De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 158: Knowledge of Immaterial Substances and the Agent Intellect

Transcript
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And eventually after that comes the last stage where you don't love yourself except for the sake of God. Which he says is hardly realized in this life, right? You know? Notice that love, right? You're loving... This is, you know, the little tree is the love of God. So you're loving God for your sake, you know, for your needs, before you're loving God for his own sake, right? And he for its story before you're loving yourself for the sake of God, you see? Yeah, but who's more lovable? You or God? You see? Well, you are more lovable than God. You are more lovable to yourself than God is in the beginning. But God is infinitely more lovable. God is good as itself, right? He's as good as every good as Augustine shows and Thomas shows, huh? See? But I'm more lovable to me in the beginning than God. You see what I mean? So what's more lovable to me is less lovable, right? Infinitely less lovable. And what is less lovable to me in the beginning is infinitely more lovable. You see? Well, it's like this with knowing, huh? What's more knowable to me is really less knowable. And what is less lovable to me is much more lovable. It's kind of interesting, you know, in the proof of the sins of God, we go all the way from motion, which hardly exists, to God, right? Something is knowable insofar as it's, what? An act. And motion hardly is actual. When I walk across the room, when does my motion exist? Well, part of it is always gone, and part of it is always not yet. And how much of it is ever there? Is any part of my motion ever there? Or is part of my motion always in the past? And part of it always in the future? Motion hardly exists. And yet it seems more real to us. Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, as the poet Shakespeare says. So what's most known to us? Motion. What most of all gets our attention is the least knowable of all. And we go all the way from motion to God, who's pure act. And therefore, most knowable. Notice the child's imagination is going to be more struck by Little Red Riding Hood. What's going to happen to Little Red Riding Hood when she gets to her grandmother's house? Then the child's imagination is going to be struck by, what? King Lear, Shakespeare, or Hamlet, right? But as you grow older and continue to read Little Red Riding Hood, at least to your children, but maybe to your children, right? See? You've exhausted, your imagination's exhausted at Little Red Riding Hood, huh? But people, you know, write books on Hamlet and still say they haven't exhausted the play. They keep it to be mounted, right? So, Hamlet is more imaginable. There's more for the imagination in Hamlet than there is in Little Red Riding Hood. But the child's imagination is going to appreciate Little Red Riding Hood before it appreciates, what? Hamlet, huh? The same way with painting, the child may be attached to the little drawing in his child's book, right? More than to the great painting, you know, that hangs, huh? You go into, you ever been into the Uffizi there in Florence? You go in there, you know, there's a whole room, you know, these famous paintings of Botticelli, right? You've got to fill in the room. Once you see in the books, you know all your life, you know? And when I, you know, this is my wife, I said, Rosie, let's stop here. I go further, you know? You're just incredible to see these paintings, huh? You see? But you can look at these paintings, you know, and you keep on seeing more in them. By the little child's drawing, you're kind of, what, exhausted, right? I know as a child, my mother would put the Christmas cards up over the fireplace and the mantel, huh? And some days, you kind of look up there, you know, you look up in your reading, you know, and you kind of... I noticed all your eyes, without thinking, would go down to the painting that had a reproduction of some famous nativity scene, right? Rather than all these modern ones that have a very simple drawing, right? But you exhaust them right away, there's nothing more to be seen. So, it's the same principle in all of these things, huh? What is more tasted by us is less tasty. What is more imagined by us in the beginning is less to be imagined. You see? What's more heard by me, the march, is to be heard there than there is the Mozart. That's true about the reason itself. Now we're down to the fourth objection. More of the commentator. Who's the commentator? Who's called the commentator of the Middle Ages? Averroes? Yeah. He commented on almost all the books of Aristotle. But Thomas should really be called the commentator by Antonio Massey. Aristotle means not what Averroes says he means always, but what Thomas says he means, he means. Thomas is the commentator. But anyway, Thomas uses it, huh? He milled it to you. More of the commentator says in the second book of the metaphysics, that if the abstract substances, that is one separate from matter, are not able to be understood by us, then nature would have, what? Done something idly, right? For it makes that which is naturally in itself understandable not understood by another, right? Of course, Thomas will say, well, gee whiz. But the angels understand each other, right? That's what it meant for us to be understood by them. But nothing is idle or vain in nature. Therefore, the immaterial substances can be understood by us, huh? So, but like, you know, when they talk about some of these subtle differences in wines, huh? And so on. I'm not sure that I taste those. They say, well, you know, my father-in-law, you know, because he had even the worst taste, sense of taste than I have, right? He says, they're all the same, he says. Because he drank some pretty