De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 121: Synderesis and Conscience: Habit vs. Power vs. Act

Transcript
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It says that's an opus rationis, a work of what? Reason. Oh yeah, okay. When you say that it's a work of nature, you have to remember now that reason is also nature, it includes something in nature, right? Yeah. Okay? So it can involve the acting upon understanding, right? And the undergoing understanding insofar as it has something of nature in it, right? Yeah. And even experience, right, where the thoughts are in some sense taken from. While this here could be said to be a work of reason as reason, right? Because it's through reasoning, thinking out these things, right, that you acquire this habitus of shins, yeah. Okay? Because both of these things, as you're asking a little bit there at the beginning of class, both of these things are a result of the undergoing reason, right, being acted upon, right? By the acting upon understanding, using the images, right, as kind of tools, right, whereby it can separate out something universal. So what these habits, then, are something added to the power, right? You might say that's what they call the understandable form, huh? Okay? And it's a result of your being acted upon in some way by the object, right, that you now, for the first time, understand it, huh? And that result of being acted upon that remains there in a pictorial way, right? Okay. It's what they have to be consistent, right? Nothing other than an ordering of those forms that have been received. Okay. In the understanding, huh? Okay. Okay? You see, the ability, or the power gives you the ability to do these things, but the habit enables you to do them actually, or to do them well, right? Uh-huh. Okay? It's a facility, you want to think about them. So the power has been reduced to act when you acquire this habit, but it's still in potency to a further act, the actual thinking about these things, huh? Okay? So Aristotle said that understanding is an undergoing, right, huh? Yeah. And before that, he said that sense is an undergoing. Yeah. Sound, let's say, or color, has to act upon my eye before I see something, before I hear something, right? Uh-huh. And the result of its acting upon my eye is the form by which I can see, or the form by which I can hear, right? Uh-huh. Okay? Uh-huh. And likewise, in the case of the undergoing understanding, right, what we usually think of as understanding, right, that eventually understands, right, it's acting upon, right, huh? And that acting upon results in a certain, what, form, as they call the understandable form. And the understandable form joined to the acting, undergoing understanding, makes it now able to, what, understand something. Okay? Is habit greater than ability? Is that what we call it? It's a perfection attitude, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. And, of course, the habits in, in, in, uh, appetite, will, and emotions, usually they're a result of reputed acts, huh? Okay? You build up a certain habit, huh? Which is like a second nature, huh? You say it's second nature to me now, right? The second nature is, is a habit, huh? It's not, uh, it's not, uh, the power itself, right? Okay? So my ability to be angry, right, is something I have by nature, right? But that I become angry, um, neither too much nor too little, right, huh? If I've acquired the virtue of mildness, right, by repeated acts here, I have acquired a certain habit, right? Whereby my ability to be angry follows reason, more or less. Okay? And Aristotle figured out that that's what happiness consisted of, or that would lead to happiness. Well, see, you know, what he's going to say in the Nicomachean Ethics is that happiness is, uh, man's own act, right? According to human virtue, right? Throughout life, right? Mm-hmm. But after he goes through the main virtues in books, uh, two through six, right? Mm-hmm. And certain things that follow upon them in seven, eight, and nine, then he comes back and determines more clearly which virtues are the highest, right? Oh. And, and, uh, it turns out, for a very good reason, that the virtues of reason itself are higher than the virtues of the, what, emotions or the will, huh? Mm-hmm. Because they're, what, partaking of reason. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And in the practical reason, the virtue of foresight is higher than the virtue of, what, called art, huh? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And among the kinds of foresight, political foresight is the highest. And then among the virtues of looking reason, the highest turns out to be wisdom itself, right? And then Aristotle finally says, well, does happiness consist more in activity according to foresight or in activity according to wisdom? And the reasons that, uh, the happiness according to foresight is more human, but that according to wisdom is more divine, because you're knowing divine things. So that's the highest friendship, or the highest happiness of all for man. So it's got to be a perfect operation, and it's got to be an operation according to good habits, right? According to virtue. That's true. Okay. Notice how he's reasoning here from something maybe more known here. That there is a natural understanding in looking reason, right? And there's a similar reason why there must be a kind of natural understanding in practical reason, huh? Okay? And it's just as that natural understanding in looking reason is not the power itself, but a habit added to it, right? It's an order, you might say, of these understandable forms. So then, likewise, the natural understanding in the practical reason is a habit, right? But a natural habit, right? Added to reason, huh? Perfecting it, huh? Whence also, he says, the beginnings of the principles of things doable by us, naturally found in us, did not pertain to a special power, but to a special natural habit, which we call sindresis, huh? Whence sindresis is said to instigate to the good, right? And to complain about the bad, right? Insofar as through the first principles, we proceed to finding something to do or not to do, right? And we judge that these things can be found to be so, huh? To be something you should do or not do. It's clear, therefore, that sindresis is not a power, but a natural, what? Hobby to us, right? Now, Thomas will take up what a habit is very much in the Prima Secundae, right? He's going to start to take up the virtues in particular, right? And then he'll explain a lot. He'll go all the way back to the categories of Aristotle, where he distinguishes habit and disposition from inborn power. Yeah. Okay? And he'll work his way up to what a virtue is. That's what I was trying to think of, because I was thinking of that with quality. I was trying to figure out what makes Aristotle make two species. Yeah. And Thomas even explained why Aristotle gives habit and disposition before power on one of the species. Because the starting point is substance, the nature of the thing, right? And by habit, you are well or badly disposed towards your nature, right? Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. So that nature is a principle, therefore, to everything else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that nature is a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a principle, but it's a Because nature, or what a thing is, is what's first in it, huh? A thing must be what it is, before it can be anything else, right? So therefore, what a thing is, is nature is what comes first, right? That's why I say that the natural road, say, right, is the first road in our knowledge, huh? Yeah. You know my basic syllogism there, right? The first figure. The first road is the natural road, right? And the natural road is the road from the senses into what? Reason. Just put the soldiers on the board every second. Yeah, thank you. The minor premise, the first road in our knowledge, is the natural road in our knowledge, okay? So if you understand what nature means, you can see that premise right away, right? That the first road in our knowledge, excuse me, is the natural road in our knowledge, right? Okay? Mm-hmm. Okay. And then, the natural road is the road from the senses into reason. Now, you have to ask, well, what is a man, huh? Well, as you know from Shakespeare, man is an animal that has reason, right? That's the nature of man, to be an animal with reason. So because he's an animal, he has what? Senses, right? But he's not just an animal, but an animal that has, what? Reason, right? Man should know what is generic, or more general, develops in generation before what is specific, right? Okay? Instead, we have a fertilized egg, right? Yeah. What first appears in the womb is what? Not sensation, but what? Cell division and growth, right? Yeah. But what we have in common plans, really. And then appears the, what? The senses, right? See? And last of all, what's most specific to us, the use of what? Reason, right? Used to call it the age of reason. I don't know how that was cited. I mean, suddenly, what is generic comes before what is specific in the other generation. So since man is an animal with reason, because he's an animal, he has senses, right? But he has an addition to that reason, and the animal nature is what's more generic, right? So that develops before reason, right? So reason, when we begin to think, we first think about what we've sensed, right? And it takes a long time before we think about something we can't sense. So the kid thinks about his toys, or his pet, or something else he can sense, right? That's why you can see the consideration