De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 159: Knowledge of Immaterial Substances and God

Transcript
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Therefore, those things which in themselves are most understandable are most understandable to us. But since material things are not understandable except because you make them understandable and act, by separating them from matter, is manifest that the substances which in their very nature are material are by themselves or in themselves more understandable. Therefore, they are more understood by us than material things. So he's saying the angels and a foresearing God, they're more understandable than material things. So if we understand the less understandable things, we should understand the more understandable things. But as Aristotle pointed out long ago, what's more understandable is less understandable to us. To the third, it should be said that there's required some kind of proportion of the object to the knowing power, as of the active to the passive, and of perfection to the perfectible. Whence that excelling sensible things are not grasped by the sense, not only is the reason because they corrupt the sensible organs, but because they are not proportioned to the sensitive powers. Just like there are things that are not proportioned to our ears, and the dogs hear them, right? And in this way, the immaterial substances are not proportioned to our understanding, according to the present state, so that they are not able to be understood by us. In philosophy, a lot of times they show it through less universal statements. Which is more known to us, the cause or the effect? Okay. Yeah. But the cause really illuminates the effect, doesn't it, right? So the cause is more illuminating than the effect, but it's less known to us, right? So what is more illuminating is less understood by us, right? So that's one way we show that what is more understood by us is less understandable. And of course, men often know the effect and don't know the cause, right? Or they know the effect, and they're sure about the effect, but they're not sure about the cause. So the effect is fully knowable only in the light of the cause. But we know the effect more by itself than in the light of the cause. So what is more understood by us is less understandable. It's more dark, right? And the other place where Aristotle applies that is the fact that we know things more in a confused way than a distinct way, right? What's that chair that's up there? I think it's a wooden chair, right? Okay. Right? What kind of wood is that? I don't know. So it's more known to me that in kind of a vague way what it is, right, than in a precise way. What's more known to us is less known, right? A thing is more known when it's known distinctly and clearly, right? But things are more known to me when they're known in a vague and imprecise way. I'm more sure about that, right? Yeah. If you gave me a glass of dry red wine to drink now, I'd be sure I'm drinking maybe dry red wine. Pretty sure, I think. Might be dry blueberry for all I know. But anyway. But the particular kind of wine, I maybe wouldn't know, right? So it's a sign, right? What's more known to us is less known. When the wine is known to be Carbonet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, 1985, right? It's more known, right? But less known to me. It's more known to me that it's dry red wine. Less known that it's Carbonet Sauvignon. And least known that it's Carbonet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, 1985, right? Okay, the fourth argument was that this is the argument that these separated substances would be in vain if they couldn't be understood by us, right? Thomas and Letts. An argument or reason that in many ways is deficient, huh? Because it does not follow that if the separated substances are not understood by us, it doesn't follow that they're not understood by some understanding, right? For they're understood by themselves and by each other, right? And secondly, it's not the end or purpose of these separated substances that they'd be understood by us. And that is idle or in vain that does not, what? Achieve the end to which it is, right? And thus it does not follow that the material substances would be in vain even if in no way they were understood, what? By us, right? It's like saying, you know, the geometry is in vain because my cat can't understand it. Okay. Morver, the fifth objection. As the sense has itself to sensible things, so the understanding to the understandable. But our sight can see all bodies, whether they be the higher bodies and the incorruptible bodies, like the sun, moon, stars are thought by them to be, or the lower bodies, right? And the incorruptible bodies, like the animals and the plants and the stones. Therefore, understanding can understand all, what? Understandable substances. The higher and the lower, right? To the fifth, it should be said that in the same way, sense knows the higher and the lower bodies, namely through the change of the organ by the sensible. But not in the same way are understood by us, the material substances, which are understood by way of what? Abstraction from the senses or the imagination, and the immaterial substances, which are not able to be known by us in this way, because there are no images of them, right? Okay? So if you want to have a picture of your guardian angel, there is no such thing. Right? I want to have a picture of God the Father and God the Son, right? There is no such thing, right? It's