lousy wine. Well, I can tell, you know, there's a good wine and a bad wine, you know, but some of these are very fancy with them, not too sure of my judgment, you know? You know, when they're comparing wines, you know, I say, which is the better, you know? I'm not too sure of my judgment. But there's somebody who can really judge these things, huh? You see? And when my students come to class, you know, I usually give them a tea, you know, halfway through, you know, just to perk them up a bit, you know? It's kind of a joke because I have these teas I get from this guy, another guy, but he's a very good tea man. And I say, do you want, you know, Jing Hong Ning Hao tonight? Do you want Hao Yat Kamun or something? And I was kind of joking about it last time. I said, I don't think I could tell them apart if you, you know, blind taste me on these things, right? Although they do, you know. But I'm sure the guy, you know, who sells these, he could tell them apart, you know? If you serve them blind, you know, you brought them a mug or one of these things, you know, you know what it was, you know? So, I mean, these differences are known and appreciated by people who've got a better sense of taste or smell, right? Than some of us might have, right? Okay? And it's like my brother Mark describing those painters he ran into in Detroit there, you know, where, you know, you know, oh, what an interesting shade of green, you know? Like, they've never seen that particular shade but they have much more, like a woman, they generally have many more names for particular shades, you know, aqua, you know, and I'm always getting crazy about my wife, you know, if I have the wrong name for which is blue, you know? But that's aqua, that's not blue. But they have more distinct knowledge of these things, huh? And the painter especially has a real sense of what, the difference between different colors, very subtle, you know? So these things are not lost. Many of us, most of us, they may be lost, but not, huh? Although Mozart has some very interesting remarks there, you know, some of the letters we have, he's talking about in some of his music. and how there are things in the music that only a connoisseur could really appreciate, right? But he says they're written in such a way that everybody will like them. It's kind of marvelous the way, you know. You can't do that with philosophy, right? They think that philosophy is only, you know, a very good mind can understand, you know. But they can't be written in a way that everybody understands them. But music can be done that way. The same way Shakespeare, right? I worked with this guy in the package store who had not picked up a book since high school, you know. His reading consisted of the daily newspaper, right? So I got into a conversation with him about Shakespeare, you know. But he recalls something about the seven ages of man in some Shakespeare play that he ran across in high school, and he was still impressed with that, huh? So something struck him about that, huh? See, and that's an as you like it, huh? Yacquist, words about the seven ages of man. The tiny little baby all the way up to that. Old man, you know, son's eyes, son's teeth, son's everything. That's stuck, you know. And this guy was like in his 70s, you know. He hadn't picked up a book since high school. Shakespeare. Actually, the subtleties of Shakespeare might be lost, you know, but somehow he recognized that, huh? Moreover, just as a sense, the fifth objection now. Moreover, as the sense has itself to sensible things, so the understanding to understandable things. But our sight is able to see all bodies, whether they are above and incorruptible, like the heavenly bodies are thought to be incorruptible by ancients, or they are lower bodies, incorruptible bodies. Therefore, our understanding is able to understand all understandable substances, both the lower and the higher, right? Including the superior ones and the immaterial ones. But against this is what is said in the book of wisdom, chapter 9. The things that you are in the heavens, who can investigate them? But in the heavens there are said to be these substances, according to that of Matthew 18. The angels of them in the heavens. Therefore, we're not able to know through human investigation the immaterial substances. I maintain, you know, that Anaxagrosis, this greater mind that Anaxagrosis talks about, is an angelic mind and not the divine mind. Because the greater mind he speaks of can act upon matter and move it by change of place, which is the way the angels move it. But it doesn't create matter, right? It's not responsible for the existence of matter, right? It's existence, the existence of matter is independent of the greater mind, huh? It's the angelic mind, not the divine mind, huh? It's interesting here the way he starts with the angels rather than God, right? It goes up to God. So you think we can know the angels, huh? We'll have to wait until next week to find out. Okay. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds. Order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us, and help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. We're up to question 88 there. I think we looked at the objections last time. We'll just start with the body of the article then. We'll see the objections again when we come back to the replies. I answer, it ought to be said, that according to the opinion of Plato, the immaterial substances are not only understood by us, but they are the first things understood by us. For Plato laid down that there were immaterial forms subsisting, which he called the forms. He laid them down to be the proper object of our understanding, and thus what is first and through itself understood by us. But the knowledge of the soul is applied to material things, according as imagination and sense are mixed up with the understanding. Hence, the more the understanding was purified, the more it would perceive the truth about immaterial things. If you read Plato in public, right, he speaks of our soul as being kind of turned towards material things, and then when you study mathematical things, which are kind of immaterial but not completely so, it's like turning the soul in, what, to the side, right? And then you turn all the way around, finally, and look at the other direction towards the immaterial world. Why for Aristotle, it's not like by turning away from the immaterial world, and therefore look at the immaterial world, but it's through the material world that you reason your way into the, what, immaterial world, okay? But you can see why Plato would be appreciated by the Church Fathers and so on, because they were concerned with the supernatural knowledge of God, and therefore, you know, you read about the dark night of the soul, and to use the words of St. John of the Cross and so on, there's a kind of, what, turning away from the sensible world, right? But that's to get a supernatural knowledge, through God's enlightening mind, huh? But naturally speaking, we don't come to know the immaterial world, except, or the immaterial world, rather, except through the material world, huh? Okay? But according to the position of Aristotle, which we more experience, he says, our understanding, according to the status of the present life, has a natural relation to the natures of material things, whence it understands nothing, except by turning itself to the, what, images, right? And that's why we interfere with the brain by, what, alcohol, or by drugs, or by even just being tired, right? And then these other ailments, you know, like, what is it, President Reagan has, huh? Alzheimer's. Yeah, yeah. I know somebody in the parish who has that, you know, and he's starting to, he doesn't really know people so well, and now he comes to church, right? Like, you know, he's seen me for 30 years, but he doesn't really know who I am, you know, he's friendly, but he doesn't, you know? And so, you can see that kind of relation to the brain, right? The brain is not the organ of thought, but the object of thought is there in some way, right? Because what it is is something you imagine, huh? And so, when the imagination of the brain is affected by whatever it might be, disease, or by these drugs, or whatever it might be, then there are fears of thinking, right? Okay? So, when Aristotle speaks of the, our reason's own object in the Dianima, he says it's the what it is of a thing sensed or imagined, right? The what it is of a natural thing or a mathematical thing, huh? And we don't know the material thing, immaterial things, except by reasoning from those things and by negating, you know, the materiality of them when we talk about the separated substances, huh? Okay? And thus it is manifest that the immaterial substances, which do not come under the sense and the imagination, huh? First and through themselves, according to the way that we experience of knowing, are not able to be understood by us. But nevertheless, Severoves, in his commentary in the third book on the Dianima, says that in the end, in this life, a man is able to arrive at this point that he understands the separated substances through a continuation and union of a certain separated substance to us, which he calls the agent intellect, huh? It's a strange opinion, huh? That the agent intellect was not a power of our soul, but there's a separated substance like an angel that was illuminating us, huh? Which, since it is a separated substance, naturally understands separated substances, huh? Whence, when it was perfectly united to us, so that through it we are perfectly able to understand, then we'd understand also us, the separated substances, just as now through the possible understanding united to us, we understand material things, huh? Now he laid down that the active understanding is thus united to us in this way. For since we understand through the agent intellect and through the understandable things looked upon, as is clear when we understand conclusions to beginnings understood, it is necessary that the agent intellect be compared to the things understood and looked upon, either as the chief agent is to the tools or as form is to matter, right? In a sense you could say that, right? Even about agents like that, huh? It's like the chief tool lighting our mind, huh? And the other things are like its tools, huh? For in these two ways, some action is attributed to two beginnings, to the chief agent and to the instrument, huh? Just as the cutting of the wood, right, is attributed to the artist himself and to the, what, saw, I guess that is, right? But to the form and to the subject, as heating is to what? Heat and fire. But in both ways, the agent intellect is compared to understandables looked upon as perfection to the perfectible and as act to ability. But at the same time, I received in something a perfection and his perfection, the perfect and his perfection, as the visible in act and the light in the pupil, the eye. At the same time, I received color and light, which makes the color actually visible, right? So at the same time, I received the understandable, I'm receiving what makes it, what, understandable, okay? Thus, at the same time, in the possible understanding, I received the things understood and the acting upon understanding. And the more we receive the things understood, the more we approach to this that the agent intellect is perfectly united to us. Thus, that when all things understandable are known, the agent intellect will be perfectly united to us. And we will be able through it to understand, what? Both material things and immaterial things. And in this, he laid down the last happiness of man, right? Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentilis, right? When he shows that man's true happiness, right? Is not to be found in this life, but only in the next life, right? But he talks about Averroes and people like that, right? We're straining, you know, to give us a knowledge more than our merely, what? Natural knowledge, right? And although they make mistakes as to how that is, they have some inclination to the truth, right? That it's something more than this natural knowledge we have. And of course, the Vedic Vision is not our natural knowledge, right? Supernatural knowledge. Nor does it make any... difference as far as pertains to proposal whether in that state of happiness the possible understanding understands separated substances through the acting upon understanding as he himself thinks or as he attributes to Alexander, right, that the possible understanding never understands separated substances on account of this that he laid down that the possible understanding was corruptible, but that man understands the separated substances through the acting upon understanding. Now, all of this cannot stand, he says, Thomas says, okay? First, because if the acting upon or the act of understanding, the agent understanding, is a separated substance, it is impossible that through it, as by a form, we understand, because that by which as a form an agent acts is the form and act of that agent, since every agent acts insofar as it is an act, just as also has been said above about the possible understanding. So it cannot be that a substance separated from me is that by which I formally understand. Doesn't make sense, huh? It has to be by some form within me by which I understand, right? Do you see that? How can I understand something by your understanding? See? If your understanding is not my understanding, right, my ability to understand, but it's your ability to understand. How can I understand something through your ability to understand? I can only understand something through my own ability to understand, huh? So the ability to understand to this separated substance, my guardian angel, wherever he is, right? His ability to understand cannot be my ability to understand, can it? No. So how can I be said to understand something by my guardian angel's understanding of something? I've got to understand something by an ability to understand within me, right? Make sense? How can I see him by your eyes? Huh? I've got to see him by an ability to see within me, right? I must hear you by an ability to hear within me, right? I can't hear him by an ability to hear within you, can I? No. That's what Thomas is saying there, right? Moreover, because according to the foresaid mode, the act of understanding, if it is a separated substance, is not united to us by its own substance, but only its, what? Light, according as it is partaken in the things looked upon, and not as regards the other actions of the, what? Acting upon understanding, so that we are able through it to understand separated substances. Just as when we see colors illuminated by the sun, there's not united to us the substance of the sun, so we are able to do the actions of the sun, right? But there's only united to us the light of the sun for the vision of what? Colors, right? Okay. Third, because given that in the foresaid way the substance of the agent intellect was united to us, nevertheless they do not lay down that the act of understanding is wholly united to us according to one thing understood or two, but according to all things understood, huh? Okay, you've got to have all these things you're able to naturally understand before you're going to be united with the agent intellect, huh? But all things are looked upon and understood fall short of the power of the act of understanding, because it is much more, much greater, right, to understand separated substances than to understand all material things. Whence it is manifest that even having understood all material things, the agent intellect would not be united to us, so that through it we would be able to understand, what? Separated substances. There'd still be a distance there, right? Fourth, because to understand all material things hardly happens to anyone in this world, and thus no one or very few would arrive at happiness, which is against the philosopher in the first book of the ethics, who says that happiness is a common good, right, to which all can arrive who are not efficient as far as which you are concerned. But it's against reason that the end or the purpose of some species be achieved rarely, right, utenpochioribos, right, by those things which are contained under that species. And fifth, because the philosopher himself says expressly in the first book of the ethics that happiness is operation according to perfect virtue. And having enumerated all the virtues, in the tenth book he concludes that the final happiness of manna consists in a knowledge of the things that are most understandable according to the, what, virtue of wisdom, right, which he laid down in the sixth book of the ethics, to be the head of all the speculative sciences. Once it is clear that Aristotle lays down that the last happiness of man is in the knowledge of the separate substances, such as can be had through speculative sciences, and not through a continuation of the agent-elect feigned by some people, right, when fictive, right, where did we get the word fiction, right, something made up, right, it's made up by some people, right. So wisdom is a, what, episteme, it's a reasoned out understanding, it's the highest reasoned out understanding, but it's not a continuation to the agents like the going to Aristotle. Moreover, it has been shown above, because above has been shown that the acting upon understanding is not a separated