De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 112: Intellectual Memory and the Unity of Understanding

Transcript
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by the object existing in act. So in a sense, these two powers are equal in their extent, right? But one is active with respect to that, right? And the other is what? Passive or undergoing. And thus the active power, or the acting upon power, is compared to its object as a being in act to a being in what? Potency. In other words, in the images you have something that is what? Understandable in ability or in potency, right? And the active power, right, makes what is understandable in potency actually understandable, so it can act upon the what? Undergoing understanding. But the passive or undergoing power is compared to its object in the reverse way, as a being in what? Potency or ability to being in act, okay? So the object of the undergoing understanding is something understandable in act, right? And that acts upon the what? Passive understanding. The possible understanding is called here, right? That's kind of interesting there, right, huh? It's going to have two powers there, right? Despite the fact that the object of both of these powers is completely what? Universal, right? But one is related to that power as act is to what? Ability, right? And the other is ability as to what? Act, yeah. And again, to the next questions, we'll be getting into the will, right? I found out the will has a universal object too, right? The good. But don't confuse it right now with this, bring in, don't complicate things unnecessarily right now, right? Okay? You see, we're used to the sense powers, you know, where they have a particular object, right? And the eyes are adapted to color or light, huh? And the ears to sound and, you know, my nose is so stuffed up to, you know, the odors of things, right? And my tongue to the taste of things, the flavor of things, huh? And my sense of touch, you know, to hot and cold. Maybe there's different ones, you know, for, I don't know, hot and cold and hard and soft, I don't know. They're particular objects, right? When you get these powers that end the mind, as Augustine calls it, in the spirit, right, huh? In the immaterial part of the soul, then there's three powers, right? The acting upon understanding, the undergoing understanding, and the will. And they're all completely universal in their object, right? So that's more subtle than they're going to be distinguished, isn't it? So let's leave out the will now, because that doesn't come up yet until the next question. But these two powers, how do they differ? How can there be two powers whose object is what? Both beings. Yeah, yeah. You see, you come to the common sense, right? That we study, the common sense is like the common terminus of all the outward senses. So its object is a sensible, right? There's only one common sense, right? Why is there not only one power up here, right? Well, if there were these forms that Plato spoke about, we wouldn't have an understanding up here, huh? The undergoing understanding. But as it is, our soul being the form of a body is naturally turned towards the body, huh? And to the images. And they're understandable only in ability. So we need, by nature, this other ability to make what is understandable only in ability or potency actually understandable. So we have these two powers. One that is to the understandable as act is to ability, huh? Or as an act of power is to the matter, as Aristotle says, right? And the other is like what? To act, yeah. Yeah. Okay? Thus, therefore, no other difference of powers in the understanding is possible except that of the, what? Possible understanding and the, what? Agent, huh? Intellect, huh? The undergoing understanding and the acting upon understanding. Once it is clear that memory is not another power from the understanding, huh? For to the definition of a passive power, it pertains for it to conserve just as to, what? Receive, huh? Many times this is not speaking as fully as you could there, right, huh? Because in the senses you have, what? A potencia passiva, right? But it's not the same one that receives and that, what? Concerns for the reason he gave, right? That the quality of matter that enables you to receive easily is not what enables you to, what? Retain, huh? Right, right, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So. But here he's saying that, but you don't have a body organ here, right, huh? Right. So you don't have the same reason. You come back to that, I suppose, in the second part there, right? Actually. Yeah. But it's kind of in the previous one where he asked whether memory is an intellectual power, right? Right. He gave that reason, so you have to kind of, you know, look back to what he said there. Could we look back, because I didn't see it in the previous, I saw it here where you just read it, but was it an objection to? Well, no, it's in the body of Article 6 there. Let's go back from one here. Down about the third or fourth line there, in that text there. The body of Article 6. Yeah. This is one of memories in the intellectual part. In part, you know, in sensitiva, in the sensitive part, he said this happens, as regards some powers, insofar as they are acts of bodily organs, right? Mm-hmm. In which are conserved some species without actual apprehension, huh? Right. Mm-hmm. Okay, no one has to take a minute, I guess. So, is it the paragraph where he has that it's repugnant, the foresaid position is repugnant to reason? Is that very good? Maybe it's not in this text here. I thought it was in this text, but I remember talking about it last week, because it's in one of the texts where Thomas talks about this. Where he gives the reason, you know, I mean, it's in the Danima, I'm coming to the Danima. But the reason he gives why it's not the same sense power that receives and that retains, right? It's not the same. Yeah, and the reason he gives, that I've seen him give, you know, I don't know how satisfactory it is, but the reason he gives is that what enables a bodily organ to receive well, right? Yeah. It's being soft and moist, right? Soft and moist, yeah. Does it enable it to retain well, see? Yeah. And what would enable it to retain well would not enable it to receive well. I'm right with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I went back in question 78 when he talks about the interior senses. I mean, it was back there. Article 4, maybe. Yeah, it was in the article, maybe. Yeah, you're right, I think. On the interior senses? Yeah. 78? 