De Anima (On the Soul) #

A comprehensive study of Aristotle’s De Anima and the nature of the soul. These lectures examine the soul as substantial form and first act of a living body, analyzing its powers—nutritive, sensitive, and intellectual—and demonstrating the immateriality of the human intellect through its grasp of universal truth.

159 episodes, about 145 hours

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Classes #

Class 1 #

Part 1 of 3 · Where the De Anima Fits: Aristotle’s Books on Nature and Life, and the Value of Common Experience #

62 min Berquist opens the De Anima by placing it among Aristotle’s works on nature, using Aquinas’s prologue to the commentary on De Sensu et Sensato and lectio 1 of Physics I to trace how soul is treated from the general to the particular.

Part 2 of 3 · The Proemium of the De Anima: Why Knowledge of the Soul Is Most Desirable, and What ‘Soul’ Means #

70 min Berquist opens Aristotle’s De Anima, reading its proemium against the genre’s conventions—Plato’s Timaeus, Porphyry’s Isagoge—to ask why knowledge of the soul ranks among the most desirable sciences.

Part 3 of 3 · Why Knowing the Soul Is Hard: How Natural Science Reasons, and the Phaedo’s Two Views of the Soul #

68 min Berquist opens Aristotle’s De Anima Book I—what genus the soul belongs to, whether one definition covers it—then turns to Aquinas and Plato’s Phaedo to ask how natural science can know the soul at all.

Class 2 #

Part 1 of 3 · Aristotle’s De Anima Proemium: Nature, Substance, and How to Define the Soul #

67 min Berquist opens Aristotle’s De Anima by pressing on “nature,” “substance,” and “what it is” as ways of asking for a definition, with a detour through King Lear and Aristotle’s Metaphysics Book V.

Part 2 of 3 · Error as Wandering: The Sadducees, ‘You Err Through This’, and Ignorance as a Cause of Error #

46 min Berquist traces “error” back to its root sense of wandering, then turns to the Synoptic accounts of Christ’s answer to the Sadducees on the resurrection to show ignorance as the cause of error.

Part 3 of 3 · Pius X on the Causes of Error: Pride, Curiosity, Likeness, False Imagination, and the Road of Inquiry #

61 min Berquist works through Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis on the roots of Modernist error—pride and curiosity as remote causes, ignorance as proximate—reading it against Aquinas and Aristotle on how error actually happens.

Class 3 #

Part 1 of 2 · Are the Passions of the Soul Bodily? Emotions, the Will, and Immortality (De Anima I, Proemium) #

57 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima proemium on whether the soul’s passions are bodily, and pushes into the concupiscible and irascible emotions and how their names get applied to the will and to God.

Part 2 of 2 · Concupiscible and Irascible Emotions, Human Pleasures, and Natural Philosophy’s Definition of Anger #

46 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s account of the irascible and concupiscible appetites in De Anima, arguing that anger and fear can only be defined naturally if matter is built into the definition—then ranges through Plato’s tripartite soul and Aquinas on the theological virtues.

Class 4 · De Anima, Book Two: Defining the Soul by Division as Substantial Form and First Act #

67 min Berquist opens Book Two of Aristotle’s De Anima, showing why defining the soul requires division rather than induction, and locates soul as substantial form and first act.

Class 5 #

Part 1 of 3 · Know Thyself; Aristotle’s Divisions Toward Defining the Soul (De Anima II.1) #

55 min Berquist opens De Anima II with the Delphic “know thyself” and traces Aristotle’s successive divisions—substance over quality, form over matter, first act over second act—toward defining the soul.

Part 2 of 3 · The Equivocation of ‘Body’: Matter Receives Forms in Order, from Friendship to Geometry #

64 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, showing how “body” and “understanding” hide equivocations that must be sorted out before the soul can be defined.

Part 3 of 3 · The Soul as First Act of a Natural Body Composed of Tools; How Body and Soul Are One #

58 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s definition of soul in Book II of the De Anima, unpacking the Greek term organikon—a body “composed of tools”—to show why soul and body form one thing, not two.

Class 6 #

Part 1 of 4 · The Soul as First Act of a Natural Body Made of Tools: Explaining the Definition by Comparisons (Axe and Eye) #

64 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s definition of the soul as “first act of a natural body having organs,” unpacking it through the axe and the eye and the puzzle of how soul is “in” the body.

Part 2 of 4 · De Anima II.2: Definition and Demonstration, Wonder, and Reasoning from the Soul’s Activities #

42 min Berquist opens De Anima II.2, showing how the soul’s definition can serve as demonstration’s conclusion or premise, using the mean proportional and examples like the knife and marriage.

Part 3 of 4 · The Levels of Life, the Soul’s Powers, and the Soul as That by Which We First Live #

58 min Berquist works through Book II of Aristotle’s De Anima, tracing how nutrition, sensation, and understanding rank as powers of life and what it means to call the soul “that by which” a body first lives.

Part 4 of 4 · ‘In Him We Live and Move’: Worshipping God, the Beatific Vision, and Devotion #

54 min Berquist takes up St. Paul’s line to the Areopagus, “in Him we live, and move, and have our being,” and uses a threefold division from the Summa Contra Gentiles to unpack it, then turns to the beatific vision, devotion, and prayer.

Class 7 #

Part 1 of 3 · Councils on the soul as form of the body; the five kinds of powers, four grades of life and three souls #

61 min Berquist opens with the Council of Vienne and Fifth Lateran Council on the soul as form of the body, then turns to Aristotle’s De Anima Book II on the five kinds of soul-powers and how they reduce to three souls.

Part 2 of 3 · The desiring powers: sense desire, the emotions, love, and Mill on pleasure #

50 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima division of the soul’s desiring powers—epithumia, thumos, and boulesis—and the emotions each governs, from love and hope to anger and despair, closing with Mill on pleasure.

Part 3 of 3 · Touch, thinking vs. understanding, and studying the soul through its objects, acts and powers #

54 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima with Aquinas’s commentary on touch, pleasure, and desire in animals, then sorts out the difference between understanding and discursive reasoning.

