving the determinate likenesses of things, right, and the immateriality and universality of them that the agent intellect is responsible for, right? So in that sense, you need the images, right, to get the, what, definite universal, right? But you need the agent intellect for those likenesses that are actual there but not immaterial or universal, they are singular there in the images, to become, what, something universal. But, you know, you read the English philosophers, you see they can't quite understand that, you know? They can't quite distinguish between the image of the triangle and the, what, what you understand right? And, you know, I know, I showed that passage in Locke, haven't I, or, you know, and Locke is trying to understand the general idea of triangle, and is it isosceles or scathe or what is it, you know? And he's trying to imagine the triangle in general, but any time you imagine triangle, you imagine either isosceles, scathe or equal. So you kind of think, like, like, like, like her, uh, algebra, she thinks it's kind of what? All or none of these things, right, huh? Yeah. They're all rolled together, you know, huh? And, uh, I can't quite, uh, see what it is, huh? But it's because it's confusing, in a way, the image with the, what, thought. I can understand what is common to the three kinds of triangle, right? But I can't imagine a triangle, which would be a singular triangle, right, that isn't one or the other, right, in particular. But yet that we understand universal is seen in the experience we have of the universal demonstrations in geometry. But the reason why, say, the interior angles of a triangle are equilateral is tied to what a triangle is, in separation from whether the sides are all equal or just two of them or none of them, right? Just draw that line, you know, parallel to the opposite side of the Euclid or exterior. Well, you want to do two things at the same time, they shake, I mean, the Euclid, you remember? Yeah. You want to show if the exterior angle is equal to the two interior opposite ones and then find it. You can just draw right to the top and, again, do it that way. Okay. So it's very easy to confuse those two. And in English, the word idea, you know, is used sometimes for image and sometimes for thought, right? So I say to the students, if the philosopher has an idea, it should be a thought. But if your girlfriend says to you, don't get ideas, it probably means images, right? Because you're probably not doing much thinking at this point. Actually, I get the idea out of where I can. But people do confuse it, too, right? And that's why, as they say, in this wonderful story of Mount Joy there, right, where the guy is confused about these poetic images with philosophy, right? But there are people who are out there who are doing it all the time, right? They're looking for something, what? Probably people in here, too. Yeah, something that will appeal to their imagination rather than to their reason, huh? Is that in the sketchbook? Yeah. Well, not in the sketchbook, no. It's a different collection of his papers, you know. You end up with something that's neither good poetry or good philosophy sometimes, this way, huh? Because a poet as such is aiming at, what? Pleasing the imagination, huh? And the images say, even the images in Scripture are more order to the mind than they are to the pleasing the imagination, huh? The Lord is my rock, you know, that beautiful image, something like that, you know? But, I mean, it helps you to understand something about God, right? But when we pick a great poet, we have, would it? The Lord is my rock, huh? Death lies in her like a, what? Untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the fields. That's poetry. For the Lord is my rock, that's not poetry, really. It's more like the images of Aristotle or Socrates, which is very simple, ordinary, yeah. Here are the four roots of all things, says Pedocles, right? Birth, air, fire, water, the four roots of all things. Very good. So the, you say that the immaterial idea is in the image. Well, you see, you see, if you go back to the, um, the anima, right? Aristotle wants to distinguish between thinking and imagining because they're sometimes confused, right? Okay? And even people who know the difference, you know, will use the words sometimes, what, interchangeably, right? And, you know, if you look at, you know, the fifth, that's, I think, is an example sometimes, huh? Well, you know, Shakespeare is asking the audience, right, in the choruses, right, to fill out, you know, what we can't represent. We can't represent, you know, these vast empires and the great war going on here, you know? And so we have a couple of guys out there, you know, quacking and imagining, you know? But sometimes you'll appeal to, you know, your imagination, right, and sometimes to your thoughts, you know? You know, to fill out the picture here, right? You see? And so we say, I think that's so. I imagine that's so, you see? We tend to, especially when we're not too