De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 139: Whether the Soul Knows Bodies Through Understanding

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds. Order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, pray for us, and help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Amen. So, the first article, whether the soul knows body by the understanding. So this is the first article, and the first question here on the knowledge of the things that are below the soul, right? It seems that the soul does not know bodies through the understanding. For Augustine says in the second book of the Syloquies, So he speaks to himself, right? Yeah. That bodies are not able to be comprehended by the understanding, nor is anything bodily able to be seen except by the, what? Senses. He says also in the twelfth book upon Genesis, to the letter, that the understandable vision is of those things which are in the soul through its essence. But these things are not bodies. Therefore, the soul, through the understanding, is not able to know bodies. Now, you've always got to explain Augustine, right? Second war. Just as the sense has itself to understandable things, so also the understanding to sensible things. But the soul, by sense, in no way is able to know spiritual things or immaterial things. Spirituality there means not immaterial things, huh? Which are understandable. Therefore, in no way, through the understanding, is the soul able to know bodies, which are sensible things. You can argue if you say that the eyes cannot know sound, and therefore the ear cannot know color, right? Moreover, the understanding is of things that are necessary and always having themselves in the same way. And those are the things that are fully, what? Understandable. But bodies, all bodies are, what? Moveable. And not having themselves in the same way. Therefore, the soul, through the understanding, is not able to know bodies. But against all this is that reasoned-out knowledge is in the understanding. If, therefore, the understanding does not know bodies, it would follow that there is no reasoned-out knowledge about bodies. And thus, natural science would perish, which is about movable body. So Thomas says, I answer, it should be said, to the evidence of this question, that the first philosophers who investigated the natures of things, they thought nothing was in the world except, what? Body. And we often quote Aristotle's statement there in the fourth book of the physics, fourth book of natural hearing, where the common opinion of the Greeks before him is, whatever is must be somewhere. And if it isn't somewhere, it doesn't, what? Exist. But to be somewhere is to be, what? Contained in some place. Yeah. And is a property of the body, the natural body. Yeah. So identifying what is with what is in place, huh? Yeah. And so, they think only that bodies exist, huh? And because they saw that all bodies are, what? Moveable, right? Changeable. And they thought them to be in a state of, what? Continuous flux, huh? Flowing, huh? They estimated that no certitude about the truth of things is able to be, what? Had by us, huh? For what is in continuous flux is not able to be grasped by certitude because it, what? It's going to fail, right, huh? Before it is, what? Judged to be such by the mind, huh? Just as Heraclitus said, it is not possible to touch twice the water of a river that is flowing, huh? If you come to it again, it's not the same, what? Water. It's flowing on. As the philosopher recites in the fourth book of the metaphysics, huh? So we take that image of the river ourselves over and we say the situation is fluid. That means it's changing as we describe it, huh? So Heraclitus said, you can't step twice in the same river because it's always other than other waters flowing by. And Cratchitus, who was the student of Heraclitus and a teacher of Plato, says you can't step once into the same river because as your foot breaks the surface of the water and starts to go down in the water, the water at the surface is no longer the same. So you can't step even once in the same river. And usually I get up in front of the class there and I walk, you know, in front of the rows to the desk and I say, now, where's Berkwist, right? Well, he's here but before I could finish saying that he's here, he's no longer here. And so the Cratchitus' followers said, all you can do is point. You can't say anything because before you finish saying it, the thing would have, what, changed, huh? And this produced a kind of negative crisis in Plato's thinking because how can you have understanding which, as the name stand, applies, how can you understand something that doesn't stand still, right? How can you understand something that is always changing? And even in old age, Aristotle said Plato was still hooding on to some of these things he had learned from Cratchitus, huh? Who was a student of the Heraclitus quoted here. And in fact, Plato has a dialogue called the Cratchitus, where Socrates and Cratchitus have a conversation and you can see Cratchitus' opinion, right? But, so, Socrates, or rather Plato, was looking for, what? Something he could understand. And in two places he found apparently understanding. One was in mathematics, when he studied with the Pythagoreans. And then Socrates through definitions was apparently getting at some understanding, huh? So if you understand what a dog is and what a cat is, you might understand that no dog is a cat, right? Okay? So, he thought