Replies to Article Two: Hoc Aliquid, and Is the Brain the Organ of Thought?

Orientation #

He opens by finishing “the last couple of sentences” of the body of the article they did not reach last time, then the replies, then “a little break maybe before our second article”. He refers forward to “Article Four, which we will be seeing next time” (whether the soul is man). The previous class worked through the objections and body of a. 2 (the intellect immaterial because it knows all bodies); the next takes up a. 3 on the souls of brutes.

The class, in order #

1. Finishing the body: “the hot heats” and the soul as spirit (“heat doesn’t exist by itself”) #

Point: the last sentences of the body: we do not say heat heats but the hot heats, because heat exists only in the hot; so the human soul, “which is called intellect or mind”, is something incorporeal and subsisting.

• Aside developed: people who picture the soul as an air-like substance in the shape of a man are “on the way” to its incorporeality but cannot transcend imagination. We borrowed the word “spirit” from air, not from earth or fire, because air is a material substance that is barely sensible, almost invisible, known only through wind; then gave the word a new meaning for substances in no way sensible: angels, God (“God is a spirit; must be worshipped in the spirit”, Christ’s words), the higher aspect of the soul. Scripture speaks the same way: God “breathed into” Adam.

2. Reply 1: two senses of hoc aliquid (“hoc aliquid can be taken in two ways”) #

Point: the first objection rests on an equivocation in the phrase hoc aliquid.

• Sense 1: anything subsisting; it excludes the inherence of an accident (which exists only in substance) and of a material form (which has existence only in matter, even a substantial form). The soul is a hoc aliquid in this sense.
• Sense 2: something subsisting and complete in the nature of some species; it excludes even “the imperfection of being a part”. The composite of soul and body is the hoc aliquid in this sense.
• Boundary case: the hand is a hoc aliquid in the first way, not the second.
• Student asks what “excludes the imperfection of being a part” means. Answer: the soul is a part of the human species; whether man is just a soul, just a body, or composed of both is Article Four (“Whether the soul is man”), next time; the complete man is composed of soul and body, so the soul, though subsistent, is not complete and “can never be” the whole.

3. Reply 2, first way: Aristotle speaking in others’ voices (“not according to his own opinion”) #

Point: Aristotle’s words in De Anima I that understanding is a being moved are said dialectically, according to the opinion of those who held it, as is clear from what he had set forth before.

• Aristotle sometimes gives examples he thinks false because they are familiar to his contemporaries, before he determines the truth. Thomas points this out in his commentaries; “a very subtle thing”.
• Example (where he first saw it, in the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics): at the beginning, arts aim at different goods; the end of the household art is wealth, of the military art victory, of cooking a good meal. People then thought the end of the household was wealth; later, treating the family, Aristotle corrects that.
• His own practice: teaching the senses of “before” he says “if water is H2O” (which his students all think), then hydrogen can be without water but not water without hydrogen; he does not know whether water is H2O; the example illustrates, it does not prove.

4. Reply 2, second way: to act by oneself belongs to what exists by oneself (“a man sees through his eyes”) #

Point: “to exist by itself” is said in two ways; only the strict way grounds “operating by itself”.

• Loose sense: not existing in something as an accident or as a material form, even if it be a part. Strict, proper sense: neither inhering nor a part. The eye and the hand are not per se subsisting in the strict sense, so not operating by themselves.
• Hence: the eye sees “in a way”, but better “a man sees through his eyes”, “hears through his ears”; while the soul is in the body and is a part of the whole man, “the man understands through his soul”. Operations of parts are attributed to the whole through the parts, “in another way than the hot heats through heat”, for heat in no way heats, it is that by which one heats. Thomas’s conclusion: the soul understands as the eye sees, but more properly man understands through his soul.
• Thomas’s word “immersed”: something wholly under water vs. something floating, partly submerged, partly above. The body shares in the soul’s existence but does not contain the whole of it; the soul has some power above the body, hence “not immersed”.

