De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 152: Knowledge of Contingent and Future Things

Transcript
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And then we'll be able to see God himself in his very, what, essence or nature, but without completely, what, comprehending him. We'll never know God as much as he's knowable. But as St. John tells us in 1 Epistle, chapter 1, no, excuse me, 1 Epistle, chapter 3, verse 2, right? We shall see him as he is, right? Okay, in the big vision. We'll be talking about that in the later questions we talk about how we know things about us, right? So in that first objection there, you're confusing the way in which God is infinite with the way in which material things are said to be infinite, huh? Material things are said to be infinite because they're never, what, complete, like the division of the, what, the ability of the line to be divided is never fully made actual. It's never divided as much as it's divisible, right? See? Like God is infinite in the sense that his perfection, right, is not limited in any way, okay? So his infinity is based upon form. Infinity of matter is a quite different meaning, and it's based upon the lack of what? Form, right? Just like if you said a piece of clay, you know, I'll take another example, different from this one, but you might say that a piece of clay can be molded into how many shapes? Maybe there's an infinity of different shapes you can mold the clay into, but it can only be put into one of these shapes at a time, right? So when can you shape the clay with all the shapes it can have? You never can. You can give one shape and then give it another shape and another shape, but it exists only in succession, right? So it's an ability that can never be actualized, right? Complete to you all at once. When it has one shape, it's able to have some other shape, right? But if it acquires that one, it doesn't keep the one it has, it loses the one it has, huh? So there's a kind of infinity tied to matter that is based upon a lack of actuality, right? A lack of form, and it's through form that something is actually noble, okay? But God's infinity is based upon his perfection, upon his being, perfect form, huh? The second objection, talking about some genre having an infinite species. To the second it should be said that our understanding is apt to know forms by abstraction from images. And therefore those species of numbers and of figures which one has not imagined, it is not able to know either in act or in habit, except perhaps in what? In general, right? Okay? So I can know what an odd number is, right? And that's said of an infinity of things, right? But I can't know, right, all the odd numbers in particular, can I? And think of 3, 5, 7, 9, but I could go on all day thinking about odd numbers and never think about all of them, okay? Except perhaps in genus, or in general, right? And the universal principles. But that's to know, in a way, in, what, potency and in a confused or indistinct way. So you could say, when I know what an odd number is, in some way I know 3, 5, 7, 9, and all the rest. But an ability, right? And not distinctly one from the other. On the third objection here, to the third, it should be said that if two bodies were in the same, in one place, or many, it would not be necessary that they successively enter into the place. So that through this entering into would be numbered a what? The succession of entering into would be numbered to things located. But the understandable forms enter our understanding successively because we cannot together, enact, understand many things. And therefore it's necessary that they be numbered and not infinite the forms that are in our understanding. So we gradually, what, understand something about the triangle, right? And then I go on and understand something about the parallelogram, right? And then I get to book 4, I might be understanding something about the hexagon and the pentagon, right? So the forms in my mind, the triangle, the parallelogram, the pentagon, the hexagon, are coming in successfully into my mind, right? So do I ever get infinity of them in there? Do I ever get infinity of different figures in my mind that I've thought of? No. No. Successively. Okay. Now the fourth one is talking about the mind being so infinite. To the fourth it should be said that as understanding is infinite in its power, so it knows the infinite. For it is infinite power according as it is not what? Limited by some what? Material body, right? Or bodily matter, right? And it is knowing the universal, which is abstracted from the individual matter. And consequently is not limited to some individual. But as far as itself is concerned, it extends itself to what? Infinite individuals, huh? We can see of the senses, right? Because the eye is limited to colors and the ear to sound and so on, right? But my reason can what? Know color and sound and smell and all these things, right? It's not limited in that sense to what a subject can be, but its ability to know is never fully, what? Actualized, right? At least in this life, huh? Of course, if you know that you can't get something out of nothing, something is completely universal, right? And if everything is something, and knowing what something is, you