Aquinas' Replies on Universals: Two Orders of Nature, Whole and Part, and the Mistakes of Descartes, Spinoza and Hegel

Orientation #

He opens with “let’s go back to the first objection,” i.e. resuming the replies to the objections of the article begun last time (prev. lecture). He also recalls “we studied the definition of nature, didn’t we?” — an earlier class on Aristotle’s Physics II. The previous class covered q. 85 a. 2 and the body of a. 3 (universals known confusedly before distinctly); the next takes up aa. 4-5. Verified sources place this episode in ST I, q. 85, a. 3, with a handout “Note for Book One of Natural Hearing, Reading I,” p. 3 read in class.

The class, in order #

1. Ad 1: two ways to consider the universal (“the universal is able to be considered in two ways”) #

Point: Thomas concedes one sense in which the universal is before by nature and denies another.

1. Universal with the intention of universality (one nature related to many, made by the mind’s abstraction): here the universal is posterior — De Anima I: “animal universally is either nothing or after the singulars.” Individual men and dogs are out there first; the mind compares and separates out the common, and only then does the universal begin to be, in the mind. Only for Plato, with subsistent forms in which particulars partake, would this universal be prior.
2. Universal as the nature itself in the particulars: here there is a twofold order of nature.
   • Order of generation and time: the imperfect and in-potency is first, so the more common is first. Fertilized human egg: first growth (cell division — what we share with plants), then sensation (the animal life), finally understanding. “First is generated animal, then man” (Generation of Animals).
   • Order of perfection / intention of nature: act before potency, perfect before imperfect, so the less common is first (man before animal); nature does not stop at generating animal but intends man. Gloss: nature is said of both matter and form (from the earlier study of the definition of nature). Before-by-nature “according to matter” = the imperfect, more common; “according to form” = the perfect, complete. Form is more nature than matter, since by matter a thing is natural only in ability, by form actually — as a statue is more its shape than its marble. So what is first by nature-as-form is posterior for us: we know the confused before the distinct. “Very subtle, huh? A lot to think about here.”

2. More known to us vs. more known simply (“what is more known to us and what is more known”) #

Point: Aristotle’s distinction, behind the objection, reduced to a simple case.

• Wine example: “What are you drinking?” — “a dry red wine” vs. “Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, 1973.” The wine is more known when known as the latter; but the former is more known to me and I am more certain of it. So what is more fully known is less known to me: the two really differ.
• Reason: we go from ignorance to imperfect knowledge, then toward perfect knowledge; knowledge and known are relative, so imperfect knowledge corresponds to a thing imperfectly known. Hence what is more known to us is really less known.
• Aristotle applies it to two things: (a) confused before distinct (I am surer I’m drinking red wine than carbonated soda, surer of that than of Napa Valley 1973); (b) effect before cause — every “why” knows the effect without the cause, but the effect is fully known only in the light of its cause. “We go from darkness to light.”
• Bat comparison (a student asks him to “lay that out more”): as the eyes of the bat are to the light of day (Aristotle assuming it flies at night because daylight is too bright), so is our mind to the most understandable things. A man coming out of a dark room sees the more visible less. Scripture: God “dwells in light inaccessible” — too understandable for us.
• Consequence: confused before distinct, hence more universal before less universal — but “particular” as singular (known by sense) comes before any universal; among universals, the more universal first. Classifying campus vegetation: knowledge starts from this tree, this bush, this blade; but tree vs. grass is seen before Kentucky bluegrass vs. other grass; wine vs. beer before kinds of wine. Second reason: the greater difference is easier to see.
• So “according to nature” here means actuality: our knowledge goes from ability to act; a thing is knowable to the extent it is in act, God pure act is most knowable — but not to us.

3. Parallel in love: the education of the heart (“what’s more lovable to me in the beginning”) #

Point: the same inversion holds for love, especially at the beginning of life.

• Lovable because good; better = more lovable. But the sensible good is more lovable to us first: candy before wisdom (yet wisdom is the greater good); private good before common good (yet the whole is greater than the part). Child prefers the drawing in his book to the great painting, though there is more to be seen in the painting.
• Any education develops from imperfect to perfect: Royal Canadian Air Force 5BX plan — start at five pushups though twenty produce more strength; a weight too heavy can harm you.
• St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s four stages: no love of God; love God for my sake; love God for His sake; love myself for God’s sake (hard to realize in this life). Loving God for my sake makes Him lovable because of my lovableness, though I am much less lovable — the neighbour diagnosed with cancer whose whole family suddenly went to daily Mass.
• Girl loved for looks before good character, though more lovable for character. Businessman on city committees first for his business, then acquiring a taste for the common good and continuing after retirement: the heart educated.
• Aside: last time he came up sleepy and resisted stopping for candy — “I’ve come a long way.”

