De Anima (On the Soul)
1. Where the De Anima Fits: Aristotle's Books on Nature and Life, and the Value of Common Experience
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[0:02] In the Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and rouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic Doctor. pray for us. And help us to understand what you have written. In the. Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:29] Perhaps we should situate the De Anima here among the books of natural philosophy, natural science, of Aristotle. And as Aristotle pointed out at the beginning of the eight books of natural hearing, usually called physics and English now, we should consider things in general before in what Particularly, right?

[0:58] And he also touched upon the fact that we're going to be going towards matter as we go on in science. Okay. So in the eight books of natural hearing,

[1:22] Aristotle is talking about natural things in general. He's talking about motion or change in general. If you recall, nature was defined by motion, right? So here he's talking about motion or change in general.

[1:48] Now in the other parts of natural philosophy or natural science, Aristotle takes up some particular kind of change and distinguishes three main kinds of change. One being change of place.

[2:15] The second being change of sensible quality, which change can lead to a what? Substantial change. Heat a man up too much, cool him down too much, you kill the man, right? Okay. So leading to substantial change. Though, not necessarily leading to that. And then change of quantity in the concise sense of what we call growth, change of quantity, growth. And this is where you start to study the living things, right?

[3:06] Because growth is what you find, even the lowest kind of life that you find in the plants. Now, the first book, therefore, is the eight books of natural hearing, which about motion or change in general. Then he descends to these particular kinds of change. But in the order of considering these particular kinds of change, he to some extent is still going from the general to the particular.

[3:38] Now, why do I say that? Well, change of place seems to be more common than change of what? Sensible quality. Christopher Aristotle seemed to be this very much so because, as far as he could tell, the sun, moon, and the stars—they change their place, but they didn't what? Seem to change their quality. Okay. But even down here, where things do both change their quality and change their place, they can change their place without changing their quality.

[4:14] But for a quality of change, you have to bring them together in the same place. Okay. So to some extent, change of place is more general and presupposed to change of quality. And so he considers this in the book, which in Greek I think should be translated on the what? Universe.

[4:40] Or about the universe. It's said referred to in Thomas as the De Caelo et Mundo. So this is, you might say, the second book work. Actually has four books to the book of the universe, the second one in the four books books. Now, why should the change of place eventually lead us to consider the whole universe?

[5:14] What's the connection between place and universe as a whole? Well everything that's in places in the universe. The universe is, in a sense, the last place that is the place is determined. Yeah. In relation to the universe. So we want to stop where we are and say we're in this room, right? And this room is in this building. This building is on this land and in you know this state, and all the way up to eventually where it is in regard to the whole universe.

[5:49] So that's about change of place. Now, in the book that's come down to us, the book on generation and corruption, this is where he talks about change of quality and. Change of substance that this can lead to, okay?

[6:14] Again, that is in some sense more general than growth, right? Because in order to have growth, you have to what? Change the quality of your food, right? And eventually change it into your own substance, right? So growth presupposes this kind of change, but there can be this kind of change, chemical change, you might call it today, in the non-living white world, right growth is only the living world.

[6:43] So to some extent, you're still going from the general to the particular, right? Even when you have an order there among the three particular kinds of change. Now this was really the origin of the popular division we still have in experimental science today. We speak of physics and chemistry, biology, right? So when I was in high school, you know, you could take a biology course, or chemistry course, or physics course, or you know, all three if you wanted to, right?

[7:21] In colleges, we often have physics and chemistry and biology. And so physics was originally what? Corresponding to change of place. And then chemistry was dealing with what? Qualitative change that could lead to more substantial changes. And then biology is dealing with growth and other changes that take place in living bodies. So the original reason for the division into physics, chemistry, biology goes back to Aristotle. But after it became customary, people didn't what?

[7:56] Know the reason for it anymore. Notice the reason why you divide the different kinds of change is seen back in the physics because nature is defined by change. Okay.

[8:12] What happened, of course, in the history of science as I said, they forgot, right? The reason for this. So the division became sometimes what?

[8:25] Muddled. Muddled, yeah, yeah. So if you take something like what we call today atomic physics, right? Does atomic physics belong here under change of place or over here with change of quality and substance?

[8:45] Belongs with chemistry, really. Yeah. Now sometimes it's not too bad a way of speaking. Sometimes today we we lump these two together. And we call them the what?

[9:05] Physical sciences, huh? Okay. And the physical sciences, of course, have become very mathematical in the modern world, right? Okay. And so, if you look at at Heisenberg's, huh, look at Heisenberg's Gifford lectures, right? When he divides the physical sciences, huh, one of the main things he has in mind is the kind of mathematical formalism that you have. You have different mathematical formalism, you have a different physical science, huh?