Class 8 #

Part 1 of 2 · The Nutritive Soul: Answering Empedocles, Food as Object, Nourishment, Growth and Generation, and the Sacraments #

51 min Berquist examines the nutritive soul in Aristotle’s De Anima Book II, linking nourishment to generation, and—via Aquinas’s commentary and the four causes from the Physics—shows how soul causes body as mover, end, and form.

Part 2 of 2 · Purity and Temperance: Shame and Honestas, Catharsis, and Aristotle’s Rules for Acquiring Virtue #

114 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima on the nutritive soul, arguing against Empedocles that fire alone cannot explain growth, and closes by likening feeding, growth, and reproduction to baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist.

Class 9 #

Part 1 of 3 · Sensing as Undergoing: Empedocles, Potency and Act (De Anima II.5, Part 1) #

65 min Berquist opens De Anima II.5, unpacking why Aristotle calls sensing a kind of being acted upon and dismantling Empedocles’ claim that like knows like through shared material composition.

Part 2 of 3 · Two Abilities and Two Acts: Knowing, Learning and the Senses (De Anima II.5, Part 2) #

67 min Berquist works through De Anima II.5 on the two kinds of ability and act in knowing, using the Meno’s doubling of the square to explain how learning differs from simply using what one knows—then extends the distinction to sensation.

Part 3 of 3 · The Kinds of Sensibles (De Anima II.6), Sweetness as Metaphor, and Happiness vs. Joy #

68 min Berquist works through De Anima II.6, where Aristotle sorts the sensible into proper, common, and accidental objects, then digresses on why we call things “sweet” that no tongue tastes.

Class 10 #

Part 1 of 2 · Purity, Light and the Transparent: Aristotle’s De Anima II.7 and Empedocles’ Photons #

67 min Berquist moves from Aquinas on purity and mildness as guardians of temperance to a close reading of Aristotle’s De Anima on light, the transparent, and Empedocles’s theory of light as emanation.

Part 2 of 2 · Sight versus Hearing, the Continuous, and Socrates and Christ as Spoken Teachers #

35 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Sensu et Sensato with Aquinas’s commentary, asking why sight surpasses hearing for grasping magnitude and number, yet hearing alone lets us learn from a speaking teacher.

Class 11 #

Part 1 of 2 · Touch, the Four Elements, and Reception Without Matter (De Anima II, chs. 11-12) #

40 min Berquist works through De Anima II, chapters 11-12, on touch, the four elements, and how the senses receive form “without matter.”

Part 2 of 2 · Senses vs. Reason, Excess of Objects, and a Discussion of Evil as Privation #

38 min Berquist finishes Aristotle’s De Anima II.12 on why excessive objects can damage the senses but not reason, then turns to a student’s question on evil as privation, with a detour through Aquinas’s Summa contra Gentiles IV on the Trinity.

Class 12 · De Anima III.1: Why Only Five Senses, and the Accidental Perception of Shape, Motion, and Number #

50 min Berquist moves from Aquinas’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 2 to Aristotle’s De Anima III.1, asking why there are exactly five senses and how we perceive shape, motion, and number.

Class 13 #

Part 1 of 2 · Custom, Abstraction, and Sensing Our Own Sensing (De Anima III, ch. 2) #

71 min Berquist begins with why custom and native language make it hard for reason to separate ideas never before divided, then turns to Aristotle’s De Anima III.2 on whether we sense our own seeing and hearing.

Part 2 of 2 · Sensible in Act, Sound in the Forest, and Praying with Other Religions #

36 min Berquist continues in Aristotle’s De Anima Book III on the common and proper sensibles, asking whether a sensible quality like sweetness exists actually before it is tasted—then fields student questions ranging from mercy to praying with other religions.

Class 14 · De Anima III, Lectio 3: The Common Sense and Judging White from Sweet #

69 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima, Book III, Lectio 3, with Aquinas’s commentary, on why telling white from sweet requires a single “common sense” beyond the five exterior senses.

Class 15 #

Part 1 of 2 · De Anima III.3: Grasping and Judging, Sensing vs. Reason, and the Prevalence of Error #

68 min Berquist opens De Anima III.3, watching Aristotle pry reason apart from sensation—against Empedocles and Anaxagoras, who assumed knowing must be bodily because “like knows like.”

Part 2 of 2 · De Anima III.3: Imagining vs. Thinking, the Estimative Power, and Digressions (Trinity, Hegel, Irving) #

64 min Berquist works through De Anima III, distinguishing imagination from thought, then turns to Locke, Berkeley, and Hume on images versus ideas, and animals’ grasp of “friend” and “enemy” through the estimative power.

Class 16 #

Part 1 of 2 · Reason Is Most Man; What Imagination Is Not (Aristotle’s De Anima, Reading 5) #

47 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, reading five, tracking Aristotle’s case that imagination is neither sensation, science, nor opinion.

Part 2 of 2 · Imagination as a Moved Mover: Deception in the Senses (Reading 6) #

63 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima III.3 with Aquinas’s commentary to show that imagination isn’t free image-making but a residual, weaker motion left over from sensation—and more prone to error.

Class 17 #

Part 1 of 2 · Part 1: Put Together, Whole and Part: Number, Matter and Form, Composed and Universal Wholes #

40 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s distinctions of “part” and “whole” in Metaphysics V and Physics I, then uses them to unpack Aquinas’s argument for divine simplicity in Summa Theologiae q. 3.

Part 2 of 2 · Part 2: God Without Parts, the Trinity and Number, Debate on Number, and History as Incomplete Inquiry #

43 min Berquist works through why the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit aren’t “parts” of God, then turns to Aristotle on whole and part—number, definition, and matter-form—closing with the interior senses and why history can never be a finished science.

Class 18 #

Part 1 of 3 · De Anima III.4: Grasping and Judging, and Why the Mind Is Not a Body #

69 min Berquist opens De Anima III.4, following Aquinas’s commentary to ask why the intellect that knows all material things must itself be immaterial and unmixed with body.

Part 2 of 3 · The Mind as the Place of Species: Universals, Truth and Understanding vs. Reason #

57 min Berquist reads Aristotle’s claim that the soul is “the place of species” in De Anima Book III, arguing from how the mind receives universals that intellect cannot be bodily.