like a metaphor, in a sense, right? Isaiah said the image there, you know, of God sitting on the throne, right? Is that God in himself? No, he has no length and width and depth, right? So we have the second article here. We'll take our break here. Now this is the other side of the question. To the second, one proceeds thus. It seems that our understanding, right, through a knowledge of material things, is he able to arrive at understanding the immaterial substances. For Dionysius says in the first chapter of the celestial hierarchy, and what Elbert the Great commented on that, right? Thomas commented on the divine names of Dionysius. But Thomas often refers to this work, right? For an understanding of the angels. For it is not possible for the human mind to be aroused to contemplation, right, of that celestial hierarchy, unless it be led by the hand, right, by material things. It remains, therefore, that through material things, we can be led by the hand to understanding material substances. That's a little bit like the objection from Augustine in the previous article, right? It can in some way be led to some kind of knowledge, but not a knowledge of what they are, right, but a knowledge that they are, and what they are not, and something by way of likeness to our own mind, huh? Moreover, sciencia or science is in the understanding, but there are sciences and definitions about the material substances. For, say, John Damascene defines angel, right? And about the angels, there are some things treated, both in the theological as well as in the philosophical disciplines. Therefore, material substances are able to be understood by us. Mm-hmm. Moreover, the human soul is of the genus or the kind of immaterial substances, but it can be understood by us through its own act by which it understands material things. Therefore, the other material substances can be understood by us through their effects in material things. Moreover, that cause through its effects cannot be comprehended, which infinitely differs from its effects, right? But this is proper to God, right? Therefore, the other immaterial substances that are created can be understood by us through material things. So you understand something to its effect, it's got to be an effect that is proportioned to the whole ability of that object, right? He's saying, well, it's only the case of God that the effects are not revealing its whole power, right? And therefore not its whole nature. But we'll see about that. But again, this is what Dionysius says in the first chapter of the Divine Names, that understandable things by sensible things, and simple things by composed things, and bodiless things by bodily things, we are not able to, what, grasp? I answer, it should be said, that as Averroes narrates in the third book about the soul, Avampache, right? Another Arab philosopher, but not as eminent as Averroes or Avicenna, right? He laid down that we are able to arrive to our understanding of immaterial substances according to the true principles of philosophy. I'm just reading that right there, right? He laid down that through the understanding of material substances, right? We are able to arrive, according to the true principles of philosophy, to understanding immaterial substances, right? And this is the way Avampache proceeded, right? For since our understanding is naturally apt to separate the what-it-is of immaterial thing from matter, if again in that what-it-is there is something of matter, it could again abstract from that, right? And since one does not go on forever doing this, finally it arrives at understanding some what-it-is that is altogether without matter. And this is to understand an immaterial substance. Now, this would be sufficiently said if the immaterial substances were in fact the forms and species of these material things, as the Patonists understood or laid down, right? For this, with this not being laid down, but supposed that the immaterial substances are an entirely different definition from the what-it-is of immaterial things, no matter how much our understanding abstracts the what-it-is of immaterial things from matter, never does it arrive at something like, what, the immaterial substance, huh? And therefore, through material substances, we are not able, perfectly, he says, you're not going to deny entirely, perfectly, the immaterial substances, huh? Okay? Now, the first objection was from Dionysius, huh? Who seems to be saying that we can come to know the angels through material things. And Thomas is going to make a distinction here, right? In some imperfect way, we can know the angels through material things. And even God, right? Okay? To the first, therefore, it should be said, that from material things, we are able to go up, right? Into a some knowledge of immaterial things. Now, however, can we ascend to a, what? Perfect knowledge of them, right? Because there's not a sufficient comparison of material things to immaterial things. But the likenesses, if they are taken from material things, are much, what? Unlike, right? For understanding immaterial things. As Dionysius himself says in the second chapter of the celestial hierarchy, right? So he's saying you can't, what? Understand them except, perhaps, by way of likeness, right? But they're not exactly like the immaterial things, right? So you're going to have a deficient and imperfect knowledge of the immaterial things, through the immaterial things, huh? Second objection. Some things are said about these immaterial substances, right? In the