De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 142: Knowledge, Reason, and the Eternal Reasons

Transcript
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listen to, right? It's not him, apparently, right? Or his reason, right? Is he asking me to listen to my reason? He's not saying, don't listen to my reason, listen to your reason. He's not saying that, is he? No. He's saying, listen not to me, but to reason. As if there's some common reason in which you and I can both what? See, yeah. And then we can judge whatever is private to me, right? Or private to you, huh? And of course, this is important to the other fragments, right? That we have to follow what is common, he'll say, right? Okay? Now, there's a little puzzle there, see, because some of you might say, you know, the nasty modern would say, well, what's he talking to us for if he doesn't want us to listen to him? Right? That's the nasty modern would say. And then he'd say, you know, and there's only your reason, my reason, and the next man's reason. There's no reason apart from your reason, my reason, next man's reason, right? But when we use that phrase, what do we mean then? See? Because you don't mean to listen to my reason, or your reason, or the next man's reason. Okay? What we're thinking of is to listen to what is common to your reason, huh? My reason and the next man's reason, right? To listen to what you and I and every man who has reason naturally understands. Like a whole is more than one of its parts, right? Okay? But now, what's common to your reason and my reason, what reason actually understands? It's what reason actually understands that is common to your reason by the next reason. That's really a reflection of the, what, eternal reasons, huh? It's a partaking of the eternal reasons in every man's reason, huh? Okay? And we'll see how Thomas does. I'm often reminded, you know, of the great Heraclitus, who was a teacher of Plato through Heraclitus, right? Along with Sargentisa. I answer, it should be said, that as Augustine says in the second book about Christian teaching, the philosopher is so called, right? If they say something true and in accord with our faith, from them, as it were from unjust possessors, right? In our use, they ought to be, what, claimed or vindicated, right? For the teachings of the Gentiles have some likenesses and superstitious figments, right? Look back to imagination, figmenta, huh? Which each one of us going out from the society of the Gentiles, the Gentiles now, those who are not believers, right? Summa contra gentiles, right? Which each of us going out from them ought to avoid, no? And therefore Augustine, he says, who was imbued with the teachings of the Platonists, he didn't have much of Aristotle, the categories at all we think he had. If he found something accommodated or appropriate to the faith in their sayings, he took it over, right? It belongs to us. If he found something adverse to our faith, he would try to change it into something, what? Better, right, huh? Okay. Now Plato laid down, as has been said above, that the forms or the natures of things subsisted by themselves, separated from matter, huh? The world forms, huh? Which he called, in Greek, idea, huh? Ideas, huh? But that's what I call transliteration, you're taking the Greek letters and making a Latin word out of them, but that doesn't give you the, what, necessary translation, right? Through the partaking of which, he said that our understanding knows all things. Just as, and we saw this in the previous reading, as bodily matter, through partaking of the form of stone becomes a stone, so our understanding, by partaking of the same idea or form, knows stone, huh? But because it seems to be alien from the faith, that the forms of things, outside of things, subsist by themselves without matter, as a patroness laid down, saying life itself, or by itself, and wisdom by itself to be some creative substances, as Dionysius says in the 11th chapter of the Divine Names. Therefore Augustine, in the book of the 83 questions, laid down in place of these forms, which Plato laid down, in place of them, he did the reasons of all creatures, right? Existing in the mental, in the divine mind, huh? According to which they are, all things are formed, and according to which also the human soul knows all things, huh? So he's kind of taking over Plato and modifying him, right? Now, when, therefore, it is asked whether the human soul knows all things in eternal reasons, it should be said that something is able to be known in another in two ways, huh? In one way as in an object known, just as one sees in a mirror those things whose images result in the mirror. And in this way the soul, in the state of the present life, is not able to see all things in eternal reasons. But thus in the eternal reasons, the blessed know all things. The blessed who, what? See God, right? In all things in him, huh? In another way, one is said to know something in another, as in a, what? Source or cause of knowledge, huh? Just as if we say that in the sun are seen those things which are seen through the sun, huh? And in this way it is necessary to say that the human soul knows all things in the eternal reasons, by