De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 141: Avicenna and Plato: Theories of Intelligible Forms

Transcript
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That is so, but as such, and essentially so. He gives a simple example there from the ancient science, right? But the understanding soul, as it is understanding an act, partakes of the understandables. For the understanding an act is in some way the understood an act. We've talked about that before when we talked about the senses and reason all ago, that sensing and understanding are receiving in a way the form, right, of another, the nature of another. Therefore those things which by themselves and in their very nature are understood in act are causes for the understanding soul that understands in act. But the things that are understood in act through their own nature are forms that exist without matter. Therefore the understandable forms by which the soul understands are caused by some separated forms, huh? We saw that in our first study of the understanding, right? That things have to be separated from matter before they can be understood. So it's the things that are in their very nature immaterial that are actually, what, understandable. And so we seem to be just getting a, what, partaking of the understandable. Okay. And therefore I'd be getting it from something that is essentially understandable. It's a very subtle argument there, huh? But in this is he already arguing for the, that agent intellect or is he just talking about the ideas themselves? Well, he's going to bring in the agent intellect eventually, yeah. But I mean... But for, what's his name, Avicenna, yeah. That, um, the agent intellect is a separated, what, substance like an angel, right? Right. Okay. That is, uh, acting upon our mind and sending in forms to our mind, huh? But is he talking about that already in this... In this objection, yeah. In this objection, yeah. Yeah, the objection is saying that there must be, um, uh, something that is essentially understandable, right? That is the source of what we have understandable, which is only by partaking in the understandable. Okay. Okay. Moreover, understandable things have themselves to the understanding as sensible things to the sense. But the sensible things which are in act outside the soul are the causes of the sensible forms which are in the sense, by which we sense, huh? Mm-hmm. So we're acted upon by the sensible things, right? Mm-hmm. And the sensible form is a result of our being acted upon by things outside of ourselves. And so this is arguing by analogy here. Mm-hmm. Therefore, the understandable forms, by which our understanding understands, are caused by some things that are understandable in act, existing outside the soul. And these things are not except, what, forms that exist in separation from matter. Therefore, the understandable forms of our understanding flow from some separated substances. So that's what he's doing there, right? So that's what he's doing there, right? He's making a analogy, huh? He's saying that just as sensible things outside here act upon our senses, causing them to understand and act, right? So there must be some understandable things out here, right? Things that are actually understandable, that act upon the understanding or reason, huh? And therefore, we're getting our thoughts from these like immaterial things that are actually understandable, huh? Okay? Thomas will say, well, again, you have to be careful with the analogy. There's a likeness there between the two, right? Yeah. But they're overextending the likeness, huh? Yeah, there's a difference. Because what is really understandable for us, primarily, is not something understandable in act. What's primarily understandable for us is that what it is, something sensed or imagined. Mm-hmm. And that what it is, something sensed or imagined, has to be, by our unique intellect, separated from the singularity of the senses and the imagination, in order to be actually understood, huh? Mm-hmm. So, this is seeing them to be alike where they are not alike, huh? There is an analogy there, right? But the analogy and the likeness is not as great as the argument is assuming, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? The argument is assuming that because there are things that are actually sensible, which move the senses, right? Yeah. Then, likewise, our understanding or our reason must be moved by things that are actually understandable. Well, in a sense, they must be, right? Mm-hmm. But they're not things that are actually understandable by their very nature. They're what it is, is something sensed or imagined, and it has to be separated from the sensible images, huh? Before it is actually understandable. Now, the third objection is, again, based upon this famous thing that we'll study a lot when we get to wisdom. Everything that is in, what, potency or inability, meaning passive ability, is reduced to act by that which is an act, huh? Just like when your mother makes, what, Christmas cookies, right? The dough is able to be a Christmas tree or able to be a bell or something else, right? Mm-hmm. Or the water is able to be warm, right? In the grill or wherever it is, right? Which is actually hot. Oh, yeah. Reduces it from ability to what? To act, huh? Okay. Now, we saw before in our first study, all the way back in Aristotle, that the understanding is first in ability. It's like a tablet upon which nothing has been written, huh? And then afterwards, it understands in act, huh? Well, if it goes from ability to act, it's necessary that this be caused by some understanding which is always an act, huh? And then he jumps and says, well, that is going to be some separated understanding, some separated intellectual substance. Therefore, from some separated substances, separated from matter, are caused the understandable forms by which we understand in act, huh? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a very interesting position, then, of Avicenna, huh? So, all those three are his ideas? These are the objections. Yeah, these are arguments in favor of what Avicenna is saying, right? Yeah. Thomas always argues against the truth first. Right. And then he gives a sed contra, right? But against this is that, according to this, we would not need the senses for understanding. Yeah. Which is clearly false, from this especially, that the one who lacks one's sense in no way is able to have a knowledge of the sensibles of that, what, sense, huh? Mm-hmm. So a man born blind would have no knowledge, really, of what, of colors as such, huh? Right. Hmm. Okay. Now, in the body of the article here, Thomas is going to explain a bit the position of Avicenna, and contrast it with the position of Plato that we talked a bit about last time, right? And then he's going to reason against that position, huh? So Thomas says, As I answer, it ought to be said, that some lay down that the understandable forms, that is, the forms of which we understand, the understandable forms of our ability to understand, our intellect, proceed from some forms or separated substances, huh? He calls them adiquibis formis, because they would be completely immaterial, right? And have no matter in them, right? Or substances that are separated from matter. And this, in two ways, huh? And he's going to speak now of Plato and then the position of Avicenna. For Plato, as has been said, laid down that the forms of sensible things exist or subsist by themselves without matter, just as the form of man. The nature of man, right? That's the way St. Paul speaks now when he says that he what? Didn't what? Think equality, you know, something to be grasped at, huh? He's in the form of God. He took on the form of a slave, right? Gnosis. Yeah, yeah. But I think the Greek word is morphe there, I think, in that book. There's a text there, St. Paul. Yeah, yeah. So form sometimes means what? Species. Species, the particular kind of thing it is, huh? Okay? So Plato thought that what a man is existed by itself, right? And likewise, the form. You notice Thomas' words here in the Latin, huh? Et formum vil ideum, right? Some people, you know, they transliterate as opposed to translate. See, ideum comes in the Greek word eidos, which is a Greek word for form. It's like the word species. And some people translate, they transliterate, they take the letters over. They translate it idea, which is a bad way, right? It's not idea. No, no. It should be translated form. And Thomas has got it right here, right? Formum, which is a Latin word, vil ideum, which is the transliterated, you know, Greek word, but not translated into ideum, okay? Which he named the per se horse, and so on, right? Okay, now, we don't go right into the whole position of Plato there, but Plato had hit upon a very important part of the truth. That was that Socrates and what Socrates is are not identical altogether. Because what is Socrates? He's a man, right? Yeah. Now, is he a man because he's Socrates? See? No, no. See? And is he a man through being Socrates? See? If one was a man through being Socrates, one would have to be Socrates before he could be a man. Yeah. So, it seems that Socrates and what a man is are not identical. And if Socrates and what a man is were identical, Socrates would be the only man, huh? Yeah. Okay? And this is true, incidentally, of what? God. God and of the angels, right? Oh, angels. Yeah. Raphael and what Raphael is, identical. Gabriel and what Gabriel is, identical. Each angel is a different kind of thing. There's no two angels of exactly the same kind. As my old teacher, Kassirchus, to say, God hates equality. And each angel is either lower or higher than every other angel. And as Dionysius says, you know, you have the three hierarchies, one which is higher and one that's lower and one that's lowest. And each one, you have three orders, and one order is highest. And each order you have beginning, middle, and end, huh? They're all distinct, huh? Thomas said it's very interesting. This question in one place, you know, where would the angels love each other more if they were equal? It's very interesting to say the reason he gives why they love each other more because they're unequal. Oh, okay. And it's because by being unequal, there's a, what? An order there, right? And this is the, what? Good of the whole universe, this order that God has put into things, huh? And he says the more intellectual one is, the more one appreciates the common good. And so the angels, seeing that their inequality contributes to the order of the universe, huh? They rejoice in that, huh? They rejoice in their being unequal. It's an amazing thing to see these, huh? But in material things and mathematical things, you can have many individuals of the same, what? Kind, right? But the other side of the coin of that is then that those individuals and what they are are not identical. Now, someone might say that if Socrates is not a man to being Socrates, then Socrates is not a man to himself. Because he is Socrates, right? And if you're not something through yourself, you must be something through, what? Another. And if