substance, but it's a certain power of the soul to which actively it extends itself to those things to which the possible understanding is receptive, right, okay, because as is said in the third book, the possible understanding is by which one can become all things, things, huh, the acting upon understanding by which all things can be made, huh, okay. So both understandings extend themselves, according to the status of the present life, to material things only, huh, which the acting upon understanding makes understandable and act, and they are received in the possible understanding. Whence, according to the status of the present life, neither by the possible understanding, nor by the acting upon understanding, are we able to understand immaterial substances by themselves, huh, okay. If you understand them at all, it's only through material things, right, which is to understand them as our causes and by way of negation, right, and they excel these things, but what they are in themselves we don't know, right, okay. Let's look at the objections now, huh. First objection is from Augustine there in the ninth book of the Trinity, that our our mind, just as it, what, gathers knowledge of bodily things through the senses of the body, so it gains, what, to itself a knowledge of, what, immaterial things, huh, which would mean, of course, the immaterial substances, okay. Now, there's a lot of truth to what Augustine is saying there, right, that the knowledge of the soul, and especially a knowledge of the understanding soul, and the way the understanding soul rises is about matter, right, and the immateriality of the understanding and the will and so on. That's the gateway to the understanding of the angels and of God, huh, so far as we can, right, okay. But does our knowledge of our own understanding soul enable us to know exactly what the angels are, or to know that they are also immaterial, and they also understand and they also will, right? And the same thing you know about God, right, you know, but they understand and will in a way superior to our way of understanding, huh, okay. Let me know what teacher Kassirik would say. The regarded angel watching you make a decision is like you watching an angleworm, right? Decide what to do. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that from that authority of Augustine can be had that that which our mind is able to get of the knowledge of incorporeal, or bodiless things, right? It is able to know through itself, right? And this is so true, he says, that even among the philosophers it is said that a knowledge about the soul is a beginning to knowing the, what? Separated or immaterial substances. For through this that our understanding knows itself, it arises at having some knowledge about the, what? Incorporeal, or bodiless substances. Such as it is able to have. Not that simply and perfectly it knows them by knowing itself, right? In some imperfect way, in other words, it knows the angels and even God by knowing its own, what? Rising above matter, and it's having certain powers that are not bodily, right? Right? Okay? But this would be even more true of the angels, right? That they're more independent of matter than we are, right? And their understanding is even more perfect, right? Okay? So, you know, when Aristotle talks about how a knowledge of the soul is so wonderful, right? Because it's, what, the best thing in the material world, the soul, right? And therefore the knowledge of the soul is kind of the best knowledge about natural philosophy. But also it's useful for knowing other things, right? And it's useful for ethics, right? Because the virtues you state in ethics are in different parts of the soul. And it's useful for logic, because logic is directing one of the powers of the soul. But then it's useful for what? What kind of knowledge we can have of the angels and of what? Of God, right? Okay? We have to understand our own understanding and our own will to realize what we can about God or the angels having an understanding and a will, right? But then we have to, what, negate the imperfection of our understanding and will. Thomas is always quoting Isaac, you know, who says, we have a intellectus ab umbratus, an overshadowed understanding. And we don't understand very much, right? And most of what we try to understand we have to reason out, and that's why when Shakespeare defines reason, he defines it as the ability for a large discourse looking before and after. Well, looking means trying to understand, right? So you have to make an effort to understand. Why the angels, when they understand, they understand everything they actually understand right away. Like you had all the arts and sciences already in you when you were born, right? I told you that by a little, my son Marcus and his little, you know, why can't we be born doing everything, you know? I have to go to study and go to school, right? I said, you ought to be an angel, I said. But we're, our mind in the beginning, as Aristotle says in the third book about the soul, is like a tablet which nothing is written. And you gradually start to write upon that as you gain experience and think about things. But the angelic understanding is filled with forms right away. So it can understand everything it naturally understands and everybody wants to. It's a nice way to be, right? See? You know? But I mean, you get a little hint of that. I know, even as a professor, there's certain things, you know, that I've taught over and over again, you know, and whenever I want to think about them, I can think about them, you know, and I understand them right away, you know? You see? But that's where the angel is in regard to everything that you can understand, huh? You see? So it's kind of pleasant, you know, to habitually understand, you know, things, huh? But the