5. Reply 3 set up: the materialist student and the light bulb (“the brain is the organ of thought”) #

Point: the third objection is “the most important one” because it rests not on words but on the evident dependence of reason on the brain.

• Years ago a materialist student: a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, alcohol interferes, “that proves my point”.
• His reply: you and I in a windowless room with one bulb; I smash the bulb with a hammer; that interferes with your seeing me; therefore the bulb is the organ of your sight? Hitting me in the eye interferes on the side of the organ; smashing the bulb interferes on the side of the object. Simpler: if you leave the room I can no longer see you, but you are not my organ.
• So blow, alcohol, drugs, clot show a connection between brain and thinking, but not which connection: organ or object. “You can’t syllogize from that.”

6. The two syllogisms on the board (“affirmation of the consequent”) #

Point: both ways of arguing from the brain to the organ of thought are defective; a demonstration needs premises true and a conclusion that follows.

1. “If a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, then the brain is the organ of thought; but it does interfere; therefore the brain is the organ.” Form good (if A then B; A; so B), but the first premise is false: interfering with an organ is not the only way to interfere with an operation.
2. “If the brain is the organ of thought, a blow on the brain will interfere; but it does interfere; therefore the brain is the organ.” Both premises true, but the conclusion does not follow: affirming the consequent.

• Examples of the bad form: “If Burke dropped dead last night he’ll be absent today; he is absent; so he dropped dead”: “wishful thinking, but not logical thinking”, valid only if that were the only possible reason. If I am a dog I am an animal / a woman, a little boy, a young man in his prime, then a human being; I am a human being; therefore… He puts these forms on the board and someone always concludes “A is so”.
• Student asks about the reference to Homer: Aristotle in the Poetics says this is how Homer taught the other poets to tell a good lie: if a man is this he does such and such; he does such and such; therefore he is such a man; it is how the poet persuades.
• Further cases: the long-haired student mistaken by a courthouse cop for a man on a drug charge (long hair as consequent); the drunk who walks unsteadily vs. his wife’s brain-injured patients with slurred speech and unsteady gait whom cops take for drunk: true “in many cases”, but not necessarily.

7. Object of the reason: the what-it-is of something imagined (“as color to sight”) #

Point: the interference is on the side of the object, because the proper object of our reason, while the soul is in the body, is the what-it-is of something sensed or imagined.

• Thinking what a triangle is, one imagines a triangle and understands the what-it-is of what is imagined. Aristotle in the De Anima compares this to the outward senses: the object of the eye is the color of something outside me; take that thing away and I cannot see its color. My seeing you is not in you (else you would be my organ); likewise understanding the what-it-is of the image is not in the imagination.
• Student: so the blow interferes with the image? Yes; alcohol and drugs interfere with the images. Clarified when pressed: it does interfere with an organ, the organ of the imagination, not of understanding.
• The either-or: if a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, then either the brain is the organ of thought or the interference is on the side of the object; which, this does not tell you. To eliminate one you need a separate argument: the body of the article (understanding all bodies) or his board argument (understanding a continuous thing in an uncontinuous way). Since understanding has no bodily organ, the interference must be on the side of the object. Those who have not seen the arguments for immateriality and do not see the either-or “jump to that conclusion, and most of them do”.
• Hearing Mozart: interfered with either by whacking the ears, puncturing the eardrum (Beethoven’s father boxing his ears, which he says led to deafness), or by his wife turning the volume down, kicking the speakers in, static and other stations on the old radio; the latter all on the side of the object. Student: so a drunk per se could reason correctly if he could pull up the image? Yes, “that’s the only thing”.
• Thomas’s text: a body is required for understanding not as an organ by which the action is exercised but by reason of the object, for the phantasm is to the understanding as color to sight, “the proportion that the great Aristotle used”. Needing a body does not take away subsistence, otherwise the animal would not subsist, since it needs exterior sensibles to sense.
• Aside: his new computer and the iTunes classical station (“always Mozart… Go for Baroque”) that cut out mid-piece: a blow “somewhere out there”, on the side of the object.