78, yeah, article 4. Yeah, I mean, it's there who does it. The interior senses are absolutely distinguished. I'm saying it's the argument that we... I'm not sure where the... I think he says... Yeah, yeah, there it is, yeah. Recipere autum et retinere, yeah. Are reduced in corporeal things to diverse principles. 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Do you find that part? Oh, you know, to receive and retain? Yeah, yeah, cheap array, ultimately. It's in the second paragraph in the middle. In 508. Yeah. Cheap array. Oh, yeah, yeah. Got it. To receive and to retain are reduced and corporal things to diverse principles. Okay. For the moist, receive well and badly retain. Okay. It's reverse for dry things, right? That's right. Whence the sense power is an act of a body organ, it's necessary that there be another power which we see is a sensible species and the one which concerns them. There must be other powers, huh? Okay, all right. But you don't have that in the case of the understanding because it's not a body organ, right? Because you wouldn't need one or the other. But then he argues, if you remember earlier, he argues that what? The understanding is more stable, more unchanging than the sense powers, right? So if the sense powers have the ability to retain what they sensed, right? Then a fortiori, the understanding should have the power to retain, right? All right. Yeah. But in the case of the sense powers, it can't be the same power that retains and receives, right? Because of the characteristic of what? Matter, right? Which don't have matter in the case of the understanding, right? So it's going to be the same power that receives and what? Retains what it has received, huh? Okay, so here where we just read at the end of the body of the article where it says, for it belongs to the nature of the passive power to retain as well as to receive. Yeah. That's a shorthand for a passive power of the incorporeal soul. Yeah, although you could take it in a broad sense. You could say the sense powers in general are powers that receive, right? Yeah. So we have in our receiving powers, in our sense powers, the ability to receive and the ability to retain, right? But then we can say in particular, but it's not going to be exactly the same power that does both, right? Okay? In the corporeal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you could say, you know, that both of these powers, the power that receives and the power that retains, they're both in general receptive powers, aren't they? Sure. Yeah, so that even in those receptive powers that are called senses, you have retaining as well as receiving, right? Okay. Okay? Yeah. And so the question is whether, you know, it's the same power exactly that does both or two different powers, right? And there's a reason why the sense powers is not the same power that does both. And that's because of the nature of matter, right? Okay? But then he argues against Abyssen, you know, who said that our mind, our understanding only knows when it's actually thinking, right? When it stops thinking about something, it doesn't retain anything of that, right? And Aristotle, or Thomas argues against that, saying that, hey, reason is, what, more stable, right, than the senses, right? So if the senses retain the form they've received in some way, even more so should the reason retain its form, yeah. Okay? You know, the senses, they say, like they take things into our proper common sense, he says, they're like through our eyes. And then he calls, we remember all the senses associated with that. He calls it fantasy or imagination, but it really acts more like memory, right? Yeah, well, the English words are not used exactly in the same way, right? He uses the word memory for what retains what the cogitator or the... A particular reason. Yeah, yeah, or what the estimate of power does in the animals, right? Yeah. Okay? And then the imagination retains what the common sense perceives, huh? That's the way I remember it. Yeah, that's exactly right. We can use the word imagination for these tricks we can do with our memory. So we use the word memory kind of indifferently for what? Either power that retains, huh? Okay? Yeah, and that's what he calls the apprehension of intentions, the estimative or the particular reason. Yeah. We understand like an animal. In other words, the common sense knows only the per se sensibles, right? Yeah. But then the estimative power knows something not sensed as such, right? Yeah. When you sense this. I was giving an example of that cat, you know, who was scared by the belt that looked like a snake. Or the way they say these little birds, you know, who are the victims, so to speak, of the big birds, right? Like, even after they're born, you know, the big bird flies over, they crouch down, you know? Yeah. As if by instinct, right? And there is that shape, or they say to certain animals, they'll, when they see the wolf or wherever it is, right? When they see that shape or that color, wherever it is, that smell, right? They recognize an enemy, right? Yeah. It works, too, because the other morning, a couple weeks ago, I stumbled over Rosie. I didn't see the dog at all. Yeah. Now, whenever I get up there and Rosie sees me coming, before that, nothing would get her to move. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just thought of this. She really did remember. Yeah. You almost treated an animal and they'll remember it. I didn't drive to a pound, one more pound. I know. Hardly ever is in front of the Reverend Father, you know, aren't I? Yeah. Funny. Yeah. Yeah. I usually almost, like, walk, right? Almost on her nose. Right. And she'll, because of the language. Language. It's amazing, man. But ever since I did that, when I got it from where I also, when I start filming, she circles around. Oh, I'm going to get her. All right. Well, thank you for the discourses that were very helpful. Okay. I think he said it somewhere, so it's back further. You're helpful there. Okay. Now, the first one is the argument from authority from Augustine. As they say, this is important because even today I hear people, you know, maintaining that Augustine has a different opinion, right? Yeah. I hear it all the time. Yeah. All the Davids. Exactly. Yeah. Very vociferously. And sometimes, you know, they'll question Thomas, you know, is Thomas, you know, trying to save Augustine, you know, sometimes from himself, so to speak. But anyway, let's see how he answers this one here. To the first, therefore, it ought to be said that although in the third distinction of the first book of the sentences, that would be Peter Lombard, right, huh? Okay. And you know that the sentences was used for centuries, you know, it's kind of a standard textbook there in theology, right? And it's, but I read the sentences, I mean, it's mainly quotes of Augustine, right? It would draw from different works, you know, and brought together, you know, Augustine would take up the same thing in various places, you know, kind of ad hoc. But there's other church fathers and things of that sort. So Thomas wrote a commentary on the sentences, right? Yeah. And actually, when he was going to do the summa, he was thinking of revising his thing on the sentences, then he decided to write his own work, you know, and order a little bit differently, you know, than the sentences ordered, maybe better. But, you know, for several centuries, I don't know how many centuries it was, but it was three, four, at least centuries there. That was, you know. Ten, eleven. You would doubt be, you know, you'd be a lecturer on the sentences for a number of years. That would be part of your thing. So it's a very important book. Is he a good mind, or is it just the fact that... Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it's Augustine, but, I mean, Thomas sometimes disagrees with him, too, you know, but, you know. You mean Lombard? But I mean Lombard himself. Yeah, yeah, he's a pretty good mind, yeah. He's an editor. Yeah, he's a pretty good, yeah, he's a good, good, and it's kind of amazing how much authority the book had, right? I think he was a bishop, I think, you know, Harris. But Thomas, sometimes you'll see disagreement with what he says. Sure, yeah. He has that famous opinion about charity being the Holy Spirit. Christ Thomas, you know, he says, well, with charity, he's given the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not the same thing as charity, right? The Holy Spirit is not the theological virtue, but he's tied up with that virtue. That although in the third distinction of the first book of these sentences, it is said that memory and understanding and will are three, what, veras or powers, right? Nevertheless, this is not according to the intention of Augustine, who expressly says in the 14th book of the Trinity, Trinitate, that if we take, right, memory, understanding and will according as they are always, what, present to the soul, whether we are thinking or not thinking, right, they seem to pertain only to, what, memory. But understanding, intelligentsia, now I say, by which thinking we understand, right? So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. So he's taking understanding there. for the power of understanding, but for the, what? Act of understanding, right? And that I call will here, or love, right? Or Dilexia, which is the more precise name for the love of the will, the chosen love, which joins that offspring and his parent, right? Okay? From which it is clear that Augustine does not take these three things for three different, what? Powers, right? But he takes memory for the habitual retention of the soul, right? Understanding for the act of understanding, right? And will for the, what? Act of the will, right? So, I heard you from reading Augustine's text there, right? Until he understands it the way Thomas understands it. You heard my famous saying, you know, that Aristotle, my rule of thumb, Aristotle means what Thomas Aquinas says he means, right? You know? And I don't say there's some exception to that, maybe, you know? I mean, because some of Thomas doesn't maybe know the Greek or something, you know? But I mean, there's a rule of thumb, I guess. That's the way to think. Aristotle means what Thomas says he means. Well, do you want to apply that same principle here to Augustine means what Thomas Aquinas says he means? Wow, those are some pretty heavy-duty principles. Sounds a lot of problems, right? Yeah, it sounds a whole lot of problems. Yeah. But, I mean, there's a text he has in front of you, you know, which I'm sure is not being misquoted. There, Thomas seems to be, what? But, understanding Augustine as Augustine understands himself, but not as Peter Lombard understands him, right? But most people get into the, what? Understanding of Peter Lombard, right? Now, it's just like if you read, I think if the average person read the 12th book of the metaphysics, where Aristotle takes up the knowledge of