De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 143: Plato, Aristotle, and the Problem of Understanding Images

Transcript
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Okay. So Plato, on the contrary, laid down that the understanding differed from sense, so that's true. And that the understanding was an immaterial power, not using a bodily organ in its act. And because the incorporeal, or non-bodily, cannot be changed by the bodily, he laid down that the understanding's knowledge does not come about through the changing of the understanding by sensible things, but by partaking of some understandable forms that are separated from, what, matter, right? What they call the ideas, right? But the forms, a better translation of it. The sense he also laid down to be a power operating by itself. Whence neither the sense itself, since it is a certain spiritual power, is changed by sensible things. But the organs of the senses are changed by sensible things, from which change the soul, in a way, is excited, right? Aroused, that in itself it might form the species or forms of sensible things. So Plato, you know, remember the thing that Aristotle has in the beginning of the anima when he touches upon this question of whether the human soul is immortal or not, right? And he says, the question of the immortality of the human soul depends upon the answer to another question. Does the human soul have some operation or activity by itself, right? Okay? Because it has some operation or activity in itself that's not in the body, right? Because the existence of the thing is presupposed to what it does. It's like Descartes said, right? I think therefore I am, right? You have to be before you can do something, right? So if the soul had existence, if the soul had being only in the body, right? You would have no doing, no activity, no operation, except in the body. But if the soul has an activity, if it does something not in the body, right? Then its existence is not entirely immersed in the body. And therefore it is existence apart from the body, okay? And Plato was getting into that same position about the senses. You see? And Aristotle is quite clear that sensing and imagining are something bodily. And it's the understanding, the act of understanding and the act of willing, that are not in the body. So the men before Plato would deny that the soul has anything, any operation that's not in the body and through the body. Plato is saying that not only the understanding and the will, but also the senses, right? The activities of the senses that are in the soul only, right? And so since Aristotle's decision is in between the two, right? You see? The others are saying that neither the senses nor the reason have any activity that's not bodily, that the brain, say, is the organ of thought, right? And Plato's saying both the senses and the reason, right? Activities of the soul alone or by itself. Aristotle's in between. He says the intellect is, but not the senses. And therefore you can see an element of truth in both Plato and the, what, early Greeks, right? Because his position has the whole truth. And the whole truth has the parts of truth that are divided amongst the others, huh? In the famous work of Waytheist, The Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Wisdom, when she appears, her garments are, what, kind of torn, right? And the commentator says that this is to signify that men in grabbing for the truth, right? Have kind of dismembered the truth, right? They have torn the truth because they grabbed one part of the truth and say, I got the whole, right? And they only have any part of the truth, huh? And Empedocles, the great philosopher, had warned us about that already, right? That we don't live very long and there's all kinds of miseries in our life and so on. And men see just a part of the truth, right? But they boast. It doesn't form a pride, huh? They boast of having seen the whole, right? And that's what happens, huh? And a man doesn't succeed maybe in convincing other people if he hasn't seen some part of the truth. Because there'd be no probability he had no part of the truth in this position. But the danger is that he may see a part of the truth and through pride or other human weaknesses boast that he has seen the whole, okay? In this opinion, he says, Augustine would seem to touch upon in the 12th book upon Genesis to the letter, where he says that the body does not sense, right? But the soul through the body, which, as it were, it uses as a messenger, right? To forming in itself what extrinsically is announced, huh? Thus, therefore, according to the opinion of Plato, neither the knowledge of the understanding proceeds from sensible things, nor even the sensible knowledge, the knowledge of the senses totally proceed from sensible things. But the sensible things excite or arouse the sensible soul to sense, right? It's a little bit like what you call learning, recalling, right? When you say something and you talk about something that reminds you of something, you know? Okay? But you don't really get what you're reminded of or what you recall because of that, from that, right? Okay? And likewise, the senses excite or arouse the understanding soul to understand, right? Okay? So Plato sees some dependence there of the understanding upon the senses, right? Okay? In the dialogue called the Mino there, right? He says, you see a surface here. This surface is flat, right? But is it really flat? No, there's a little indentations here, right? But it's much more flat than this thing here is, right? And so when I see something like this that resembles a flat surface, I recall a flat surface, right? You see? Just like when I see a picture of you, I remember you, right? Okay? But Aristotle went