the partaking of which we know all things, huh? Why? Because the understandable light, which Aristotle compared the, what? Power of the soul called the agent light, huh? To a light, huh? Because just as light makes the colors which are potentially visible, actually visible in some way, right? So the agent intellect makes the, what? What it is of sensible things and imaginable things actually understandable, right? So you compare it to light. For the understandable light, which is in us, is nothing other than a certain what? Partaken, huh? Likeness of the uncreated light, huh? Okay? In which are contained the, what? Eternal reasons, right? Like Thomas' prayer there before, communion addressed to the God the Father, you know, where he, he's going to approach eternal light, huh? He wants God to give a little more light, approach eternal light here in the, in the Eucharist. So, going back to what was saying up here, listen not to me but to reason, huh? We're listening to something that is common in an immediate sense, right? What is common to your reason, my reason, and the next man's reason, okay? And that is also what is naturally known by every reason, huh? Because what is naturally known is going to be common, huh? To all. But what is naturally known is known in the light of the, what? Agent intellect, huh? Okay? Agent intellect assures that we all know something, huh? Okay? It's common to us, huh? Who misses the door, as Aristotle says in the Greek proverb. He talks about this in the metaphysics. But that light is a partaking of the divine light, huh? Okay? And therefore what is naturally understood by the human mind is a partaking of the divine light. And therefore what is naturally understood by the human mind is a partaking of the divine light. And therefore what is naturally understood by the human mind of what? The eternal reasons. It's not the eternal reasons, right? But it's a partaking of them, a likeness of them, huh? Now, Thomas continuing talking about the light. Whence in the fourth Psalm, verses six through seven, many say, who shows us the good? How we know what is good, you know? You know, maybe he's got his own idea about what's good, see? You know? My idea of what's good and your idea of this man's good. No, there's something that's common to all of us, huh? To which question the psalmist responds, saying, there is sealed upon us the light of your, what? Face, huh? Lord, huh? As if to say, through a certain sealing of the divine light in us, all things are, what? Demonstrating to us, huh? So you have to respect, you know, the natural light of reason, because that is a partaking of the divine light, huh? Yeah. It's not only the light of faith that is a partaking of the divine light, but even the natural light of reason is, huh? And this is what this is referring to here. You know, when, uh, that other passage I was putting from scripture there, I don't know if he quotes you, doesn't he? Um, uh, in the beginning of St. John's Gospel, right? Talking about the, the, the word. Uh, he says, this was the light that enlightens every man who comes into this world. Yes. You see? Every man who comes into this world is enlightened by this light. What light is that referring to? Light of reason. Yeah. Because, as St. Paul says, uh, faith is not of everybody, huh? Yeah. Not everybody has the light of faith, huh? Okay? But everybody has the natural light of reason, huh? So, what St. John says, huh? This is the light, meaning Christ, right? Which enlightens, right? Every man who comes into this world, huh? If you take a candle and you lay all these ones, right? But you're partaking of the original light, huh? You're partaking of it, huh? And you, what you naturally understand in that natural light of reason is the, what, beginning, huh? Of all our knowledge. It's a seed of all our knowledge, as St. Albert always says in Thomas in Plato and Aristotle. In that sense, you see everything in the divine light, right? That's to say, in a likeness of the divine light, in a partaking of the divine light. In that sense, you see everything in the divine reasons, right? Because what you naturally understand with that light partaking of the divine light is a likeness of the eternal reasons. Okay? It's interesting, huh, that Thomas, in the Summa here, when he talks, or in the Secunda Secundae, or Prima Secundae, he talks about the virtues of reason, he puts intellectus, this natural understanding, right? Nus, as Rastal calls it, above sciencia, above episteme. And episteme depends upon this natural understanding, huh? This understanding that's common to all of us. The great Boethius speaks of these statements in that common understanding, you know, the statements that are known to themselves by all men, and what everyone approves of when he hears it. Now, because, nevertheless, besides the understandable light in us, there is required, right? Understandable forms taken from things, huh, to a knowledge of, to having a knowledge about material things. Therefore, not only through a partaking of the eternal reasons do we have knowledge of material things, just as a patronist laid down that only, right, the partaking of the ideas sufficed for acquiring