that if you have understanding of the truth in mathematics and you understand the truth through definitions, there must be some unchanging things corresponding to mathematics and some unchanging universals corresponding to the definitions which are of the universal. And that way he tried to get back to what? Something unchanging, huh? So he says Plato coming upon these, huh? That he might be able to save a son of the Certain knowledge of truth by us through the understanding laid that apart from these bodily things, there was another genus of beings, right? Separated from matter and motion, which he called, what? Species or forms. I don't know. He turns out that idea, but it's actually a Greek word for form. Species is a Latin word. And the Greek word is what? Aidas, huh? Actually, that's got a little change there in the course of translation, but the Greek word would be aidas, huh? So, to get the word idea. But in English, idea refers to not an objective form out there, but to a thought or something, right? An image, huh? So, that's kind of a bad way to translate that in English by idea, right? It should be translated, that's a botanic idea, but a botanic form, so... Okay? Species is the Latin word, huh? Of course, in logic, the object of definition is what is called a, what? Species, huh? But in Greek, the Greek word would be aidas, huh? And both species in aidas have a little bit of reference to the eye, huh? The form that is seen by the eye. That's where you get these sort of spectacles, right? Yeah. You know, something to be seen, right? Yeah. And aidenai in Greek is a word for it is see, right? So, aidas is the form that is, what? Seen, huh? But in English, we just translate it by the word form, which doesn't have any reference to the eye, but... So, in order that one might be able to have a certain knowledge of the truth by us through the understanding, huh? Plato posited that apart from these bodily things, right, another genus of beings separated from matter in motion, which he called the species or forms, huh? Through the partaking of which each of these singular things and sensible things is said to be either a man or a horse or something of this sort, huh? Thus, therefore, Plato said that reasoned out knowledge, such sciences and definitions and whatever pertains to the active understanding should not be referred to, what? These sensible bodies, but to those immaterial and separated things. So that thus the soul does not understand these bodies, but he understands the separated forms of these, what? Bodies, huh? Now, as I say, one reason why Plato did this was, as Thomas will explain, that he thought that he answered yes to the central question of philosophy, right? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? And since, in a confused way, we think of truth as being the harmony of the mind with things, right, it might seem at first sight at least that the way we know must be the way things are. Otherwise, you don't have truth, huh? Now, if you add to that that we have truth in mathematics and you add to that that we have truth through the definitions of science and he just considered the definitions here and the definition is a knowledge of the universal form separated from the singulars, right? If it's true knowledge, they must really exist in that way. So what a man is must exist in separation from all individual men and what a dog is must exist in separation from all individual dogs and what a cat is and so on, right? And so he called this the world of, what, forms, huh? Now, perhaps another way he might come to this is from the fact that in material things something doesn't seem to be what it is entirely, right? So is Socrates what a man is? Well, Socrates is an animal with reason and that's what a man is, right? But is Socrates identical with what a man is? If he were identical with what a man is then he'd be the only man there is, huh? So Socrates is not a man through being Socrates, then, is he? And then Plato said, well, what is so not through itself must be so through another, what is so through itself, right? Just like if my coffee is not sweet to being coffee but my coffee is sweet it must be sweet to something that is sweet to itself, right? Right. Like the sugar is sweet to itself, right? So if Socrates is not a man through being Socrates, right? Then he must be a man through what is man through being nothing other than what man is and that would be the form, okay? And Aristotle says, yeah, but this form you're talking about doesn't have any matter yet that contains to what man is, huh? And so there are some difficulties in Plato's position, right? But it's not like he had no reason to think this, huh? Can you say again what he answered yes to the central question of philosophy one of the central questions, which was? Yeah, the central question of philosophy is I, as I put it, is called the central question because it brings in everything the philosopher talks about and the inner purpose of which he talks about these things, huh? Okay? Now, if you hang around philosophers for a while you'll find out that they talk about one of two things either the way we know that's, for example, in logic now we talk about the way we know, huh? Or they talk about the way things are So in natural philosophy we talk about the way natural things are, right? In political philosophy we talk about the way political things are In wisdom we talk about the way all things are to some extent, huh? But in logic we talk about the way we know, huh? So, the philosopher's goal is to know the truth about the way things are, right? To know the truth about the way we know, right? So his inner goal is truth and therefore the central question is one that involves truth and the way we know and the way things are because they're going to all be ahead of that And you might say the central question is does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? Okay? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? And so, you could go down the history of philosophy and see who follows Plato who answers what? Yes, apparently, to this question and Aristotle who answers no Okay? And you probably find more people following Plato They don't necessarily ask the question explicitly but they seem to be proceeding from an answer yes, huh? Now, Aristotle says that if something is knowable in distinction from something else if it's knowable in separation from something else there's no falsity in knowing it without the other because it is knowable without the other The falsity would come from the word if in the second act you said it is without the other, right? So, you take the example there of sugar that is white and sweet, and it's both white and sweet, right? But does the eye truly know sugar when it knows the whiteness of the sugar without the sweetness? We can say it's knowledge that the sugar is not complete, right? In knowing it to be white, knowing nothing about it to be sweet. But it's not saying that it's not sweet, is it? It's just knowing it's being white. So, is that false? Or the sense of taste? You taste the sugar, huh? Your tongue. And you taste the sweetness without the whiteness, huh? Is this tongue false in knowing the sweetness without the white? Because one is noble without the other, right? And so Aristotle said, well, reason can know. So, let's say, a cube, right? In separation from ice cube, wooden cube, this plastic cube I have in my office there, like a paperweight, that shape is noble without any particular, what? It's a sensible matter, right? And that's the way the mathematician knows it, huh? Or I can know what's common to you and me, which leaves aside our differences, right? Individual differences. Or I can know what's common to the cat and the dog even, right? To be a four-footed animal, leaving aside that one barks and the other meows. Is what's common to two things noble without their differences? Yeah, yeah. The falsity would come if you said that there's a man who's neither white nor black nor any other individual thing. That would be false, right? But to understand what a man is, without white or black being in the definition of man, is that false? No. And then Aristotle went on and saw that we can know things in a different order than they come. And of course, the most famous example of this is that we tend to know the effect before the cause, right? And that's why Schott-Holm says we have to reason backwards, right? As far as reality is concerned, reasoning from the effect back to the, what? Cause. Is the mind false in knowing the effect before the cause? No. The falsity would come if it said that in reality the effect is before the cause. Because it's before in our knowledge, huh? Aristotle says you have to distinguish the order in things and the order in our knowledge. Or I take this simple example with a student sometimes and say, I know you, to some extent. But I never met your parents, right? So you are before your parents in my knowledge. Is that true in reality that you are before your parents? No. So is my mind false in knowing you before I know your parents? The falsity would come if I said, since I truly know you before your parents, then you must truly have come before your parents. Then I would be identifying the order in which we know in this case and the order in things, huh? Now Spinoza, and Hegel following him, Spinoza says the order in thoughts and the order in things is exactly the same. Well, basically, I think Aristotle is right that the order in things and the order in our knowledge are just the reverse. And I take a simple example, you know, say water, hydrogen, proton, which is first in our knowledge. Water. Yeah. And then we discovered hydrogen in reference to water. And that's why we named it hydrogen. It generates water, right? And then after we knew hydrogen in some way, we came to know proton. Now proton gets its name for the Greek word proton, meaning first. Because it seemed to be the bulk of the atom, right? But was it first in our knowledge? No, it was last in our knowledge, right? And what was first in our knowledge of these three things, is water, is apparently last in reality, huh? So if anything, the order in our knowledge is the reverse, the exact reverse of the order in things, huh? So it's a great mistake that Spinoza is making, huh? Because Hegel takes it over from Spinoza, huh? And of course Hegel identifies what? The most confused notion in our mind, that of being, with the one who said in Scripture, I am who am. He's identifying, right, the most imperfect thought in some ways in our mind, right? The most general or confused thought, that of being in general, something is, you know. That's the only way different with God who said, I am who am I. Thomas, in my favorite book there, the Summa Congentilis, has a whole little chapter devoted to showing that they're not the same thing, right? But Hegel's identifying what is first in our mind, again, with what is first in what? Reality. So he identifies