Part 3 of 3 · How the Senses and Reason Are Acted On Differently, Two Kinds of Ability, and What Reason Knows #

44 min Berquist continues his commentary on De Anima III.4, showing why intense objects damage the senses but never weaken intellect, then opens Aristotle’s distinction between first and second potency in coming to know.

Class 19 #

Part 1 of 3 · The Object of Reason: What a Thing Is, Universals and Immaterial Understanding #

58 min Berquist opens with angels, demons, and the imagination in Macbeth, then turns to Aristotle’s De Anima Book III on why the intellect grasps the universal while sense grasps only singulars.

Part 2 of 3 · Speaking About God: Wise vs. Wisdom, and the Two Objections on Undergoing #

68 min Berquist pauses Aristotle’s De Anima to explain, via Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, why “wise” and “good” can only be affirmed and denied of God, then returns to ask how an immaterial intellect can be acted on by matter.

Part 3 of 3 · Why the Understandable Doesn’t Always Understand; Reading Aristotle through Thomas; Liberal Education #

59 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima Book III with Aquinas’s commentary on why intelligible things don’t always themselves understand, tracing the split of speculative philosophy into natural philosophy, mathematics, and metaphysics.

Class 20 · De Anima III.5: The Agent Intellect as Light—Separable, Impassible, Unmixed, and Act #

32 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima, Book III, chapter five, with Aquinas’s commentary, on the possible intellect and the agent intellect—the power that makes things actually understandable.

Class 21 · De Anima III: The Agent and Possible Intellect, and the Natural Light of Reason versus Faith #

42 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima III on the agent and possible intellect, using Aquinas’s commentary and prologue to Isaiah to set reason’s natural light against the light of faith.

Class 22 #

Part 1 of 2 · Intellect, Imagination, and the Two Acts of Reason: Nature vs. Reason and Will #

69 min Berquist closes out De Anima III’s treatment of the intellect—its separability from matter and its need for phantasms—then opens chapter six on the first two acts of reason, apprehension and judgment.

Part 2 of 2 · Understanding the One and the Indivisible: Line, Point, Good and Evil, and Reason vs. Sense #

64 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima Book III on how the mind knows indivisible things like the point through negation, then turns to how sense and reason each grasp good and bad.

Class 23 · Phantasms and Understanding: Aristotle on Intellect, Mill on Higher Pleasures, and the Five Intellectual Virtues #

60 min Berquist reads Aristotle’s account of how phantasms let intellect understand, then turns to Mill’s utilitarianism—via an Osterwee article—to ask what makes some pleasures “higher” than others.

Class 24 #

Part 1 of 2 · De Anima III.8: The Soul Is in Some Way All Things – the Hand as Tool of Tools, and Locke’s General Triangle #

38 min Berquist works through De Anima III.8 on how the soul “is in some way all things,” and uses Locke’s confused triangle to show what intellectual understanding adds to imagination.

Part 2 of 2 · Imagination vs. Thought: Truth in Statements, Universal vs. Singular, Words and Metaphor, Music, and Loving Reason and Wisdom #

39 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s De Anima and Aquinas’s commentary on why images are neither true nor false while judgments are, and why thought grasps the universal while imagination stays fixed on the singular.

Class 25 #

Part 1 of 2 · De Anima III.9 (Lectio 14): What Moves the Animal? Plato’s Division of the Soul, and Why Neither Feeding, Sensing nor the Looking Mind Is the Cause #

41 min Berquist works through Aristotle’s Chapter 9 of De Anima III (Lectio 14 of Aquinas’s commentary), asking which power of the soul actually causes an animal to move from place to place.

Part 2 of 2 · Practical Reason, Incontinence and Self-Control; Dividing the Soul by Its Root: Emotions, Tragedy and Comedy, Choice and the Image of God #

41 min Berquist asks why knowing what to do doesn’t guarantee doing it, working through Aristotle’s incontinent and continent man from De Anima Book III alongside the soul’s emotions and appetites.

Class 26 #

Part 1 of 3 · De Anima III.10: Desire, Practical Reason, and Looking Before and After #

54 min Berquist works through De Anima III.10, asking what moves an animal to act and showing why reason, unlike sense desire, can weigh a future good against a present one.

Part 2 of 3 · Knowing in Some Way, Choosing the Apparent Good, and the Deliberative Imagination #

54 min Berquist reads Aristotle’s De Anima on animal motion and the practical syllogism, showing how mistaking what is good “in some way” for what is good “simply” drives faulty choice.

Part 3 of 3 · The Soul as Gateway, Naming God’s Simplicity, and Student Questions #

41 min Berquist closes the group’s run through De Anima book three (chapters twelve and thirteen) on the order among the soul’s powers, then fields questions ranging from divine simplicity to the will’s fixity after death.

Class 27 #

Part 1 of 3 · De Anima: The Order Among the Soul’s Powers, and the Senses of ‘Before’ (Why Breathing Isn’t Better Than Philosophizing) #

65 min Berquist works through the close of Book II of Aristotle’s De Anima to explain why the nutritive soul precedes the sensitive and the sensitive precedes the intellective—and why that “before” doesn’t mean “better.”

Part 2 of 3 · De Anima’s Last Chapter: Why Touch Is Necessary, Then the Summa and Music’s Power Over the Soul #

39 min Berquist closes Aristotle’s De Anima Book II by defending touch as the sense on which animal life itself depends, then turns to Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae and music’s hold on the soul.

Part 3 of 3 · Music, the Psalms, and the Mass: Prayer and Praise Set to Music #

38 min Berquist traces how music moves the emotions—from the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey to Nazi propaganda—before turning to Aquinas on the Psalms, praise versus petition, and the structure of the Mass.

Class 28 #

Part 1 of 3 · The Soul in the Summa: Introduction to Question 75 #

53 min Berquist opens Question 75 of the Summa’s treatise on man, walking through Thomas’s Dionysian division of essence, powers, and operation and the two errors—Pythagorean “harmony” and Platonic separate substance—that Thomas corrects.

