De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 145: Abstraction, Matter, and the Knowledge of Material Things

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They depend upon matter and motion, at least in general, in order to be understood. While mathematics is about things that depend upon matter and motion for their existence, but they can be defined without matter and motion. But then wisdom is about things that don't depend upon matter and motion for their existence, and therefore are not defined with matter or motion. But it can't be a fourth member about things that don't depend upon matter and motion but are defined with matter and motion. Doesn't make any sense, right? But mathematics is kind of the odd example, right? Because you're studying things that are found in matter, like cube, for example, right? When I was a child, I had wooden cubes, and now I have ice cubes and so on. But I can consider cube in separation from wood and separation from ice and separation from the plastic cube, the plastic they have in a cube in my desk, right? It's kind of interesting. I was reading about the Eucharist there this morning there in Thomas, and he's talking about how the quantity of the bread is preserved in existence by God, right? And that's the subject of the color and the other accidents. But he refers to the fact that in mathematics, we separate the quantity from the substance, right? And God can do more than our mind can do, right? It's kind of interesting that he touches upon it. It just kind of comes to my mind here when I'm thinking about this. And of course, you can also argue from the end of looking knowledge, which is to understand, right? And as the word understand indicates, stand, something has to be in some way separated from what? Motion, right? And that's why, of course, motion and matter go together, right? So the separation from matter, separation from motion, is the basis for the distinction of the looking knowledge, huh? Where your whole end is simply to understand, right? To get something into your reason, which is immaterial, and therefore to separate it in some way from matter. That's why there's only three parts of looking philosophy. Thomas explains that most fully in the commentary on Boethius' De Trinitate, huh? Where Boethius is simply repeating the teaching of Aristotle, right? Which Thomas will explain in the context of the Aristotle too, but he goes into it even more, right? In the questions that he has about the De Trinitate there of Boethius, huh? Questions five and six, okay? So again, this is what is said in the third book about the soul, that as things are separable from matter, so they are pertaining to understanding. Therefore, it's necessary that material things be understood insofar as they are separated from matter, and from material likenesses, which are imagism. I answer, it ought to be said, as has been said above, the object, the noble object, is proportioned to the, what? Knowing power, right? But there is a threefold grade of knowing power. For there is one knowing power that is the act of a bodily organ, and that is what? Sense, huh? And therefore, the object of every sensitive sense power is a form insofar as it exists in bodily matter. And because this matter is the source of individuation, therefore, every power of a sensitive part is knowledgeable only of what? Particulars, and particulars, there is taken the sense of what? Individuals or singulars, huh? Now, there's another knowing power, which is neither the act of a bodily organ, nor is it in any way joined to bodily matter. And this is the angelic understanding, huh? And therefore, the object that's proportioned to this kind of a knowing power is a form subsisting without matter. And although they know material things, huh, nevertheless, they do not look upon them except in immaterial things, huh? Either in themselves or in God, huh? But the human understanding has itself in a middle way between these two, huh? For it is not the act of some bodily organ, but nevertheless, it is a power of the soul, which is the form of the body. This has been said about. The soul is defined as the first act, right? Of a natural body composed of tools, huh? It's a substantial form, right? Of a body, natural body composed of tools. And therefore, what's proper to it or private to it is to know a form existing individually in bodily matter, but not, however, insofar as it is in such matter. But to know that which is in individual matter, not insofar as it is in such matter, is to abstract the form from individual matter, which the phantasms represent. And therefore, it's necessary to say that our understanding understands material things by abstracting from the images. And through material things thus considered, we come to some knowledge of, what? Immaterial things, huh? Just as the contrary, right? A contra. Angels, through immaterial things, know what? Immaterial things, huh? So in one way, our knowledge is just contrary not only to, what? God's knowledge, right? You know, Thomas is always contrasting God's knowledge by knowing himself, right? He knows other things, right? While in philosophy, it's by knowing other things that we come to know God is their, what? God's cause. So in a sense, they erode a philosophy, and God's knowledge is just contrary, right? But in theology, we begin with God because we're sharing in God's knowledge. And so the order in theology is contrary to the order in, what? Philosophy, right? That's why when I was in high school, you see, I picked up Chilson's kind of introduction to philosophy or whatever it is. And he's proceeding in the order of the Summa Contra Gentiles, which is the order of theology. So he's proceeding in the order contrary to the order of philosophy, huh? Hmm. So. But here you can see a little contrary to between our way of knowing and the angelic way of knowing, huh? The angel's own object is something immaterial. And through knowing immaterial things, he comes to know material things, huh? But our reason, his own object, is the what it is of something material. And through knowing material things, we come to some very imperfect knowledge of what immaterial things, right? Has there a cause, and there's something above them, and there's something that's not material, right? Negative and so on. But Plato, paying attention only to the immaterial, to the human understanding, huh? Not, however, to this, that it was in some way united to a body, huh? Because it's the power of a soul that is a form of a body, right? He laid down that the object of our understanding was separated, what? Forms. Material forms. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. And that we understand, not. by abstracting, but more by partaking of these abstract things, as has been said above. So Plato saw part of the truth, right? He saw that our understanding was something immaterial, and Anaxagoras, in a way, began to think of this, the first great Greek philosopher to do that, and Plato picked that up, right? But then he made the object of reason, his definitions, something in the immaterial world, right? By first, Plato, reason's own object is the what it is of something material, and only through knowing the what it is of material things can we eventually come to some imperfect knowledge of these things that are immaterial, right? Okay? And so in the problems of wisdom, one of the first problems of wisdom is, are there immaterial things? Are only these material things, right? It's obviously that there aren't these material things. But with the Greek philosophers, there's a kind of common opinion, as it is of the man in the street, that whatever it is must be somewhere, right? Right? If it's in somewhere, it doesn't exist. And you probably find people saying that, right? Sure. But to be somewhere, to be in some place, is a property, really, of what? Bodies, right? So they're really saying that everything is a body, or in a body, right? Right. You see? So they're kind of... Man is kind of naturally a materialist to begin with, right? Because that's all he knows about. Yeah. And the existence of immaterial things is something that he has to reason to, huh? Yeah. From the material things. So it's interesting that Frister hinted at this, that there's something material in the great fragment of Anaxagris, huh? Okay. Should we do a little break? Yeah, okay. Let's do a little break in and look at it. Lies, the directions here are kind of long. Whoever, whatever understanding understands a thing other than it is, is false, right? But the forms of material things are not abstracted from particulars, whose likenesses are the images. If, therefore, we understand material things, the abstractionist forms from images, there will be falsity in understanding, right? This touches upon that central question of philosophy that we talked about before, right? Is the mind false in understanding singulars universally? Am I false in understanding you as a man? You are a man? It's just in different modes. In understanding you to be a man, I don't understand what you have that's unique, do I? Okay? Because he's a man in the same sense that you are a man, right? So you can say my knowledge of you is incomplete, but I know you to be a man. Right? But is it false? Okay? So I'm understanding you, who are singular, to be a man, which is something universal, right? I'm not... The mistake would come if I said that the universality of man belongs to you. Then I'd be false, right? Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that to abstract happens in two ways. In one way, by way of composition and division. Now, here he's thinking of statement, right? If you look at Thomas' preeminent logic, right? He always quoted Aristotle in the second act. They're talking about putting together two things, like when we say man is an animal, right? Or dividing or separating them. We say man is not a, what? Stone, right? In one way, by way of composition and division, as when we understand something not to be in another, right? Or to be separated from it, right? Okay? So, when I say man is not a stone, I'm kind of separating man and, what? Stone, right? Okay? In another way, by way of a simple and absolute consideration, as when we understand one, considering nothing about the, what? Other, right? Now, to abstract, by the understanding, those things which are not abstracted in the thing, by the first way of abstraction, is not without falsity, right? Then you'd be making a false statement, huh? So, what's the example, what would an example of that be, though? Well, if I say, for example, that man is not an animal, right? Oh, okay. Okay? Well, then I'm being false, right? But if I understand animal without understanding man, is that false? Oh, see? So, that's the second kind of separation, right? Okay? When I say man is not an animal, in one way, I'm separating man from animal, right? When I understand animal, understanding nothing about man, in particular, right? That's another kind of separation, right? See? Was my mind false in that second case? No. I always ask my students, what is a perfect number, you know? You know, because Augustine and Thomas, when they explain why God made the universe, or said to me the universe, in six days, right? They always point out that six is the first perfect number, right? Well, my students don't know what a perfect number is, right? But they know what a number is. Are they false in knowing what a number is? Without knowing what a perfect number is, in particular? No. But if you were to say that a perfect number is not a number, then