God, do you know that passage? And, if you used to read it, you know, by itself, you would seem to be saying that all God knows is himself, huh? And it would be below the dignity of God to know anything, right? Yeah. Okay? And Thomas says, no, that's not what he means. He means that the object that defines God's understanding, right, is himself, right? And it's only by understanding himself that he understands other things, huh? Okay. Now, I was just, I had a student coming to the house there, we're doing the Dianima there, the first book, right? And the first book of the Dianima, when Aristotle takes up the position of Empedocles, I don't remember that at all. Empedocles is the guy who says in the famous fragment that, by earth we know earth, and by water, water, and by air, air, and by fire, fire, and by love, love, and by hate, hate. And apparently the idea was that we know these things because we have them in us, huh? Oh. Okay? And Aristotle says, well, if that's so, we'd be always knowing these things, huh? Oh. And we'd not be in, what, in the ability to know them, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? And you wouldn't have to be acted upon by the object, because you'd have the object already in you, right? Okay? But among the other difficulties he gives, you know, there's about ten difficulties he has there in one of the Lectios. The difficulty he has is that in another place, Empedocles says, there's no hate in God. Okay? Just love in God, right? That's very interesting from a number of points of view, right? And of course, for Empedocles, it's love that brings things together, and it's hate that, what, separates them, right? So if there is hate in God, then God would not be eternal, would he? Immortal, would he? He'd be corruptible like these things down here. So that perhaps is part of the reason, at least, why he said that there's love in God, but no hate in God, huh? Okay, maybe he also had some, what, you know, moved by the truth itself, right, huh? He was led to this idea that in God there's just love and no hate, which is very interesting from the point of view of what St. John says, God is love itself, huh? But Aristotle will quote that, see, and then he'll say, well then, according to your principle, God would not know hate. And we'd know something God didn't know, which is absurd, right? See? Aristotle gives out a prediction to the absurd, right? If your position is correct, then God would not know something that we'd know. That's laughable. It's absurd, right? Now, in the third book of the metaphysics, the third book or the first book? Anyway, in the dialectic of the metaphysics there, Aristotle repeats that argument against Empedocles, huh? You know? So these two places, Aristotle and Freud, I mean, this is absurd, laughable, right? Well, is he going to turn around there in the twelfth book and say there's God knows nothing but himself? Huh? Can I think of the meaning of the text? You know? That would be laughable. You see? And so Thomas says, no, he's determining what is the primary object of the divine mind, right? It knows nothing else directly, immediately, right? Except itself, right? Itself, huh? And by understanding himself, he knows all other things, huh? Okay? If something else was the primary object of the mind, then it would be, what? Undergoing and so on, right? And be contrary to God being pure act and so on, huh? Yeah. Okay? But see, most people misunderstand the text of Aristotle, and they think, you know, that God has, and that's why they think God is denying, what? Or Aristotle is denying divine providence, right? If he has no knowledge of anything but himself, well, then he has no concern about us, you know? He probably says he knows about us, right? You know? But that's absurd, right? And you can see in other places, you know, where Aristotle talks a little bit about, you know, divine providence, huh? And he's talking about happiness there, you know, and, you know, how it's very probable, you know, that God has something to do with our happiness, right? And so, you know, it's not his position, obviously. But I think most people who look at the metaphysics will misunderstand that text, I guarantee it. And it's a very communist understanding of it, huh? And I think, you know, myself, even reading Augustine, you know, you get the impression sometimes that, you know, these are three powers of the soul in which you have the image of the Trinity, huh? And apparently no less a thinker than Peter Lombard, right, there, who's so, you know, careful to follow Augustine, right? Yeah. Comes up with that opinion, huh? Mm-hmm. You see? And yet Thomas has a pretty good texture to excuse Augustine No such a misunderstanding, huh? Can I ask them? I was in the answer one time there about Cardinal Kajetan, huh? Oh, yeah. His mistake, you know, as a commentator, was trying to comment directly on Aristotle. He showed me a comment on Thomas' commentary on Aristotle. I know. Kajetan does go off, you know. When he gets into the anima, they say, he ends up, you know, saying Aristotle doesn't believe in the immortality of the soul and so on. Like Thomas has invented this and so on, right? So, just remember that rule, huh? Mm-hmm. It's a good rule, yeah. Yeah, Aristotle means what Thomas Sisi means, and I think I, you know, I see that a lot, huh? It may be more questionable to give the rule that Augustine means what Thomas Sisi means, but, you know, I'm willing to give it a try. Well, the Church does say that St. Thomas has expressions that he inherited all the mind of the Fathers and he's the greatest reader of the Fathers. Yeah, he seems to inherit the mind of all the Fathers because he's so reverenced them, yeah. You know, while we're at this, this is very pretty, I've written a homily with the Norbertines out in California that not only, and the claim