science. Whence Augustine says in the fourth book about the Trinity, huh? Augustine is saying that. Num quid quia philosophi documentis certissimis, persuadent eternis rationibus, omnia temporali fiori. Not because they knew, right, by the most certain documents and eternal reasons all temporal things came about. On account of this, were they able, in those reasons, to look upon it, right? Or from that to collect how many janitor animals there are, right? What are the seeds of all? These have to be grown through, what, investigation through places and times. What he's talking about, that's going back to the senses, right? You know things in place and in time, huh? That Augustine does not thus understand all things to be known in the eternal reasons, that you know other things by knowing the eternal reasons themselves in themselves, or in the unchangeable truth, as if, what, the eternal reasons themselves we're seeing, right, is clear through this that he himself says in the book of the 83 questions, that the rational soul, right, not all and every, but the one which is holy and pure, right, is open to that village, to that vision of the eternal reasons. Or is suitable, I say, to that vision, right? And who is it that's sancta and pura? Well, that's the souls of the blessed, right, huh? As long as you're in this life where you're not completely sancta and so you're not pura, right? Now, going back to the great Hierophantus, right? Now, this is the idea of the common where he says, we should not act and speak like those asleep, okay? Now, the first meaning you might think of, of course, is that those who are asleep are cut off from their senses, right? Okay? But, and that's part of his meaning, too, huh? But, he goes on to say, for the sleeping, there are many worlds, right? And they're all private. But, for those who wake up, there's one world and it's, like, common, yeah, see? He's hinting at the fact that the true world, right, is one and it's common, and the false worlds are many and, what? Private, right? Okay? Now, if you take a simple example here, what's 2 plus 2? What's 2 plus 2? 4. Yeah. Now, all of those of you who got the right answer, you have one common answer, and it's common to all of you, right? But, now, if we all fell asleep, I say it's 3, you say it's 5, you say it's 6, right? We could all have our own private answer to the question what 2 plus 2 is, and they could all be, what? False, right? Now that we're all awake, I'll give you all the benefit of a doubt here, we sit around this table here, right? Okay? But, now, if we all fell asleep, right, I might dream them with the grandchildren, and they'd dream you in chapel, or you'd dream you at whatever, and, uh, you might all be dreaming false, right? So? There's a whole series of fragments like this, but there's one that I want to come to, because it's going to go into this, too. He says, um, therefore we have to follow what has come, right? Okay? And he goes on and says, uh, another fragment, those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all. But then he goes on to make a comparison. Those who speak with understanding, he says, must be strong in what is common to all, as much as the city is strong in its law. Okay? Now, um, would you want to live in a city there where I follow the law that you drive on the left side of the street, and you follow the law that you drive on the right side of the street? Do you want to live in that kind of city? In other words, we'd have chaos, right? So, we need a common law to follow in the city, right? The same thing is true about the life of the mind. The life of the mind can be conducted between different human beings in two ways, right? One way is with a teacher and a student, and the other is one more equals in conversation, right? Now, if having a conversation among equals, more or less, and I think one thing and you think something else, we go nowhere if I say you're wrong because I'm right. You return the compliment, say, I'm wrong because you're right. What we have to do is find something that we have in common, we can both agree upon, and use that to judge us where we disagree. Just like two experimental scientists, they have two hypotheses, right? They get nowhere if one guy says, you're wrong because he doesn't agree with my hypothesis, and the other guy does the reverse. They might try to think of an experiment where the two theories would predict something different, right? They can both conduct the experiment and see what happens, right? So, the only way to go forward, in other words, is to find something we have in common, whereby we can, what, judge our differences, huh? But now, if you think about the teacher and the student, presumably the teacher is trying to lead the student to something that he, the teacher, knows, that the student doesn't know, but he's going to lead the student from things that the student already knows. Just like in geometry, right? When you come to a new theorem in geometry, you don't know this theorem yet, right? But you could, is going to draw upon things that you, you know already, right? In order to show you the new theorem. And if the teacher is going to call upon things that the student knows