the first thought of our mind with the first thing in reality. Terrible, terrible confusion, right? But it goes back to Spinoza, and it's kind of anticipated by Descartes, but it's very explicit in Spinoza. Is that what got Anselman problems? Some kind of thing with this, this existential proof there, whatever. Well, that's a little different, the problem he had. Okay. He's confusing the name, right, with the thing. Oh. Okay. But after enumerating the position of Plato or reciting it, he says, but this appears false in two ways, right? First, because or since those forms were immaterial, right, and immobile, you would exclude from the sciences a knowledge of motion and what? Matter, right? Which is appropriate to natural science, huh? And you'd also do away with any demonstration through moving causes or through the movers and material causes, huh? And secondly, because it seems laughable, as Aristotle said right before him, that of things which are manifest to us when we seek the knowledge of them, right, we bring in other beings in the middle, which are not able to be their substances since they differ from them in their very way of being. Aristotle's comparison says, you know, it's like if I had a hard time, you know, counting people in this room, right? And so we go down to the Yankee Stadium there and we try to count you people along with everybody there in the stadium. Just compounding it, right, huh? Yeah. It's a difficulty, huh? So we want to know these material things around us, and Plato brings in another world we've got to know in order to know the world we're trying to know already, huh? And thus, those separated substances being known, not on account of this would we be able to judge about these sensible things, because these sensible things are by their very nature material, right? Subject to motion, why these forms would not be material, nor would they be subject to motion. Now, I'm going to explain, though, why the great Plato seems to have deviated, huh, from the truth, huh? Because he estimated that all knowledge is by way of somewhat likeness, huh? He believed then that the form of the thing known from necessity is in the knower in the same way in which it is in the what? known. That's not what he's saying. He's answering yes, that the way we know must be the way what? Things are, yeah. Now he considered that the form of the thing understood is in the understanding universally, and therefore immaterially and immobily, which appears from the operation of the understanding, who understands things universally and by way of a certain necessity. And the mode of action is according to the mode of the form of the agent. And therefore he estimated that it's necessary for the things understood in this way in themselves to subsist, namely immaterial and immobile. In other words, if our mind has an unchangeable knowledge, right, an immaterial knowledge, it must be a knowledge of something unchangeable and immaterial. As if it was impossible to have a, what, unchanging knowledge of, what, change, huh? No, so when you say universally that a thing changing is becoming other, right, that's always true, right, and necessarily true, right? Yeah. So we can have a necessary truth about something that is not, what, necessary, huh? Well, yeah. We can have a timeless knowledge of time, what time is, huh? Yeah. Okay. So he says, but this, however, is not necessary, because even in the sensible things themselves, we see that the form is in one way, in one sensible things, and in another way, in another one. For example, in one thing, white is more intense, right? In another, it is more, what, remiss, huh? Less intense. And in one thing, there is whiteness with sweetness, and another without sweetness, right? And in this way, a sensible form is in another way, in the thing, which is outside the soul, and another way, in the sense, which receives the forms of sensible things without matter, just as the color of gold without, what, gold, huh? I notice that when I come here, if I recognize you people, right, and distinguish between you, then I have the shape of you in my, what, memory, right? When I go home tonight, I can think about any one of you, and your shape will be in my, what, memory, right? But is your shape in my memory in the way your shape would be, like in that statue over there, right? If we had Michelangelo, somebody's going to make a statue of you. Would your shape be received in my eye in the same way it's received in the marble or the plaster or whatever it is? Not in the same way. No. And is there a piece of bone or flesh up in my head here that's chiseled out into your shape? It would seem to be no. No. I mean, Shakespeare says poetically, huh? My eye hath played the painter, right? He says, my eye is up here, you know, and, you know, drawing a painting. But is there really a painting of you in that way, huh? No, so when the marble or the wood or the plaster takes on your shape, it becomes its own shape, doesn't it? But when my eye takes on your shape, does it become the shape of my eye? Or the shape of some part of my head? You see? So I'm receiving, nevertheless, I recognize your shape, right? I recognize the shape of the dog. I recognize the dog by its shape, right? So I obviously receive the shapes of you and the shape of the dog and the shape of the table and so on, shape of the glass, in a different way than matter receives it, don't I? So the thing known is not in the knower in the same way it's in