forward in a media via, huh? You see? Truth is in between, two extremes. Okay? For he laid down with Plato that the understanding differs from the sense. Okay? But he laid down that the sense does not have its own operation, its own doing, without the communication of the, what? Body, right? Thus, that the sense is not an act of the soul alone, but of the, what? Combination, the conjunction of the soul and the body, right? Okay? And similarly, he laid down about all the operations of the sensing part. And that's why if something is too sensible, like something is too bright, right? It tends to destroy the eye, right? For these kids, you know, they say going deaf, you know, in the air that is next to the rock band or something, right? Okay? And if you taste something, you know, too strong, huh? It prevents you from tasting other things afterwards, huh? Which it shows the bodily nature of sensing, huh? When I think about God as something very understandable like that, it doesn't prevent me from thinking about lesser things, huh? In fact, I'm more able to think about lesser things. For everything exercise my mind, okay? Whence, therefore, because it is not impossible that sensible things which are outside the soul cause something in the conjunction of body and soul, right? Conjunctum. In this Aristotle with Democritus is an accord, right? That the operations of the sensitive part are caused by the impression of sensible things upon the senses, huh? Not over by way of something. flowing out from them as Demarptus laid down, but by a certain operation of acting upon the senses. For Demarptus laid down that every action came about through the flowing out of the atoms. This is clear in the book about generation. But notice, you know, the main point here, that he does share with Demarptus the fact that our, what, senses, right? Senses because they've been acted upon by these sensible things, huh? Okay. Now, Aristotle laid down that the understanding has an operation, a doing, without the communication of the body, huh? And nothing bodily is able to press itself upon a bodiless thing, huh? And therefore, to causing the intellectual operation, according to Aristotle, there's not suffice only the impression of sensible bodies, but there's required something more, what, noble, right? This would be the answer to that second objection, remember, huh? It was saying, you know, that, hey, the senses are below reason, right? Okay. And this, of course, these words here that are italics, that's really a quote from Aristotle in the third book on the soul, when he said that the age and intellect, or the acting upon understanding, right, is more honorable, right, than the one that undergoes. For the one acting upon is more honorable than the one undergoing, right? That's why he says it's more divine to what? To give than to receive, yeah. Not, however, that the operation of the understanding is caused in us from only the impression of some superior things, as Plato had laid down, right? But that that higher and more noble agent, which he calls the agent intellect, or the acting upon understanding, about which we have spoken above, makes the images, right, the Greek word for images, phantasmata, taken from the senses, it makes them understandable in act, right? It separates out what they have in common, and that's actually understandable. The singular is not as such. By way of a certain abstraction or separation. According to this, therefore, from the side of the images, you can say the operation of the understanding, or intellectual operation is caused by the sense, huh? But because the images are not sufficient to change the undergoing, the possible understanding, but it is necessary that they become understandable in act through the intellect, the agent intellect. One cannot say that the sensible knowledge is the whole and perfect cause, right, of the operation of the intellect, but in a way it's more the matter, the cause, huh? That's interesting. So therefore, he sees the downwithal truth in what Plato said, right? But Plato put, you know, what it is of man and dog and cat and horse in this world by itself, right? This immaterial world, and we've got a problem there, because what a man is would involve no matter, right? That's obviously false, right? So, Kersteller realized that what a man is and what a dog is and what a cat is don't exist by themselves in the world of the forms, right? But they exist only in the understanding, right? And what a man is has been separated from the many images of men that you have, right? And what a dog from the many memories you have of dog and so on. And then you have an understanding of something universal, right? Because what a man is is common to all men, right? What a dog is is common to all dogs, huh? What's common to them doesn't exist as common to them except in the mind, huh? And this is why Albert the Great says the first thing to be considered in logic is the universal. What is said of many things, right? What's common to many. And so we don't define the singular, we don't define Socrates, we define man, right? We don't define the wisdom of Socrates or Estalba, we define wisdom, right? We define something that is universal. Okay? Can you say a little bit more about it, the last sentence, sir, why it's understanding of the matter, it's more the matter of the clause? Well, it's because the matter is that what the agent acts upon, right? Okay. So the images are like that, out of which, you might say, huh, like the matter, the agent intellect makes something understandable to act. Okay. So you have the images, many images of dogs, and reason, in a sense, compares those, right? And separates out or abstracts what they have in common, huh? Sure. So that's like the matter out of