already, to help him come to see something he doesn't know, right? Then those things the student knows already, the professor has to know too, right? So there's no way to go forward in conversation among more or less equals, right? Or even go forward in teacher and student, huh? Without going back to something common. Common to the teacher and the student, right? Or common to the two men who are conversing about something, huh? So, it's a beautiful comparison he makes, right? He says, those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, as much as a city is strong in its law, right? He's making a comparison to what is more known to us, the necessity of a common law in the city, right? That, you know, we're not all off the drive on the right side of the street, but in one country we should, right? In one city. And that's not the end of the framework, right? He says, those who speak with understanding, he says, must be strong in what is common to all, as much as a city in its law, and even more so, he said. And then he goes on to say, for all the laws of the city are fed by one divine law, which he says is more than sufficient for all. Okay? Now, when I go out on the highway here, you know, there's an intersection there, you've got to kind of slow down, right? Mm-hmm. 25 miles, right? Okay, it's a cop waiting there for me there. Yeah. Okay. I see him park there sometime, right? Yeah, that package store and the little restaurant kind of thing there and so on. Now, why is there a law about how fast you can drive your car? Well, this is a way of preserving what? Both property and life, right? Yeah. Okay? So that law, which wasn't necessary before they had a car, right? That law is fed by the law to preserve human life, huh? Human property, right? Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal, right? Okay? But then if I stop at the restaurant and, you know, the town comes and inspects the kitchens once in a while, right? Or I go to the doctor and there's a, you know, sign it there and so on. You know, he's got a license to practice, huh? On me. But all of these laws are trying to, what? Protect human life, right? There's a law against shooting off my gun in the city, I guess, is there? I think there is. Illegal discharge of firework. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I'm at my home back home in St. Paul, Minnesota, huh? The next-door neighbor there was the hunter, huh? And on New Year's Eve, Oh, no, yeah. Midnight, he'd shoot his gun off. Yeah. And, of course, a lot of times he'd go to bed for a midnight shoot off and they'd be in bed to wait for that gun to go off. Yeah. And when he's sober now, it goes off. Oh, no. And the people, irresponsible people wait out. The gun's gone off and the boat's gone into the neighbor's house, you know. Luckily not hit somebody, but, let's see. But notice, every time there arises a danger, right, to human life or property, right, new laws can be, what, made, right, to protect us from those things, right? But all these laws are being fed by one, what, divine law, right? Okay. He calls it divine law there, right? Yeah. That's interesting, right? But you might say he's really talking about what we, you know, in Thomas would call the natural law, right? But the natural law is defined by Thomas in theology as a partaking of the divine law, right, in man. So, you see how close he is to what Thomas is saying here, right? Right? He's going back to something divine, ultimately, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's the truth that Thomas sees and what he custom is saying here. What was the last part of that quote after divine law, which is the vices for all? He says, those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all. Mm-hmm. And then he makes a comparison. As much as the city is strong in its law, right? Mm-hmm. And even more so, right, for all, you know, the laws of the city are fed by one divine law. He used the word very concrete, fed by one divine law, which is more than enough for all of them, right? Okay. So he's contrasting the law of the city with the divine law, right? Okay. He had something like this in the great dramatist, you know, the greatest dramatist, the Greeks, Sophocles, right? In Antigone, right? Antigone is appealing to the unwritten law, right, against the, what, injustice of the written law. It's good that he sees that, right, because he's seen that the law of the city is not the ultimate law and it's measured by something even more common, right? The natural law or the divine law. That's the truth that Augustine's getting at there, too, see? What's interesting, huh, that Augustine here is, Thomas wrote clearly in that first part, is saying that Augustine is trying to take what there is of truth in what Plato says, right, and then to, what, take it from the unjust possessor and give it to us, right? But Plato, as they say, you know, he had two teachers, Cratchelus, who was a student of Heraclitus, and then Socrates, right? So there's a dialogue, you know, Plato called the Cratchelus where Socrates and Cratchelus had a conversation, huh? Okay? But Cratchelus was a student of Heraclitus and Plato's preserved some of the great fragments of