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

Orientation #

He says “we’re up to the second article here of question 76” and refers back to what “we learned before” (that the human soul is not a complete immaterial substance) and to “when we studied the immaterial nature of our mind” (that understanding is not continuous nor in the continuous) (prev. lecture). Verified source: ST I q.76 a.2 is read in class for about 22 minutes, with the surrounding discussion probably still within the same article. He does not say what comes next (the replies to the objections are not reached).

The class, in order #

1. Opening and the question of a.2 (“there is one understanding in all men”) #

The article asks whether the understanding soul is multiplied by the multiplication of bodies; the opinion that it is not was held by the Averroists, and Plato “leaves himself open” to it by holding that the soul is the whole substance.

• Aside after the prayer: someone (Pius XI, he thinks) said we learn more from a year of St. Thomas than a lifetime of the Fathers — “that must be why he made it so simple.”

2. Objection 1 and Plato’s forms: why immaterial substances are one per kind (“no two immaterial substances of the same kind”) #

The objection: no immaterial substance is multiplied numerically in one species; the human soul is immaterial, not composed of matter and form; all men are one species; so one understanding principle of all men.

• Plato’s “ideas”: English “idea” means the thought or image in the man, but Greek eidos means a form existing by itself, apart from material things and apart from our mind; so the world of forms is a world of immaterial substances, and in it there are no two forms of the same kind. Plato thus “saw something of the truth” about angels and God: the same kind of immaterial substance cannot be multiplied.
• Second thing Plato saw: in an immaterial substance there is no difference between the individual and what it is — Gabriel and what Gabriel is are the same.
• Material things vs. immaterial: in things with sensible matter (natural, artificial) and with imaginable matter (mathematics, part outside of part), the individual and what-it-is are not identical. If Socrates and what a man is were identical, Socrates would be the only man.
• Argument for how many of one kind are possible with matter:
  1. The continuous is that whose parts meet in a common boundary, hence part outside of part.
  2. Euclid’s first theorem (equilateral triangle on a line): two circles of the same size and shape differ only by position — one here, one there.
  3. Glass rolled out and cut into many identical window panes; Grandma’s rolled dough stamped into identical sugar cookies “until she runs out of dough”.
  4. So matter as subject to quantity is the cause of there possibly being many individuals of the same kind; likewise in mathematics, two triangles alike in shape and size, one here, one there.
• Aside on modern physics: when the theory says electrons “come together” they lose their individuality, because you cannot say one is here and one there.
• Take away matter and the continuous (as the mind was shown not to be continuous, (prev. lecture)) and there is no basis for many individuals of a kind; a difference then is a difference of form, i.e. of kind.
• Plato’s inconsistency: many human souls, yet each a complete immaterial substance — then there should be only one.

3. Reply in outline: the soul is the form of this body (“my soul is made for my body”) #

The point: the human soul is not a complete immaterial substance imprisoned in a body (a man putting on and shuffling off clothes — Hamlet’s “shuffles off this mortal coil”), but the first act or substantial form of a natural body; this gives the basis for distinguishing your soul from mine.

• Even identical twins: your flesh and my flesh are not the same; because there is enough flesh and bone, many individuals of one kind.
• Careful statement: the body is not the cause of my soul’s being individual; my soul differs from yours because it is proportioned to, fits, my body — matter corresponds to its individuation rather than causing it.
• Nut-and-bolt comparison (he warns not to extend it): a bolt fitting a bigger nut is not the bolt fitting a smaller one; separated from the nuts the bolts remain distinct, but they are distinct as fitting different ones.
• Aside: so thank God for creating your soul, and thank Him for your parents’ meeting, since the flesh and blood of which your body was made is not that of mine.
• Student: is calling the soul an immaterial substance the same as calling it a haec aliquid? Answer: haec aliquid in the full sense is a complete individual substance; the human soul is a haec aliquid “in some respect”, since it can exist by itself, but it is naturally the form of a body, so not complete.
• Joke: if the angels held their Independence Hall — “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that no angels are created equal”; one is always greater or lesser than another.
• Thomas’s answer to “wouldn’t angels love each other more if equal?”: the more understanding a substance is, the more it loves the common good; in charity I love you because I love God, the common good of the universe; the common good is served more by distinction of kind than by several of one kind, so the angels love each other more being unequal. Human society’s problem is that we are too alike — between me and the dog or the horse it is clear who rules, among men it is not.
• The soul is a part — the better part — of a complete substance, which is why the resurrection is so much in harmony with man’s natural desires. The objection’s fault: it takes the soul as “another more or less complete immaterial substance.”

4. Objection 2: cause removed, effect removed (“the difference of rewards and punishments”) #

The objection: if souls are multiplied by bodies, then when bodies are taken away at death the multitude of souls would not remain, one soul would remain from all — heretical, since the difference of rewards and punishments would perish.

• Return to nuts and bolts: bolts made for nuts exist when unscrewed and remain distinct; their distinction does not depend on being in the nuts, though they are relative to different ones.
• Thomas’s line (from the reply, as he anticipates it): the unity of a thing follows upon its existence; the soul can exist without the body, so its unity can; but its distinction from other souls is because they are apt to be forms of numerically different bodies.