which you're acting upon, right? Yeah, okay. The chief or principal cause is the agent intellect. This is the light which enlightens every man, right? Or sharing of that light. Now, he's very brief in his reply to the first objection of Augustine, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that through those words of Augustine one is given to understand that truth should not be wholly expected from the senses, huh? For there is required the light of the agent intellect through which, in an unchangeable way, we know truth in these changeable things, and that we discern these things from the likenesses of these things, huh, in the images. So, you understand, for example, what change is, huh? Does what change is change? No. It's sort of interesting, right? That our mind is able to know changing things in universal, in a changeless way, right? Uh-huh. And therefore, the way we know is not the way things are, right? Uh-huh. But we don't attribute the changelessness of our knowledge to the things themselves and say that they're changeless. Uh-huh. Okay. We've talked about this before, right? Uh-huh. The central question in philosophy, right? Uh-huh. Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are, right? Is the definition of stupidity stupid? Uh-huh. Is the definition of evil evil? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's interesting, right? Yeah. To know evil is good. Yeah. As such, right? But to love evil is always bad, right? Because love goes out to the thing in itself, right? So Thomas will say and make very clear, you know, that the love of God, say, right, is better than the knowledge of God, huh? Because in the knowledge of God, you kind of put God into your own mind, right? And your mind is quite inadequate to grasping God, huh? But love goes out to God in itself, right? And therefore, the love of God is better than the knowledge of God, right? But the knowledge of a stone is better than the love of stones. And therefore, it's the already the knowledge of evil. It's not only better than the good love of evil, but the knowledge of evil is good and the love of evil is evil. So you get there, it says, you know, we're shaped and fashioned of what we love, right? And the ancient, the Old Testament says they became, you know, abominable just as the things they loved, right? If you love disgusting things, you are disgusting. But if you know what is disgusting, that doesn't make it disgusting. Now, in the second one where this is talking about these images, and so on. The second, it should be said that Augustine there speaks not about the knowledge of the understanding, but about the knowledge of the imagination. And because, according to the opinion of Plato, the power to imagine has an operation which is of the soul only, as Plato thinks, Augustine uses the same reason to showing that bodies do not impress their likenesses on the ability to imagine. But this, the soul does, okay, which Aristotle uses, right, to proving the understanding, the agent, like I should say, to be something separate because the agent is more honorable than the patient. And without doubt, it would be necessary in the power of imagination to lay down not only a passive power, but also an active one, right? But if we lay down, according to the opinion of Aristotle, that the action of the power to imagine is of the conjunction, right? There follows no difficulty, huh? Because the sensible body is more noble than the organ of the animal, insofar as it is compared to it as being an act to being in what? Potency, in one respect. As it colored in act to the pupil, the eye, which is colored in potency. But one, it can also be said over that although the first change of the power to imagine is through the motion of sensible things, because imagining is a motion made according to the sense, as it is said in the third, in the book about the soul, in the third book, it is actually said there. And you notice, you see that yourself, you know, look at me, you know, now, see. Now close your eyes, you see. In a sense, the image of me, right, persists in you for a while, right, huh? Okay? And that's why after an accident, right, they want to get the sworn testimony of all those who saw it, right? And they know from experience that if they, you know, if half an hour after the accident they ask everybody what they saw, there'd be more agreement as to what took place, right? Who went to the intersection first, and so on, than they will a month later, right? Okay? But there you see your images are being directly moved by the, what? By your senses, right? When I was a little boy, we'd go home and you'd play this game, you know, and you'd stop in front of a house, and you could look at it, you know, for, I don't know, a few seconds, you know, and then you had to close your eyes, and then people would interrogate you. How many windows in the house? Was there shutters? What color of the shutters? You know? And see how many of these questions you could answer or not, right? But you're going by, what? Images that you have, right? Yeah. Which is an emotion made by the sense in act, right? But then, when we store these images, right, we can pull them out, and then we can start to twist them around, right? And then we can form things like gold mountains, right? You see? Or read your fairy tale, you know, where the mountain, that glass mountain, you know, and you kind of picture that glass mountain, right? And the horse trying to get up the glass mountain. And there, you have kind of an active aspect there, right? So Thomas says, it is able to be said that although the first change of the ability to imagine is through the motion of sensible things, because the imagining is a motion made by the sense in act, as he says in the