know everything, right? But in a, what? Very general way. In a very, what? Instinct way, right? This is something. Okay? I know that everything is something, don't you? And besides everything, there's nothing, right? So I know everything. So my students will pick up on this, you know, I'm going to go home and tell my dad I know everything now. See? But it goes back to this distinction that we made in logic, huh? You know, in fact, it's one of the, the second kind of mistake, outside of language, is the mistake of what? Simply, and not simply, but in some limited way, huh? This is a mistake that Mino's making in the dialogue, huh? Mino's saying you can't investigate what you don't know. You can't direct your thoughts to what you don't know. Was that true? They were paying all these kinds of people to find the cause of cancer or some other disease, right? So do they know what they're looking for? Yes, they couldn't have quit, you have to say, right, huh? Yeah, when there's been a, you know, they discovered a body, somebody's been murdered, right? The police know who they're looking for, and they begin their investigation. Well, they don't know who murdered him, right? But they know they're looking for the murderer of so-and-so. So in some way, they know who they're looking for, right? And that can guide them a bit, right? Did he have any enemies? Anybody threatening him? Anybody standing to profit from his death? Et cetera, et cetera, right? You know? And that helps them to kind of, what, look at some people rather than other people, huh? You see? You see? You see? You see? You see? So you can know what you don't know. Sometimes I play with the students a little bit there with the question, right? And restate me this objection. When a student asks a question, does he know what he's looking for? Does he know what he wants to know? If the student says he knows what he wants to know, why bother asking me, right? He already knows what he wants to know, right? If he doesn't know what he wants to know, how can I help him? He doesn't know what he's asking, right? So in order to ask an intelligent question, you have to in some way know what you don't know, you see? And that's a good, interesting thing, right? But you see, if you can't see that distinction between what is so simply without qualification, what is so in this limited and perfect way, you couldn't answer his objection. The simple example I always use in class to illustrate the solution to me in those things is, I say, how many students are in class today of a fairly large class? Well, I don't know the number of students in class, right? But I know exactly how to get to what I don't know. And so I count the class and let's say I end up at 28. I count the class. How did I direct myself to 28? Did I know I was looking for 28? No. But yet I directed myself to 28 with the greatest of ease, right? Well, how did I direct myself to 28 if I didn't know where I was going, see? Well, I knew 28 in a way already, didn't I? Because 28 is the number of students in class. And I knew I was looking for the number of students in class. And knowing that I was looking for the number of students in class was enough to tell me I should count. And when I counted, I came to know simply, you know, without qualification, 28, right? Which I only knew in kind of a general way to begin with. Do you see that? So, you could say, say, couldn't have quit, right? In some imperfect way, man, in knowing what an odd number is, knows inability, you might say, in a confused way, in a general way, an infinity of things, huh? Okay? That's important, you know, when Aristotle was taking up the wise man in the beginning of wisdom there. And he says, wisdom is a knowledge of all things, right? The wise man knows all things. So far as is possible for a man, right? And he can't know all things in particular, but maybe he can know even infinity of things in some way, right? Why God would know all things simply, without qualification. Okay? Those are the two things that our friend Farabak is confusing, right? God is some pichy terror, infinity to us, huh? But our mind is, what? In some way, in some imperfect way, infinite, huh? It's knowledge, huh? Okay. So now we go on to Article 3. To the third one proceeds thus, huh? Incidentally, these things he's asking about our mind, you know, when you take up the mind of God, you ask these same things about God's mind, right? Does God know an infinity of things? Does God know contingent things, right? Does God know the future, right? You know? Of course, the answer would be somewhat different for God, and for us, to say the least, huh? Okay? To the third one proceeds thus. Thus, it seems that our understanding does not know contingent things. Now, contingent things are things that can be, and what? Not be. As opposed to necessary things, right? Which cannot, huh? And as opposed to impossible things, which cannot be, right? But contingent things are things that can be, and not be. The first objection is taken from the sixth book of the Nicomarcan Ethics, where Aristotle talks about these three virtues of looking reason, and understanding, and wisdom, and science, or reasoned out knowledge. Aristotle points out that they are not about contingent things, right? But they are about