[9:49] You have a kind of a mathematical science of nature. But he will put atomic physics with what chemistry, not with mechanics, which is studying change of place. Okay. So the division of physical science, as they say, is modified from this division here because it's a mathematical science of nature, and therefore it's very important the kind of mathematics you have, and so on. But the oldest part of modern science is the mechanics, huh?

[10:21] Part that Galileo and Kepler were dealing with, and put in unified. And that was basically the study of what? Change of place, huh? If you go back to we saw in the Greek philosophers before Aristotle, change of place was the only kind of change that some of them admitted, right? Okay, they couldn't understand this more inward change. But again, it's a sign that Aristotle's proceeding here from the more known to the what?

[10:52] Less known. What is more known to us, that is to say, right? What is less known? Change of place is more known to us, huh? But still, to some extent, as we saw before, proceeding from the general to the particular, huh?

[11:09] And we're accustomed to call this over here sometimes the what? Life sciences, huh? Just the physical science and the life sciences, huh? After the eight books of nature, right? Now the three books about the soul are only part of what Aristotle wrote, then. Okay. And Thomas, in the beginning of his commentary on the sense and the sensible, right, the sensu et sensato,

[11:54] gives the division, huh, and the order of all Aristotle's books on living things, huh? Okay. I don't try to maybe write all this down, but just to give you an idea of this,

[12:16] he says, as the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, some people learn now. As things are separable from matter, right? So they concern the understanding, huh? Now we're going to learn in the third book about the soul that the reason or the understanding is immaterial. That's not the brain. That's not a body, right, huh? And that's going to be the basis for the statement, huh?

[12:48] As things are separable from matter, so they pertain to the understanding in some way. For each thing. Is understandable to the extent that it is what separable from matter.

[13:06] Whence those things which, by their very nature, are separated from matter, are understandable in act, by themselves, as such. Not to us, though, right?

[13:23] The things which are abstracted from material conditions become understandable in act through the light of our act of understanding, which I'll talk about in the third book, also.

[13:42] And because the habits of some power are distinguished in species by the difference of what is per se, as such, the object of that power, it is necessary that the habits of the sciences by which the understanding is perfected, that these also be distinguished by the difference of separation from matter.

[14:11] And therefore, the philosopher in the sixth book of the metaphysics, which we'll see eventually, distinguishes the genera of sciences according to a diverse way of separation from matter. And he's going to divide them in the sixth book of metaphysics into what natural philosophy and mathematics and metaphysics or wisdom, right? But the basis of that division is going to be diverse what In materiality. For those things which are separated from matter in their being and in their definition pertain to metaphysics or metaphysician.

[14:58] Those things which are separated in their definition but not in their existence or being pertain to mathematics. But those things which, in their very definition, involve sensible matter pertain to what natural philosophy.

[15:18] So notice, there's three possible sciences there, right? One that's about material things and it's going to define them with matter, not with your individual matter, but matter in general. Another science that's about things that are in the material world, like quantity and shape and so on, but which defines them without matter, like in geometry, mathematics, and then finally that science, wisdom or metaphysics or first philosophy, which is about things that are what.

[15:55] In their very nature, not dependent upon matter. Now there can't be a fourth possibility that something would not depend upon matter, but would be defined with matter, because there'd be no reason on the side of the thing for using matter in its definition, and because the understanding is immaterial, there'd be no reason on that side, right? The odd animal is mathematics, right? Which in a way reflects the immateriality of the mind that it considers things like sphere, right, or cylinder and so on without any what matter.

[16:37] Okay. So Aristotle, in the second book of Natural Hearing, he distinguished mathematics and natural philosophy, right? But it's not until the sixth book of Wisdom he distinguishes wisdom from those two. You see all three of them, right? Okay.

[17:09] And as he says, the diverse genera sciences are distinguished by this that things are in diverse ways separable from matter. So also he says in each of the sciences in particular, and especially in natural science, the parts of the science are distinguished according to a diverse separation, or use the Greek Latin word concretion, right? Application, a diverse way of being separated or applied to matter. And because universals are more what separated from matter, therefore in natural science one proceeds from the more universal to the less universals, as the philosophy teaches in the beginning of the physics, beginning of the Natural Hearing.

[18:03] Okay. Whence Aristotle begins to consider natural science from those things which are most common to all natural things, which are motion or change and the principle of motion.

[18:23] And then he proceeds by way of concretion or application of common principles to some what Determinate or particular mobile things, of which some are living bodies. Now he descends down there because he wants to subdivide this in particular.

[18:46] About which also in a similar way he proceeds. Distinguishing this consideration into three parts. Okay, he's going to distinguish this into three parts, and the first part is going to be the what? Three books about the soul. And there you're going to be considering the soul in a kind of separation from matter, not completely because you can't understand the soul without bringing in matter, but you're considering the soul to some extent by itself.