was that the Church teaches this, I don't know where, that not only is St. Thomas unsurpassed, but he is unsurpassable. Has anyone ever heard that? I've read where the Pope said in a couple different places, Matthew, you gave me, Father Anthony, where they say, if anyone, if any of the Fathers say anything that disagrees with St. Thomas, go to St. Thomas. And another one says, the only way to go against St. Thomas is that there's a very, very grave reason. Yeah, yeah. The Pope said that. And that's not exactly quoting, but any other Father, go along with him so long as he agrees with St. Thomas. Well, I was using that text from the Second Vatican Council, the one on the priest, and I was using that text and I was using that text The education there, where it's talking about the order of reading Scripture first, right? Okay. And then reading the Church Fathers, and then it talks about Thomas. Okay. And the first is to meet these things in Scripture so far as possible, right? Right. And then it speaks about, once you read the Church Fathers, for what they have contributed to the understanding of the particular articles of the faith. Okay. And if you look at the exact text of the Latin, the exact text, it kind of tells you something about the Church Fathers, a kind of ad hoc theology, you might say, in the Church Fathers. Oh, so what does it mean, ad hoc? Okay, it means that this heretic, at this time, has denied this article. So that forces the Church Fathers to defend that article against that heretic. Right. And so they develop an understanding of this article of the faith, right? Mm-hmm. Under those circumstances, huh? Ah. And then it talks about the Church councils, but there's something like that in the Church councils, where this council arises because of this heretic, you know, or these heretics, you see. And so this Church council has in mind this or that error that is prevalent at the time, right? Right. Okay. So Luther's and people like that, you know, they're being refuted, in a sense, in the Council of Trent, right? Sure. See, but Arius and other people may be in the earlier Church councils and so on, and Nestorius in the earlier Church councils and so on. And then it says, finally, in order to penetrate the mysteries of faith as much as possible, they should proceed under the guidance of Thomas. Penetrate the mysteries of faith as much as possible. Yeah, that's very strong, right? It is. You see? And also it adds, and you see, their connection, you see? Because Thomas, you see, has got the benefit of these ad hoc considerations of this or that mystery, you see? And then he can, you know, put forward an order in a way like in the Sumas, right? Right. And to some extent, you know, Lombard has anticipated that, right? Because he's trying to make these things together in an orderly way. To see his sacred doctrine as a whole, right? Okay? So it's very strong that it says that, right? Yeah. And putting Thomas kind of, you know, in a special place there, you see? That's why, did I give you those pages when you were doing the role of contradiction? You remember? And I was showing the role of contradiction philosophy a bit in experimental science and physics and then theology. But the text I did from theology, I did three texts. The first one was from the Gospel of St. Matthew, where our Lord leads the Pharisees into contradiction. And then I gave the text from Augustine, where Augustine says, Heretics, you know, help us, because they force us to consider this article, right? And Thomas himself, you know, he talks about how Augustine, you know, in his, you know, the Pelagians and the Sempelagians, how has he gotten into controversy and defended it? He spoke more and more, what, accurately and more carefully, right? You know? And even in his own writings, you know, he gets more careful, you see, because he sees necessity of being very precise about these things, huh? And then I give that text I just referred to, you know, because it touches upon Thomas, right? And if anybody's read Thomas, you know, everything begins from a contradiction, right? You know, a set contra there. And this is kind of an abbreviation of the question on his disputate, right? We have even more arguments on both sides. So, that's a very good text. I mean, there's all kinds of texts on the authority of Thomas, but that's a very good one. Okay? So, St. Augustine means what Thomas says he means, right? And certainly, you know, if there's a... The second objection is the one that, why don't you have separate powers here, like you have in the sense order, right? To the second, it should be said that the past and the present can be proper differences of the sensitive powers, right? Or they can be differences, proper differences that are diversifying sense powers. Not our intellectual powers, the reason given above, huh? Okay? And that refers back to what was said in the body, but also the reply in the preceding article to the second objection, right? And that's because of the fact that the sense is no, the what? The singular, yeah, particular, yeah. And the past is referring to that sort of a thing. The third argument is the one from what are these arising together, okay? But he says, understanding arises from memory as an act arises from a, what? Habit, right? Okay? Well, notice, so that you can say that, can't you, right? Okay? I could go to the board now and do the Pythagorean Theorem on the board if I want me to, right? But my actually showing the, or understanding the Pythagorean Theorem again, and the reason for it on the board right now would proceed from my, what? Habitual knowledge of Book 1 of Euclid. Right? Usually during a final exam I'll put the Pythagorean Theorem on the board and do it just to amuse myself so I don't forget the proof. Okay? I can do it right now if I want me to. See? Okay? But notice, if I understand what wisdom is, and from that understanding of what great knowledge wisdom is, I start to love wisdom, right? Then it's one power, what? Giving rise to something, another power, isn't it? What do you mean? Hmm? Well, no, it's just saying this idea that this arises from that, right? Mm-hmm. Right. Could mean that an act in this power arises from an act in that power, right? Oh. Okay? And that way I say my loving, huh? Okay. My loving wisdom arises from understanding what wisdom is, huh? Okay? Oh, yeah. See? Or my liking the girl arises from my, what? Seeing the girl, right? Mm-hmm. You see the idea? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, you hear about, you know, Augustine and Thomas takes the example there, rhetoric, right? You hear about rhetoric, you know, this is the art by which you can persuade the crowd. Oh, boy, I want that. Yeah. I want to persuade the crowds, right? Huh? So you hear something about something. I remember when I was one time in graduate school there, and some guy who had studied on the Dominicans, you know, talking about how this Dominican priest was so enthusiastic about, what, Lexus de Tocqueville, right? What a careful writer he was, just like Aristotle, you know? Hey, you see what? That kind of turned me on, so I started reading de Tocqueville, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So my desire to read de Tocqueville arose from my, what? Experience with Aristotle? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hearing, you know, he was something like Aristotle. I don't think he is exactly, but, you know, in fact, he'd been praised so highly, right? Mm-hmm. So you hear some book, you know, really highly praised, you know, you want to read the book now or read the thing, you see? It happens all the time, right? Mm-hmm. But there, the act of one power is arising from the act of another power, right? Mm-hmm. But now, if I should start to think about the Pythagorean theorem and drawing upon my knowledge of Book 1 of Euclid, right, there would not be one power arising from another power, would it? Or the act of one power arising from the act of another power, would it? Yeah. No, it would be the act of understanding the Pythagorean theorem arising from my habitual knowledge, right? My habitus, right? Okay? Which I try to preserve the habitus by, you know, doing this during every final exam. Yeah. When he says here, you know, but by memory he understands the soul's habit of retention, could I say that that is our storehouse, the storehouse of intellectual species in the passive intellect? Yeah. Yeah. The end of going intellect, yeah. And then by intelligence, the act of the intellect, does he mean that the act of intellect itself is the power by which the intelligence understands? Yeah, you could say that when I want to understand, I can understand, right? Through the power of the act of intellect. Yeah, yeah. But if I had the habit here, I can understand when I want to understand, right? But I can't, if I haven't learned, you know, the first book of Euclid, I can't understand the Pythagorean theorem whenever I want to, right? Mm-hmm. Because I don't have the habitus yet. Okay? Okay. That's in a sense referring back to Augustine, right? Augustine is saying one of these arises from another, right? But there's a way in which something can arise from another in more than one way, can't it? And sometimes the act of one power rises from another power as act, right? But that ain't the only way that one thing arises from another. So the act of the understanding can arise from its what? Habit, yeah. So something that's in our memory is recalled and we think about it actually, right? And such is a good thing, we start to what? Love it, right, huh? So Shakespeare's definition of reason is what? It's habitual with me now, right? So that habitual knowledge of what reason is, from that proceeds my actually thinking again about what reason is. And when I actually think about what reason is, then I, what, love reason, huh? I maculize my memory with its offspring. And then I have the image of the Trinity in me, right? Those who wanted to say a memory was different than the understanding, it seems they'd end up saying when you're... Once you've learned the Beggren theorem, when you do it on the board, you're not using your understanding, but it's another power of the memory. Well, it'd be like the sense powers, you see, where I go back to the Zaurus, the treasury of my memories, right? And I pull something out, right? And I talk about the old times, right? Out of my treasure house, they bring me, like Christ says there, right? But in the senses, you don't... When you recall something in your memory, it's your memory, you're not... You don't sense it again. I mean, you don't... With your... It's a different faculty, so... Yeah. With the inward sense, yeah. So, if they would say the intellect just kind of receives it, but after that it's another faculty, but that would be strange in the mind. Yeah. But if you're getting... If you're drawing that out, you're a treasure house right now. It's actual in the understanding, wouldn't it? If you were following St. Thomas. Well, in your case, if you had two powers, right? One would take off and the other ones, and then, you know... It's like by going to my... Treasure house, right? What's crazy about the man who has, you know, the New Testament, the Old Testament, and goes to his treasure house, and you bring them... He takes up the Daniel. Yeah, yeah. And I can, you know, just like the... Like the... Evaricious man, right? I can go in and look at these jewels and take them out, and look at them, and put them back in there again, huh? Go to your treasure house right there. Open the box and unlock it. Look at the jewels. Put them up and lock them up. Go off. Go into the photo album, you