third book of the soul. Nevertheless, there is a certain operation of the soul in man, which, by dividing and putting together, forms diverse images of things, even those which are not taken from the sense. This is the way we usually use the word imagination now, right? For the subsequent activity, right? Where we take images and we transform them and we combine them and separate them, right? And as far as this is concerned, one can take the words of what? Augustine, right? So the gold mountain is not something I ever sensed. But maybe I sensed gold, and I sensed a mountain or a hill or something, right? And I put these two together, right? So imagination and imagining, in many ways, is very much like thinking, huh? And when we imagine something, we form an image of it, right? And when we think about something, we form a thought about it. That's unlike what the senses were. You have a kind of a direct knowledge of the thing, huh? So the English philosophers, you know, when they use the word idea, they don't know what they're talking about, a thought or an image, most of the time. They mix up the two, you know? But a lot of times we tend to use the word thinking and imagining interchangeably. I think that's so. I imagine that's so, right? Mm-hmm. Now, to the third objection, he says, that's the one that says, hey, how do we know these things that you can't sense, right? Well, he's not too full in his answer, but he says, to the third, it should be said that sensed knowledge is not the whole cause, even the chief cause, right, of the knowledge and understanding. And therefore, it is not wonderful if intellectual knowledge extends beyond the, what, sensitive, right? But we know these other things, right, through the sensible things, huh? And that's why we have to know God by way of negation. You see, he's incorpore, not a body, right, huh? He has no parts, right? We're annoying him through what has parts and what is a body, right? But negatively. That won't be true about the beatific vision, right? About the what? Beatific vision, right? Yeah. That will not be through the senses. Okay, you want to take a little break? To the seven, one proceeds thus. It seems that the understanding is able to understand and act through the understandable forms which it has within itself without turning itself to the phantasm, son. Now what Aristotle teaches in the third book about the soul is that even after you have the understandable and act in your mind, when you want to think about what a triangle is, you have to form an image of a triangle, right? So you can consider the what it is of what you're imagining. The what it is is something universal, right? But the what it is is something you're imagining. And so if your imagination is injured, then that interferes to the thinking, right? Now some people, you know, they think because of that that the brain, where the images are, that the brain is the organ of thought, right? Okay. And I remember having in class, you know, kind of a tough-minded modern, or whatever you call it, and he was convinced that the brain is the organ of thought, right? And I said, you know, a blow on the eye interferes with seeing, right? And a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, right? So if a blow on the eye interferes with seeing, that's a sign that the eye is the organ of sight, right? And a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, that's a sign that the brain is the organ of what? Thought, right? You see, yeah, yeah, that's his argument, right? Or alcohol, I say, going to the brain interferes or affects your thinking, right? Okay. Lesions in the brain affect the thinking and so on, okay? Therefore the brain is the organ of thought, right? Okay. So he thought this argument was the final word on the subject. So I said, okay, let's consider your argument here, huh? Suppose you and I were in a room with no windows, and the only source of light was a little light bulb there in the center of the room, and the light bulb was on and so on, and so we can see each other, right? Now I take a book and I bang the light bulb, and all of a sudden, right, you're no longer able to see me. So a blow on the light bulb has interfered with what? You're seeing, therefore the light bulb is the organ of sight. That's true. Well, notice, huh? A blow on the light bulb interferes with what? Seeing, in this example, a blow on the eye interferes with seeing, right? But one case you're interfering with the organ, the other case you're interfering with the object, huh? See? If you leave this room, it'll interfere with my seeing you. Yeah. Not because you are in any way as the organ of my sight, but because you, or the color in you, right, is the object of my sight, right? Okay? So he said the fact that a blow on the brain, or alcohol going to the brain, or injury to the brain, interferes with thinking, falling asleep, right, and so on, is a sign that there's a connection between the brain and thinking, right? But that doesn't tell you whether the connection is one of organ, or one of object. Hmm. See? And when Aristotle discovers what the object of reason is, huh? Its own object, right? It's the what it is of something you sense or imagine. So, um, what you imagine is on the side of the object of reason, huh? Okay? And his other arguments whereby he shows that reason is not a body, huh? And therefore the brain cannot be the organ of what? Thought. Therefore it must be related to thought and in some ways the object. And when you understand that the object of reason is the what it is of something sense or imagine, then you see the connection, right? And Aristotle would develop this proportion, huh? That the images are to thinking something like the exterior object is to seeing or