4. Ad 2: the universal as whole and as part (“the word whole and part are what equivocal”) #

Point: the more common is compared to the less common both as whole and as part, because “whole” is equivocal.

• His sophistical argument: man is an animal but not just an animal, so animal is only part of man; yet animal includes dog, cat, horse — so the part is more than the whole. Trick: two senses of whole. Universal whole is said of more than any particular under it; composed whole is put together from more than one part. “Animal is part of man” = part of the definition (a composed whole); “animal includes more than man” = universal whole.
• Thomas: as whole, the more universal contains in potency not only the less universal but others (under animal: horse, dog, elephant); as part, the less common contains in its definition not only the more common but others (man: animal and rational). So animal considered by itself is known before man; but man, at least confusedly, is known before animal is known to be part of man’s definition. “That’s a very subtle thing.” Same point in the commentary on the beginning of the Physics.

5. Ad 3: parts absolutely vs. parts as parts (“some part can be taken in two ways”) #

Point: the defined is known before its defining parts only in one sense.

• Objection: we name before we define, so the defined precedes the parts of the definition — but the more universal are parts of the definitions of the less universal.
• Reply: a part taken absolutely, by itself may be known before the whole (stones before the house); taken as part of the whole, it is known after, since we know the whole confusedly before distinguishing its parts.
• Clarinet: I can know the clarinet by itself, yet not pick it out when the symphony plays. Herb tasted alone, unrecognized in the salad dressing. Teas known singly, not in the blend; grapes known singly, not in the blended wine.
• Perfect number: students know six and twenty-eight are perfect but cannot define it. Definition: a number equal to the sum of everything that measures it evenly (six: 1+2+3; four: 1+2 does not add up). The student already knew number, measuring evenly, adding — otherwise these could not make the definition known — yet knew “perfect number” imperfectly before knowing these were its parts. So the defining things absolutely considered are known before the defined; as parts of the definition, after.

6. Ad 4: principle of knowing vs. principle of being (“not everything which is a principle of knowing be a principle of being”) #

Point: the universal with the intention of universality is a principle of knowing, not (as Plato thought) of being.

• We know the cause through the effect and substance through accidents: the effect is the beginning of our knowing the cause, but the cause is the beginning of the effect — so with God, known through His effects, which are not His beginning. The universal so taken is not a principle of being nor a substance (Metaphysics VII).
• The nature of the species in the singulars is a formal principle of the singular (“by human nature I am a man”): the singular is singular by matter, the species defined from form. The genus stands to the species as a material principle: genus taken from what is material (animal from having senses), species from what is formal (man from understanding); matter is what is common, form what distinguishes. Hence nature’s ultimate intention is the species, not the individual nor the genus, since form is the end of generation and matter is for the form.
• Yet not every cause is posterior quoad nos: sometimes we know unknown effects through sensible causes.

7. Mathematics: the exception where cause is first (“the main science where we don’t is in what mathematics”) #

Point: for the most part we know effect before cause; mathematics reverses this.

• Intersecting straight lines: I know they are straight before I know the vertical angles are equal; a + x = two right angles and b + x = two right angles because each is a straight line meeting a straight line; the rest is axioms. Cause (straightness) to effect (equality). Same when I make a triangle: that I made it is more known than that its angles equal two right angles.
• Plane geometry is “superficial” — on the surface; but why a tree grows or a stone falls is hidden. We know better what someone did than why — we misjudge motives; sometimes they don’t know themselves.
• Student: “So in mathematics the cause is more known?” Yes — with a very bad effect on Descartes, Spinoza, later Hegel, who want to proceed everywhere as in mathematics. Descartes proves nature exists from God’s existence, the reverse of the truth. Spinoza’s Ethica more geometrico demonstrata: axiom that the order of thoughts is the order of things — true only when going from cause to effect; usually we ask why and reason backwards (Sherlock Holmes to Watson: “we have to reason backwards”). Hegel identifies the most confused, most universal notion — being, said of everything — with “I am who am.” Thomas in Summa Contra Gentiles I devotes a chapter to refuting this: common being exists only in the mind, separated out; and it is divided into substance and accident. For Aristotle the order of knowledge and of things is for the most part contrary; the first cause is the last known, reached by reason in the twelfth book of the “wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics]. Heisenberg: “we never start at the beginning.” Aristotle in the Ethics, recalling Plato: are we on the way from the beginning or to the beginning? Usually to it.
• Water, hydrogen, proton: water first in our knowledge (hydrogen named as water-generator), proton — named “first” — last in our knowledge. Augustine: “Too late have I come to know thee” — loved the infinitely less lovable first.