sciences, that's what he's saying, as Damascene says. To the second, it should be said, huh? That about the higher things in the sciences, we most of all treat by way of what? Negation, right? Removal. For thus, also, the heavenly bodies, Aristotle makes known, huh? Aristotle thought that the heavenly bodies were not, what? Ah, didn't have weight, you know? They wouldn't fall down, right, huh? But that's negation, right? Okay? They're not corruptible, like the bodies down here. They seem to go on forever, right? Okay? So he's knowing them negatively, right? The way for it's your, you're going to be knowing the immaterial substances, as the word immaterial indicates, negatively, right? Okay? For thus, Aristotle makes known these celestial bodies by a negation of the properties of lower bodies, huh? Whence much more are the immaterial substances not able to be known by us, right? So that we grasp what they are, right? Their quinnities, right? Their natures. But about them in the sciences, certain things are treated by way of negation, right? And by way of somewhat relation to material things, huh? Okay? That's the same way we know God, right? We say God is the unmoved mover, right? Well, mover is knowing him in a way in relation to, what? Material things, right? And unmoved is, of course, a, what? Negation, right? So we know them by negation and by relation to material things, huh? Okay, now the third one is saying that our soul understands itself, but it's an immaterial substance, huh? To the third, it should be said that our soul understands itself through its own understanding, which is its own, what? Act, right? But an act perfectly or fully showing its, what? Power and therefore its nature, right? But neither through this nor through other things which are found in material things are we able to know fully the power and the nature of immaterial substances, right? Because these do not equal their, what? Powers, right? Okay? And that's a fortiori true about God, right? Okay? If you go to that text, if you look at it very carefully there in Romans, chapter 1, verse 20, you know, the one the church takes and understands to be saying that it's possible to have knowledge of God through creatures, right? But he'll talk about the virtus there, huh? And the nature of God, right? But it doesn't equal his whole power, right? What he's made, huh? So it doesn't give you an adequate knowledge of his very, what? Substance, huh? Okay? Or some kind of perfect knowledge. Okay, now the fourth objection was saying that, well, this maybe is true about God, but not about the angels, they're not far apart. I was quoting Kiseric before, I remember, where he's saying, you know, when you first see your guardian angel after your death, you say, wow, this is God, right? What a wonderful thing he is, you know? And the angel's like, no, no, no, I'm not God, you know? But to be such a, you know, oppression, you know, he's going to make a compression upon you, your guardian angel after your death, right? And she'll think he's God, you know? Brave new world, huh? They have such creatures in it. And you know, you have these lines in, you know, brave new world, and he took that thing from, what, the tempest, right? Didn't you know the tempest of Shakespeare? I never read it, I've heard of both of the world right now, right? But her father, was forced out of his kingdom, right? To put in a boat. And she's just a little girl, right? So she's growing up with her old father on this island. So your own experience of men is this old man, right? And all of a sudden, you know, shipwrecked there. Young man, lands on the island, right? Brave new world, she says, you know? It has those creatures in it. She's amazed, huh? She's filled with wonder, right? Of course, her name is Miranda, right? Which comes from the Latin word for wonder. Okay? But I say, when you see the angels, you say, oh, brave the world, right? That it has such creatures in it. You know? I say, God loves doing this wonderful incarnation, you know? Yeah? Because the angels will be much, much superior to anything you ever knew in this world. You know? Amazing excellence, right? He says, the created immaterial substances, in a natural genus, do not come together with material substances because there is not in them the same definition of potency or ability in matter. But they come together in a logical genus, huh? Okay? We have a common thought about them, right? The angel, like us, is a thing that exists not in another, right? Okay? As opposed to an accident, right? Okay? But what's fundamental in them is something quite different than in material things. Because the material substances are also in the category, the predicament, that's the Latin word for the categories, a substance. Since they're what it is, is not their being. But God does not come together with material things either in a natural genus nor in a logical genus. Because God is in no way in a genus, huh? That's something we learn about God. Whence through the likenesses of material things something affirmatively can be known about the angels by a common notion, although not according to their what? Particular kind of thing they are, right? But about God in what? No way, right, huh? So we can know the angels a little bit more than God, huh? From material things. But still we can't know them in particular what they are. You know, I mean, it's very interesting, I think, when the soul is separated from the body, right? Because all my life I've been living in the material world, right? And when my