that's something through another and not through itself, there's got to be something before it, right? Okay? So, eventually you're going to depend here upon something that is so through itself. Of course, I talk about, if I give very simple examples, I'll say, you know. Is coffee sweet through itself? No. So it depends upon the sugar, which is sweet through being sugar, right? In order to be sweet, huh? Is a dishcloth wet through itself? No. Through being a dishcloth? No. But the water is wet through being water, right? So, the dishcloth is wet through water, which is wet through itself. Well, in a somewhat similar way, Socrates is saying that Socrates, or Plato is saying, that Socrates is not a man through being Socrates. It's not through being Socrates the one who's a man, is it? Otherwise, I wouldn't be a man, would I? Okay? But Socrates is Socrates, right? Yeah. So Socrates is not a man through himself, just like coffee is not sweet through itself. Therefore, Socrates must be a man through something else that is man through itself. And that's the form, or the idea of man, right? And the same would be said about the horse, and the cat, and the dog, and so on, right? That there is, in a world by itself, right? Man himself through himself, as Plato would say, and dog itself through itself, right? And all the individual men down here are men because we partake of that man that is man through himself, huh? And all the dogs down here are dogs because they partake of that dog that is dog through itself, huh? Okay? Now, there's something wrong with what Plato is saying here, but there's an element of truth, right? And it is kind of strange that you and I are not identical with what we are. Because after all, you are what you are, aren't you? Right? And it's kind of strange that you are not exactly, or identically, not entirely the same as what you are. Kind of strange creature you are. And Plato, in a sense, discovered that, huh? That was an amazing discovery, right? But the problem was, any time you have what a man is in flesh and blood and bones, you are going to have an individual man who is not identical with what a man is. And so, this man himself through himself ends up being nothing but a form. And the so-called ideas, the Greek would have meant forms, huh? And then Aristotle pointed out, but just a minute now, does it pertain to what a man is to have flesh and blood and bones? Does it pertain to what a dog is? And if you are going to define man in general, you have got to bring in, not this flesh of Dwayne Berkowitz, but you have got to bring in flesh in general. You have got to bring in bone in general, right? To say really what a man is, huh? In the same way for a dog or a cat or a horse, right? So, these forms up there don't really have the nature of man, because they don't include matter, which is in the very nature of man, huh? Okay? So, this is part of the reason why Plato got into this position, huh? Yeah. But then he said, also, this is the way our mind knows through definitions, huh? Yeah. And it was the great Socrates, huh, who started the, really got us going, you might say, in the importance of definition. If you read the great dialogues of Plato, the Socratic conversations, as they're called sometimes, because Socrates is appearing in almost all of them, in almost every dialogue, there's a conversation about defining something, huh? Okay? And what are these definitions of? What are these definitions of? Well, Plato was in a sense, or Socrates in a sense, was showing that through definitions, we can really get certain truth, huh? And you can see that in very simple examples, you know. I put up on the board for the students the other day, I said, no odd number is even. And no... No man is green. I said, are you sure about both these statements? No odd number is even? No man is green? Interesting, even my students recognized that they were sure that no odd number is even, right? It's highly probable that no man is green, right? But if someone up to Mars or some other planet and said, hey, there are green men up on that planet, I'd be surprised, right? Brave new world to have such colored people in it. But I wouldn't say that's impossible that there'd be a green person, right? Or a pink person or a purple person. I don't see, you know, I don't understand enough about green and what a man is to see any opposition between the two, right? But I do know enough about what an odd number is by definition and what an even number is by definition to see that it's impossible that one be the other. So Plato was convinced that the great Socrates was showing us the way to certain knowledge of the truth through definitions, huh? But now what are the definitions a definition of? Is a definition of man a definition of you? Or of me? Or of Socrates? Is it? No. So there must be a world of things out there, right? That you are defining. And those, again, are the what? The forms, right? Okay? So just as the individual men and individual dogs and individual cats are men or dog or cats by partaking of the man himself through himself and the dog himself through himself and the cat himself through himself. So likewise, we in our mind partake of those same forms when we define what a man is, define what a dog is, define what a cat is, and so on, huh? You see? Now, that's what he goes on to say after we just broke off. Has ergo form us, right? Separatus. He laid down that these separated forms, huh? Are partaken of both by our soul, right? And by bodily matter. They are partaken of by our soul for knowing, right? And