Part 2 of 3 · Is the Soul a Body? Objections, and Why We Picture the Soul as a Body #

51 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 1—whether the soul is a body—tracing its three objections back to Aristotle’s De Anima and asking why imagination keeps pulling us toward picturing the soul as a body.

Part 3 of 3 · The Soul as Act of the Body, and Substantial vs. Accidental Form #

46 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 1, where Aquinas argues the soul is not a body but the first principle of life, distinct from organs like the heart or eye.

Class 29 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I q.75 a.2: Is the Human Soul Subsisting? Why the Intellect Is Not a Body #

58 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 2, arguing from the intellect’s ability to know the natures of all bodies that the soul must be immaterial and subsisting.

Part 2 of 3 · Replies to Article Two: Hoc Aliquid, and Is the Brain the Organ of Thought? #

43 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s replies to the three objections in Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 2, spending the most time on whether the brain is the organ of thought.

Part 3 of 3 · Article Three: Are Animal Souls Subsistent? Sense vs. Intellect, Proportion, and Greek Humility #

49 min Berquist works through Article Three of Aquinas’s question on the soul, asking whether brute animals have subsistent souls, then fields student questions on animals and the afterlife, Greek humility, and divine mercy versus justice.

Class 30 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I, Q.75 a.4: Is the Soul the Man? Body and Soul, and Truth as the Mean Between Extremes #

45 min Berquist works through Summa I, Q.75, a.4 — is the soul alone “man”? — arguing for soul and body together, against Plato and against Christological and Trinitarian analogues to the same error.

Part 2 of 3 · Summa I, Q.75 a.5: Is the Soul Made of Matter and Form? Objections, the Answer, and Form Received Universally #

51 min Berquist works through Summa I, Q.75, a.5, asking whether the human soul is composed of matter and form, and explains why Aquinas denies it.

Part 3 of 3 · Q.75 a.5 Replies: Proportioned Abilities, Angels as Form and Being, and Pride as the Mother of Error #

54 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s replies in Q.75 a.5 on angels as act and potency, then turns to Charles De Koninck, humility in scholarship, and pride as the root of intellectual error.

Class 31 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I q.75 a.6: Why the Human Soul Is Incorruptible (Per Se and Per Accidens, Form and Existence, No Contrariety in the Understanding) #

49 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 75, a. 6, asking why the human soul cannot be corrupted, and distinguishes corruption per se from corruption per accidens.

Part 2 of 3 · Q.75 a.6 continued: The Natural Desire to Exist Forever, Socrates in the Phaedo, and Replies to the Objections #

49 min Berquist argues that nature’s universal desire to exist forever proves the soul’s incorruptibility, then answers objections about Scripture’s comparison of man to beasts and the soul’s dependence on images—drawing on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, De Anima, and Plato’s Phaedo.

Part 3 of 3 · Q.75 a.7: Are the Soul and the Angel of One Species? Lowest Species, Origen’s Error, and Understanding Compared with Reason #

52 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 7, asking whether the human soul and the angel share one species, using geometry’s lowest-species examples and Origen’s error on souls to sharpen the answer.

Class 32 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I, Q.76, Art. 1: Is the Understanding Soul the Form of the Body? The Objections, and Words for Beginning, Mode and Happiness #

63 min Berquist opens Question 76 of the Summa’s First Part—whether the understanding soul is the form of the body—laying out its eight articles and working through Article 1’s opening objections.

Part 2 of 3 · The Remaining Objections and Aristotle’s Proof That the Soul Is the Form of the Body #

54 min Berquist works through the remaining objections to Aquinas’s claim that the intellectual soul is the form of the body, then turns to Aristotle’s own proof in the De Anima.

Part 3 of 3 · Averroes’ Mistakes, the Soul Not Wholly Immersed in the Body, and St. Teresa, Mother of Spiritual People #

54 min Berquist refutes Averroes’s claim that the possible intellect is a separate substance shared by all men, then works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 1 and q. 12 on the soul as the body’s substantial form, closing with a reading from the handout “Nature and Kinds of Love” applied to St. Teresa.

Class 33 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I q.76 a.2: Is There One Intellect for All Men? Against Averroes and Plato #

63 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 76, a. 2, asking whether all men share one intellect, and shows why Averroes and Plato both fail to explain how each of us understands individually.

Part 2 of 2 · Replies to the Objections, the Central Question of Philosophy, and Thessalonians 5 and Psalm 99: Rejoice, Pray, Give Thanks #

66 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s replies to objections in Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 2 on whether all humans share one intellective soul, then turns to Psalm 99 and 1 Thessalonians 5 on joy, prayer, and thanksgiving.

Class 34 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I q.76 a.3: One Soul or Three? The Objections, Substantial Form, and the Meaning of Per Se #

45 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 76, a. 3, asking whether man has one soul or three, and pauses to explain per se predication and necessity from the Posterior Analytics before returning to Aquinas’s answer.

Part 2 of 3 · One Soul in Man: Predication, the Sign from Intense Activity, and Souls Compared to Numbers #

48 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima to show why man has one soul, not three, arguing from predication, the way intense activity in one power blocks another, and the analogy of souls to numbers.

Part 3 of 3 · Replies to the Objections and Soul vs. Spirit in Scripture (1 Thessalonians, the Magnificat, John 4) #

48 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s replies on whether the intellective, sensitive, and nutritive souls are one substance, then turns to Scripture—1 Thessalonians, the Magnificat, John 4—to test how “soul” and “spirit” are used there.

Class 35 #

Part 1 of 3 · ST I q.76 a.4: Is There Another Substantial Form in Man? The Objections (with Digressions on Antonomasia, Synecdoche and Mixture) #

49 min Berquist takes up Article 4 of Question 76 of the Summa: does man need a substantial form besides the rational soul? He works through the four objections and a digression on antonomasia, using Scripture and Shakespeare as examples.

Part 2 of 3 · The One Substantial Form: Being Simply vs. Being in Some Way, and How Higher Forms Contain the Lower #

38 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 4, on why the intellective soul is the human being’s only substantial form, unpacking the distinction between being “simply” and being “in some way.”

Part 3 of 3 · Replies to the Objections, Knowing the Composed Before the Simple, and the Catechism’s Definition of Hope #

58 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s replies to objections on the soul as “first act of an organic body” (Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 4), then turns to the Catechism’s definition of hope.