of change is so basic, because, as Ulysses says to Achilles there in Shakespeare's play, Taurus of Cressida, things in motion sooner catch the eye than what God stirs. So if we start with what we can sense, and what grabs the attention of the senses is change, or changing things, right? And that's really the first thing to be understood, huh? And you know how I kind of playfully say to the students, you know, if you don't understand change, you don't understand changing things, and they all agree to that. And they say, if you don't understand changing things, you don't understand unchanging things. Because as the word unchanging indicates, you live on by negation, of the changing things. If you don't understand changing things, or unchanging things, you don't understand anything. If you don't understand change, you don't understand anything. How fortunate it is that you are in this class. What do you say to that? Well, they can't, they can't, you know, so as I say to my colleagues, you know, they can't really put any hole in the argument, right? You know, but they don't want to accept the fact that this is so basic, huh? That's why Eric Klein has really concentrated our mind upon change, huh? And the changes between opposites, and so on, and the style developed that, yeah. I'm just puzzled, I thought you mentioned it was a syllogism. It's a syllogism, yeah. The first road in our knowledge is an actual road in our knowledge. Okay. The natural road in our knowledge is the road from the senses into reason. And therefore? Therefore, the first road in our knowledge is the road from the senses into reason. Oh, okay. Okay? That's a conclusion, I didn't state the conclusion of socialism, I just gave it to the two premises, right? Thanks for the help. Okay, so that the... Yeah, yeah. The, um... So, you know, someone asks you, why is the first road in our knowledge the road from the senses into reason, right? Well, in the middle term, right, would be natural road, right? And so you have to see the connection between first road and natural, right? And in general, if you understand that nature is what is first in a thing, right? The nature of a thing, in the sense of what it is, um, is what's going to be first in that thing. You've got to be what you are, it's going to be something else, right? In addition, right? Before a man can be white, he's got to be a man, right? And, uh... And then you've got to understand the connection between the natural road and the road from senses into reason. And they're talking in there about the natural road in our knowledge, right? But you've got to figure out the nature of man as an animal having reason. And then an animal is defined by having senses, right? But man is not just an animal, but an animal that has reason. And then you've got to see that, you know, the general is before the specific there, the particular in generation, right? So the road goes naturally from the senses into reason. And, of course, there's all kinds of signs of that, right? In fact, even the word road itself is a sign of that, isn't it? If it's the word road, it's taken from the road you can sense, right? Yeah. And it's carried over and applied to the mind, right? Okay? Yeah. And Christ himself said, I am the road. Mahodos. In Greek, it says hodos. In the same word that Aristoteles says. Hodos. I am the hodos. I am the road. It doesn't mean that. But I asked my son Mark, or my son Paul, his little boy there, what do you think of the natural road in our knowledge, you know, the basic road in our knowledge? And he says, there are cars and trucks on it. So you can actually start with the road, you can what? Sense, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So Aristotle often calls the different parts of philosophy a methodos, right? Which in Greek means over road. So he names this kind of knowledge, a methodos, which means, and I could paraphrase it, into a knowledge over a road, right? Okay. Yeah. Let's look at the applied objections here now. The first two objections are going to be solved in a similar way. And Thomas says, when you divide synderesis against the irascible and concubisable, which are the names of two powers of emotions and the rational power, Jerome is dividing them in the basis of the, what, acts, right? Okay. So often anger or sense desire are, what, unreasonable, right? And therefore they're opposed to the act of reason. Okay. I've had people, you know, who smoke, you know, and they say, don't ever start. Yeah, right. So their reason is telling them not to do it, right? Yeah. But their desire to smoke, you know? Okay. The same with an alcoholic or something like that, right? Maybe he's taking a pledge or he's, you know, joined AA or something like that. So his reason is telling them not to drink, but he has that concubisence, right? Okay. Okay. Okay. They