they are partaken of by bodily matter for being, huh? This man or this dog or this horse or so on, right? That just as bodily matter through this that it partakes of the form of stone, huh? It becomes this stone, right? So our understanding through this that it partakes of the form of stone becomes understanding what a stone is, huh? Okay? Now he says the partaking of the form comes about through some likeness of the form in the one partaking it in the way in which an exemplar is partaken of by the thing that is exemplified from it, huh? Okay? Sometimes when they speak of sanctifying grace, how do they define sanctifying grace sometimes? Kind of off the text of St. Peter, I guess it is. In form of the image of Christ? Yeah. But they also say sometimes that sanctifying grace is a partaking of the nature of God, right? Okay? It's not the nature of God, but it's a partaking of it, right? And it has a likeness, huh? To that, huh? I was looking at a chapter there in the Summa Conagentitas this morning and Thomas was talking about how an effect of grace, sanctifying grace that is to say, is the love of God, right? Okay? And he gives, you know, five, six reasons, but one of the reasons he gives is that sanctifying grace makes us, what? Like God and then likeness is a cause of what? Of love, therefore. Kind of amazing thing, huh? Okay? Just therefore, as he laid down, huh? That sensible forms which are in bodily matter flow from the forms as certain likenesses of them, right? So likewise, he laid down that the understandable forms of our understanding, our ability to understand, are certain likenesses, right? Of the forms flowing out from them, right? And an account of this, as has been said above, he referred sciences and the definitions and underlie them to the, what, forms, huh? Now, he starts to get some of the objections to what Plato says, huh? But that's not his main intention here. He's going to go on to contrast the position of Averroes with that of Plato, right? But let's look at what he says here. But against the notion of sensible things, it's against the notion, but it's against, because it's against the definition of the notion of sensible things, that their forms subsist without matter, right? Okay? as Aristotle proves in many ways. Therefore, Avicenna, removing, this position being removed, posited that, what, all the sensible, that the species, the understandable species, or the understandable forms, a species is another word for a former, right? Species has the idea of what a form that is seen originally, right? So we get the words, you know, spectacles and speculum and speculative and so on. And it's very, it's etymologically just like the Greek word idos, which has related to the Greek word to see, identi, right? Form that is seen, huh? Okay? It's like in English sometimes we use, we speak of someone's looks, you know? And the looks is, is, is your form, right? But looks obviously refers back to the fact that that form can be what? Seen, right? So that's why there's a species in prosa and a species in prosa when they're talking about that, you know, the... Well yeah, yeah, but as I say species can mean in general a form, but it's got a little connotation there, a form that can be seen, right? Yeah. But it doesn't necessarily have to have that connotation, but that's in the etymology of the word. So, therefore Avicenna, this position of Plato being removed, laid down that the, what, sensible, excuse me, the understandable forms of all sensible things did not subsist by themselves without matter, right? But they preexisted in an immaterial way in separated substances, huh? In other words, this is something like what Augustine will be saying about God, right? See, and we speak of, um, they use in Latin the word ideas, huh? The ideas of God of the forms by which he creates and so on, right? And, you know, you have the De Veritati of St. Thomas, a whole question, you know, several articles dealing with them, right? And you have ones here in the Summa here dealing with the divine ideas, huh? But, I have a sentence not talking about the divine mind here, but more like what we call the angelic mind. From the first of whom are derived these forms in the, what? Next separated substance, right? And thus, all the way down to the last separated substance, the lowest one, huh? Which would be analogous to our, what? Guardian angel, right? Okay. Which he names the, what? Agent intellect, huh? So notice the word agent intellect here is being used in an equivocal sense from the sense in which Aristotle uses it. Because Aristotle is using the agent intellect, the acting upon understanding, right? To name one of the powers of our soul, right? And the ability to, what? Make actually understandable what it is of something you're sensing or imagining, huh? But he's using it for a separated substance, like for an angel, right, huh? That is going to be acting upon our mind directly, right? And from this agent intellect, this separated substance, this lowest of the angels, from whom, as he himself said, understandable forms flow into our soul. And this may happen something like that when our soul is separated from our body, right? But as long as our soul is in the body, it's turned towards... What? The images, huh? Did Everson just have one of these agent intellects, or was each... He speaks, I think, just a one here, I think, yeah. For everyone. Yeah. So it's the lowest angel. Yeah, what we call an angel, but, yeah. It's a separate substance, yeah. It was the same. His idea was in monopsychism that it's one for