you would be false, right? Okay? But to abstract in the second way by the understanding, things which are not abstracted, secundum rem, does not have falsity, as appears manifest in sensible things, huh? For if we understand or say that color is not in a colored body, right, or that it is separated from it, there will be falsity in opinion or in speech, huh? But if we consider the color and its properties, considering nothing about the colored, what, apple, I guess it is, or that what we thus understand also express in voice, this will be without falsity of opinion and speech, huh? For apple is not of the definition of color, right? And therefore nothing prevents color to be understood, understanding nothing about, what, apple, right? Likewise, I say that those things which pertain to the definition of the species of any material thing, for example, a stone or a man or a horse, are able to be considered without the individuating, what, principles. Which are not of the definition of the species. And this is to abstract the universal from the, what, particular, or the understandable form from the images. To consider the nature of the species without a consideration of the individual principles which are presented by the images, okay? This is not to say that it is without them, right? But it's to understand it without them. You see the difference between the two, huh? And that's where Cleo's making his mistake, right? Because he's saying what a man is, what a dog is, what a cat is, outside of our mind, exists by itself, right? Separation from this man and the next man and the other man, right? Aristotle says no. It's only in the mind that it exists in separation. Therefore, he says in the Dianima that the soul is a place of patience. those forms, not in the world by itself. When therefore it is said that the understanding is false, which understands a thing other than it is, it is true if otherwise refers to the thing understood. For then the understanding is false when it understands a thing to be other than it is. Whence false would be the understanding if it thus abstracted the form or species of stone from matter that it understood it not to be in matter. And this is what Plato did, right? As Plato laid down. But it is not true what is proposed if otherwise is taken on the part of the one understanding. For it is without falsity that other is the way of understanding, of the one understanding and understanding, than the mode of the thing in what? Existing, right? That's where you're asking that simple question, right? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are, right? And Plato seemed to be answering what? Yes. But Aristotle, no, right? Okay? So we can understand one thing sometimes without another, even though it doesn't exist without that other, right? Okay? I can understand what's common to all you people without your individual differences, right? Even though what is common to all of you doesn't exist outside my mind without your individual differences. And the reason for this difference in the way of understanding from the way of the thing is because the understood is in the one understanding in an immaterial way, in the way of the understanding, and not materially in the way of the thing, what? Understood, huh? Okay? So the form of the individual object really exists in our mind, but in a different way. Yeah. It truly exists. Yeah. But it's able to be understood, right? Let's see. What you people have in common is able to be understood without your differences, right? But outside my mind it doesn't exist without your, what? Differences, huh? It's funny to go back to a simple example there with the senses like we were doing before. Go back to, say, sugar or something like that, right? We say sugar is both white and sweet, huh? And both of those are together in the sugar, right? But the eye can know the whiteness of the sugar without the sweetness, huh? And the sense of taste can know the sweetness of the sugar without the whiteness, huh? Now, is the sense of sight mistaken in knowing the whiteness of it without the sugar? Huh? That's the second thing he was talking about, right? But if I said that this white thing is not sweet, then I'd be false, right? Okay? If I separated white and sweet in that way or vice versa, you know? If I tasted it sweet and I tasted it without tasting the whiteness and I say this sweet thing is not white. If white and sweet were separated in that way, it would be false, right? But to know the sweetness of the sugar without knowing at all it's whiteness, right? Like a blind man might know it, right? You could say it's an incomplete knowledge of the sugar, right? But is it a false? If I say Saddam Hussein is a man, that's not all that can be said about him. Or Hitler was a man. And I'm talking about Hitler. Well, he was a man. I haven't said all that can be said about Hitler. But is it false? See? And I can know what Hitler has in common with Saddam or even in common with John Paul II, right? See? But what a man is doesn't exist in separation from what's unique to Hitler or Stalin or John Paul II for that matter. Do you see? But if I said what a man is is without all those individual differences of Hitler and the Pope and so on, then I would be, what, false and I'd be with Plato there in my world of forms. Okay? You see, the reason why people get, you know, answer no to that question or yes rather to that question is because they're not thinking of those two different, that distinction that Thomas has made here. And truth means that you're saying what is in things is in things, right? And what is not in things is not in things. And that's what you do in your form of statement. But here, it's other business, you're understanding one without that in which it is, let's say, right? Okay? In