5. Objection 3: an individual intellect could not know universals (“what is received is in it by the manner of the receiver”) #

The objection (Averroist): if my understanding differs from yours, each is an individual; what is received is received after the manner of the receiver; so species in my intellect would be received individually — against the definition of understanding, which knows universals. Boethius: the thing is singular when sensed, universal when understood; Aristotle: the proper object of our mind is the what-it-is, which is universal (what a chair is, what a square is).

• His reply: if there is one immaterial substance that thinks for all, that too is an individual, so on this argument it could not know the universal either — the position does not save what it tries to save. Even Raphael and Gabriel have individual minds.
• Likeness to Heraclitus: change is inductively shown to be between contraries (wet dries, dry is moistened, hard softens); Heraclitus says hot and cold, day and night are the same thing, since one becomes the other; but if they are really the same there is no change from one to the other — in trying to save change he takes it away. Likewise here.

6. Objection 4: the understood is in the understanding understanding (“the understood is in the understanding, understanding”) #

The objection: intellectum est in intellectu intelligente — a translation puzzle, since English “understanding” names both the power and the act; a student proposes “the thing understood is in the intellect which understands.” If my understanding is other than yours, what is understood by me is other than what is understood by you; it will be individually numbered, understood only in potency (individuals are understood only in potency), and a common intention would have to be abstracted from both, which would not distinguish intellect from the imaginative power.

• Aside on modern philosophers: one says at the end of the 18th century that it is a scandal that philosophers have not proved the existence of the external world; “I always say the scandal is that they should have tried.” They have a bit of the truth — the thing known must be in the knower — but conclude I know only what is in my mind, you only what is in yours, so we never know the same thing. Yet two students studying a geometry theorem are thinking about the same thing. Two mirrors: your face appears in both, two images alike, one face.

7. Objections 5 and 6 (“the way heat in the stove generates heat in the water”) #

Obj. 5: when a disciple learns from a teacher, the teacher’s knowledge does not generate knowledge in the disciple as an active form like heat (“we wish”); so the numerically same knowledge is communicated, which requires one intellect of both, and so of all men. Obj. 6: Augustine, On the Quantity of the Soul: “If I say there are many human souls, I will [laugh at myself]” — the class agrees he means not many souls in kind (complete substances), as if a white man and a black man had different kinds of soul, not that there are not many individual souls.

8. Sed contra: causes proportioned to effects (“as universal causes are universals, so particular causes are particulars”) #

Aristotle, Physics II (“the Philosopher” by antonomasia): causes and effects are proportional; it is impossible that one soul in species belong to animals diverse in species; therefore impossible that one soul in number belong to things diverse in number. Many particular animals, many particular souls, since the soul is the form of the body.

9. Body of the article: impossible on Plato’s view and on Aristotle’s (“one man with a tunic and another with a cloak”) #

Thomas: one intellect or one understanding soul of all men is altogether impossible (“I’m sure Thomas liked this”).

1. On Plato’s position (man is the understanding soul): if Socrates and Plato had one soul they would be one man, distinguished only by something outside their essence — one man with a tunic, another with a cloak; “you’ve got that black thing, and I’ve got this shirt” — omnino absurdum.
2. On Aristotle’s position (understanding a part or power of the soul, which is the form of man): many differing in number cannot have one form, as they cannot have one existence, because form is the principle of being; if my existence is not yours, the form by which I exist is not yours.

10. Body continued: any mode of union — agents and tools (“many drawing, but one drawing”) #

Whatever way one posits the union of intellect to this man, it fails. Distinction of cases:

• one principal agent, two tools: one agent, many actions — a man touching two things with two hands, one touching, two contacts;
• many principal agents, one tool: many agents, one action — many pulling a ship by one rope, many drawing, one drawing;
• one agent, one tool: one agent, one action — a carpenter striking with one hammer. The intellect has principality among what belongs to man; the sense powers obey and serve it. So if two men had one eye there would be many seeing but one vision (aside: “sounds like a Trinity” — three understanding, one act of understanding); and if the understanding is one, however the tools it uses are diversified, Socrates and Plato are one understanding.
• Averroes’s device: one understanding, but images differ in your head and mine, so my understanding is not yours. Thomas: if I image a triangle and you a square, the diversity of tools (images in which the what-it-is is considered) does not make two understandings.
• Add that “to understand” itself is an action of the understanding through no organ except itself: then one agent and one action — one act of understanding for all men with respect to the same intelligible.
• Diversity through images would work only if the image were the very form of the possible intellect (the same eye by diverse forms has diverse visions). But it is not: the intelligible form is separated from the images, and from diverse phantasms of the same kind only one intelligible form is abstracted — one man with many images of a stone abstracts one form of stone and by one operation understands its nature. So the diversity of images could not cause a diversity of the operation of understanding in this man and that, “as the Commentator fingit in III De Anima.”