know? Yeah. Treasure all these little film... Pictures. Is it because we have the same object being the intellectual species? Is that why it's not distinguished? Well, that's another question. I was just talking about that again, right? The reason why there's a distinction in the sense powers is because of the bodily nature of these things. Yeah. So you can begin from the idea that in both the sense powers and in the understanding powers, you can both receive and retain what you've received, right? Okay? But then, when you examine more closely, you say, in the sense powers, it's not the same individual power that receives and retains, right? Right. And the reason given for that is because of the nature of matter, right? The sense powers are bodily organs, huh? And what enables a body or a material thing to receive well is not what enables it to retain well, and vice versa, see? But the understanding, you don't have any bodily organ, huh? So it's the same power that receives and retains, unless you say, with Avicenna, right, that you don't retain the forms, right? Which is contrary to what Aristotle said when he said that the soul is the place of, what? Forms, huh? But then, at least, Thomas says, it's also against reason, right? Because the understanding receives things in an immaterial way, and therefore in a more permanent and stable way than a body could receive, right? So if there's retention of forms in the body, which is mobile and changeable, right? Even more so, there must be a retaining of the forms in the understanding, because whatever is received, is received according to the way of the receiver. Now, the scientific... That's shown by the word understanding itself, right? Mm-hmm. You know, when Thomas is, you know, showing what Aristotle said before, that there are three looking sciences, right? And he points out that they're distinguished by their separation from, what? Matter and from motion in some way, huh? Mm-hmm. And the reason he gives is, well, the understanding is something immaterial, right? So to get something into the understanding, it has to be separated from matter. But also, you know, he points out the fact that science is of necessary things, right? And things that are unchangeable, right? But even the word understanding brings it out, right? Understanding is named from standing, from being at rest rather than from emotion. Mm-hmm. So for something to be understandable, it has to be separated from, what? Motion. Okay? Now, in the case of mathematics and natural philosophy, the first two sciences we see, in natural philosophy, we can't leave motion out of the picture because nature is defined by motion and so on. But we can define motion, and the definition of motion is what? Motionless, right? The definition of time is not in time, is it? It's the definition of time, past, present, or future. You can't say one of the other of these, can you? Right. And the definition of motion is what? Motionless, right? Yeah. And the understanding of the changing is unchanging. And Aristotle shows in the first book of natural hearing that change is between opposites, right? And so on. He has an unchanging knowledge of what? The changing, right? Mm-hmm. So that's one way to be free from change, right? But then in the case of mathematics, right, you define these things that are in the changing world without matter, right? Without sensible matter, as they call it, huh? Mm-hmm. You kind of talked a little bit about sensible matter there, right? And therefore, there's no reference to change, huh? So the geometrical sphere has no sensible matter, so it's neither, what, heavy nor light, is it? You know, I mean, if you leave go of a heating balloon, they're going to go up, right? Leave go of a lead balloon, it's going to go down. Leave go of a geometrical sphere, you can't say one or the other, because there's nothing to refer to, you know, that if you throw a rubber ball against the wall, it'll bounce back, right? You throw a glass ball, maybe it'll shatter. You throw a steel ball, maybe it'll go through the wall or stick it in the wall, right? Geometrical sphere, what is it going to be like? You can't say anything, it's your first emotion, right? What's the melting point of a geometrical sphere, right? Freezing point, right, see? Because you have no sensible matter, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So natural philosophy and mathematics is about changing material things, right? But they separate from that in two different ways, right? And then you have a third science, which is about things that are, what? That don't depend upon matter for their existence, right? Either because they don't require matter or because they can't have matter, right? That's why we have only three sciences. It can't be a fourth science, right? You know, the way Thomas gives it there in the beginning, he'll say, things either depend upon matter for their existence, resistance or do not depend upon matter for their resistance. And then he says what? Either they are defined with matter or defined without matter, meaning matter is a sensible sense. Okay? Now why does it give you only three senses and not four? You can't define something with matter, but it doesn't depend. Well, natural philosophy here is about things that depend upon matter for the existence, and they're defined with matter in motion in general, right? Mathematics is about things that depend, pure mathematics again, in particular geometry, things that depend upon matter for the existence, but they're defined without matter, right? Okay, that sphere, cube, those are the things. Now, what things do not depend upon matter for the existence and are defined without matter? Well, that's wisdom, or philosophy, metaphysics some people call it, okay? Now, is there a fourth one there? Yeah. Because if something did not depend