the same way in mathematics, you want to understand a cube, right? The shape of a cube can be understood without ice. Without wood and plastic and anything else you might have a cube, right? Not that there's a cube in the world that isn't either wooden or ice or some other material cube, right? But I can understand cube without them. And therefore, there can be a science of the cube in which wood and anything sensible like that doesn't enter in. But if I say that there exists a cube that is not material, right, then I'd be with Plato and I have a mathematical world corresponding to mathematical sciences as well as this world of forms. So Plato is kind of a three-decker universe there. You have the sensible world corresponding to our senses and then the mathematical world and then the forms. Aristotle says, no, no. Our mind is knowing these things in separation but they don't, what? Existence. Yeah, in separation, yeah. How is this mathematical world different from the world of forms? Well, in the mathematical world there's still individuation, see? So there are many individuals of the same kind, huh? Okay, sure. In the mathematical world there's only what a man is. Only one what a, see? But in a sense Plato's giving us a hint though that if there was immaterial things, right, okay, each of them would be what it is and there wouldn't be two of the same kind, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Mm-hmm. So in a sense he's giving us an introduction in a way to something about the angels and about the material substance like that. And that's why there can only be one God, too. There's a lot to think about here in what Thomas is saying. See, the way Marx proceeded, huh? Marx took the fact that in experimental science, huh, we experiment. That is to say we make something, right? And then he said this is the only way of knowing, right? Which the moderns are apt to do, right? So we know only by what? Making. Well, then the next step is to say then we know only what we make. Mm-hmm. Right? And then the next step is to say we're the beginning and the end of all we make. So we are the beginning and the end of all we can know. So we are the Alpha and the Omega, right? That's the basis of what? I mean, that's what it means dialectical materialism? That's... Well, that's what way Marx was part of it, yeah. Yeah. What dialectical materialism means is that matter is the beginning of everything, right? Which is an old opinion, right? But then that everything develops out of matter by the clash of opposites. And that's the Dalai... method of Hegel, right? And so he took it over from Hegel, right? Of course, he thought he was standing Hegel on his head, right? Hegel was standing on his head, he thought, because Hegel had made thought first, right? And then, you know, thought produces matter eventually, right? It's a synthesis. But in the mind, there is the same knowledge of opposites, right? And so what Marx did was to transpose into matter what you have in the mind. And so he had opposites together in matter, like they're together in the mind. But of course, if they were together in matter, they'd be struggling with each other, right? And so what that means basically is a struggle of opposites, right? Of course, that's partly in the idea of evolution, too, right? That there's a struggle going on in nature, right? So Marx dedicated does copy to, I think it was, to Darwin, and they still have Darwin's copy of it, you know, you know, in some place, yeah. Dedication to him, yeah. He thought he was kind of doing. But then you see, when you apply this to human society, you take what's most material in human society, it's economic motor production, and you try to explain everything else that's growing out of that, huh? I used to joke, you know, when I was a student in Quebec, you know, we'd go swimming in the afternoon, see? And you'd come out of, you know, the classes, maybe five o'clock or something or six, and you'd be kind of shivering to get out there, sitting, you know, your body temperature goes down, you sit like that. But you go there, and you get your trunks, and you take a hot shower, and then you swim, and then you take another shower, and you sit on, you know, you feel like I'm putting your coat and I'm walking up the hill. But there'd be a sort of hesitation before you jump into that cold water, right? And I used to joke, you know, this is how speculative philosophy began, right? That people, you know, we're not engaged in doing things, you see, and you know, kind of Marx's explanation of the origin of Thales who started basically saying, water is the beginning of all things, right? Jump in. That's the way Marx would interpret, you know, some of these, you know, philosophy and theology, you know, in a speculative sense, you know, somebody just, you know, didn't get his hands dirty, you know, sitting around doing nothing, you know? So he's definitely having these daydreams, huh? That's what he did, too. Yeah, I know, I know. He's got a lot of contradictions in people's actions. I don't know what they think. Okay, the second one here now is, you have to define material things by matter, right? And here you're abstracting from matter, so how's that going to work, right? Now, to the second, it should be said that some have thought that the species, the nature of an actual thing, was form only, and that matter was not a part of the species. And according to this, in the definitions of natural things, matter would not be placed. And therefore, it ought to be said otherwise, that matter is what? Two-fold. Matter in general, or common matter, and what? Designated matter, right? Point to, or individual matter, common matter has, say, flesh and bone. Individual has these flesh, huh? And these bones, huh? That you can feel in