everybody, so we're all sharing the same agent intellect. Yeah, yeah. From which not only flow understandable forms into our souls, but also, he thought, sensible forms flowed into material matter, right? So he has a position like Plato, right? Oh. But instead of having what a man is and what a horse is existing by themselves, they exist in the form of a, what, thought, right? In this angel, and they flow from the angel into our mind, and they flow into the, what, bodily matter, right? Yeah. Okay? It's a very interesting position he has. It's just so amazing, because, I mean, I was just reading in a book on theology, that, I mean, under the heading of, you know, the truth of God, that God gives to everything with its being its understandability. So, I mean, it's sort of like what... Yeah. It's close to what we believe. But you see, material things are understandable only in ability, see? And they're made actually understandable. They're prepared for the senses and the imagination, but they finally reach actual understandability through the action of this power of our soul called the agent intellect, huh? Okay. Now, and thus, in this, Avicenna agrees with Plato, right? That the understandable forms of our understanding flow from some separate forms. But then there's this difference, right? That Plato said that these subsisted by themselves, right? And Avicenna posited them in this agent intellect, this lowest of the angels, right? Lowest of separate substances. Now, there's another difference, huh? They differed also in this way, that Avicenna laid down that the understandable forms do not remain in our understanding after it ceases to understand and act. But it needs, again, that it turn itself towards receiving them newly each time, right? Whence he did not lay down that the knowledge of the soul was naturally innate in it, as Plato did, who laid down that the partakings of the forms remain in immobile way in the soul. Aristotle won't have them being innate, but once they're received in the soul, in the understanding, they have a certain permanence, huh? Okay? They exist in a form of a habit, right? Yeah. Okay? But not in full act, except when you turn to them. Okay, now he's going to start, what? Attacking the position of Avicenna, huh? Up to this point, he's been, what? Contrasting the position of Plato, and this is very useful to see what these guys have in common and where they differ, right? It's often useful to compare two things like that. But according to this position of our friend Avicenna, a sufficient reason cannot be assigned wherefore our soul is joined to a body, right? Because it cannot be said that the understanding soul is united to the body for the sake of the body, because the body is lower than the soul, because neither is a form and account of matter, but it's reversed, matter is for the sake of form, it's ability for the sake of act, nor is the mover an account of the mobile, but more the reverse. Now, most of all, does the body seem to be necessary to the understanding soul for its own, what, operation, which is to understand. But nevertheless, right? Because according to its being, it does not depend upon the body, right? So it doesn't depend upon the body for its being. We argued that before, right? We talked about the immortality of the soul. So it must depend upon it for its what? Operation, right? Yeah. If it didn't get the understandable in some way through the senses, why would it be joined to the body, right? Okay. If, however, he says, the soul was apt by nature to receive understandable forms through the influence of some separated principles only, causes only, and did not take them from the senses, right? It would not need a body for understanding, and therefore in vain it would be united to a body, huh? Right? See, Thomas is common sense, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, they try to give some kind of an answer to this, right? Because they're reading the difficulty, huh? Yeah. If, however, it be said that the soul needs the senses to understanding, because by them in some way it's, what, aroused, right? Yeah. To considering those things of which the understandable forms, as we see from the separate sentences, this does not seem to be sufficient or enough. Because this kind of, what, arousing does not seem to be necessary to the soul, except insofar as it is consopita, right? Kind of, what? Put to sleep, right? By the fact that it's stuck into the body, right? Okay? So Plato thought of the soul as existing apart from the body, and then it got shoved into the body, and this is such a shock that it kind of, oh, oh, oh, gets kind of confused, right? And then when it sees something out there that reminds it of the form it has, then it starts to recall that form within. And Plato has a nice argument for that in the, well, I mean, you know, but more, a better one in the Fatal, right? And he tries to argue that, from the idea of body, I mean, of equality, right, that the bodies around us aren't really equal. But when you see two chairs, say, that seem more or less equal, then that reminds you of the idea of equality. And then you recall the idea of equality, right? But when you recall the idea of equality, and you examine these chairs more carefully, you see they're not really equal. Because equality is a very strict idea. And, you know, these things got a little dents in them, and little nicks and so on. So they're not really equal, right? And Plato, or Socrates, says, well, how do you make the judgment that these things around us in the world, some of