the, what? Known. Okay. And yet I truly do know the shape, right? Mm-hmm. You know, these, uh, you know, not from my grandchildren, you know. Mm-hmm. You have these plastic boxes that they have now, right? And, uh, it's got a lid, you can look and close it, and it's got, what, round things and triangular things. Mm-hmm. And then you have the little blocks that go with these things, right? And the child's got to put the round one through the round thing, otherwise it won't go into the box, right? Mm-hmm. And the triangular one through the triangular one and so on. So those shapes are really there, right, huh? Mm-hmm. And so I really do know them, right, you see? And I have to, you know, see that the circular one fits the shape of this block here so I can put this block through the link, right? Mm-hmm. But yet that shape is not in my eye in that way that my eye has taken on that shape, huh? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, one of the, one of the, um, Greeks said, you know, go up to somebody's eye and look in your eye, you know, huh? Right. You see? Look in my eye, see? And you'll see yourself in my eye, won't you? Yeah. But is that the way that I, uh, know you? By that shape that you see when you look in my eye? No. No, no, no, that's more like the way the mirror receives my shape, right? Yeah. Right? So, but notice again, the mirror receives the shape in a different way and the color of something, right, in a different way than something else does, right? So it's not unheard of, even in the material world, that color and shape are received and things in different ways, huh? And so, yeah, so Thomas is pointing that out here, huh? And similarly, the understanding, the species of things which are material and mobile, it receives in an immaterial way, in an unchanging way, according to its own mode. Now the general principle. For the received is in the one receiving, in the manner of the one, what? Receiving, huh? And that's what you have to remember as a teacher, right, huh? You say the same thing, but it's received in the different students' minds, right? According to their capacity to understand, according to their previous knowledge, and so on, right? Okay? That, though, is a different understanding of this principle, right? Well, this is a very common principle, you know, used to, when I was growing up, you know, a student. It seems like it's being used here differently than in that case of... You see, the fact that our reason knows changeable things in an unchangeable way, right? Mm-hmm. The fact that our reason knows material things in an immaterial way, not that it understands them to be immaterial, right? But that by which it understands, huh? Okay. That reveals something about the nature of our mind, huh? You see? Mm-hmm. Does our mind know changing things in an unchanging way? Does our mind know material things in an immaterial way because of the thing being known? No, because that's material and changeable. Yeah. Therefore, it must be knowing changing and material things in an unchanging way, in an immaterial way, because it itself is immaterial and unchanging, huh? And so that's... That really hints, right, at the soul being what? Mm-hmm. Immortal, yeah. That it receives things, right? That in their very nature are material and changeable, right? In a way that is unchanging, huh? In a way that is immaterial. That's a sign of its being immaterial. Mm-hmm. As being unchanging, huh? Mm-hmm. If it was knowing, you know, angels, that'd be a little different thing, you see? Because the thing itself is unchanging or immaterial, right? But here it's knowing a material thing in an unchanging and immaterial way. Mm-hmm. This example, though, with the students, isn't that... I'm putting it a little differently because it's really talking about how each person's mind is different and receiving it differently. Well, I mean, this is a very universal principle, you see. They say when I grew up, they would say, quid quid ucipitur. Ucipitur is a quidu modem ucipientis. I used to like to say it almost like a tongue twister. But whatever is received is received according to the way of the receiver. So that's, you know, if you have something hard, you see the shape in a more stable way than something that is soft, right? Mm-hmm. So I mean, this can be applied to all kinds of things, huh? But Thomas is applying it here to the way the mind... The mind receives, right? Yeah. Okay. Dr. Bergmaschietti, what was that? Do you reckon again what you just said? Quid quid, recipitur. Recipitur, okay. Whatever is received. Recipitur is received. Right. Secundum modum, recipientis, according to the way of the receiver. Thank you. It should be said, therefore, that the soul, by the understanding, knows bodies by knowledge that is immaterial, universal, and what? Necessary, right? And sometimes we play around with this a little bit, you know. We can say, is the definition of stupidity stupid? Is the knowledge of ignorance, ignorance? It's interesting. Who knows the ignorance of the student better? The student or the professor? The one who knows. Yeah, yeah. The one who knows, right? Yeah. Knows the ignorance of the student better than the student knows his ignorance, right? And how could the student know his own ignorance fully if he didn't know what he was ignorant of, in which case he would not be ignorant of it? So, it's through my knowledge of something that I know your ignorance of that, right? Yeah. Now, is that, is the way of knowing there the