get these, you know, men who beat their wives, you know, don't have control of their anger, right? You know, you read about these cases all the time, you know? And so when their anger has calmed down, they see that this is unreasonable what they've done, right? And they say, well, I won't do it again, but of course, they say they will do it again because they don't have their anger under, what? Under control. Under control, you know. It was the dunking stool, you know, the dunking stool there. Remember in the Puritan days, right? Yeah, if a woman had too sharp a tongue, you know, or a shrew, you know, then they would, you know, like Shakespeare's famous play, The Taming of the Shrew, right? Making all my jokes about that because I live in Shrewsbury, see? I mean, they had a dunking stool, right? You put the woman on the chair, tighter in the chair, and a kid would tell you, you know, and you just got from the heart and close to you. It goes off. So some people have anger, right, that is unreasonable, huh? You know, so if they kill somebody, or so they do some other horrible thing, you know? We read about that all the time, right? You know, if you've gotten to argue in a bar or somewhere else, then we assume they're being arrested for doing some kind of terrible thing, right? Or they decide to, you know, run the car through somebody's house or something or do some crazy thing, right? Yeah. So Thomas says the distinction here is not one of powers, but one of the acts, right, huh? The same way in the second objection there, right? So Sinteresis is telling one to be moderate, or it might be, and sensuality is what? Inclining one to go to excess in the goods of the senses, right? So those first two objections are solved in a similar way. Now, the third objection, Thomas, is a little more accepting of the way it's proceeding a bit there. To the third, it should be said that these unchangeable reasons, right, or these unchangeable thoughts, if you want to translate Ratio's thoughts, are the first beginnings of things to be done about which one does not err, right? And they are attributed to reason as to a power and to Sinteresis as a, what? Habit, right, huh? Okay? Now, it's the same thing, you know. If I go to the corridor now, I'm going to demonstrate the Pythagorean theorem, right, huh? Okay? Do I demonstrate the Pythagorean theorem by my reason or by the habit of geometry in my reason? Or by both? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could say I'm doing it by my reason, but by reason as what? Perfected, perfected by this habit of geometry, right? Okay? So I have all these forms in my mind, right, that are ordered there, right? In the order of the theorems, huh? Whence by both reason and Sinteresis we naturally, what? Judge, huh? Okay? Now, notice how we suddenly speak in English, huh? Well, and it's a beautiful fragment, too, of Heraclitus that touches upon this, huh? One fragment where he says, It is wise, he says, listening not to me, he says, but to reason, to agree that all things are one. Okay? But since I take out those middle words there, right, listen not to me, but to what? Reason, right? Okay? It's a hard place to sing, huh? Now, now Burnett, one of the famous English scholars there, you know, has a book on the early Greeks, huh? He mistranslates this, huh? Oh. He says, listen not to me, but to my word. Oh. Now, Chris, in Greek, you have the same word for reason and for work, right? Uh-huh. Named the Logos, right? Yeah. Okay, being the deity here, I guess, right? Okay? Now, first of all, there's no my there in the Greek, there's just the one word, right? Oh, yeah. So he's sticking in a word that isn't there, right? Hmm. But it doesn't make any sense to say that. It doesn't make any sense to say that. It doesn't make any sense to say that. It's the same thing. Yeah. It destroys the whole purpose of this, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, in another fragment, Heraclitus says, reason is common to all. Now, we use that sometimes in daily speech, don't we, huh? We say about somebody that he won't listen to reason, right? Now, you don't mean by that he won't listen to my reason, do you? No. See? He won't listen to reason, right? No. Now, what does that mean? See? Because someone might say, hey, what is this reason you're being asked to listen to, right? Mm-hmm. Isn't it just my reason and your reason and the next man's reason, right? What's this reason that you listen to that is not my reason or your reason or the next man's reason? What is that reason? See, someone might object to what we say in daily life, right? Yeah. And what Heraclitus is saying, saying, well, there is no reason except my reason, your reason, and this man's reason, right? Okay? So what does it mean to listen to reason, huh? What does it mean to say that reason