upon matter for its existence, how would you define with matter? The algebra here is mathematics, right? The mathematics points to the immateriality of the human understanding, but in this case here, there'd be nothing on the part of the mind or reason for putting matter in, because it's immaterial together, and the object is immaterial, right? So this is not a real, what? Possibility, right? I mean, the example that I give of, from the poetics, you know, the division where he fits across two, Aristotle says, any part of a plot is either before something or after something. It's either before something or it's not before something. It's either after something or it's not after something. Well, how many possibilities do you get there? Well, if it's before something and after something, then it's the middle. If it's before something and not after something, it's the beginning. If it's after something and not before something, it's the end. So you have the beginning, middle, and end. Why isn't there a fourth part that's not before anything and not after anything? Right? That's obviously an absurd possibility, right? Right? Don't have any connections to the parts. It doesn't come back to anything or before anything, right? There's no connection to anything else, you see? So there can only be three things there, right? Well, here you can have a reason why there's no third thing, right? Because neither on the side of the thing being known, nor on the side of the power or knowing it, is there any matter, right? So there's no reason why you should define such things with matter, right? You see? Mathematics is kind of the odd animal, right? It's very dealing with things that do depend upon matter for their existence, unless you're a Platonist, right? And yet they're defined without matter, right? And that's why Monsignor Dian used to quote there in his edition there, this is from Proclis, I think it is, that mathematics purificat oculomentes, huh? It purifies the eye of the mind, huh? Because the mind is being kind of, what, freed from matter there, right? Mathematics, huh? Raised up. But Monsignor Dian said, but logic, you know, which is even more material, even more purifies the mind, right? Because in mathematics, you're still resolving to the imagination, huh? But in logic, you know, you're talking about things that you cannot imagine, like the universal. You can't imagine the universal, can you? And yet, as the great Albert the Great said, that's the first thing to be considered, logic is universal. Or as I say, the first thing to be considered is names said of many things. That's why the great work of porphyry, right? The Isogogi, right? But even before the Isogogi, you could distinguish between names said of many things, significantly and equivocally, and so on, huh? That's where logic begins. But even the young Socrates, right, he tries to imagine universal as a sail covering all these people, and then he gets into all kinds of troubles in the Parmenides. I'm going to take a little break here before we do Article 8, or... Okay. A little breather. In other words, your end is to see God as he is, but that's not the last end. That's kind of the equivocation that people think the end is, what, is it the vision or to love God, right? But your last end is, in a sense, more to see God as he is, face to face, right? But that's or to something further, right? I mean, things are so closely connected, you know, that you can't have that kind of knowledge without loving God. Okay. To the eighth, he proceeds thus. It seems that reason is another power from the understanding. That's very interesting, huh? These two words here, huh? In Latin, you have the word ratio, and the word, what, intellectus. Intellectus can be translated by understanding, huh? And understanding can name the, what, the act, but the power itself, right? So if you look at that work of John Locke, the essay on human understanding, right? Understanding there means more of the, what, the power, I think, huh? The act of understanding, right? Okay. And ratio is called, what, reason, right, huh? Okay. Now, that's the right, these two different powers, huh? Reason and understanding, huh? Okay. Now, this is a little side, but sometimes we divide understanding, the power of understanding, into reason and understanding, or the divide intellectus into what? Intellectus and ratio. That might seem to be illogical, but one power of understanding keeps the name understanding, and the other power of understanding gets a new name. Okay? In terms of names equivocal by reason, what is the basis for this way of naming things? There's two ways, huh, in which the common name becomes equivocal by reason of being kept, right? But one of the particulars, while the other particular gets a new name as its own name, huh? There's two ways that takes place. Yeah. We've explained this before, I think, in logic, but it's worthwhile saying again, according to a better place, right? What is worth saying can be said twice, he said? Okay. What are the two ways in which names become equivocal by reason in this way of being kept by one of the two, which is said, and the other getting its own name? What's the... one is when, like, the kitten, the cat, and the fully developed cat gets the new name, or it gets, and the kitten, a different name, keeps it, the cat keeps it. Yeah, see? No, no, so that example there, you know, someone said to you, what's the difference between a kitten and a puppy? You'd probably say, well, the kitten is a cat, and the puppy is a dog, right? But then sometimes you might distinguish the cat and the kitten, right? And the cat keeps the common name, right? As its own name, right? And the kitten gets a new name, okay? Now, what's the reason for that? The adult cat, the perfected cat? Yeah, yeah. In other words, the adult cat has fully...