same as the way of the thing? I have a knowledge of your ignorance? Because ignorance is a lack of knowledge, right? But I know the lack of knowledge through what? The knowledge that I have, yeah. So, the way we know is not the same in the way, but... We know. What we say about the thing, right, huh? I don't say that the ignorance is knowledge, do I? No. It's a lack of knowledge, an unbeing of knowledge, right? And a subject capable of knowing it. Change is between what? Opposites, right? See, this is a universal and an immaterial knowledge, right? Immobile knowledge and changing knowledge. A change, right? When a thing is changing, is it staying the same or is it becoming other? Yeah, see? And does that change? Or is it changing always becoming other when it's changing? So, we have, in that sense, a, what? A universal knowledge of the, what? Singular, right? See? When I say, you know, you're a man, right? And that beast that's in everything I see is out here now is a cat, right? I have a universal knowledge of a, what? Man and a cat. Yeah. But of a singular, right? He's an individual man, but I know him to be a, what? A man, right? Yeah. I'm not going to identify him and say, well, because man is universal, therefore, he's universal, right? Because that would be to attribute the way I know him, right, to the way he is. Hmm. Yeah? Of course, in God, in God, they're identical, right? God knows all things by knowing himself. But there's no distinction between, what? God's knowledge and God himself, right? They're all one. Some people want us to have that knowledge, right? Mm-hmm. And he comes down on the stage all by himself, and he speaks his thoughts. I mean, monologue is only in work. They call it soliloquy, don't they? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Soliloquy, huh? To speak to oneself, right? Speak alone, huh? It's interesting work by Augustine, huh? It says, the word of Augustine should be understood as regards that by which, huh? The understanding knows, huh? Not over as regards that which it knows, huh? But that's not altogether clear in Augustine, right? Mm-hmm. But certainly Augustine does not want to say that we don't know bodies, right? For it knows bodies by understanding, not through bodies, right? Nor through material and bodily likenesses, but through what? Immaterial and understandable forms, which in their essence can be, are able to be in the soul, huh? Okay. Now the second objection was saying, just as the senses don't know immaterial things, well, then the reason shouldn't know what? Material things. Material things, yeah. But Thomas will point out that it's not like the sense of sight and the sense of hearing, which are both particular knowing powers, but the sense of what? The senses are particular knowing powers, and reason is what? Mm-hmm. Universal, right? So reason can ask what is color, what is sound, and so on, and about many other things, huh? To the second it should be said that, as Augustine says, in the 22nd book of the City of God, it ought not to be said that, as the sense knows only bodily things, so the understanding knows only, what? Spiritual things, huh? That would be going back, in a sense, to Plato's difficulty, wouldn't it? See? But the bodily bodies are known only by something bodily, and the spiritual or immaterial, incorporeal things are known only by something immaterial, incorporeal, because the knower has to be the same as the known, right? Because it would follow from this that God and the angels would not know what? Bodily things, which is absurd. Now, he says, the reason for this diversity, that the understanding can know bodies, but the senses cannot know immaterial things, is because a lower power does not extend itself to those things which pertain to a, what? Higher power. But the higher power, those things which pertain to the lower power, it does in a more, what? Excellent way, huh? That's kind of interesting, you know, when you think of, in mathematics there, when you think of imagination knowing a line and so on, and a line is at some length, right? Okay, and this line is going to be either greater than, or less than, or equal to another line, right? Okay? But now when I understand what a line is, is what a line is, a line? Because if what a line is were a line, it would have to be either, what? Equal to this line, or greater than it, or less than, in which case what a line is would not fit every line, would it? So what a line is, is not a line, right? That's right. And yet, in understanding what a line is, I understand what this is, what this is, what this is, what this is, at least in general, right? Curious, isn't it? Yeah. Reason knows a line, the proper object of reason is that what it is, is something sensed or imagined, huh? So what reason knows in the line is what a line is, just as it knows in the triangle what a triangle is, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it seems that you can't really say that what a lion is, is a lion. Even though in understanding what a lion is, you understand what a lion is. Very strange, isn't it? But the thing that's interesting is, you see, in material things, and Plato, in a way, was touching upon a great truth, in material things, what a thing is is not identical with the thing. But in new material things, what a thing is, is identical with the thing. And this will come out, maybe later on, other things. Okay. Now the third objection says, the understanding is of things that are necessary, and always