them approach equality much more than other things do, but yet they fall short of it? Must you not have a knowledge of equality not derived from them? And he gives a beautiful comparison to bring this out. He says, if you bring in a, you know, a statue or a painting of somebody, right, and you have no knowledge of that person of whom it is a painting or a statue, you're not going to say, you know, well, this is, I like this a breakfast, but it's not exactly the way breakfast is, huh? You see? But if you make that judgment and say, hey, who's this a picture of? So that's a painting of breakfast, right? But, you know, breakfast's nose is a little shorter than that, or, you know, breakfast is a little fatter than that, or he's a little grayer than that, or something, you know? You must have a knowledge of breakfast not derived from that painting. And so he's saying, if you get bodies in the world around us that approach closely, and much more closely than other bodies, to equality, and yet you make the judgment that they're not quite equal, where'd you get this idea of perfect equality? And you can do it with other things like that, to say, you know, what about a flat surface, right? Well, we'd say, this is not a flat surface here, this court, right? But the table topper is a flat surface, right? Right? Okay? But then you look more carefully, and say, well, look at that little depth there, you see? A little distress on this, and so on. Now, this is not really flat. Now, where'd I get this idea of flatness, to say that this approaches flatness, but falls short? Could I get the exact idea of how you look from a painting that resembles you, but isn't quite you? And could I make the judgment that this is, you know, painting of you, but not quite? It falls short of you? If I didn't have a knowledge of you independent of the painting? So I must have a knowledge of equality and flatness not derived from the material world around us. Very interesting argument he has, huh? And here's a very interesting one where he hints the same thing about happiness. Some, he says some, some people are more miserable than others, right? Some seem to be more happy than others, right? But no matter what happiness we experience in this life, we always say there's something, what? Missing, right? And so, I kind of quote the end of Vanity Fair there, you know, Thackeray's most famous novel, huh? You know, the end there, kind of the motto at the end there is this, is who in this life ever gets what he wants, he says. Or, he says, having gotten it, is satisfied. So, you're pursuing, you know, these characters in Vanity Fair, they're pursuing, you know, wealth and other things, they think underbring happiness, right? And either they don't get it, or if they do get it, they realize that it's not happiness. Well, how do you realize that these things approach more than other things, happiness, but fall short of true happiness? Where do you get this idea of true happiness? Kind of interesting argument that he has, huh? As if our mind, our soul at some point, you know, was in contact with true happiness, and then it gets stuck down the body, right, huh? And it goes pursuing these false happiness, but one of which maybe is closer to true happiness than others, right? And when you get something that resembles happiness, then you recall true happiness, and then you make the judgment that this falls short of true happiness, or perfect happiness, huh? So, he says, this excitement does not seem to be necessary to the soul, except insofar as it is consopita, huh? Kind of what? Stupefied, right? Put to sleep, so to speak, right? According to Plato's, huh? That reminds me of the great teacher of Plato, huh? The other guy who is, what? Heraclitus, really, huh? But, through Cratchitus, huh? But Heraclitus said, we should not act and speak like those asleep. Wake up, you know, wake up. You're consopita, huh? Which, according to Plato's, and is, quote-un-modo, obliviosa, huh? Oblivious or forgetful, right? On account of the union to the, what? Body, right? It's quite a shock for the soul to get stuck in the body, huh? And thus, the senses do not help the understanding soul, except to taking away an impediment, Plato thought, right? That happened to the soul from its union to the body. But it remains, therefore, to ask, what is the cause of the union of the soul to the body, huh? Now, in a sense, you know, the Plato in this kind of spoke as if, what? The body's like a prison for the soul, right, huh? And they spoke as if the soul was maybe being punished, in a sense, huh? Okay? So, Plato kind of emphasizes that the body is something bad, right, huh? Aristotle realizes that the body is part of human nature, right? So you've got kind of a paradox there, right? But it's kind of where they say that Plato and Aristotle are kind of sitting in the preparation for understanding original sin, right? The body is part of us, but something has happened to destroy exactly the way it should be, you know? Huh? Something has happened whereby the body is harming the soul in some way, right? Or leading it astray, or have to do so, right? Now, if it be said, according to Avicenna, that the senses are necessary to the soul, because through the senses, it is aroused to turn itself towards this separated understanding, right? From which we see forms. This, he says, doesn't seem to be enough. Because if it is in the nature of the soul that it understands through forms flowing from this agent understanding, it would follow that sometimes the soul would be able to convert itself