yourself, right? Okay? So the understanding, therefore, separates the species of an actual thing from sensible matter, individual sensible matter, right? In other words, I leave out, in my definition of man, your flesh and your blood and your bones, huh? And my flesh and my blood and my bones are left out, right? And John Paul II's flesh and blood and bones are left out of the definition of man, right? But I keep, in general, the idea of flesh and blood and bones, huh? The understanding of what a man is, huh? Okay? So it's separated from individual matter. So the understanding, therefore, abstracts the species of a natural thing from individual sensible matter, but not from, what? Common sensible matter, just as it abstracts the species of man from these fleshes and these bones, which are not of the definition of the species, but are parts of the individual, huh? And this is brought out in the seventh book of wisdom, metaphysics. So my flesh and my blood and my bones are not of the definition of flesh and blood and bones, are they? And flesh and blood and bone can be understood without the flesh and blood and bones of Dwayne Burquist, okay? Even though the flesh and blood and bones don't exist in the real world, without the flesh and blood and bones of Dwayne Burquist or you or some other man, right? But the species of man cannot be abstracted by the understanding from flesh and bones in general, right? Okay? But the species, mathematical species, like circle or sphere or cube, right? Are able to be abstracted by the understanding not only from, what? Individual sensible matter, right? But even from, what? Common, right? But not from what they sometimes call intelligible or imaginable matter, right? Meaning this extension, right? But only from, what? Individual, right? Understandable matter. I'm sorry. What's the distinction between the common and this intelligible common? Common, intelligible? No, she's talking here now about mathematics, right? Right. And mathematics, you can separate sphere and cube not only from this ice cube. Right. And this wooden cube, but from even anything sensible, right? Any sensible matter, right? In general, you can separate it from. Okay? But you can't separate it from what they sometimes call intelligible matter or stop it. So, you, they, you, they, you, they, right? Intelligible matter, right? Which maybe could be more clearly stated as imaginable matter, right? But you can't separate it from what? Extension, right? Part outside of part, right? So, when I imagine a triangle or a sphere or a cube, it is part outside of part, right? Okay? It's extended. And so, that extended matter is called intelligible matter, right? Okay? Imaginable matter, okay? Okay? Okay? But again, when I understand what a triangle is or what a sphere is, I separate it from individual understandable matter, right? Okay? Now, this is the problem that, that we mentioned before in, in, in, in Locke and in Berkeley, right? Okay? You know? Locke is trying to understand, um, the general idea of triangle, right? Okay? Now, is the general idea of triangle, you'd say it's got three sides, right? Well, are those three sides equal or unequal? It doesn't matter, you know? Well, he doesn't know what to say, so he says, it's both and neither. Okay? It does. Any triangle you imagine in your imagination, right? It's an individual triangle, and the sides will either be equal or unequal, but they won't be both, right? Or neither. But, when I understand what a triangle is, I understand the three lines, right, in what a triangle is, but are those lines understood to be equal or unequal? Okay? Well, you extract from there being equal or unequal, okay? Okay? And the proper answer would be, um, to that question would be that, in the definition of triangle in general, those three lines are able to be equal or unequal, right? Okay? But they're actually neither, right? Okay. Okay? And, um, so he's kind of confusing the universe. The universal idea of triangle, that the reason understands, right, from the triangles, he's mixing up, with the triangles that you imagine, which must always be either equal or unequal, right? Okay. So he ends up by saying, well, then it's all and none of these. And then Barclay says it doesn't make any sense, so there aren't any universal ideas. But you see, if you've gone through geometry, and, you know, if you take, you know, a theorem like the interior angles of a triangle equal to right angles, huh? And one way you can show that is by drawing a straight line to one vertex parallel to the, what, opposite side, right? And then if you know the parallel theorems, you know that the alternate angles are, what, equal, right? So this angle to that, and this to that, because that's what the parallel theorems are, right? And the theorem should be the alternate angles equal. So if this equals that, and this equals that, and this obviously makes up the third one, obviously the three angles equal to two, what, right angles, right? But when I understand that, I'm understanding that to be true of what? Not equilateral triangle, not isosceles, but any triangle, right? Okay. And it makes no difference whether I imagine an equilateral triangle, like, make the demonstration or not, right? Because all I'm doing is drawing a straight line through one vertex parallel to the opposite side, and whether these three lines are equal or just two of them or none of them makes no difference as far as the demonstration is concerned, right? Because the demonstration really takes what is common to a triangle that has three sides, and therefore you can, you know, draw a straight line through one vertex, right? Parallel to the opposite side, right? And so it distracts from whether the sides are equal or unequal or not, right? And so if you've done geometry, you