having themselves in the same way. And that's why you don't really have intellectus of what? Contingent things, right? Okay? Like you're sitting over there, right? Yeah. I know that only through my, what? Senses, right? Because you could be standing, or you could be laying down, or whatever, right? And so I can't really know, for my reason, right, what you're doing. Okay? But all bodies are mobile, and not having themselves in the same way. Therefore, the soul, through the understanding, is not able to know bodies, huh? And Thomas says, to the third it should be said, that all motion supposes something, what? Immobile. For when there is change according to quantity, Quality. The substance, quality, yeah. The substance remains immobile. And when there is a change of substantial form, there remains the matter immobile. Also, he says, of changing things, there are certain, what? Unchanging relations. Just as Socrates, although he does not always sit down, right? Nevertheless, it is immobily true that whenever he sits, he remains in one place. And on account of this, nothing prevents one from having an unchanging knowledge about, what? Changing things, huh? In every change, something becomes, what? Other. In every change, something does not remain the same. Is that ever change? So it's possible to have an unchanging knowledge of, what? Changing things, huh? Very subtle, huh? So you want to take a little break before we do the next article? What was that? Okay. Whether the soul understands, what? Bodily things to its own, what? Essence, to its own nature, right? To the second, thus, one proceeds. It seems that the soul understands bodily things to its own essence, to its own nature. For Augustine says, in the 10th book of the Trinity, that the soul revolves, what? Within itself, the images of bodies, huh? And snatches them, right? Made in itself, of itself. Giving to them, informing them, something of its own, what? Substance, huh? But through the likenesses of bodies, we understand bodies. Therefore, through its own essence, which it gives, informing such similitudes, and about which it, and from which it knows them, it knows bodily things. Now, if we're translating that all together, correct. But the idea, I think, is clear, right? That Augustine seems to be saying that it's what? Of its very nature, it's forming its likenesses, huh? Okay. Moreover, the philosopher says, in the third book about the soul, that the soul is in some way all things. You saw that, right? Mm-hmm. Since, therefore, like is known by like, it seems that the soul, through itself, knows what? Bodily things, huh? Moreover, the soul is superior above corporeal creatures. But the lower things are in the higher things in a more eminent way than in themselves, as Dionysius says. Therefore, all bodily creatures exist in a more noble way, in the very substance of the soul, than in themselves. Therefore, it knows through its own substance, or it's able to know through its own substance, bodily, what, creatures, huh? But against this is what Augustine says in the ninth book of the Trinity, that the mind gathers knowledge of bodily things through the senses of the, what, body. There he sounds very Aristotelian, Augustine, huh? But the soul is not knowable through the senses of the body. Therefore, it does not know bodily things through its own substance, huh? I answer, it should be said that the ancient philosophers, right, laid down that the soul knew bodies through its own nature, through its own essence, huh? For this was innate, you might say, or indicated commonly in the souls of all of them, that like is known by what? Like, huh? And they estimated that the form of the thing known was in the knower in the same way that is in the thing known. They're like, think of this, right? They're answering yes to the central question, right? Right. So everybody before Aristotelian is apparently answering what? Yes to the central question, right? Yeah. Of course, there is this fragment we have of Empedocles, huh? By earth we know earth, by water, water, by air, air, by fire, fire, by love, love, and by hate, hate, as if the soul was composed of these things and therefore would know them, right? Okay. For they estimated that the form of the thing known is in the knower in the same way that is in the thing known. A contrario, nevertheless, huh? The Platonists posited, huh? Now here they see some difference between them. For Plato, because he saw that the understanding soul was immaterial and it knew immaterially, right, he posited that the forms of things known subsisted in an immaterial way, huh? But the earlier naturalists, because they considered things known to be bodily and material, they posited as necessary that the things known also exist materially in the soul knowing them. and therefore that they might attribute to the soul the knowledge of all things, they laid down that it had a nature common with all things. And because the nature of things that are from a principle is constituted from the principles, they attributed to the soul the nature of a principle. That's brought out very clearly in the first book of the physics, huh? I mean, excuse me, of the dianima. That whatever they thought was the principle of things they attributed to the nature of the soul. Thus, those who said the principle of all things was fire, they laid down the soul to be of the nature of fire. And similarly, those who said it was what? Air, right? Like an ex, eximinus. And water, like an eximinus.