Class 36 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q.76 A.5: Why the Understanding Soul Is Joined to Such a Body (Touch, Reason and the Hand) #

61 min Berquist works through Summa I, Q.76, A.5, asking why the incorruptible understanding soul is fittingly joined to a mixed, corruptible body rather than a purer element like fire.

Part 2 of 2 · Metaphorical Theology and the Metaphor ‘Sweet’; Q.76 A.6: No Accidental Dispositions Between Soul and Body (Simply vs. In Some Way) #

70 min Berquist dissolves a supposed opposition between St. Ephrem’s poetic mysticism and Aquinas’s “dogmatic” theology, using the metaphor “sweet” from the Psalms commentary, then turns to Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 6 on whether the soul is united to the body through accidental dispositions.

Class 37 #

Part 1 of 2 · Article 7 and the objections to Article 8: whether something joins the soul to the body, with a digression on Augustine #

55 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, aa. 7-8, asking whether a medium joins soul to body and whether the whole soul exists in every part, with a digression into Augustine’s De Trinitate.

Part 2 of 2 · The body of Article 8: the whole soul in every part, kinds of wholes, and the Holy Spirit as the soul of the Church #

58 min Berquist works through Article 8 of Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, asking why the soul as substantial form must be whole in the whole body and whole in each part, using Aristotle’s kinds of wholes to answer.

Class 38 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I q.77 a.1: Is the Soul’s Essence Its Power? Act and Ability, Properties, and Augustine’s Hard Sayings #

64 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 77, a. 1: is the soul’s essence identical with its powers? He shows why act and potency put them in different genera, using Augustine on mind, knowledge, and love, and Porphyry’s accident/property distinction.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I q.77 a.1–2: Differences and Properties, the Definition of Faith, and Why the Soul Has Many Powers #

50 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 77, articles 1 and 2, showing how differences and properties reveal a thing’s nature, then asking why the human soul needs many distinct powers.

Class 39 #

Part 1 of 3 · Q.77 a.3: Powers Distinguished by Acts and Objects; Active vs. Passive Ability #

48 min Berquist works through Article 3 of Q.77, where Aquinas argues that the soul’s powers are known through their acts and acts through their objects—active powers as moving cause, passive powers as ordered to their term.

Part 2 of 3 · Essential vs. Incidental Differences, the Fallacy of Accident, and Replies to the Objections #

53 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s objections and replies on how powers of the soul are distinguished by their objects, using triangles, animal species, and the fallacy of accident.

Part 3 of 3 · Higher Powers and Universal Objects; Q.77 a.4: The Order Among the Powers of the Soul #

47 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 77, a. 4 and a. 5, asking why higher powers of the soul have more universal objects and whether the soul’s powers are ordered among themselves.

Class 40 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I q.77 a.5: Are All the Powers of the Soul in the Soul as Their Subject? Soul and Spirit, and the Meanings of ‘Of’ #

46 min Berquist works through Summa I q.77 a.5 on whether all the soul’s powers reside in the soul itself, distinguishing understanding and willing from bodily powers like sensation and nutrition.

Part 2 of 3 · Reply to Augustine and Plato: Truth Between Two Extremes, and Must We Know Things the Way They Are? #

51 min Berquist takes up Augustine’s Platonic remarks on the soul’s powers in Summa Theologiae I, q. 77, a. 5, and asks whether our knowing must always match the order of the things we know.

Part 3 of 3 · Summa I q.77 a.6: How the Powers Flow from the Soul’s Essence, Properties in Geometry, and Grace and the Theological Virtues #

54 min Berquist works through Summa I, q.77, a.6 on whether the soul’s powers flow from its essence, using geometric analogies—intersecting lines, triangles—before touching a.7 and closing on grace and the theological virtues.

Class 41 #

Part 1 of 3 · Before and After: Senses of Priority and Why Breathing Isn’t Better than Philosophizing (ST I q.77 a.7, Part 1) #

42 min Berquist works through Article 7 of Summa Theologiae I, q. 77 on whether one power of the soul arises from another, using Aristotle’s senses of “before” to sort out priority among the soul’s powers.

Part 2 of 3 · Order Among the Powers of the Soul, Foresight, and Replies to Objections (ST I q.77 a.7, Part 2) #

40 min Berquist finishes Summa Theologiae I, q. 77, a. 7-8 on how the soul’s essence precedes its powers, then turns to prudence, illustrating foresight with Socrates’s trial, Incheon, and Chamberlain.

Part 3 of 3 · Powers of the Separated Soul: Article 8, Love and Emotion, and Mozart’s Music #

61 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 77, a. 8 on whether the soul’s powers survive death, then digresses into emotional versus rational love and joy—illustrated by Mozart’s music.

Class 42 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, q. 78, a. 1: Why Five Genera of Powers, Four Grades of Life, Three Souls #

70 min Berquist opens Summa I, q. 78, a. 1, asking why Aquinas distinguishes five genera of the soul’s powers, and matches them against the four grades of life and three kinds of souls.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I, q. 78, a. 2: Nutritive, Growth and Generative Powers, and the Sacraments #

64 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 78, a. 2, where Aquinas divides the vegetative soul into generative, growing, and nutritive powers—then asks why generation, not nutrition, ranks highest.

Class 43 #

Part 1 of 3 · ST I q.78 a.3: How the Five Outer Senses Are Distinguished (Natural vs. Spiritual Change) #

44 min Berquist takes up Article 3 of Question 78 on why there are exactly five exterior senses, grounding their distinction in natural versus spiritual reception of sensible qualities.

Part 2 of 3 · Beauty, the Higher Pleasures, and Aquinas’s Replies on the Common Sensibles, Touch and Taste #

53 min Berquist explains why sight and hearing alone perceive beauty, then works through Aquinas’s Summa I, q. 78, a. 3 on whether touch and taste are single senses or genera of senses.

Part 3 of 3 · ST I q.78 a.4: The Interior Senses (Common Sense, Imagination, Estimative Power, Memory) #

52 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 78, a. 4, asking why Aquinas distinguishes four interior senses—common sense, imagination, the estimative power, and memory—rather than more or fewer.