necessary things, huh? So if you've done a little bit of sciencia in Euclid, right? You know these things are, what? Necessary, right? When straight lines intersect, those opposite angles are necessarily equal. They must be equal, huh? Moreover, as is said in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, the so-called physics, those things which sometimes are, and sometimes are not, are measured by time, right? But our understanding abstracts from time, just as from the other conditions of matter. Since, therefore, it is proper, or it belongs to contingent things, to sometimes be, and sometimes not be, it seems that contingent things are not known by, what? Our understanding, huh? Now, but against this, every science is in the understanding. But some sciences are about contingent things, as the moral sciences, which are about human acts subject to, what? Free judgment, huh? Subject to free will. Well, and also, natural sciences, as far as that part of them, at least, that treats of things that are generated and corrupted. Therefore, understanding has knowledge of, what? Contingent things, huh? So Thomas makes a distinction here. I answer, it should be said, that contingent things can be considered in two ways. In one way, as they are, what? Contingent. In another way, as in them, is found something of, what? Necessity, huh? For nothing is so contingent, but that in it, there is something necessary. Just as this, for example, that Socrates is, what? Running, right? In itself, it's on the contingent, right? He can run and not run, right? But the relation of running to motion is necessary. For it's necessary for Socrates to move if he runs. Right? Okay? Now, each thing is contingent because of matter. Because the contingent is what is able to be and, what? Not be, right? And this ability to be and not be pertains to matter. But necessity follows the, what? Notion of form. Because those things which follow upon form of necessity are it. That's why geometry, right? You have a complete necessity in geometry because there's no matter there. Okay? So you have all these interesting things, right? Triangle, the interior angles must be equal to two right angles, huh? Exterior angle of a triangle is always equal to two interior and opposite. Must be. One of the things that we show, right? But because you have no matter there. Okay? Matter, however, is the principle of what? Individuation, huh? We've spoken about that before, right? Why can you have many individual chairs of the same kind exactly here in this desk or this table? I have enough metal. You have enough metal, right? Why can you have many window panes there that could be exactly the same, huh? In kind, huh? Because you have enough glass, right? So it's some kind of matter, like metal or glass, as subject to quantity, huh? That can be divided up, right? So if the woman rolls out the dough and she can make how many cookies? Well, it's the dough as what extended, and therefore divisible, that can give you many individual what? I've got cookies over mine, you see? I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine, I've got cookies over mine. Inmaterial cookies. No, we want material cookies because this is what Teddy Hill is doing. They're real fun you want here. My grandmother used to be a very great cookie maker. I think that's where I got my first love of cookies. She'd come down after my birthday, maybe come visit or something, and she'd bring some present, but I didn't remember what the present was, but she'd bring a box of homemade cookies, and they seemed to be the best ones that I ever had. I still insisted, you know, her sugar cookies and her scotch bread cookies and the rest of them were the best of their kind, you know, that they were never equaled in my subsequent life, you know. The ones that were able to equal them, my grandmother. So there's Mozart and there's your grandmother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, her motto was, I aim to please. What a motto for a woman, isn't that marvelous? Okay, we'll go back to beginning the paragraph. And each thing is contingent because of matter, right? Because a contingent is what is able to be and not be, but that ability to be and not be pertains to matter. That's in a sense what matter is. But necessity follows upon the definition of form, because those things which follow upon form of necessity are in something. But matter is the principle of individuation. But the universal notion is taken by the, what? Separation or abstraction of form from particular matter. For it has been said above that, per se, and directly the understanding is of, what? Universal, so. Like we did in the Dianima, that the proper object of our understanding is that what it is is something sensed or imagined. But the what it is is something, what? Universal. So what a triangle is is something universal. What a circle is is something universal. What a dog is is something universal. What a chair is is something universal. Okay? And that was Plato's discovery, right? That in material things, and even in these imaginable things, these geometrical things, the individual and what it is are not identical. And when the reason understands what a triangle is, it's understanding something universal. So we often quote