Heraclitus and it's kind of remarkable the humility of Heraclitus, huh? You know? There's two ones, I think people might have preserved them for us, but he says, as a child is to a man, so is man to God, huh? You know, compared to the child, the man seems to know everything, right? But the man, in reference to God, seems like a child, huh? That's kind of marvelous, huh? Then he has another one where he says, as an ape is to a man, so is a man to God, huh? He says, as an ape in comparison to man, you know, is ugly, and so on, man's more intelligent, and so on. So man, in comparison to God, seems to be an ape, huh? Kind of beautiful that Heraclitus should have seen that, huh? You see a certain humility in the great Greek philosophers, huh? I mean, the first guy who coined the word philosopher, they say, was Pythagoras, right? And Pythagoras had made some wonderful discoveries, so they started to call him wise, right? He said, don't call me wise. And why not? God alone is wise. Well, what shall we call you then? I'll call me a lover of wisdom, right? So in that origin, the word lover of wisdom is not only the lover of wisdom in philosopher, but a certain, what, humility, right? You see that same humility in Plato, right, in Socrates, you know, at the beginning of the laws there, which is Plato's last work, I think. But he rejects what Pythagoras said, that man is a measure of all things. You know? But he said instead, no, God is a measure of all things. That's kind of interesting, huh? And Aristotle says in the metaphysics, you know, either God alone should be said to be wise, or God, only God in the full sense, right? So there's a humility in the great Greek philosophers. In Socrates, you see it in the Apology and so on, right? In the article of Delphi, it says, no one's wiser than Socrates, but how could I be wise? I mean, I don't know anything, you know? And there's that humility. But when you read the modern philosophers, you lose that humility, huh? If you look at the Karl Marx's preface to his doctoral thesis there, you know, he said human mind is the highest divinity, huh? You know, it's just, it's kind of funny. I remember in college one time when some class, a professor was talking about the opinion of some of the French thinkers there before Marx, and they wanted to start their own religion, you know, and so on. But the religion's going to worship man, right? And one of the things that they had, they're going to set aside days for the worship of man, right? I just broke out laughing because he was in class, and everybody else is, you know, kind of seriously listening to this. It's all kind of funny, though. I absolutely know there are no absolutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Son, 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. Help us to understand all that you're written. Amen. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. To the sixth one proceeds thus. It seems that the knowledge of the understanding is not taken from sensible things. For Augustine says in the book of the 83 questions, it's a little bit like Thomas' quadribitalism, you know, or any question about anything might show up. Quadribit, you know, whatever you wish. It doesn't have the same order that the questionis disputate have, huh? But you have, like, the Marietta, a whole volume, almost, of the questionis quadribitalis, and they're all over the place, right? People, whatever comes up, people are wondering about, right? Oh. And I don't know if Guston is exactly like that, but he's given the title of the 83 questions because they probably cover a different, what? It's like a unity of subject or a matter. That the sincerity of truth, Guston says, ought not to be expected from the senses of the body, huh? And he proves this in two ways, huh? In one way through this, that everything that the bodily sense attains is changing without any intermission of time. He sounds almost like Heraclitus, huh? And his followers who said that he can't say anything because before he finished saying something, the thing will have changed, right? Mm-hmm. What, however, does not remain is not able to be, what, perceived or sensed. I wonder sometimes, do you really sense emotion, huh? When you see somebody, you know, coming down the mountain there in the skis, huh? Do you actually see his motion coming down? Mm-hmm. When do you see it? Yeah, it's in your imagination. It's in your... Yeah. ...hills or something. Yeah, yeah. Because he's not in two places on the hill at one time, so how can you sense his motion coming down from one place to another? Kind of means that we do sense it in a way, huh? We do sense it, it strikes our senses more than anything else, it's motion. Another way through this, that all things that we sense through the body, even when they are not present to the senses, we undergo nevertheless the images of them, right? As when we are asleep, right? Or when we are mad, right? But we're not able to discern by the senses whether those sensibles or those images of them that we sense are false, huh? For nothing is able to be perceived that is not separated from or discerned from the false. And thus he concludes that we're not to expect truth to the