Class 44 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I q.79 a.1: Is the understanding a power of the soul or its essence? Being and doing, God as pure act, and love as emotion versus chosen love #

59 min Berquist opens Summa I q.79, previewing its thirteen articles before asking Article 1’s question: is understanding a power of the soul, or the soul’s very essence?

Part 2 of 2 · Q.79 a.1, last replies, and a.2: Angels and mind, the first cause as the best thing, Socratic consistency, and understanding as a passive power #

57 min Berquist finishes the replies in Summa Theologiae I, q.79, a.1 on the will and angelic understanding, then opens a.2 on whether understanding is a passive power, distinguishing Aristotle’s three senses of “undergoing” from De Anima III.

Class 45 · Summa Theologiae I, Q.79, Articles 3-4: The Agent Intellect, and Whether It Belongs to the Soul #

73 min Berquist opens with a note on “psychikoi” versus “pneuma” in Jude, then works through Aquinas on whether an agent intellect must be posited (Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, a. 3) and whether it belongs to the soul (a. 4), against Aristotle and Plato.

Class 46 · Summa Theologiae I, Q.79, Articles 4-5: The Agent Intellect and the “Father of Lights” of James 1:17 #

72 min Berquist works through Aquinas on the agent intellect (Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, aa. 4-5), then tests it against James 1:17 on the “Father of lights” who does not change.

Class 47 · Summa Theologiae I, Q.79, A.5: Is the Agent Intellect One in All Men? #

22 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, a. 5, Aquinas’s question whether the agent intellect is one in all men, with digressions on what it means to call things “one.”

Class 48 #

Part 1 of 2 · The Agent Intellect, the Father of Lights, and Memory in the Understanding (Avicenna, Habitual Knowledge, History vs. Poetry) #

70 min Berquist reads Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, articles 5 and 6, on the agent intellect and on whether memory belongs to intellect, testing Avicenna’s claim that intelligible species aren’t retained against Aristotle’s habitual-versus-actual understanding.

Part 2 of 2 · Remembering That We Understood: Replies on Intellectual Memory, the Definition of Eternity, and the Beatific Vision #

62 min Berquist works through the replies to objections in Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, a. 6 on intellectual memory, then follows Aquinas’s citations outward into Aristotle’s Categories, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, and Plato’s Phaedo and Symposium.

Class 49 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I q.79 a.7: Is Intellectual Memory a Separate Power? Augustine, Peter Lombard and the Authority of Aquinas #

55 min Berquist works through Summa I, q.79, a.7 on whether memory is a power distinct from intellect, testing Aquinas’s reading of Augustine’s memory-understanding-will against Aristotle’s account of intellect.

Part 2 of 3 · Article 7 Replies and Article 8: Reason and Understanding as One Power, Motion and Rest, Episteme and Natural Understanding #

46 min Berquist finishes Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, a. 7 on memory, then works through article 8’s question of whether reason and understanding are really distinct powers, using motion and rest as his key analogy.

Part 3 of 3 · Reason, Will and Nature: Why Natural Understanding and Natural Willing Are the Roots of Thought and Choice #

41 min Berquist reads Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, a. 8 to argue that reason and will are not opposed to nature but built on it, against modern views that treat free choice as wholly undetermined.

Class 50 #

Part 1 of 3 · ST I q.79 a.9: Higher and Lower Reason in Augustine, and Names Equivocal by Reason (Wisdom and Science) #

48 min Berquist works through Article 9 of Summa Theologiae I, q.79, asking whether Augustine’s higher and lower reason are two powers or one, and how “wisdom” and “science” work as analogically equivocal names.

Part 2 of 3 · Article 9 continued: Necessary and Contingent Knowledge, Contradiction, Opinion and Certitude #

40 min Berquist continues through Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, distinguishing necessary from contingent knowledge and demonstrative from dialectical reasoning, then turns to Aristotle’s account of contradictory statements in the Peri Hermeneias.

Part 3 of 3 · Article 10: Intelligentia and Intellectus; Thinking About, Thinking Out, Understanding; Mercy, Hope and the Kinds of Pride #

67 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, a. 10, asking whether “intelligentia” names a power distinct from intellect, then digresses into thinking, hope, and mercy in prayer.

Class 51 #

Part 1 of 3 · Summa I, Q.79, Art.11: Are Speculative and Practical Intellect Different Powers? (Seeing vs. Doing; Knowing vs. Loving) #

52 min Berquist asks whether speculative and practical intellect are really two powers or one, working through Summa I, Q.79, Art.11 with help from Aristotle’s Physics I and Metaphysics VI.

Part 2 of 3 · What Is Virtue? A Thing’s Own Act, Moral vs. Intellectual Virtues, and the Two Ends of Reason #

47 min Berquist asks what virtue is in the broadest sense—a thing’s “own act,” from a knife’s edge to an eye’s sight—then narrows to Aristotle’s split between moral and intellectual virtue.

Part 3 of 3 · The Five Virtues of Reason: Foresight, Art, Natural Understanding, Episteme and Wisdom (with Equivocal Names) #

59 min Berquist walks through the five intellectual virtues of Aristotle’s Ethics Book Six—art, prudence, science, understanding, wisdom—reading closely from his “Reading Thirteen” handout and Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae I, q. 79, a. 12 on how such names are said equivocally.

Class 52 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q.79 a.12: Synderesis as the Natural Habit of Practical First Principles (reason as nature, Heraclitus on listening to reason, habit and power) #

61 min Berquist works through Summa I, Q.79, a.12 on whether synderesis is a power or a natural habit, then opens a.13 on conscience, pausing over Heraclitus on listening to reason as nature.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I, Q.79 a.13: Conscience as an Act; Studiousness, Figures of Speech (Antonomasia, Synecdoche, Metonymy), and Emotions Ruled by Reason #

69 min Berquist works through Summa I, Q.79, a.13 to argue that conscience is not a power of the soul but an act—applying knowledge to deeds by testifying, binding, or accusing and excusing—then turns to antonomasia, synecdoche, and metonymy in Scripture and Shakespeare.