8. Descartes on certitude vs. clarity (“identifies certitude, sureness, with what is clear and distinct”) #

Point: Descartes’ rules confuse sureness with clear-and-distinct knowledge; Aristotle says we are surer of the confused.

• Two resulting mistakes: (a) when very sure, he thinks he knows clearly and distinctly — the cogito (going back to Augustine): sure I’m thinking, but do I know distinctly what thinking is? I’m sure I’m alive without knowing distinctly what life is. (b) When something is clear and distinct, like a mathematical picture of nature, he takes it for the truth. Louis de Broglie, father of wave mechanics: “nothing is more misleading than a clear and distinct idea.”
• Men and women: everyone is sure they differ, but saying exactly how is hard and disputed — surer in the confused knowledge than in the distinct. Aside: little girls decide daily what to wear; little boys don’t care.

His words #

• “intention of universality”; the mind’s relation of one nature to many, made by abstraction.
• “before by nature” according to matter vs. according to form; imperfect/common first vs. perfect/complete first.
• “more known to us” vs. “more known simply / by nature”; more certain to us vs. more fully known.
• “ability” [ed.: potency]; knowledge goes from ability to act.
• “universal whole” vs. “composed whole”; said of more vs. put together from more.
• “confused” vs. “distinct” knowledge; whole known before its parts are spelled out.
• “beginning of knowing” vs. “beginning of being” [ed.: principium cognoscendi / essendi].
• “quoad nos”; as regards us.
• “superficial geometry”; plane geometry, “on the surface.”
• “the wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics]; its twelfth book reaches the first cause.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 85, a. 3, ad 1, ad 2, ad 3, ad 4 (translated and commented).
• Handout “Note for Book One of Natural Hearing, Reading I,” p. 3 (verified source; the “more known to us / more known simply” passage).

Mentioned

• Aristotle, De Anima I (“animal universally is either nothing or after the singulars”).
• Aristotle, Generation of Animals (“first animal, then man”).
• Aristotle, Metaphysics VII (universal not substance); XII (first cause).
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Plato: from or to the beginning).
• Thomas, Commentary on the beginning of the Physics (inferred: In Phys. I, lect. 1).
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles I, chapter refuting common being as God.
• Spinoza, Ethica more geometrico demonstrata; Descartes, rules to direct the mind; the cogito.
• St. Bernard of Clairvaux, four stages of love; Augustine, “Too late have I come to know thee”; Scripture, “light inaccessible.”
• Heisenberg; Louis de Broglie; Sherlock Holmes.

His questions #

• What first appears in the fertilized human egg? Growth (cell division), then sensation, finally understanding: the more common first in generation.
• Which is more known to me: that it’s a dry red wine or Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, 1973? The dry red wine — more certain to me, though the wine is more known as the latter.
• Classifying the campus vegetation, which difference comes first: Kentucky bluegrass vs. other grass, or tree vs. grass? Tree vs. grass — the more universal, and the greater difference.
• Is candy more lovable than wisdom? No; wisdom is the greater good, but candy is more lovable to us at first.
• Sometimes the part is more than the whole? (the sophistical argument) Only by shifting between universal whole and composed whole.
• Do I recognize the clarinet in the symphony? Not at first; the whole is heard confusedly before its parts are distinguished.
• What is a perfect number? A number equal to the sum of everything that measures it evenly; students knew the parts by themselves before spelling out the definition.
• Why must the vertical angles be equal? Because the intersecting lines are straight — cause known before effect, the mathematical exception.
• Is the order of thoughts the same as the order of things (Spinoza)? Only when going from cause to effect; usually the reverse.
• Does being sure that I’m thinking mean I know clearly and distinctly what thinking is? No; we are surer of the confused than of the distinct.