senses. You can see how much more of a patronist and a rapidean Augustine is, right, in his way of speaking anyway, here, huh? Than Thomas, huh? Therefore, intellectual knowledge are not to be expected from the senses. Moreover, Augustine says in the 12th book, calling Genesis to the letter, we're not not to think that some body makes something in the spirit, huh? For the spirit, huh? To the body making in place of matter is subject, huh? Because everything is more, yeah, notice what he's saying there, that the spirit would be, what, subject, right, to the body making, okay? But everything that makes is more, what, outstanding, huh? Than the thing about which it makes something. Once he concludes that the image of the body, not the body of the spirit, but the spirit by itself makes, huh? Therefore, intellectual knowledge cannot be derived from the senses. In other words, the lower would be, what, producing the higher. It doesn't make sense, huh? And, of course, Thomas will be saying that the images are only a, what, tool of the, what, active reason, right? To, what, act upon the reason that understands, reason undergoes. Moreover, an effect does not extend beyond the power of its cause, but the knowledge of reason or the understanding extends beyond sensible things. For we understand some things which we do not perceive by the senses, like truth or God, right? You know, this sort. Therefore, intellectual knowledge is not derived from sensible things, huh? You can kind of guess how he's going to answer these arguments, okay? Because he's going to say that the things that we don't sense, we naturally come to know them through the things that we do sense, right? There's various ways you know them through them there. He's not going to say that the senses are the, what, complete and the primary cause of the knowledge of reason, huh? Thank you. That's going to be the active intellect, huh? Okay? But the active intellect will act upon the images, right? And make what is understandable in ability understandable in act. And you see this yourself. Now, what happens in the case of your knowing, what comes first is sensing, and then memory of what you've sensed, and then a collection of many memories of the same sort of thing, which is called experience. And then you separate out by the active intellect what those many singulars have, what, in common, right? So one day your mother pointed out a dog, right? And you saw the dog, right? See the dog? And you remembered maybe that, but you sensed, right? And another day there's another dog, and she said, see, see the dog? Oh, a dog, yeah. And after the child has seen a number of dogs, he separates out what they have in common, huh? And that is something universal. And that's the beginning of the knowledge of what? Reason, huh? And so Bwethius says that a thing is singular when you sense, and even when you remember it, right? And even in your experience, you have only singulars, huh? But when the thing is finally understood, it's something, what, universal. And now when I understand what is common to these many dogs that I see, then I recognize, see, another example. Like when I came in here, there was a dog here, laying in the rug, right? But I had already separated out what a dog is as a result of my mother saying, see the dog, you know? And other people are saying, see the dog. Do you see? So the chief cause of the universal is going to be the act of understanding, huh? The cause of it being actually understandable. It's actually being separated from the singulars. I answer against this is what the philosopher proves in the first book of the Metaphysics. When you look again at the premium to wisdom and the meaning of metaphysics, he'll talk about sensing and memory and experience and so on. And he talks about something like that at the end of the first book there of the Summa Contra Gentiles, or into the second book, I guess. Aristotle proves that the beginning of our knowledge is from the sense, huh? Thomas is a very, what, humble and faithful student of Aristotle, huh? Kind of interesting. I was looking at a text there in the Summa Theologiae where Thomas is talking about how God is goodness itself, right? And no creature is goodness itself, huh? And he gives, you know, three reasons why the very substance of the creature is not its own goodness. And one is that the substance of the creature is not its own existence, huh? Okay? Another thing is that the, for the goodness of the creature requires that in addition to the substance, it be added certain accidents among which are the virtues and so on. And then a third one, that the end or purpose of the creature is something other than itself, right? But I was reading then, doing a similar reading of the De Veritate there, right? And actually you should call it Questiones Disputate De Veritate at De Bonitate, right? Because there'd be kind of a breakthrough and you'd get to Question 20, I think it is. But there Thomas is taking up the question, a similar question. And he says, and he takes a text from Boethius, one from Augustine, and one from Aristotle, or from the Libre de Causes, which, you know, goes back, I thought, to Aristotle at that time. And he brings