sure, right? We're apt to, you know, use imagining and thinking into changing and imagining, say, and understanding. We wouldn't do that so much, would we? But what Aristotle does when he first shows they're not the same, he takes thinking more in the third act, right? And he says that I can imagine something without having any reason for it, huh? So I can imagine a terrorist out there, right? But without having any reason for imagining a terrorist out there. Or I can imagine something out there is going to bring us in filet mignon. now or something, or a lot of money or something, right? See? But I don't think there's a terrorist out there, right? I don't think there's a man who's going to bring in some money now or something, or you know, a round of beer or something. I have to have some reason to think that, right? You see? Okay? So to say to the students, I can imagine myself winning the Massachusetts sweepstake and you know, won $10 million. I can imagine that. But I can't think that won $10 million when I haven't even bought a ticket. I have no reason to think I won $10 when I haven't even bought a ticket, right? You see what I mean? See? I can imagine a terrorist out there without having any reason to think there's a terrorist out there. But I can't really think there's a terrorist out there without having a reason to think there's one out there. And then he says, consequently, if I merely imagine it, I don't necessarily have much of any emotion, right? See? But if I think there's a terrorist out there, I'd really be scared, huh? You see? If I thought I'd won $10 million, I mean, you know. I just imagine, you know, it's no big deal, you know? You see what I mean? That's the first way he distinguishes them, right? And I think it would be also easier to distinguish them in the second act than in the first act, huh? See, is an image a statement? No. See? If I imagine you with a long nose, like Cyrano de Bergerac, right? Am I saying that you have a long nose? No. See, there's a difference there, right? But now if I'm thinking about what a triangle is and I imagine a triangle, it's a little harder to tell the difference there, right? But when I'm thinking about what a triangle is, you have this sort of difference there that it's something universal, right? If I'm imagining a triangle, it's always something singular. And a triangle is not what a triangle is, even though there's a connection there between the two, right? So eventually he distinguishes even between them and the very fundamental part, right? But that's harder for the mind to see, right? Okay. Now, the fifth objection was saying, hey, we get this ability to understand, or this active ability, this understandable light from God, right? But if this was a power of the soul, we'd be getting it from the soul because the powers flow from the soul, as we saw in an earlier article when you were in here. Okay? Thomas says, well, that's no problem because the soul itself is created by God, right? So whether we get the power of understanding directly from God or get the soul directly from God, right? And through the soul, the power, in either case, right? We're all set here, huh? So he says, since the essence of the soul is immaterial, created by the supreme intellect, namely God, nothing prevents the power which is partaken from the supreme understanding or intellect, namely God, nothing prevents that power that partakes of it, but which it abstracts the matter to proceed from its essence just as its other, what, powers is concerned, huh? Okay? So, being there, I thought it was appropriate to look at this passage in the first chapter of the Epistle of St. James here, that 17th verse that we looked at already a little bit, right? Um, because of the fact that we were introduced to, what, this light, huh? This agent intellect, right? Which Aristotle compares to a light, right, huh? Okay? And we also, the idea that this light is, what, derived from God in some way, right, huh? Okay? Now let's go back to the text here, if you have it here, if I read it again in the Greek here. Um, pasa dosis, right? I guess dosis would be the verb, huh? Or the, I mean, the verb form. Every giving, right? Pasa dosis agape. Every what? Good giving, right? Now that's a strong, what, logically we call that universal affirmative. Pan, right? Okay? Every. And, pan do re ma, right? Every gift, so it's very explicit, right? Every gift that is, what? Teleon, huh? That's the word for what? Perfect. Okay? Okay? And that's how explicit that is, huh? It has pasa and pan, which are the same word, I mean, it's different grammatically, isn't it? Every good giving and every perfect gift, right? Now you know good and perfect go together, don't they? And that's why in the Summa Theologiae, the consideration of the divine goodness is attached to the consideration of the divine, what? Perfection, right? Okay? You have the five attributes of God there, the simple, right? That he's perfect, that he's, what? Infinite, that he's unchanging, right? And