angel, you know, he habitually understands everything that he's able to understand. But it takes a long time to acquire the habit of geometry and so on, huh? And even, you know, you talk to people who read maybe Euclid one time in their academic life and they've gone to a great book school or something like Thomas Aquinas or, you know, St. John, something like that. But, you know, five, six, ten years down, the thing, they kind of forgot in the order, you know, huh? You ask them, you know, about how do you prove that and they kind of mixed up, you know, about how it's done, you know? And I find myself, you know, I have to go back and reread Euclid from time to time and then, oh, yeah, it's kind of marvelous the way he proves this or that, right? I was looking back at the fundamental theorem about parallel lines, right? What's the fundamental theorem about parallel lines? Do you remember what that was in there? Well, it's kind of a marvelous theorem on the other day. It wouldn't have figured out there. It says where, I'm not going to be 327. It says, when a straight line falls upon parallel lines, it makes the alternate angles what? Equal. Okay? Now, once you can see that these two angles are equal, then it's easy to show that this angle is also equal to that equal down there because of the what? This thing is equal. And then, if this angle is equal to the angle down there, then these two here will be what? Equal to right angles because these are equal to right angles and this is equal to that, right? But this is a fundamental theorem, right? Now, how does he prove that? How do you prove that? If these two lines are parallel, how do you prove that this line that falls upon them makes the different angles equal, huh? Yeah. You know, it's just this earlier theorem in geography where if you extend the side of a triangle, right, the interior angle is what? Greater than, right? Either of the interior and opposite angles, huh? So, I mean, the point is if you don't think about these things for a while, they almost seem to disappear, right? You don't have them in a habitual way anymore, huh? And so we're an intellectus abumbratus, an overshadowed understanding, huh? Of course, you know, it's under the images, right? Yeah. You say according to Isaac? Yeah, not the Isaac of the Old Testament, but I think he's a writer in Spain, I think, but he's quoted with some authority, you know, yeah, but, you see, in Latin, when you have the word intellectus, it's one of these words where it's said of the human understanding and of the angelic understanding, right? But I've explained this before, I think, huh? Sometimes a name which is said of two things, right? With the same meaning here, intellectus here means the ability to understand, right? But sometimes that name which is said of two things with the same meaning is kept by one of those two things as its own. And a new name is given to the other, right? And there's two ways that takes place, right? But one of those ways is when one of the things has completely and perfectly what is meant by the, what? Common name, right? And the other has, what? Defectively, right? And therefore it gets a, what? New name, right? So sometimes we say that ratio is intellectus, right? And sometimes we distinguish ratio and intellectus, right? Because the angel is able to understand even who wants to, anything he actually understands. And most of all, we actually understand, we never do come to understand, do we? And the few things we do, like geology, which is a simple, you know, things for us to understand, we have to constantly go ...back over it, because otherwise it escapes from us, right? So, we hardly understand, right? And so we get this other name here, the Ratio. And that's a very common way of naming things, a very common way that you have a name, equivocal, by reason. The other way is like when you have animals. I would say, animals said of what? Man and the beast. Well, the beast adds nothing significant to the idea of animal. So sometimes then it keeps the name animal, right? But man who adds something significant, understanding and reason and so on, gets a new name, right? So in one sense, man is an animal. In another sense, man is what? Divided against the animals, right? I always tell a story of how my mother didn't like me saying that man is an animal. I said, well, mother, I don't mean he's just an animal. Well, that's better, she said. You see? But this is just an animal, right? And we're not just an animal. So we get the new name, right? Okay? But this is two different ways, huh? Two different ways. One of the two things in which a name is said with the same meaning in mind, right? Is kept by one of the two, right? And the other gets a new name, right? It's like if you say, what is a boy? Is a boy a man or a woman? Which is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then, you might distinguish between the man and the what? The boy, right? And then the boy is like what? This way of speaking up here. Where the boy has imperfectly what a man is, right? And the same with the girl has imperfectly what a woman is, huh? Okay? So, those are two very common things, huh? When Aristotle was talking to categories, right? He says, disposition is divided into disposition. Now, habit is a firm disposition. One not easily lost, right? But disposition is easily lost, keeps the common name. And habit gets a new name because it adds something noteworthy. You're not just disposed in a certain way, but there's a firmness there, right? See? What we call a mood, right? You know, so we say, you know, he's in a bad mood today. What disturbed the boss? He's in a bad mood. But a mood is something that, what? Can pass in, you know, an hour or two, right? You know? Okay? Because it's easily lost, right? I'm in a sad mood or an angry mood or