to the agent intellect for the inclination of its own nature. Or being excited through one sense, it could convert itself to understanding, to the understanding intellect, to receiving the, what, species of sensible things in which it has no sense, huh? And thus one born blind could have a knowledge of colors, which is manifestly false. It occurs to us, too, you know, that, you know, when you read about the saints and the mystics, right? And they go through the so-called dark night of the soul, right? It's, by the sense, turning away from the senses and the imagination, right? And kind of depriving it so far. But you open up the soul to receive something from, what? Above, right? Now, when St. Paul was carried up to the third heaven, right? Didn't know he was in his body anymore, right? See? They're drawn from the senses, right? So it seems that if one was receiving from a separated substance there, right, it wouldn't be through the senses that one would be excited to it, but by turning away from the senses, one would go towards the, what, higher substance that's going to flow in some kind of forms, right? Whence it should be said that the understandable forms by which art so understands do not flow from, what? Separated forms, huh? You see, is the argument there against Avicenna, then? Yeah. Okay. Now, as you apply to the first objection, huh? He doesn't deny that in some way this comes from something that is understandable, right? Inact and so on. But notice what he says, they're intermediaries. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the understandable forms which our understanding partakes of are reduced as in a first cause, in some beginning that is understandable by its very nature, namely in God, huh? But from that beginning, from that cause, there goes forward by means of forms of material things, insensible things, from which our, what, knowledge is collected, as Daniel says, huh? That's what he's saying here, right? He's saying that you have God here, right? And from God, there proceeds forms in sensible things, and then these sensible things in some way act upon our senses, right? Okay? And then, from there, upon our imagination, right? And then they're raised finally to the understandable status by the power of our soul to separate what it is, right, of a sensible thing or imaginable thing from the seniors, right? Okay? And notice, now, when I picture or I imagine a triangle, it's a singular individual triangle, right? But when I understand what that is, a triangle, I'm understanding something universal that's separated from whatever is singular about it, that this is a stepping stone, right? So, yeah, it goes back to God, but, right? From God, there proceeds forms in sensible things, and then those sensible things, through a number of intermediaries, eventually act upon our mind, huh? That's why we have to reason back to God from sensible things, right? To, uh, God. We're not receiving from God immediately in these forms, huh? But through the sensible things, huh? Now, the second one is just pointing out the difference that we mentioned before. Not as fully as it could, maybe. To the second, it should be said that material things, according to the being that they have outside the soul, are able to be sensible and act, huh? But they can't be understandable and act, huh? In their materiality, huh? Once they... It's not similar for them and the senses, huh? It's not similar for the senses and the understanding. Okay, and we mentioned that before, right, huh? In this proportion, right? Sensible things act upon the senses, and the understandable things act upon the understanding. But the sensible things that act upon the senses are, in their very nature, actually sensible. But the material things that act upon understanding, and not in themselves, or by themselves, actually understandable. They're understandable only in what? Ability, right? And they're made... actually understandable through a number of steps, right? Starting with their being in the senses, and then their being in the internal senses, right? And experience and so on. And then the final step to actually being understandable is as a result of the power of our soul separating out what they have in common, right? So when I've seen many, what, dogs, right? Right, then I have the ability to compare those many dogs. And when I begin to separate out what they have in common, that's the beginning of the, what, something understandable and active for my mind, then, in its primary object, then? The primary object of my mind is what it is of something sensed or imagined, and so when you try to understand something that's not sensible or imaginable, we have to do so by negation of what is sensible, right? Or by the relation it has to what is sensible, right? So we say God is the unmoved mover, right? So we're referring them back. It's a negation, they're unmoved, right? But mover, relation back to the things that are in motion, right? So we can't understand God in this life directly. We don't see Him face-to-face, huh? Okay? For face-to-face, anything, it's the what it is of something sensed or imagined, okay? Okay. And the third objection, now, about what is an ability of being reduced to act. And Thomas agrees that our understanding, right, our possible understanding, that's the one that's acted upon, right, the one that understands, it is reduced from potency to act, from ability to act, to some being in act. That is through the agent intellect, now in Aristotle's sense, right, which is a certain power of our soul, as has