Boethius there, talking about Porphyry's work. So when I see this chair or feel it, it's an individual chair, right? I understand, what is this? What is this? It's a chair, right? Then it's now become something universal, separated from the individuating conditions of matter. That's because the mind is immaterial. It's necessary to separate it from the individuating conditions of matter. Part outside of part, huh? Okay? We've talked about that before, huh? You know? You can see that, huh? In the parts of a, you know, if you look at the parts of a circle, the individual circle, let's say this here, this part and this part, they meet at a common boundary, right? And say if you have a square, right? You can say this part and this part meet at this line, huh? But now when I understand what a square is, and I signify in words what I understand, huh? That this is a equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. Does the equilateral and right-angled and quadrilateral do they meet at a line? Do they meet at a point? Do they meet at a surface? And this is the other definition of the continuous, huh? One definition of the continuous is that which is divisible forever. The other definition is it's a quantity whose parts, what, meet at a common boundary, huh? So, the left and the right side of the line meet at a point, huh? Two sides here of the square and a line and the two sides of the chalk here have a surface, huh? A plane. But the parts of a, what, definition don't meet. If he's not at a point, equilateral and right-angled, you'd have, what, this would be a line. But obviously it's not a line, huh? Okay? And we saw before, of course, too, how thoughts are not divisible, what, forever. So between the two points of the line there's always a stopping point in between, huh? And so on. But this is not true about thoughts, huh? Remember how we're taking the example of the syllogists in there, right? So you lay down that every mother is a woman and then you put next to that no man is a woman and there's only one thought that comes next. But no man is a mother, right? It's like that in the definition, too, right? You want to go from quadrilateral to square. When you add the quadrilateral right-angled, you're not at square yet. But you add equilateral and right-angled and you're at square now. And there's no other stopping points in between, right? Between quadrilateral and right-angled or equilateral. But in the continuous there's no such thing as the next line, huh? Next bigger circle. Is there a next longer line? Well, not if the line is divisible forever, right? It's not a next one, huh? Her style is often saying in the text, a next. But if thinking was material and continuous, huh? If you really had a line of thought, you know, or a line is something continuous, then there wouldn't be a next thought, would there? Just think the trouble would be at teaching, right? You know, it's like going from taking the train, let's say, from Worcester to Boston and it's going to stop at Framingham, but someone wants to stop at some other place before you get to Framingham and then some other place before that, and so on. You'd never get out to, get to Boston, would you? If you had to stop at all the intermediary things. You should have talked about this first, professor, before you went to that. You know, we used to talk about a good lecture sometimes, you know, you'd kind of anticipate almost the next thought, right? Because he's kind of leading your mind along step by step, huh? But sometimes, you know, if he jumps, right? You see? But if thought was continuous, you're always making a jump, right? And leaving out all the things in between, huh? You'd be jumping from point to point, huh? And never completing any line of thought because it would be impossible to. How many points did you have to make in order to make any point? Yeah. So thoughts are like numbers and not like the continuous. So it has been said above, that per se and directly the understanding is of universals and sense of the, what? Singulars. Of which also indirectly, right? By reflex, huh? Coming back. In some ways, the understanding has been said above. If therefore contingent things, insofar as they are contingent, are known directly by sense, I mean, thus therefore, yeah, I say, contingent things, insofar as they are contingent, are known directly by, what? Sense. And only indirectly by the understanding. But the universal necessary reasons of contingent things are known by the, what? Understanding, right? Once, if one pays attention to the universal definitions of things knowable, all sciences are about necessary things, huh? If however one pays attention to the things themselves, thus some sciences is about necessary things and some about, what? Contingent things, huh? And from this is clear the reply to the, what? Objection. So it goes back to the distinction he's making there at the beginning of the body of the article, right? Does time ever stand still? English is interesting, the English word to understand. And the word itself comes from the word to stand, right? So how can you understand something that doesn't stand still? Well, could you make this distinction that he makes you at the beginning, right? Is there something that stands still in time? Universal