it all together, you know, huh? And it's kind of, you don't see him doing that, right? But the way he inherited, what's that, like Cajetan says in the beginning of the Summa Theologiae, that Thomas seems to have inherited the mind of all the Church Fathers because he so, what, reverenced them, huh? But he had a great debt to Aristotle. I answered ought to be said, now, this is in the body of the article. I answered ought to be said that about this question there was a threefold opinion among the philosophers. Democritus laid down that there is no other cause of our knowledge except those things which we, what, think about from these bodies. And there come and enter into us images from these bodies into our soul, as Augustine notes in the Epistle to Dioscorum, huh? And Aristotle also says in the book on sleeping and being awake, huh? That's how concrete Aristotle got, right, huh? That Democritus laid down that knowledge came to be through things flowing out from bodies, right? De fluxiones, right? And the reason of this position was because both Democritus himself as well as the other ancient natural philosophers did not lay down that understanding differed from, what, sense, huh? As Aristotle himself says in the book about the soul, huh? And therefore, because our sense is, what, changed by the sensible, they thought that all our knowledge comes about only through the, what, change that is produced by sensible things. Which change, Democritus asserted, came about through the flowing out of images, right? Okay? Okay? Now, Plato, a contrario, meaning his position now is what? Furthest away from his position, right? Laid down that the understanding differs from sense, huh? And the understanding is an immaterial power, not using a bodily organ in its own act. And because the bodiless, let's say, in corporeum, cannot be, what, changed by the bodily, right? He laid down that our intellectual knowledge does not come about through the changing or transformation of the understanding by sensible things, but by partaking, right, of separated, understandable forms, as has been said before, right? So now it's got two positions that are, what, furthest apart, right? Okay? Now, does virtue lie in the middle? Yeah. And is truth lie in the middle between two extreme errors? I mean, there's a synthesis of what's true about them, right? Well, you see, what does it say to say the truth, now? To say the truth, to say the truth is to say that what is, is, right? And also to say that what is not, is not, right? Okay? Now, if you say Berquist is standing now, right? You're speaking truly. You're saying that what is, namely my standing, is, right? If you say Berquist is not sitting now, right? You're also speaking truly, right? You're saying that what is not, namely my sitting, right? Is not, right? Okay? Now, there's two ways of being false, right? And one would be to say that what is, is not, huh? And the other would be to say that what is not, is, right? Okay? Now, sometimes they take the mistake of thinking what is, is not, huh? As, um, subtracting from the truth, right? Okay? If you say that what is, is not, which is one way of being false, um, one way of speaking false, to say what is, is not, if you use a safe example, that Berquist is not, not standing now your mind would be speaking falsely right you'd be saying that what is in my standing is not right and then your mind would be false right but the other way the other way of speaking falsely would be to say what is not is okay if you should say for example that burquist is what sitting now right what is not now any of my city you're saying yes and so you're being false right so this in a way is adding to the truth right this is what subtracting to the truth right okay how much money do i have huh in my billfold huh forty dollars okay if i say i got sixty dollars in my billfold right i'm saying i have something i don't have if i say i only got twenty dollars i can't lend you forty um i'm saying i don't have something that i do have right so the truth in that sense is in between two extremes one of which is adding to the reality and the other is subtracting right we've talked about this before right now that's why shakespeare says you know um has one of his uh kent there in king lear all my reports he says go with the modest truth nor more nor clipped but so right now you you know shakespeare's grammar there they don't say neither nor they say nor nor yeah they don't say either or they say or or okay so he's saying all my reports go with the modest truth this here is the middle the mean the modest truth neither more we'd say right today nor but clipped okay and fausta says the same thing right if they say more or less than the truth they are villains and the sons of darkness okay and that same thing as we mentioned before i think when you touch on this is found in the um formula on the court right i swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i say when i swear to tell the truth i'm swearing to say what is is what is not is not right but the whole truth i'm not going to subtract from it right and nothing but the truth i'm not going to add to it right okay i can make a simple example there if they asked