that he's one, right? And to his being good is attached, I mean, being perfect is attached to the consideration of the goodness of God, right? To his being infinite is being everywhere, right? And to his being unchanging is being eternal, right? Okay? And you see that connection, of course, in the ninth book of wisdom, right? The connection between good and perfect. So notice what he's saying here, how explicit this text is, huh? Pasa, I mean, you can hardly be more explicit than that, huh? Every good giving, right? And Pandorema Telen, every perfect gift, right? It's almost like saying the same thing twice, right? But, you know? Anothen is from above, right? Esten, it's from above. of kata bainan, bainan, coming down, right? From whom? Apu tu patraston foton, huh? Now, why is he called the father of lights? Why is it that every perfect gift and every good giving, right, is coming down from the father of lights? Isn't that indicating that if not the greatest, at least among, these perfect gifts are the lights he gives, right? Why is he called the father of lights if you didn't want to emphasize the fact that the lights that he gives us are, what, a agathe dosis, huh? Giving a teleon dorema, right? Okay? So it makes you want to think of this. I don't have it on the board anymore. That this light that we call, Aristotle compares it explicitly if you go back to Danimov, remember that, you know, that the agent is like a fosse, you know, a light, huh? An intelligible light, huh? That that is in the stream, what? A great gift, right? It's something really to be, what, thankful for, right? It's a great gift, right? And then Nick should say, you know, go on to that and say, what, that the light of faith is another one of the, you know, because this is coming down from the father of lights, the light of faith, huh? So that's also a, what? A doremah to lay on, huh? And this light of glory, that is a doremah, right? It's in the plural, the father of lights, huh? That these perfect gifts that come down from him are the gift of light, huh? And at least there's three gifts that we might possibly get, right? The one we all get, the light of reason, huh? That we have to nourish, right? And respect, huh? It's kind of marvelous that this text, you know, of Augustine there, that's a mention there, with John Paul II there, you know. You know how Augustine, for a while, despaired of knowing the truth? Just like a modern philosopher is doing a lot, you know? The way Descartes did, huh? And so on. And, you know, around this time, you have the dialogues at Casas Iacum, right? And, of course, the contra-academicos is the one where he's trying to get out of this, but skepticism that the later academics had about telling the truth, huh, see? And then, once you get out of that, then you've got to avoid, what? Presumption. Presumption boldness, right? And then the next word is Deordine, see? See, the dialogue called Deordine is very badly translated, right? The title of the dialogue in Latin is Deordine. The way they translate it is on divine providence and the problem of evil. Because that question comes up in the dialogue, right? What Augustine brings out is that they're not ready to, what, answer that problem now, that it's out of order to try to answer that before you know all these other things. That's the whole point of the dialogue. But the English reader, right, might pick it up and say, oh, I'm interested in that great problem, right? And, you know, and what Augustine's point there is not that, but it's about the fact that you have to take up these things in a certain order, otherwise you're going to be, what? I don't understand. Yeah. And guess what the words are of St. James right before the project read? May planaste, huh? Do not err. Adel foy mu agape toy. My beloved, huh? Brothers, right? But, of course, you know, it's probably the context of the evils you've been talking about before then, right? But I've got struck by it right here, because planaste comes from the Greek word to what? To wander. To wander, yeah. And to wander means what? A disordered movement of your mind. As I tell the students, you know, when they hang up a sign on the machine out there saying out of order, that means the machine isn't functioning well, right? May I give you your money or your drink or whatever it is for your money. May I take your money and I give you a drink or vice versa. But when our mind is out of order, it makes mistakes, right? So do not err. And then he talks about this perfect gift, which is a light coming down, right? Mm-hmm. So I take that part up to there as what? Kind of a scriptural basis for saying we should respect greatly these three lights, huh? Because this is kind of almost like singling out when calling him the father of lights, huh? In the context now of what? Talking about a perfect gift, right? And a good gift, right? Coming out from above, right? It comes down from the father of lights. Well, the lights refers to what? I mean, there's only one light that is God