hearing. And, um, what you're seeing is the color of something out there, right? Or you're hearing the sound of something out there, right? Or you're smelling the odor of something out there, right? So, if what you're seeing is the color of something outside you, you can't see without that exterior thing being there, right? And if the object of reason is the what it is of something sensed or imagined, you can't think about the what it is of something imagined without imagining something. But that makes it be on this side of the, what, object, right? So Thomas is going to develop this here and we'll see in this thing. First objection, which is saying you don't have to turn to the images, which is contrary to our experience, right? We don't want to experience when the images are not there, right? We can't think, right? The understanding comes to be an act through the understandable form by which it is informed. But for the understanding to be an act is for it to understand. Therefore, the understandable forms suffice for this that the understanding understand an act. Without this, that it turns to the, what, phantasms, huh? Moreover, the imagination more depends upon the senses than the understanding upon the imagination. But the imagination is able to imagine an act with the sensible things being absent, huh? Therefore, much more can the understanding understand an act, not turning itself to the, what, phantasms. Moreover, of bodily-less things, there are not any images because imagination does not transcend time and the, what, continuous. If, therefore, our understanding is not able to understand something in act unless it turns to the phantasms, he would foul that he could not understand something bodiless, which is clearly false. For we understand, to some extent, truth itself, and we understand God, to some extent, and the angels, right? Okay? But against this is what the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, that the soul understands nothing without an image. I answer, that it is impossible for our understanding in the state of the present life in which it is joined to an undergoing body to understand something and act except by turning itself to the, what, images. and this appears by two signs and indications. First, because since the understanding is a certain power in not using a body organ, in no way would it be impeded in its act through the injury of some body organ if there was not required for its act the act of some power using a body organ. This is a pretty experience, right? That the brain, right? And so on. The imagination is tired or it can't imagine something or you're asleep and you don't have control of your images and so on, right? And you can't understand certain things. For they use the bodily organ sense and imagination use a bodily organ and the other powers pertaining to the sense part of the soul. Once it is manifest of experience you'd say then that in order for the understanding to understand and act not only when it takes knowledge to begin with, right? but also in using the knowledge that it has acquired, right? Now I've acquired some geometry, right? But if I want to think about what a triangle is I imagine a triangle, right? And then I what? Understand what a triangle is in that image so to speak, right? Okay? And the object then. Once it is manifest that in order that the understanding understand and act and not only when it's taking knowledge newly but also using knowledge already acquired it requires the act of the imagination and of the other powers for we see that the act of the imagination or the power to imagine being impeded through the injury to the organ as in those who are beside themselves, right? They're frenetic and similarly when the act of the moment of power is impeded, right? A man is impeded from understanding an act even those things of which he has already taken the knowledge. Secondly, because everyone can experience in himself that when he tries to understand something, he forms some images, right, for himself, but we have examples in which he inspects what he desires to understand. And hence it is that when we wish to make another understand something, we propose to him examples, right? From which he can form images suitable to what? Understand, right? Now, up to this point he's been giving what? Our experience, right? I want to think about what a triangle is, and you've got to form an image of a triangle, right? And that's a matter of my experience, right? And the earlier experience that injuries done to the brain, right, interfere with what? You're thinking about something, right? I remember when I got to doing solid geometry in Euclid, right? You're trying to imagine some of these things, right? And then your imagination is maybe not good enough, like a mathematician's imagination, right? So I constructed, you know, some cardboard, some of these geometrical figures, you know, to help my imagination. We had one hanging down from the light there in the kitchen, you know, over the table, you know, hanging down this little geometrical figure, so I could pursue my higher studies, right? But no, if you can't imagine, you know, the thing, then you can't, what, understand it, right? You know? That drove your wife crazy. Yeah. What? You said that probably drove your wife crazy. That drove her crazy. The reason of this, huh, is because the knowing power is proportional to the knowable, right? Whence the understanding of an angel who is wholly separated from the body, right? His proper, his own object, right? Is an understandable substance separated from the body. And through understandables of this sort, he knows, what? Material things. But the understanding of, the human understanding of man who is joined to a body, right? His own object is