Class 53 #

Part 1 of 2 · Aquinas on Desire (ST I, Q.80, A.1–2): Why the Soul Has a Power to Desire, and Why Sense Desire and Will Might Be the Same Power #

70 min Berquist works through Article 1 of Question 80 of Aquinas’s Prima Pars, asking whether desire is a power of the soul distinct from knowing, and previews the coming distinction between sense appetite and will.

Part 2 of 2 · Aquinas on Sense Desire and the Will (ST I, Q.80, A.2): Two Powers, the ‘Moved Mover’, Universal and Particular in Action, and Temptation #

70 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 80, a. 2, asking whether sense appetite and will are really distinct powers, tracing the argument to Aristotle’s account of desire as a “moved mover.”

Class 54 #

Part 1 of 3 · Aquinas, Summa I, Q.81 a.1: Sensuality as a Desiring Power — Knowing as Rest, Loving as Motion #

56 min Berquist opens Summa I, Q.81, a.1 to ask whether “sensuality” names a power of knowing or of desiring, working from Augustine and Peter Lombard toward Aquinas’s answer.

Part 2 of 3 · Q.81 a.2: The Concupiscible and the Irascible — Two Powers of Sense Desire #

41 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 81, a. 2, asking why sense appetite divides into concupiscible and irascible powers, with examples of anger dampening desire and animal behavior.

Part 3 of 3 · The Eleven Emotions: Their Place in Ethics, Rhetoric, Poetry, Music, and Talk About God (with a Digression on Mozart) #

62 min Berquist maps Aquinas’s eleven emotions—six concupiscible, five irascible—and follows the names as they get carried over to the will and, carefully, to God, with Shakespeare and Mozart along the way.

Class 55 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q.81 a.3: Do the irascible and concupiscible appetites obey reason? The political, not despotic, rule of reason over the emotions #

70 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, Q.81, a.3 on whether the irascible and concupiscible appetites obey reason, using Aristotle’s master-slave versus father-son analogy to show how reason governs the passions politically, not despotically.

Part 2 of 2 · Imagination in God’s service, ‘one’ and being, and Q.82 a.1: Does the will will anything by necessity? #

61 min Berquist finishes why the exterior senses resist reason while imagination stays obedient, then opens Summa Theologiae I, q. 82, a. 1 on whether the will acts from necessity.

Class 56 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q. 82, Art. 2: Does the Will Will Everything of Necessity? The Last End, Particular Goods and the Vision of God #

66 min Berquist works through Summa I-II, Q. 82, Art. 2 on whether the will wills of necessity, using examples from ties to Vanity Fair to show why only the vision of God can fully necessitate the will.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I, Q. 82, Art. 3: Is the Will Higher Than the Understanding? Simply vs. In Some Respect, Sight vs. Hearing, and Loving God #

70 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 82, a. 3 on whether will outranks intellect, testing the answer against sight, hearing, and the love of God.

Class 57 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q. 82, Art. 4: Does the Will Move the Understanding? End and Agent as Two Kinds of Mover #

48 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 82, a. 4, asking whether the will moves the understanding, and shows how an end moves differently than an agent moves.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I, Q. 82, Art. 5: Irascible and Concupiscible in the Will, and an Introduction to Free Judgment (Liberum Arbitrium) #

47 min Berquist asks whether irascible and concupiscible appetite, distinguished in sense desire, also mark off distinct powers within the will—working through Summa I, q. 82, a. 5 and opening q. 83 on free judgment.

Class 58 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I q.83 a.1: Is Man of Free Judgment? Reason, Contingency, and God Moving the Will #

56 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 83, a. 1, testing scriptural and Aristotelian objections against Aquinas’s case that man has free judgment, not mere animal instinct.

Part 2 of 2 · Nature, Habit and the Fixed Will After Death; the Beatific Vision; Article 2: Free Will Is a Power #

46 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 83 on whether free will is a power, a habit, or both, weighing how temperament and habit shape what looks good without destroying freedom.

Class 59 · Free Choice and the Will (Summa I, Q. 83, aa. 3–4) and an Outline of How the Soul Knows (QQ. 84–89) #

75 min Berquist works through Summa I, Q. 83, aa. 3–4, asking whether free judgment (liberum arbitrium) is an appetitive or a cognitive power, then opens the ground for Q. 84 on how the soul knows.

Class 60 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, q.84 a.1: Does the Soul Know Bodies Through the Understanding? Heraclitus, Plato’s Forms, and the Central Question of Philosophy #

54 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 84, a. 1—whether the soul knows bodies through understanding—tracing Plato’s turn to separated forms before laying out Aquinas’s answer.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I, q.84 a.2–3: Does the Soul Know Through Its Own Essence or Through Innate Forms? Empedocles, Plato’s Meno, and the Blank Tablet #

62 min Berquist works through Summa I, q.84, aa.2-3, refuting Empedocles’ and Plato’s claim that the soul knows bodies through its own essence or innate forms, and defends the intellect as a blank tablet at birth.

Class 61 · Summa Theologiae I, Q.84, Article 4: Against Avicenna, Understanding Requires the Senses #

57 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 84, a. 4, testing Avicenna’s claim that intelligible forms flow into the soul from a separated agent intellect, against Aquinas’s insistence on the senses and abstraction.

Class 62 · Summa Theologiae I, Q.84, Articles 5-6: Knowing in the Eternal Reasons, and Heraclitus on Common Reason #

40 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 84, aa. 5–6, asking whether the soul knows material things in the eternal reasons, then turns to Heraclitus on common reason and divine law.

Class 63 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I q.84 a.6: Does Our Knowledge Come from the Senses? Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle’s Middle Way #

55 min Berquist works through Summa I q.84 a.6 on whether all human knowledge comes from the senses, setting Aristotle’s middle position between Democritus’s materialism and Plato’s separated Forms.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I q.84 a.7: Why We Think Through Images, and Why the Brain Isn’t the Organ of Thought #

56 min Berquist works through Summa I, q.84, a.7 on why the intellect must turn to phantasms even for previously acquired knowledge, then digresses into valid and invalid conditional syllogisms.