whatever the mood might be that I'm in today, right? But the habit is something, what? Firm and solid, right? This is the same way of speaking here as this one here and this one here, huh? Okay? You see the same thing with plant, right? You know, we might keep the word plant for the little things, and then the tree is not a plant. So if you go to the nursery where they sell plants, and you want to buy a tree, they wouldn't say you're going to buy a plant, would they? I'm looking for a plant for my aunt, you know? That's a little thing, right? But a tree is not a plant, then, right? But in another sense, a tree, of course, is a plant, huh? Do you see the idea? But because the tree is the most magnificent of all plants, and it towers above them, right? Sometimes it gets a new name, and the little tiny things, insignificant ones, so to speak, keep the common name, right? So you see that again and again, right? You know, the people are always talking about you shouldn't treat the girl like a thing, you should treat her like a person, right? Okay? But in some sense of the word thing, a person is a thing, right? Otherwise, you have to say a person is nothing, right? You see? So when you divide person against thing, it's this way of naming things, right? You see? And you find that again and again. And that's a very common way in which a name becomes equivocal by reason, right? But there are two different ways here, right? Where the common name is kept by one of the particulars as its own, right? And then the other thing gets a new name, right? But sometimes, like on the intellectists, because one of them alone has fully what is meant by the common name, right? And the other has defectively, right? And therefore, the defective one gets the, or imperfect one, gets the new name, right? Okay? It's like Aristotle sometimes, you know, we'll call an enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism. And the argument called example, a rhetorical induction, right? But then sometimes you'll distinguish syllogism against enthymeme, induction against the argument by example, huh? This is a very common, very common way of speaking. How many fingers do I have? See? So usually, like this, they'll say five, right? Then it's like this, they'll say what? Four fingers and a thumb. So notice, huh? These four keep the common name, and this one here gets, say what? A new name, because there's something that it has, that makes it stand out from the other ones, right? You see what I mean? So you might say I have four fingers and a thumb. And we say that sometimes, right? Other times, you say we've got five fingers, right? So the thumb is and is not a finger, right? Well, obviously the word finger is being used in two different senses there, right? Do you see? This is probably the best example, because it's very sensible, right? So you'll find that again and and again, huh? Sometimes, is sensing knowing, or what would you say? Yeah, in some sense it is. But sometimes people want to distinguish between sensing and knowing, right? Because sensing is a kind of, what? Imperfect knowing, right? And then when we stir, you know, restrict the word knowing there to the one that has this more fuller, fuller way. Okay. What about love and like, huh? If I love something, do I like it? Yeah. But sometimes, you know, I remember my daughter saying, I don't like this, I love it. So sometimes we say liking, loving is a form of liking, right? Love is a strong, right? Liking, right? But then sometimes we use the word like for a weak liking, right? And then for a strong liking, you get a new name, which is what? Loving, right? You see? So I could divide liking into loving and liking. Okay? Or it's like what you were in thinking, right? You know, I might say, do you think that two is half a four? Yes. Yeah, okay. But then, in that case, but you know that two is half a four, right? But now you're knowing is a kind of thinking, right? But sometimes we'll say to you, you know, is George Bush going to be reelected? And I say, yes. And you say, now, do you know that? Or do you just think that's so? Well, I think it's so. I don't really know it. You see? Well then, thinking is what? Kept by what? Well, it's uncertain thinking, right? And when you're sure about something, which is noteworthy, right? I'm sure what I think, then I know. When I'm not sure what I think, then I just think it's so. You see? So you can say knowing is a kind of thinking, but you can also divide knowing against thinking. You see that? But here it comes. because it's this one over here on the right side it adds something significant or noteworthy right to thinking which is what being sure okay well it's like the word doing now sometimes we distinguish doing from making okay but making something is doing something too so why does making get the new name and other activities call keep the what perfection well yeah it's not really the imperfection so much here but the fact that making has a product in addition to the doing right so uh they add something right yeah you're doing right so it gets a new name right and then actually like listening to mozart is doing something but it's not really making right okay or thinking through a geometrical theorem is doing something but it's not really a making in me or in a sense so that's those are very common ways which a name becomes equivocal by reason right but it a name which is said with more or less the same meaning of two things uh becomes equivocal by reason when it is kept by one of those two things and a new name is given to the what other yeah but there's two ways it takes place right okay one where one of them adds something noteworthy and significant huh and therefore gets a new name right the other where one of them has fully and completely or perfectly the common meaning and the