11. The Commentator’s “fiction” and Euclid’s two circles (“I still have one thought of what a circle is”) #

The point: fingit (whence “fiction”, “made up”) means Averroes imagines it; the images are not in the understanding, what is understood is separated from them and universal, so there is one thought for both, not two because of two images.

• “The Commentator” is Averroes by antonomasia, so called because among the Arab philosophers whose works reached Europe he had commented on nearly everything of Aristotle — not that Thomas would not more appropriately be called so.
• A student’s modern English translation drops the “as the Commentator fingit” clause entirely; he reads the Latin: si ergo unus intellectus esset omnium hominum, diversitas phantasmatum quae sunt in hoc et in illo non posset causare diversitatem intellectualis operationis huius et illius hominis, ut Commentator fingit in III De Anima.
• Euclid I.1 in detail: two circles constructed on the two end points; the triangle proved equilateral by the same syllogism twice (“radii of the same circle are equal; these are radii of the same circle”). Two images of a circle, one thought of what a circle is; so two men’s images of a circle would give the common mind one thinking, not two. “He’s being like a poet.”
• Aside: De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas is one of Thomas’s major works; Averroism was common in the universities, which is why Thomas keeps attacking it (like our constant talk of abortion) — including digressions in the De Anima commentary.

12. Student’s question: did Averroes get this from Plato? (“wisdom began with them”) #

Answer: rather, there is a confusion in Plato — holding the forms, he must either say with Aristotle that the soul is not a complete immaterial substance but the first act of an organic body, or say it is complete and there is only one, whereupon how do we understand?

• The one separated substance thinking for both, like the one guardian angel over two children on the bridge in the old picture: Averroes must “finge” how it becomes the thinking of both — since Aristotle says understanding understands the what-it-is in something imagined, multiplied images give multiplied understanding.
• Defects: the thought is not in the image; the image is on the side of the object; insofar as a thing is in the image it is not actually understood, and insofar as actually understood it is not in the image. And even granting the device, my understanding of a triangle would be numerically your understanding, not merely similar. “Very subtle.”
• De unitate’s opening: as man naturally desires to know the truth, so to avoid and repel error; Thomas goes through Aristotle’s text to show the Averroists cannot claim his authority, and marvels quam leviter errant — “the lights that some of these mistakes have.”
• Thomas on the Latin Averroists: “they speak as if wisdom began with them” — “what every modern philosopher writes,” like the one who writes in his introduction as if lucky to have hit the truth all others missed [ed.: “Conrad” in the transcript; likely Kant (inferred)].
• Student aside: curious that it came out of the Muslim world, which disdains reason; some were counted heretics in their own religion.

His words #

• “understanding” for intellectus, both power and act; “to understand itself” for the act [ed.: intelligere]
• eidos: a form existing by itself, apart from things and from our mind — not English “idea”
• “the continuous”: that whose parts meet in a common boundary; part outside of part
• “matter as subject to quantity”: cause of many individuals of the same kind
• “first act or substantial form of a natural body composed of tools” [ed.: organs]
• haec aliquid: in the full sense a complete individual substance; the soul in some respect [ed.: hoc aliquid]
• “the Philosopher”, “the Commentator”: Aristotle, Averroes, by antonomasia
• omnino absurdum: altogether absurd
• “tools” for the images the understanding uses [ed.: phantasms]
• “possible understanding”: the ability to understand [ed.: possible intellect]
• fingit: imagines, makes up — “like a poet”
• quam leviter errant: how lightly they err

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 2: objections 1–6, sed contra, body (last sentences read in Latin)
• Euclid, Elements I, prop. 1 (inferred) — reconstructed at the board twice Mentioned
• Aristotle, Physics II (universal and particular causes)
• Boethius (singular when sensed, universal when understood)
• Augustine, On the Quantity of the Soul
• Averroes, Commentary on De Anima III
• Thomas Aquinas, De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas; Commentary on De Anima (digressions against the Averroists)
• Shakespeare, Hamlet (“shuffles off this mortal coil”)

His questions #

• How do two circles of exactly the same size and shape differ? By position — one here, one there; the continuous has part outside of part.
• How is it possible to have many individuals of exactly the same kind? Matter subject to quantity: enough glass for many panes, enough dough for many cookies.
• If Socrates and what a man is were identical, what would follow? Socrates would be the only man.
• Is the body the cause of my soul being individual? No; my soul differs from yours as proportioned to my body — the nut-and-bolt likeness.
• Is the human soul a haec aliquid? In some respect, since it can exist by itself; not in the full sense, being the form of a body.
• Wouldn’t the angels love each other more if they were equal? No: the more understanding, the more it loves the common good, which distinction of kind serves better.
• If one man touches two things with two hands, how many touchings? One touching, two contacts; many on one rope, one drawing; one hammer, one striking.
• Do I have two thoughts of what a circle is because I imagine two circles? No — one thought, however many images; so two men’s images give one understanding, not two.
• How does the modern translation render “ut Commentator fingit”? It drops the clause altogether.
• Did Averroes get this from Plato? Not directly; the confusion is Plato’s own, between the forms and a plurality of complete souls.