me the bartender who was at the bar between nine and ten john and henry were there right and so if i leave out either john or henry i'm saying what was was not right if i add tom or paul or somebody else right i'm saying who's not there was there right and being false right okay now you see that uh you know in the great mysteries of the faith you know like the sign of the cross what two mysteries are we touching on yeah yeah now in the case of the trinity the incarnation the mysteries in our way just the reverse in terms of in the trinity there's one nature but three persons right in the uh incarnation it's reversed there's one person but two what natures yeah okay now what are the heresies right well as far as the trinity is concerned you have two heresies really two sides those who thinking there's one nature think there's only one person like that was at sebelius i guess right and then those who think that because there are three persons there are three natures like areas for example do you see but if you stop and think about it the man who says that there are three persons here that as there are three persons here there are three natures he's saying what is not is he's adding two natures there when there's only one okay but the man who says that as there is one nature like uh yurikas says so there's one person right okay he's saying that what is is what is not he's denying the multiplicity of persons there right they have to reverse things in the in the in the uh mystery of the uh incarnation because some say that because there are two natures there's two persons and therefore what is not that second person they say yes that's what the story is doing right okay she shouldn't be called the mother of god but the mother christ right okay because you're denying the unity of person there so he's saying that there's another person there as a human person and a divine person so he's saying what is not the human person is right but then you have those who say what um as there's one nature as one person there there's one what nature that the word was really made into flesh or something right and then you're saying that what is is not you're denying one of the nature right so the truth about the trinity about the incarnation in between two extremes right one of which adds to the truth right and the other which subtracts the truth right okay well in a sense um uh a sign too and the truth lies in the middle there is that the middle explains the extremes because it contains a part of the truth in both extremes so the man who says there are uh three natures in god as well as three persons right he shares with the truth that there are three persons there really are three persons there okay and the man who says there's only one person and one nature he shares the other part of the truth that there's one nature there see but if someone claimed that the truth is there's one person one nature how can he explain that something to think there are three persons or three natures there'd be no basis in the truth right if you know part of the truth right and therefore no basis for any probability in the contrary position and vice versa right if there really are three persons and three natures right why should anybody think there's only one person and one nature see there's no part of the truth that could serve for the probability of the probability of the opinion in the same way with the incarnation right if there's really um one person there and one nature right why should anybody think there are two persons and two natures right there'd be nothing no part of the truth um for the probability of their opinion but vice versa if there really are two natures and two persons why should anybody think there's one person and one nature okay but if there's one person and two natures then both of the extremes have a part of the truth in them okay well i i mentioned that again going back here because in a way plato's going to have the knowledge of reason be entirely derived from something immaterial and not corporeal or sensible right okay why democratus sees the whole of our knowing coming you know as if the sensible is by itself sufficient to explain the knowledge of reason right whereas i was going to say no there's a there is an immaterial power of man that we talked about before the act of understanding right but there's also a role that the senses play right and everybody experiences that after they've seen a number of examples of the same thing right they begin to separate out what they have in common you know do this too explicitly at first you know myself i mean i don't i never really had a any formal music education right but i've heard enough baroque music that i kind of recognize baroque music when i hear it and uh i might mix up you know a piece of of hiding with one of both sides maybe in some cases right but not very much a piece of you know baroque music and an ordinary piece of mozart you know though occasionally mozart does a little bit of baroque stuff too but i mean mozart for the most part right i could maybe even say distinctly what that baroque thing is but i recognize it huh you know i separate out something common to these baroque concertos and so on