other has deficiently right and therefore the deficient one gets a new name and the other keeps the name right okay but the one that's relevant to the text here is that understanding of the ability to understand instead of the human understanding and the angelic understanding right but because it's so defective in us then we are said to be what to have a reason rather than understanding right although in another sense you could say reason is an ability to understand right okay so you'll find this again and again this way of naming very very common very common yeah yeah but there's also another kind of way which a name becomes equivocal by reason and that is by being carried over from one thing to another right and a number of ways that takes place too but like healthy instead of your body let's say right and then healthy instead of your exercise or your diet or your complexion right but it's it's a big reason of a relation to the health of your body right because your exercise or your diet reserves or maintains your health or your complexion is said to be healthy because it's a sign of your health right okay so i think that there are two ways that a name becomes equivocal by reason right sometimes instead of just one thing right and then it's carried over to some other thing right the reason that thing having some connection with the first one or a likeness to the first one right the other way is when a name is actually said of two things right with some of the same meaning but then these two ways you got on the board here it's kept by one of them as its own name and then you get a new name for the other right you see so these are very very important important things okay so the second objection here like is known by like but our mind is more like immaterial things and material things since our mind itself is a material right therefore our mind understands material things much more does it understand immaterial things okay and thomas says to the second it should be said that the likeness of nature is not a sufficient reason for a knowing otherwise it would be necessary to say what impedically says that the soul was of the nature of all things in order that it might know all things but what is required for knowing is that there be a likeness of the thing known in the knower as a certain form of the knower but our understanding our possible understanding according to the status of the present life is apt to be informed by the likeness of material things taken from the what images huh and therefore it knows more material things than the what in immaterial things but the likeness is by which the angel knows come to it from what god and its creation because there's no likenesses in our possible understanding to begin with it's like a blank tablet right and the likenesses are gotten through the what agent intellect huh acting upon the images and drawing something from drawing something from them okay of course the sign of that is the fact that in like aristotle says in the fourth book of the physics there that the ancients thought that whatever he is must be somewhere in some place right so all they know about it first is what embodies right as he points out when he divides their opinions there in the second reading of the first book of natural philosophy he says um for them the investigation into natural things or to bodies and the investigation into what is was the same see and it's not until the great annaxagrist began to realize that there was a greater mind and this greater mind was not mixed with matter right and then later on when plato and and aristotle began to have reasons to think that the human soul could exist without the body right or that there was an unmoved mover who couldn't be a body right then they began to realize that what is is not to be identified with bodies and what is in bodies but they had a reason to the existence of such a thing right they had a reason to the existence of an unmoved mover and they had to reason out that the unmoved mover could not be a body because their body doesn't move things without being moved itself and so you have to reason out that there exist things that are not material and then you realize the first time in your life either what is is broader in meaning right than just the material or bodily things but most people are stuck at that first level where they identify uh bodies with material things huh okay and they um just like people normally imagine the soul to be a kind of what air-like substance right very fine body right but kind of you're like substance in the shape of a what human being and so you have that kind of amusing thing there in dante's divine comedy right where he encounters the souls of people you knew in this life like i i recognize your soul because it's got the same shape and you know but then he wants to to hug you know to embrace these people and of course how can you hug or embrace air right it's you know it's very frustrating right but uh that's not what the soul is the soul has no length or width nor depth nor has god any length or width or depth uh properly speaking right okay metaphorically speaking to god length or depth of the divine wisdom okay the third objection more of those things which um in themselves are most sensible are not most of all sensed by us this happens because of what the excessive or the excellences of sensible things corrupt the sense right so if something's too loud it's going to make you deaf right i used to work in my father's factory right you work with these men down there and they'd be whanging something oh my god now how can they stand that sound right well they become deaf to that sound from cracking it over these years right okay but the excellences of understandable things do not corrupt the understanding as is said in the third book about the soul