have an experience of your mind as understanding the universal, and therefore in separation from the individual one. But any triangle that you would draw in the continuous would be either equilateral or have just two equal or nonequal, right? Now, imagination is still a bodily thing, and therefore it still has part outside of part, right? So Plato is kind of assimilating the natures of the species of natural things to the species of mathematical things, huh? Sometimes he'd assimilate the species of geometrical things to mathematical things, right? So he'd say a point is one, and a line is two, and a surface is three, and a body is four. Okay, which adds up to ten, plus three, plus four. So let's go back to the end of the paragraph. Mathematical species are able to be extracted by the understanding from sensible matter, not only from individual sensible matter, right? But also common, right? But not, however, from common understandable matter, but only from what? Individual understandable matter. A sensible matter is called bodily matter, according as it is subject to what? Sensible qualities, to hot and cold, hard and soft, and others of this sort. But understandable matter is said to be substance, according as it is subject to what? Quantity, huh? is manifest, however, that quantity is within substance before sensible qualities. Whence quantities, as numbers and dimensions and figures, which are terminations of quantities, are able to be considered without sensible qualities, which is for them to be abstracted from sensible matter. But they cannot, however, be considered without an understanding of substance subject to quantity, which would be to abstract them from common understandable or imaginable matter. They are able, nevertheless, to be considered without this or that substance, which is to abstract them from what? Individual understandable matter. Some things are able, there are, which are able to be abstracted even from what? Common understandable matter, such as being, one, ability, and act, those of this sort, which are also able to be without any matter, as is clear in the material substances. And those things are considered in wisdom, right? Wisdom is about being, and one, and built-in act, and so on. And because Plato did not consider what has been said about the two ways of abstraction, where you understand one thing without understanding another, right? And where you say one thing is not another, right? Because Plato did not consider what has been said about the two-fold way of abstraction. All things which we say are abstracted by the understanding, he laid down to be abstracted in things, in reality. Okay? So the mathematical things that are abstracted by our mind from sensible matter, he made in things, in reality, outside of our mind, existing by themselves separately, right? And the same way with the, what, universals, right? That correspond to our definitions, right? They are separated, universal from the singular, in our mind, huh? But he made them separated in, what, reality outside of our mind, huh? So that's to apply it to the second objection. Now, the third, moreover, in the third book about the soul, the objection again, it says that the images are to the understanding soul as colors to sight. But sight is not by abstraction of some species from colors, but through this that the colors are pressed upon the sight. Therefore, neither does understanding happen through this that something is abstracted from the images, but through this that the images act upon the understanding or press something upon it. Now, Thomas replies, to the third, it should be said that colors have the same way of existing insofar as they are in individual bodily matter as the, what, power of sight, right? And therefore, they are able to press upon the sight, their own likeness. But images, since they are the likenesses of individuals and exist in bodily organs, do not have the same way of existing that the human understanding has. And therefore, they are not able by their power to be impressed upon the possible understanding. But by the power of the agent-elect, the acting upon understanding, there results a certain likeness in the possible understanding from the conversion or turning upon of the agent-elect or the phantasm, which is representative of those things of which there are images, solely as far as the nature of the species. And through this way, intelligible forms are said to be abstracted from the images. Not, however, that there be the same what form and number, which was before in the phantasms, is if that afterwards comes to be the possible intellect, to the way in which one body takes from another body and transfers to another. So you're making, in a sense, a likeness like what is in the images, right? Okay, okay, but like it only in a universal way, huh? Now notice, it's made more... when you go back to the order which our knowledge develops because what comes first is sensing and then memory of what we sensed right and then we collect many memories of the same sort of thing and then we have an experience of that right so as a child you know there's a dog in the backyard and your mother says see the dog that's the first dog you've seen maybe right and another day you know she says you see the dog right okay so people are pointing out the dog and so you maybe remember something of what you saw the other day right so you have a bunch of memories of dogs gathered together in one into one experience of dogs right and then the age intellect right separates out what those many dogs have what in common right and that's the beginning of what understanding right and so Boethius always is quoted as saying the thing is singular when sensed right or even when remembered right experienced but universal when you begin to what