the quittitas, the what it is, right? Or the nature, some nature existing in bodily matter, right? And through these natures, of visible things, he ascends, right? Also to some knowledge of, what? Invisible things, huh? Inmaterial things. But it's of the definition, you might say, of such a nature that it exists in some individual. Unlike Plato had these world of forms, right? which is not without some bodily matter, just as it is of the nature of the stone that it be in this stone, and of the nature of the horse that it be in this horse, and thus about others. Whence the nature of stone, or of any other material thing, is not able to be known completely and truly, except to be known as existing in this particular. But the particular or individual, we apprehend by sense and imagination. And therefore, it's necessary for this that the intellect understand and act its own object, that it turn itself to the images, that it may look upon the universal nature existing in the, what? Particular, right? So when I think about what a cat is, I imagine a cat, right? And I'm thinking about the what it is and what I'm imagining. Okay? In the same way when I think about the triangle or the square. If, however, the proper object, its own object, of our understanding, was a separated form, or if the natures of sensible things subsisted not in particulars, according to what the Platonists thought, right? It would not be necessary that understanding always, in understanding, turn itself to the, what? Phantasms, huh? Okay? I see, it helps you to understand that to see the proportion that Aristotle gives in the third book that I mentioned already, right? Where he said that the images that the images are to the understanding. Something like exterior things are to the senses, right? The exterior colors, are to the senses. Okay? So, although the color that I've been talking about here in this bookmark, right? That color is in no way the organ of my sight, is it? And the seeing is not taking place in that bookmark, is it? The seeing is taking place up here, right? But can I see the color of this without this being here? If you took this bookmark out of the room, could I see the color of it? No. See? But nevertheless, this exterior thing here is in no way the, what, organ of my sight, right? It's all on the side of the object of my sight, right? Yes. So, because I'm seeing the color of this bookmark, right? I can't see the color of this bookmark without this bookmark being there, right? Okay? Well, the same way, the proper object of the understanding is that what it is, not some immaterial thing, but the what it is of something that is sensible, like a man or a dog or a tree or something imaginable like a square or a circle or something like that, right? So it can't, what? Understand what it is of a triangle without there being a triangle there, so to speak, at least in the imagination. Without imagining, right? Or at least in the image, it can't understand what a dog is or what a cat is without imagining a dog or a cat because this is what it is of what he's imagining. Name me a dog or a cat, huh? Okay? It's not an object existing by itself. You see the proportion there? Yes, sir. And that's what misleads people sometimes into thinking that the brain is the organ of what? Thought, right? Because injury or blow or alcohol going to the brain interferes with what? Thinking, right? But it interferes with the thinking not by interfering with the organ of thought because there is an organ of thought but it's interfering on the side of the what? Object, right? Okay. Because it impedes the production of the phantasms and therefore you can't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's why when we haven't met someone we always imagine them wrong differently than they actually are. Yeah. Now, let's go back to the first objection. The first objection says the understanding comes to be an act through the understandable form by which it has been informed. But the understanding but for the understanding to be an act is for it to understand. Therefore, the understandable forms are enough for this that the understanding understand an act without its turning to the phantasms. The first, therefore, it should be said that the species or forms conserved in the possible understanding exist in it habitually when in act is not understand as has been said above. Whence, in order that we might understand in act, does not suffice the conservation of the species, right? But it is necessary that we use them according as they belong to the things in which they are the species, which are natures existing in what? Particular things, right? In other words, the what it is that the understanding is understanding is the what it is of something singular, right? And so without having the singular represented in the imagination, I can't think of the what it is of that thing. Okay? See how people get mixed up there with the brain and thinking the brain is the organ of thought, see? Let me go back to the example there of the guy hitting the light bulb, right? In order to show that a blow on the brain interferes with thinking is a sign that there's a connection between the brain and thinking, right? But what that doesn't tell you is whether the connection is one of organ or one of object, right? A blow on the eye interferes with my seeing you, right? Because in that case, it interferes with the organ, right? But you're leaving the room interferes with my seeing you, right? Not because you are the organ of my sight, but because you are in some sense the object of my sight. It's a color of you or something out there that I'm going to see, right? Can you say, for example, it's like a piano and a piano player. It's like if we smash the piano, there won't