been said before, not, however, through some, what, separated understanding, as through a, what, proximate cause, right, immediate cause, but perhaps through a, what, remote cause, right, huh? Okay? So in our little prayer there, that we say before, and we say, strengthen the light of my mind, right, huh? Okay? So it's the light of my mind that separates what it is of something sensed or imagined, so that it be actually understandable, right? But maybe the light of my mind is, what, derived from God, to begin with, right? This is the light that enlightens every man that comes into this world, huh? And everybody is not enlightened by the light of faith, maybe, but certainly by the light of, actual light of reason. But, I mean, the angelic understanding can to some extent strengthen the light of our mind, huh? Okay? But still, as Aristotle said, the agent, like there, that power of our soul, is something actual, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he compares it to the agent, right, or the maker. And he compares the understanding that understands to matter, right? And it's acted upon by the other, huh? You want to take a break or go right on to Article 5? Take a break. Take a break. Yeah. Break it. Break it all. To the fifth, thus one proceeds. It seems that the soul does not know material things in the eternal reasons, huh? Now, it's interesting that he's taking the side, apparently, what? Absolutely what you think he'd take, huh? Because he's dealing with the great, what, Augustine, right? If you go through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, you know, and just look at the references in there, how Augustine is, what? Thomas has an awful lot, too, but Augustine has even more. And the preponderance of Augustine, right? So he's kind of amazing. I mean, he's kind of a, you know, the greatest mind, really, among the Church Fathers. And certainly his work in the Trinity is the greatest work that there is on the Trinity among the Church Fathers, huh? Thomas, you know, he follows Augustine mainly. And Boethius follows Augustine, huh? You know, he's working in the Trinity. Hillary's good, but Augustine is way top man. What does Augustine say there, you know, that nowhere is it more fruitful to find some truth than about the Trinity? But nowhere is it, you know, easier to make an error? I mean, they're very, very strong. He says, that in which something is known is itself, what? More known, right? And known before, right? So if we knew eternal things in the, what? I mean, material things, rather, in the eternal reasons, we would be, what? Knowing God, right? Before and more so than these things, huh? But the understanding soul of man in the state of the present life does not know the eternal reasons because it does not know God himself, huh? We know God as he is not, right? Not as he is. In which the eternal reasons exist. But our mind is joined to God as to something, what? Unknown, huh? As Dionysius says in the first chapter of the book on mystical theology. That's the highest state of the soul, right? The soul realizes that whatever it understands about God is something less than God, right? Something infinitely less than God. Therefore, the soul does not know all things, meaning all material things, in the eternal reasons, right? If it did, it would know those eternal reasons more so, right? Than before. Moreover, and this is the famous text now, this is the one that Vatican I uses to say that, what? It's a matter of faith now that we can know God by natural reason. This is the famous text from Romans 1.20. That the invisible things of God are looked upon through those things which have been, what? Made, huh? So that's saying that the invisible things of God are known through the, what? Creatures that God has made. But among the invisible things of God are numbered the eternal reasons. Therefore, the eternal reasons are known through material creatures and not the, what? Through a verse. A verse, yeah. Moreover, the eternal reasons are nothing other than the idea, huh? Okay? For Augustine says in the famous book on the 83 questions, right? That the ideas, idea, are the, what? Stable reasons of things existing in the divine mind, huh? If, therefore, it be said that the understanding soul knows all things in the eternal reasons, it's going to return the opinion of Plato. You lay down all knowledge to be derived from the, what? Ideas, huh? But against this is what Augustine says in the 12th book of the Confessions. If both you and I, right, if we both see that it's true what you say and we both see that it's true what I say, where, I ask, do we see that? Not surely I and you, nor you and me, but both in that which is above our minds, in that truth, that unchangeable truth which is above our, what? Minds, huh? But unchangeable truth is contained in the eternal reasons. Therefore, the understanding soul knows all things in the eternal reasons. You think about this sometimes and you run into the great fragments of Heraclitus, huh? Heraclitus said we have to follow what is common and so on. And he has a fragment where he says, it is wise, he says, listening not to me but to reason to agree that all things are, what? One, huh? Okay? But just take the center part of that exhortation, huh? Listen not to me but to reason. Okay? Now, we sometimes in daily life use that same saying, don't we? He won't listen to reason, right? Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey. Or more likely, she won't listen to reason. But, what is this reason that he's asking us to listen to reason?