understand it right yeah so we had this story about helen keller and how she first uh i guess um with her teacher there um i guess a big breakthrough was with water because the teacher kept pouring water on her hand at the pump and kept saying water water finally she grasped that that sense and that just opened up her okay now someone wanted to define what a shakespearean sonnet is right on his own what would he do yeah you get a book of shakespeare's sonnets and you'd read them and the individual sonnets right and you start to compare them right and then you start to notice what they had oh it seemed to be kind of the same length you know and then if you examine more closely you'd see that this is 14 lines and that is 14 lines and then you know you might start to notice things about meter and so on right until finally you'd see that a shakespearean sonnet is a what likeness of thought and feeling and 14 lines of iambic pentameter divided into three quatrains with alternate rhyming and completed by and then you'll see that there's a dynamic couple right that's common to all of them right okay except there's a couple there where shakespeare kind of plays on the uh italian sonnet where the first two quatrains are answered by the third quatrains and coupled together in the italian sonnet you have what an octet of eight lines answered by a sextet of six lines right right when the shakespearean sonnet or the english sonnet you have three quatrains that are kind of completed or summed up or something by a couple there sometimes he'll put the four with the two kind of the way the thought goes right it's amazing the other guy should write what 154 of those things all in the same what 14 lines huh it's kind of like like like that uh discipline of having to put in 14 lines all the time right i see the modern employed was you know it's you know it's confining oneself you know but actually it's forcing him to express himself better right it's like it's like mozart's respect for the musical forms you know and how very rarely departs from what's expected you know i mean like you know you keep the minuet you know like beethoven go on the skirts or something instead of the traditional form but then he can't bring out so much in those okay to the fourth huh okay aristotle does compare uh the agent elect to the light in the eyes right but it's not in every way similar right thomas will point it out here to the fourth it should be said that images um are illuminated by the understanding by the acting upon understanding and again from them through the power of the agent understanding intelligible forms are abstracted they are illuminated because just as the sensitive part from its conjunction to the intellectual part is rendered more but powerful so the images from the power of the agent understanding are rendered uh able that from them understandable intentions can be abstracted now the agent elect abstracts intelligible forms from the images insofar as through the power of the agent elect that we are able to take into our consideration the nature nature natures of the species without the individual conditions by the likenesses of which the possible intellect is what in form that's what we've been saying here right so it's our little prayer we say the light of my mind order lumen my images right now the fifth one was going back to what we'd seen before that we don't understand without turning to the images again right and thomas will point it out now to the fifth it should be said that our understanding both abstracts intelligible forms from the images insofar as it considers the natures of things in general right you see that you know most clearly in the simple science like geometry right where i realize that considering triangle you know universally right and that demonstration there right the demonstration lays out anything about whether the sides of the triangle are equal or unequal right it really says that you can draw a what line through a vertex any vertex of a triangle parallel to the opposite side right and then you demonstrate that the angles will have to be equal to two right angles so the fifth it should be said that our understanding both abstracts intelligible forms from the images insofar as it considers the natures of things in general and nevertheless it understands them in the images because it's not able to understand even those things of which it abstracts species except by what turning to the images right okay so if i want to see to go back to the proportion if i want to see the color of your clothes right i have to turn towards your clothes right even though my seeing the color of your clothes is in my eyes not in your garments huh okay but i still can't see the color of your clothes without turning towards your clothes right okay so likewise i can't understand that what it is is something sensed or imagined right without turning towards the image of that thing in my imagination right so my imagination is affected then my what thinking is affected right just as if your clothing is taken away from this room it affects my seeing the color of your clothing right even though my seeing the color of your clothing is not in any way in your clothing is it see not taking place there i mean it is in the subject it's taking place in my eye right but my eye is seeing the color of your clothing right so it's got to turn towards your clothing right i want to see your face i have to turn towards your face right so the object of our reason if it was something you know abstracted you know something existed out there in separation then we wouldn't have to what turn towards the image right but it's the what it is is something sensed or imagines we have to really imagine the thing right before you can understand that what it is is something imagined