be any more piano music. That doesn't prove that there wasn't a piano player necessarily. Yeah, but it's not exactly the same comparison there. If we blow you up, right? That's going to interfere with my seeing you, right? Yes. But not that you've blown up the organ of my sight, but because you interfere with the object of my sight, right? The object of my sight is the color of something out here, the color of your garment, right? Or the redness of this machine here, right? You see? Or the redness and whatever it is there of the bricks over there, right? Okay? The whiteness of the wall or something, or the redness of the thing. So if you take that fire extinguisher out of here, I'm not going to be able to see the redness of it, am I? But that's because you interfere with the object, right? Okay? So, as I sometimes say, put it in logical terms, huh? If the brain is the organ of thought, right? Then a blow on the brain would interfere with thinking. But a blow on the brain doesn't interfere with thinking. Therefore the brain is the organ of thought. Is that argument good? If the brain is the organ of thought, then a blow on the brain, or alcohol going to it and so on, and a blow on the brain will interfere with thinking. But a blow on the brain does. The brain, organ... If the brain is the organ of thought, then a blow on the brain would interfere with thinking. But a blow on the brain doesn't interfere with thinking. Therefore the brain is the organ of thought. Is that argument good? No, that's not. Okay? Now... It's a consequence, right? Yeah, there's two kinds of defects an argument can have, right? Yeah. One is that the premises can be false, right? Or one of them can be false. Or the other can be that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, right? Okay? So, what's the defect in this argument? Are the premises false? It is true that a blow to the brain doesn't interfere with thinking. That's true. And it is true that if the brain is the organ of thought, right? Then a blow on the brain won't interfere with thinking, right? Yeah, right. Okay? But does the conclusion follow from those two premises? Well, you know, in logic I always point that out, right? If Perkwist dropped dead last night, then Perkwist will be absent from class. But Perkwist is absent from class. Therefore he dropped dead last night? No. If the only way that Perkwist would be absent from class is that he died, then you could argue it, right? But that isn't true, is it? Okay? So I say that's wishful thinking, I tell the students. But it's not logical thinking. I'm interested in your wishful thinking. All right. See? Now, the other way you can turn around and say that if a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, then the brain is the organ of thought. Okay? But a blow on the brain does interfere with thinking. Therefore, the brain is the organ of thinking. Now, in this second thing, does a conclusion follow from the premises? If a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, then the brain is the organ of thought. But a blow on the brain does interfere with thinking. Therefore, the brain is the organ of thought. So premise is not necessary? Yeah. Not necessarily so? This conclusion follows from those premises if you lay those down, right? Uh-huh. Okay? But the if-then statement is not true, necessarily, right? See? If a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, then you could say the brain is some connection with thinking, right? Now, if the only connection you could have with thinking is to be the organ of thought, then you could conclude this, right? You could say this is true. But, as an example of the light bulb, right, huh? You know? If a blow on the light bulb interferes with seeing, then the light bulb must be the organ of sight, right? Well, obviously, it doesn't interfere with seeing on the side of the organ, does it? It interferes with seeing on the side of the object, right? Okay? Okay? So, in the second argument here, the form is good, but the matter is bad. In the first argument, form is good, but the matter is bad, huh? Because the if-then statement is not true. Okay? Could you say that whole thing again? Which... The form is good in which one? In the second one here. Here, it's the reverse. The matter is good. Right? Because an if-then statement can be true, even though the simple statements are not, what, true, right? You know, if Socrates is a mother, then Socrates is a woman, right? That's true. Even though Socrates is not a mother. Okay. If you are a mother, then you are a woman, right? That's true. If I am the number two, then I am half a four. That's true. You see? If-then statement doesn't say that the simple statements that it's composed of are in fact so, right? It's saying that if this one is so, then that will be so, right? So if the brain is in fact the organ of thought, right? I'm not saying in fact it is. We have to prove that it is, right? Then, in fact, a blow in the brain will interfere with thinking, right? Okay? That's true. And a blow in the brain doesn't interfere with thinking. But the conclusion, it doesn't follow. The form is bad. Okay? Unless the form you're in there, you're saying, you're reasoning from what? the affirmation of the consequent, right? To the affirmation of the antecedent. If I am a dog, then I am an animal. True or false? True. Yeah. But I am an animal. Therefore I am a dog. Fine. Doesn't follow, does it? Same. If I am the man who, what? Murdered his wife, right? Then I am a man. True or false? If I am the man who murdered his wife, then I am a man. It doesn't follow. Sure. If I am the man who murdered his wife, then I am a man. That's true. Yeah. It's also true that I am a man. Therefore I am the man who murdered his wife.