soul is separated from the body, and before it's reunited, huh, I'll be living entirely in the immaterial world, right? That's strange, isn't it? Think about that. And of course, when I get back my body, my body will be entirely subordinate to my soul, right? So, I've got a really different life ahead of me, huh? Quite different, huh? Very strange. Which of creatures we are, huh? You just shuffle it off, this mortal coil, as Hamlet says, right? Who knows the dreams may come to us? Want to take a little break now before we do one more article here? This is a common opinion of some people there in the Middle Ages, huh? For that in which all other things are known, and by which we judge about other things, must be the first thing known by us, just as light by the eye, and the first principles, or first beginnings, by the understanding. But all things in the light of the true, of the first truth, we know. And by it, we judge about all things, as Augustine says in the book about the Trinity, in the book about, what? True religion, huh? Therefore, God is that by which we, what? God is that which first is known by us, huh? Okay? You see, Augustine, you know, his way of speaking is not as precise as Thomas, right? And he'll say, you know, that by the first truth, by the eternal truth, right, we judge of all the things, right? And you could take those words and say, well, then isn't Augustine saying that this is what's first known by us, because we judge everything else by it. Everything else by it, right? See? And actually what takes place is that, naturally speaking anyway, we judge by our natural understanding, huh? See? You know? Let me go back to that proportion, that weight these gifts, huh? Give, I get it. You've seen this proportion before. That reasoning is to understand understanding. Something like motion is to, what? Rest, right? So in the mind, reasoning is going from one thing to another, right? And therefore, reasoning is like emotion, isn't it? Where understanding, as the name itself indicates, stand, is like a, what? Rest, right? Okay? Now, most of our understanding is a result of reasoning or thinking about something, right? So we have to think about something before we understand it, right? But when we think it out, then we finally understand it, right? Or when we reason it out, we understand it, right? So, I speak of a reasoned out understanding, right? Okay? And that's why I kind of translate Aristotle's word episteme. The episteme in Greek comes from the Greek verb for coming to a halt or a stop. So it names a rest after emotion. Okay? So, this word episteme in Greek, I translate it by reasoned out understanding, right? It's a rest and understanding that comes after emotion, right? Okay? But now, I say to students, you can understand rest as before or after emotion. I'm at rest now, right? And this is before this motion, right? And now I'm at rest again. Okay? Now, I say, is there also an understanding before reasoning as well as this reasoned out, thought out understanding? If you understood nothing before reasoning, right? If all understanding was a result of reasoning, right? So if there's no understanding before your reasoning, if you understood nothing before reasoning, what could you reason from? Right? Okay? So, this understanding that's before reasoning, I call natural understanding. Okay? Aristotle calls it nous, and Thomas and Matthew will call it intellectus, right? Okay? I call it natural understanding in contrast with this reasoned out understanding. So, all of our knowledge goes back to this natural understanding. As Thomas will explain, that natural understanding in a way is partaking of the divine what? Understanding, right? And that's the way he understands the truth of what Augustine is saying, right? That we judge all things by natural understanding, which is a partaking, right? An understanding, right? But it's not as if we're seeing this in God in himself, by himself, right? But we have a search of what? Likeness of the divine understanding in this natural understanding, right? But Augustine doesn't make that distinction a lot of times when he says it, right? And so, the pious readers there in the Middle Ages would say, well, Augustine is saying now that we judge everything by what? Looking into yeah okay you see but um it's really this natural understanding which we're we naturally judge everything else we know it's like the law of identity and things like that yeah yeah what they call the the um uh the statements known to themselves by all men right so not only the statements that somebody can both be and not be they must either be or not be the statement that the whole is more than the part nothing is before itself and so on right okay and uh you can see even you know that simple theorem that simple theorem you put where he wants to show if these angles are equal these sides will be equal right you know and he says if those sides were unequal right if one was longer like if let's say this side here ab was longer than ac right then you could cut off starting from b a line on ab equal to what the lesser one right and then you could draw a line across like that right now you've got two triangles right this triangle d here dbc and acb right which have an equal angle and equal sides they have this side in common and this side is going to be equal to that one right therefore they're equal and therefore the part is equal to all that's impossible right so you're going back to the actual understanding that part cannot be equal to the whole so all