8. Homer’s blow and brother Mark’s fall (“lay there thinking other thoughts”) #

Point: the Greeks’ materialist picture of understanding, illustrated and joked about.

• Aristotle cites Homer’s line of a man hit on the head in battle who “lay there thinking other thoughts”.
• His brother Mark (Marcus Berquist) and Brother Edmund, the Christian brother who taught philosophy at St. Mary’s, mountain climbing: rocks gave way, Mark was knocked unconscious, flown out by helicopter (insurance troubles). Mark’s joke: he should have pretended the blow changed his whole philosophy, “like a Hegelian or a Kantian or a Marxist or some Cartesian”; he lost his watch in the fall, “the editor stole his watch”. Break follows.

His words #

• the hot heats, not heat: heat exists only in the hot; it is that by which one heats.
• spirit: word borrowed from air, a barely sensible material substance, given a new meaning for substances in no way sensible.
• hoc aliquid: “this something”; (1) anything subsisting, (2) something subsisting and complete in the nature of a species.
• proceeding dialectically: speaking according to predecessors’ opinions before determining the truth.
• per se subsisting (properly): neither inhering as accident or material form, nor a part.
• immersed: Thomas’s word; the soul’s existence not wholly contained in the body, like a body floating partly above water.
• on the side of the organ vs. on the side of the object: the two ways of interfering with an operation.
• affirmation of the consequent: if A then B; B; therefore A; “wishful thinking, not logical thinking”.
• demonstration: conclusion follows necessarily and premises true.
• the what it is of something sensed or imagined: the proper object of reason while the soul is in the body.
• phantasm: Thomas’s Greek word for the image.
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics] (title on the verified handout).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 2: end of the body (“we do not say that heat heats”) and replies to objections 1-3 (verified).
• Handout “Note for Book One of Natural Hearing, Reading I”, p. 9, and DHB Vol. III, The School of Aristotle, p. 316: listed by the verified sources; the transcript does not show where they are read.

Mentioned

• Summa Theologiae I, q. 75, a. 4, “whether the soul is man” (next time); a. 3 (the “second article” after the break, inferred).
• Aristotle, De Anima I (understanding as being moved, said dialectically); De Anima, the phantasm compared to color and sight.
• Thomas’s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics; Nicomachean Ethics, beginning (ends of arts: wealth, victory, a good meal).
• Aristotle, Poetics (Homer taught the poets to tell a good lie).
• Homer, a man hit on the head thinking other thoughts (as cited by Aristotle).
• John’s Gospel, “God is a spirit” (inferred); Genesis, God breathed into Adam (inferred).

His questions #

• Why do we say the hot heats and not heat heats? Because heat does not exist by itself but only in the hot.
• Why did we borrow the word for immaterial substance from air rather than earth or fire? Air is a material substance that is hardly sensible, almost invisible.
• Is man just a soul, just a body, or composed of both? The complete man is composed of soul and body; Article Four, next time.
• If I smash the light bulb and you can no longer see me, is the bulb the organ of your sight? No; that interferes on the side of the object, hitting the eye on the side of the organ.
• From “a blow on the brain interferes with thinking”, what follows necessarily? Only that there is a connection, either organ or object; which one it does not tell you.
• Does “if A then B; B; therefore A” follow? No: affirming the consequent, wishful thinking.
• Where does the blow or alcohol actually interfere? With the images, the organ of the imagination, hence on the side of the object of understanding.
• Could a drunk reason correctly if he could pull up the image? Yes, that is the only thing interfered with.
• Why does needing a body not take away the soul’s subsistence? Otherwise the animal would not subsist, since it needs exterior sensibles to sense.