honor, not in time. Well, doesn't time always have a before and after? So there's something of necessity there, right? Or take change, huh? You know, the Heraclitans are saying that everything's changing, everything's flowing. You can't say anything because it'll be changed before you can finish your sentence, right? But if you say that what changes is other now than it was before, right? Does that ever change? Does a thing ever change without becoming other than it was? What do you say? No. So if I say change is becoming other, either in quality or in place or something, right? I have an unchanging knowledge about change, okay? But if you descend to this in the concrete, right, you're talking about a situation that is always fluid, right? You can't really characterize it because it's going to be different before you finish your description of it, right? So we want to take a little break before our next article, or what? Sure. Okay. Future. Future things. To the fourth one proceeds thus, it seems that our understanding does know future things. First objection. For our understanding knows through understandable forms, which abstract from the here and now, and thus they have themselves indifferently to all time. You can see that in the first act, anyway, right? When you understand what a dog is, is that past, present, or future? It seems to abstract all of them, right? Sure. Okay. But it's able to know present things, right? Therefore, it's able to know future things. Moreover, man, when alienated from his senses, is able to know some future things, as is clear in those, what? Sleeping, right? And in the, what? Mentally disturbed, I guess, huh? Frenetic. But when he is alienated from his senses, his understanding is more, what? Vigorous, huh? That's maybe a question now. Okay. Therefore, the understanding, quantum est de se, as parents itself, is able to know the future things. Aristote has, you know, a book on dreams, right? He also has a book on prophesying my dreams, huh? Okay? And of course, we're kind of familiar with St. Joseph and other people being, what? Inspired, right? Enlightened, you might say, right? By, what? In the dream, right? You know, flee, go down to Egypt, or come back from Egypt, and so on, right? Moreover, the understandable knowledge of man is more efficacious than the knowledge of any, what? The beastly animals, the brutus. But there are some animals which know the future, right? As the, what? Cornicule, what are they? Crow. Yeah. They signify there's going to be a future, what? Rain, huh? Okay? Therefore, much more is the human intellect able to know future things, huh? And notice here, huh? There's some evidence that the animals seem to have some knowledge of when the weather's going to change, huh? That we don't seem to have, right? Why aren't we superior in our knowledge, huh? Without understanding to them? Of course, the second objection, you took those who are kind of mentally sick, almost, not for any cheese, right? Okay? And maybe there's something to this, right? But it's said against all this in the book of Ecclesiastes, much or many, much is the affliction of man, who is ignorant of past things and in no way is able to know the, what? Future things, right? I answer it should be said that about the knowledge of future things, in the same way one should distinguish as about the knowledge of contingent things. For future things, as they fall under time, are singulars, which our understanding, the human understanding, does not know except by a coming back upon itself, right? As we said above, we saw it the other day, remember? It knows directly only the what it is, right? The universal, but then it comes back upon its own act and upon the image of which it was taken, another kind of indirect or reflect knowledge of the, what, singular, but the reasons for future things are able to be universal and perceptible by the understanding. And about these also, there can be sciences. So they can predict, right, an eclipse of the sun, right? But that we may speak in general about the knowledge of future things. It should be known that future things are able to be known in two ways. In one way, in themselves, right? In another way, in their, what? Causes, right? And in themselves, future things are known, not able to be known, except by God, whose knowledge is not in, what, time, but in eternity, to which are also present future things, huh? Insofar as his eternal insight at the same time is over the whole, what, course of time, huh? So Thomas, you know, when he talks about eternity there, you'll use this little comparison here that the moments of time are like the points on a one circle, and one is before or after another one, right? But the eternal now is outside of time, it's not in time. It's like the center of the circle, right? Now the center of the circle is directly opposite each one of these, right? So every moment of time, past, present, and future, are present to God in his eternal now. So he's seeing all of them in his eternal now. But in time, what is before and after another? That kind of amazing thing there, the eternity. That's how Boethius develops their definition of eternity, right? An understanding of God's now is the future there in the last book of the Consolation of Philosophy.