understanding goes back to that right but i guess you know we'll speak sometimes without without that decision right you see but you can get one of the things that augustine says that we're not seeing god in himself right before the vision that is to say right more number two an account of which each at that more that's the famous thing i spoke to you about before right okay right you know how it spanned it right when the same belongs to two things but to one of them because of the other it belongs more to the cause huh so if sweet is said of the sugar and of the coffee but of the coffee because of the sugar which is sweeter yeah and if wet is said of the water and of the ditch cloth but of the ditch cloth because of the water which is wetter yeah and if hot is said of the fire and the air around the fire but the air around the fire because of the fire which is hotter yeah and if known is said of the premises of the sillagism and of the conclusion of the sillagism but it's said of the conclusion of the sillagism because of the premises which is more known yeah if the premises are not more known you would use them to prove the conclusion right and if good is said of what health and medicine but of medicine because of hell which is more good but hell yeah see okay but you'll find aristotle and thomas you know referring to this that way okay it's not an amazing example of aristotle you know aristotle in the metaphysics theory refers to something as oh that's a brevi that's what the latin translation says right that's a short that's what he says that's a short and thomas says he means it's a beginning that is small in size but great in his power brevity is a soul of it that's what he means just one word there you see well here you have the same thing that on account of which something that refers to the cause is that more okay but i have to expand it you know so we can understand what he's saying right okay but god is the cause of all our knowledge right why because he's the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world that's in the beginning of john's gospel right therefore god is that which is first and most of all known by us right okay but no it's that's not in the same order we've seen it before right okay it's not by knowing god that we are what uh knowing other things right but god has given us an actual light of our mind right whereby we can know what we get from the images right but you can abstract something from the images right okay more of that which is first known in a what image is the exemplar which the image is formed but in our mind is the image of god as augustine says therefore that which is first known in our mind is what god against us it's what is said in john chapter 1 verse 18 no one has seen god i answer it should be said that since the human understanding according to the state of the present life is not able to understand the created immaterial substances as has been said in the previous article even much less is it able to understand the what the essence of the nature of an uncreative substance whence it should be said simply that god is not the first thing that is known by us but rather through creatures we come to a what knowledge of god right according to that of the apostles and this is the one the church takes over right in the vatican one right the same text the epistle of the romans the invisible things of god are understood through the things which have been made right but the first thing that is understood by us according to the state of the present life is the what it is of a material thing which is the object of our understanding as has been said many times already now the first objection to the first it should be said that in the light of the first truth we understand all things and judge them insofar as the light of our understanding whether it be the natural light of our understanding or the light of faith the gratuitous one is nothing other than a certain what impression of the first truth right whence since the light of our understanding does not have itself to our understanding as what is understood but as that by which something is understood even less so is god that which is what first understood by our understanding right okay so we have said to understand this by the divine light why because our light is enkindled by the divine light right okay but even the light of our mind which is not the divine light but they partake in that divine light right that's not the first thing we understand either is it but it's that by which we understand right it's that by which I separate what a triangle is from the image of a triangle and what a dog is from the image of a dog right okay so what I first understand is that what it is is something I sense or imagine okay you see that in a little baby right a little child they turn down towards what they can sense when they first think about what they can sense right so in the beginning they have thoughts only about what they can sense that's why even the philosophers there thought that whatever it is must be somewhere right because they have thoughts only about bodies to begin with right the second one it ought to be understood in those things which are one order as has been said above an account of God other things understood not as an account of the first thing known but an account of being the cause the first cause of the power of knowing right okay okay do you see that it's not in the same order right well when we say that the conclusion is known through the premises right you got