himself, right, huh? So it's referring to the many lights that he's giving us, right? And they come down from him, all of them. Actual light of reason, the light of faith, and then the light of glory, huh? Then he goes on, with whom has no place change, right? There's no change in him, right? Or shadow change, and we're seeing the connection between that, right? It's kind of struck by it. When Thomas emphasized in the fact that our mind being, what? Mobile, right? And in the dark, huh? Depends upon a higher mind, huh? Okay? So he asked my angel to strengthen all of my mind, right, huh? And we asked God, you know, Dios Illuminatio, and so on. But now, what does the next passage, the next line say, 18 there, huh? Well, I'll read you a couple of translations here, huh? The Greek first word is bulethis, right, huh? And that goes back to the word for what? The word comes. The what? Come. Yeah, or go back to the idea of the will, too, huh? Okay? And I noticed in one translation here, it says, of his own will. Right? Okay? You know, God, you know, it's by his will that God produced us, not by nature, right? Okay? Bulethis, anyway, that's the first word. Ape kuneisun, he brought forth, right? The translation says, of his own will, he beget us, right? Okay? With the logo aletheos. He brought us forth, logo aletheos. Now, I was struck by that because, you know, the prayer of Thomas the communion prayer, the adorote devotee, right? And the second quatrain is talking about what? The sense is not knowing him, right? Visus taktus, right? Gustus, right? I see the host, I touch it, I taste it. Visus taktus gustus in te falitu, right? They don't see that Christ is there in the bread, do they? Yeah? Sedaritu, right? But by the earth, solo tutu aditu, right? Creditu, right? You know? Okay? Faith is exarituas, St. Paul says, huh? But then, what, huh? Nil, hope, verbo, veritatis, various, right, huh? Okay? He's believing Christ, right? Because nothing is more true than this, what? Word of truth, right? Okay? He says, credo, quid, quid, dixen, de ephidius, right? Okay? This is my body, right? This is my blood. So he's believing Christ, right? Exaritu. Nil, hope, verbo, veritatis, various, right? You have the same thing here in Greek, except instead of verbo, you've got logo, right? And aletheos, truth, right? So he brought us forth by the word of truth, huh? Now, I mean, otherwise you can understand that, too, but if you say, you know, beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was God, and later on you say, all things were made, right? To the word, especially us, right? You know? And he's the word of what? Truth, right? Same word here, right? And he goes on to say, of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. That's one way they translate it, right? That's the word for creatures, right? I don't know what, in Greek, rather. Then we might be kind of what? Forefront of his creatures, right? Okay? But why are we at the forefront of his creatures? At least, you know, in the clear world, anyway. It's the reason. Yeah, because of that light that we receive to him, the light of the age intellect, huh? Because there he seems to be talking almost about our creation, almost, right? I mean, almost about our natural light, huh? Yeah. That's very striking, huh? Yeah. I was looking for that passage, and I kind of skimmed through it. I thought it was in James. I just looked around it, and I couldn't find it, you know? And so I said, gee, that was in James. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, I looked at Jude, you see? Oh, okay. And I didn't find it in Jude. And then I came, you know, back to James and found it, right? There's just a dinosaur in the middle of the night there. I was thinking about it in the bed there. And then I was very much struck by this passage at the end of Jude. This is a different thing now. I mean, you know how I've always spoke with great admiration for the premium to the Dei Verbum, right? And what I think is so good about the premium to the Dei Verbum is that it begins by talking about eternal life, right? And then it comes down to faith, hope, and charity, right? And that it links those two together, I think, is what? Very important, right? Because it's faith, hope, and charity that direct us to eternal life, huh? Okay? And so you could say the ultimate end there is eternal life, but the more approximate end is faith, hope, and charity, right? Okay? Now, I was struck by this passage in the end of Jude. I guess it's just one chapter, right? It's, what, 25 verses or something like that. Okay? But this is the end of it, huh? Okay? He says, I was quoting that passage from verse 19 where he'd be talking about the bad and so on, right? And avoiding that, right? The tsukikoi, right? Okay? But then he says at verse 20 there, huh? But ye, beloved, right, building up yourselves, huh, on your most holy faith, huh? That's faith, right? Praying in the Holy Ghost. That refers to hope in a way, huh? Because hope is that whereby we pray, right?