Class 64 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q.84 a.8 and Q.85 a.1: Judgment, Sleep and the Binding of the Senses; Understanding by Abstraction from Images #

47 min Berquist asks why judgment falters in sleep, then turns to Summa I, Q.85, a.1 on how the intellect abstracts material forms from phantasms — against Plato’s separated forms.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I, Q.85 a.1, Replies: Two Kinds of Abstraction, Plato’s Error, and Common vs. Individual Matter #

48 min Berquist works through the replies of Summa I, Q.85, a.1 on how the intellect abstracts universal natures like man or triangle without falsity, contrasting this with Plato’s separated Forms.

Class 65 #

Part 1 of 2 · Aquinas: The Intelligible Species Is How We Understand, Not What We Understand; Why the More Universal Is Known First #

69 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 85, aa. 2-3: is the intelligible species what we understand or that by which we understand, and why does the mind grasp the universal before the particular?

Part 2 of 2 · Aquinas’ Replies on Universals: Two Orders of Nature, Whole and Part, and the Mistakes of Descartes, Spinoza and Hegel #

52 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s replies in Summa Theologiae I, q. 85, a. 3 on why universals are known before particulars, then traces the wreckage Descartes, Spinoza and Hegel make of that order.

Class 66 #

Part 1 of 2 · Aquinas, Summa I q.85 a.4-5: Knowing Many Things at Once, Discrete vs. Continuous Time, and Why We Must Compose and Divide #

60 min Berquist works through Summa I q.85, a.4-5, asking whether the intellect can know many things at once and why human understanding must proceed by composing and dividing rather than grasping all at once.

Part 2 of 2 · Aquinas, Summa I q.85 a.5-6: The Mind’s Statements and Identity, and Whether the Understanding Can Be False #

43 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s Summa I, q. 85, articles 5-7, on how the mind composes and divides in forming judgments, why this makes truth and falsity possible.

Class 67 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q.85, Articles 7–8: Why Some Understand Better Than Others, and Whether We Know the Indivisible First #

48 min Berquist works through Summa I, Q.85, Articles 7 and 8: why some people understand better than others, and whether the mind grasps the indivisible before the divisible.

Part 2 of 2 · Q.85 a.8 Replies and Q.86 a.1: Why the Mind Knows Causes Last, and How It Knows Singular Things #

45 min Berquist finishes the replies of Summa I, q. 85, a. 8 on why we know effects before causes, then turns to q. 86, a. 1 on how the intellect knows singular things.

Class 68 #

Part 1 of 2 · Aquinas Summa I q.86 a.2–3: Can Our Mind Know Infinitely Many Things? Potential vs. Actual Infinity, Meno’s Paradox, and Knowing Contingent Things #

46 min Berquist works through Summa I q.86 a.1–3, asking whether our minds can know infinitely many things, then opens the question of knowing contingent things.

Part 2 of 2 · Aquinas Summa I q.86 a.3–4: Matter, Form and Necessity in Contingent Things; Knowing the Future: Eternity, Causes, Dreams and Animals #

43 min Berquist finishes Aquinas’s question on how the mind knows singulars and contingent things, then opens the next article on foreknowledge of the future — through God’s eternity, causes, dreams, and animal instinct — in Summa Theologiae I, q. 86.

Class 69 #

Part 1 of 2 · Know Thyself: How the Understanding Soul Knows Itself Through Its Act (Summa I, Q.87, a.1), with Descartes, and Why the Indistinct Is More Certain #

62 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 87, a. 1 on whether the soul knows itself through its own essence, and why the human intellect, unlike an angel’s, knows itself only through its act.

Part 2 of 2 · How We Know Our Habits Through Their Acts (Q.87, a.2): Faith, Charity, and the Principle ‘Propter quod unumquodque tale, et illud magis’ #

53 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q.87, a.2–3 on whether the soul knows habits like faith and charity through their essence or through their acts, via Aristotle’s principle “propter quod unumquodque tale, et illud magis.”

Class 70 #

Part 1 of 2 · Part 1: How the understanding knows its own act, with angels, the letter analogy, Russell’s sophism and knowing the will (ST I q.87 a.3–4) #

70 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 87, a. 3–4 on how the understanding knows its own act, comparing angelic and human self-knowledge through the letter analogy, Russell’s sophism, and the question of knowing the will.

Part 2 of 2 · Part 2: Truth and good, wits and dimwits, self-rule of the mind, and whether we can know immaterial substances (ST I q.87 a.4 – q.88 a.1) #

70 min Berquist finishes Summa Theologiae q.87 and opens q.88, asking how truth and goodness contain each other and whether the human soul can know immaterial substances like angels.

Class 71 #

Part 1 of 2 · Aquinas, Summa I Q88 a1: Can we know the angels in this life? Plato, Averroes, and names made equivocal by reason #

45 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, Q88 on whether we can know angels in this life, weighing Averroes’s separate agent intellect against Aristotle’s insistence that understanding depends on sense images.

Part 2 of 2 · Q88 a1–a3: Knowing immaterial substances through material things, and whether God is the first thing we know #

40 min Berquist works through Aquinas’s Summa I, q. 88, articles 2 and 3, asking whether the human mind can know immaterial substances through material things, and whether God is the very first thing the intellect knows.

Class 72 #

Part 1 of 2 · Summa I, Q.88–89 a.1: God Is Not the First Thing We Know; Why the Soul Is Joined to the Body (Brevity, the Square, and Teaching Weaker Minds) #

63 min Berquist finishes Question 88 on whether God is the first thing the intellect knows, then opens Question 89, article 1, on whether the soul separated from the body can still understand anything.

Part 2 of 2 · Summa I, Q.89 a.1–4: Replies on the Separated Soul; Its Knowledge of Angels, Natural Things and Particular People #

43 min Berquist works through Summa I, q. 89, articles 2–4, asking what the separated soul knows: angels, natural things in general, and particular people—all through forms infused by God rather than abstraction from images.

Class 73 · Summa Theologiae I, Q.89, Articles 5-8: The Separated Soul’s Knowledge of Distant Things and the Living #

57 min Berquist works through Summa Theologiae I, q. 89, articles 5 through 8, asking whether acquired knowledge and its acts survive in the separated soul, and whether distance in place or time blocks its knowledge of the living.