is common to all, right? Mm-hmm. Now, another fragment he says, his wisdom is to speak the truth, he says, and to act. Right? In accord with nature, he says, huh? Give him ear there, too, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Well, no, so there's a connection there between common and, what? Natural, right? Yeah. See? What reason naturally knows is common to all of us, huh? And everything else that we find, we should judge, we find it by proceeding from what we naturally know, right? And we should return to what we naturally know to judge it, huh? So that's the secret, in a sense, to understanding the truth of what we all say, right? There's no reason to reason. That because of emotion, right? Or because of pride or something, right? He's cut off from that common, natural, what? Understanding. You see? And he's following, what? Images, right, huh? Heraclitus says, we should not act and speak like those asleep. In the waking, he says, there's one world that is common, huh? If men fall asleep, they each go into their own private world, right? But he's hinting that that private world is false, right? Of course, the Greek word idios, or you get the word idiot, is a Greek word for private, huh? So an idiot is someone who lives in a private world. I'm Napoleon, right? You meet these guys in the madhouse there, right? In the 18th century, you know, they'll definitely be down to the madhouse, kind of, for afternoon's entertainment, right? To see what these people claim to be. So one guy thinks he's Napoleon, and he's issuing orders now, you know, for his battle or something like that, right? We don't think that's, you know, I don't laugh at these people, but they're all living in a private world, right? You see? Someone's describing somebody I'd known, and he got kind of mad, you know? And he'd be talking normally, and all of a sudden he'd be talking about his fleet of ships, like he's Aristotle and Nassus or somebody, right? You know? It's like, you know, all of a sudden today, and I got talking about my army, you know, that's out there on the field, you know? And we're going to march there and take over Worcester, you know? I'm going to go back, you know, to be. Quite normal here, you know, you say, he's really, you know. Yeah, I saw something living in a world that's private to me, but it's to help with the imagination, right? And it's kind of interesting now that this text that I mentioned in the third book of the Dianna, right, huh? Now, sometimes Thomas gets the text in a translation, right, and a little different, right? Yeah. But the actual Greek word there is nous, huh, okay? And Aristotle says nous is always right, huh, okay? Like synovesis, huh, synovesis is always correct. But in one of the translations that Thomas refers to in one text there, it's not in the context of the commentary, I know, but somewhere else, reason is always right, huh? But again, you see, reason is always right, you're saying reason insofar as it's what? In what it naturally knows, right? In what it judges in the light of what it naturally knows, right? You see? That's always correct, right? Okay? But imagination is seen as kind of, what, free to imagine anything, right? Sure. And try to imagine things that cannot be imagined even. And so, imagination is, as such, is deceptive, and reason is not. Kind of interesting, huh? The first man among the grids there to really see that the axioms about being and non-being, you know, are the beginning, was the man named, what, Parmenides, right? Parmenides, yeah. And we have the fragments of Parmenides where, you know, he talks about something that cannot both be and not be, right? And that this is his beginning, you always come back to this, right? It's like Thomas says, right? You always proceed from that, and you come back and judge things ultimately in the light of that, huh? And Parmenides says, you know, a man who thinks something can both be and not be is a two-headed mortal, he says. Mm-hmm. Of course, a two-headed mortal would be a monster, wouldn't he? Mm-hmm. And monster says something, what, opposed to nature. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You need one head to think that it is, one head to think that it isn't. I mean, one head, you know, could be in doubt as to whether it is or it is not, right? She loves me, she loves me not. But one and the same head couldn't, you know, ascent to both of those, right? At the same time, huh? Couldn't think at the same time that it must be, and it also must not be. One would take away with the other one. But I can't even take and eat it, as they say, huh? Mm-hmm. But no, it's coming back to this now, see? Now, so here, as Thomas was saying in reply to the last dejection, something can be attributed to reason and to the, what? A habit, right, huh? You might say reason is perfected by this habit, right? He's able to, what? Judge these things, huh? Okay? Sorry. Just like, you can see, just like in the other virtues, my ability to feel anger, right? Moderately, right? Well, I must be angry by my ability to be angry, right? Within. You see? But if I get angry, neither more nor less than I should, right? And when I should, and about what I should get, right? Anger about, like, our Lord changes the men of the temple there, right? Yeah. And there's another passage I remember kind of stuck by going through the Gospels the last time. I forget which Gospel it is now. One time where Christ is really angry with the Pharisees and so on, because they're really just denying the obvious, you might say, and he's worked these miracles, right? You know? And they're obstinate, right? You know? There's real anger in the world there, you know? So I have to be angry by my ability to feel anger, right? But that I'm angry in a, what, moderate way or reasonable way, right? You might say it's by the habit, right? Of mildness. And it's the same virtue that moderates anger and mildness. It's a sense of meekness, but mildness is a little better way to think of it. Oh, okay. Mildness, huh? Yeah. And Christ, give me a sense that, you know, one of me, for I'm meek and humble heart, like, the virtues of humility. Humility and mildness go together somewhat, you know? By the proud, you know, are spoken of as being, what, represented as being given to anger, right, you know? Because a proud man is used to offend it, you see? That you don't recognize as excellence, so you, you know? Mm-hmm. Okay? So sometimes in Socrates, leading somebody into a contradiction, they get angry, right? The slave boy doesn't think he's a nobody, right? He has no pride in anything. He doesn't have any position in society, right? Yeah. The man has some position, reputation, and he gets angry. They're trying to refute me, Socrates, and so on. No, I'm just following where the argument goes, Socrates says. Did I see you by my eye, or do I see you by my 20-20 vision? Yeah, yeah. But the one is kind of a disposition, right? Right. Perfecting the other, right? Yeah. Do I lift this by my muscles, you know, or by my, what? Strength. Oh. Strength, you know, huh? Right. You see? Well, the strength here is kind of a disposition, right? A habit to us, right? And so just like if I do push-ups or some lift weights or something, right, I build up a, what? A habit there, right? It's in my muscles, let's say, right, huh? So likewise, if I eat moderately, you know, then I build up a habit of, what, moderation, right, huh? If I restrain my anger when I have this desire, you know, then I build up this habit of mildness, huh? So we'll do a little break here before we do our second article. Okay, to the 13th, one proceeds thus. It seems that conscience is a certain power, huh? You know how we always use this word conscience even today, don't we, huh? And so Thomas has to take up what does this really mean, conscience, right? Mm-hmm. Is this some other power that's hidden inside of us that is, you know? Or what is it, huh? Well, conscience is going to be, most properly, an act, right? That's right. Okay, but we'll see what the objections say first. For origin says that conscience is the, what, corrector of the spirit, I guess, huh? And a pedagogue, right? That's a companion of the soul. But which is separated from bad things and adheres to, what, good things, right? Or maybe spirit to us is, what, not in the genitive there, but it's a spirit that is a corrector of us, right? I think it's referring to the Holy Garden of Nugels. Yeah, well, we'll see what Thomas said. But spirit to us in the soul names some, what, power. Or it names the mind itself, namely the, what, immaterial part of the soul, or rather the part of the soul that has powers that are not in the, what, body, right, huh? It has understanding and will. Be renovated in the spirit of your, what, mind, huh? Yeah, that's right. Sometimes it means the imagination. That's another power we have. When an imaginary vision is called spiritual, right, huh? It is clear through Augustine, the twelfth book, in Genesis, to the letter. Therefore, conscience is a certain power, huh? Moreover, nothing is the subject of sin except some power of the soul. But conscience is the subject of sin. Sin, for it is said in the epistle to Titus, I guess, chapter 1, verse 15, about some things, that their mind and conscience are, what, stained, shall we say, huh? Or the other trends are inquinate. Defiled. Yeah, defiled, stained, yeah. Therefore it seems that conscience is a power. Moreover, it is necessary that conscience be either an act or a habit or a power, but it is not an act because then it would not always remain in man, huh? You lose conscience and you're not thinking. Nor is it a habit, huh?