[19:19] Then there'd be a second group of books where he considers on the side of the body, right, But in a kind of a general way. And then finally a third group of books of Aristotle where he descends down to individual, particular kinds of animals and what plants. Okay.

[19:48] For first he considers about the soul secundum se by itself, huh? As in a quadam abstractione. It's not a complete abstraction, you see, but in a kind of abstraction. Secondly, he makes a consideration about those things which are of the soul according to a certain concretion, he says, or application to the body, but in a somewhat general way.

[20:19] Third, he makes a consideration by applying all these things to the particular species of animals and plants, determining what is proper to each species. So Aristotle has an awful lot besides the dynamis. And. He says the first consideration is contained in the book about the soul, the three books about the soul. I'm just giving you these selections from. The third consideration is contained in the books which he wrote about the animals and plants.

[20:54] He's thinking now of the book called the History of Animals, and the book called on the Parts of Animals, right? And on the Generation of Animals, right? And the work on Plants, which some people think might have been written by Theophrastus, but it's in the school there, right? But this book De Sensu et Sensato, the sense and the sensible, isn't that middle group of books which he's going to now divide, right?

[21:25] The middle considerations contained in those books which he wrote about certain things which pertain commonly either to all animals or to most of their genera, or even to all living things, about which the present book is concerned, huh? Okay. Now you call something else you're going to learn the De Anima. Once it should be considered, then the second book about the soul, Aristotle determined or distinguished four grades of living things, huh?

[22:09] Of which the first is of those things which have only the nourishing part of the soul, to which they live, as are the what plants, huh? Okay.

[22:23] The next grade is those things which have with this also what sensation, but they don't go from one place to another without progressive motion,

[22:38] as those imperfect animals like the clams and so on. Aristotle was a marine biologist among other things. Some, however, have in addition to this progressive local motion from one place to another, as the more perfect animals. As the horse and the cow,

[23:04] and some above those have also what understanding as men. Okay. Aristotle does mention a fifth group of powers, the desiring powers, but that doesn't give you a separate grade of life, because with sensation comes the desiring powers that we call the emotion emotions, and with understanding comes a desiring power called the will, right? So it doesn't give us a separate grade.

[23:36] Okay. Now, of these parts, the last one he mentioned, the understanding, is not the act of any part of the body, as is proved in the third book about the soul. So the only consideration in natural philosophy of the understanding of reason, the universal reason, is going to be in the De Anima, right? You can't go now and consider it in the body as if it had some organ there.

[24:03] Okay. Of these parts, he says the understanding is not the act of any part of the body, as is proved in the third book about the soul. Whence it is not able to be considered by concretion or by application to the body or to some bodily organ. Its greatest concretion is in the soul. Its greatest abstraction is in the what separated substances, the angels. And therefore, apart from the book about the soul, Aristotle did not make a book about the understanding and the understandable.

[24:45] Or if he did make such a book, it would not pertain to natural science, but more to the metaphysician, of whom it belongs or to whom it belongs to consider the separated substances. But all the other powers are acts of some part of the body, and therefore of them there can be a special consideration by application to the body or to the bodily organs, in addition to the consideration which is had about them in the book about the soul.

[25:16] I said is necessary that this middle consideration be distinguished into three parts, of which one part contains those things which pertains to the living thing in so far as it is living. And this is contained the book which he wrote about life and death, the De morte et vita, the work, in which he also determines about breathing in and breathing out, right? By which, in some animals, life is conserved.

[25:53] And a third book on what youth and old age, through which is diversified the status of life, huh? Likewise, in a book which he wrote on the causes of the length and the shortness of life,

[26:12] and in the book which he wrote on health and sickness. I know all those little books are about life in general, right? But we're going to be looking at it now in a general way, but nevertheless, bringing in the body now the way it was not brought in the De Anima. And in a book on nourishment and the nourishable, okay. These last two books, he says, have been lost, but we have mentioned them in the ancients.

[26:43] Okay. Then he wrote other books pertaining to the motive power from one place to another, which is contained in two books: in the book on the cause of the motion of the animals, and the book on the forward motion of the animals. We have those books, huh? In which he determines about the parts of animals that are opportune for motion from one place to another. Okay. And third, he has those books which pertain to sensation,

[27:18] about which it should be considered, both what pertains to the interior act of the senses and to the sense of the exterior. And as far as this consideration, sensitive is concerned, he wrote this book on the sense and the sensible, which is the one that we have here, and about under this is also contained the book on memory and reminiscence. Okay. So in this particular edition here, I have Thomas's commentary on the De Anima and his commentary on the De sense and sensato, and then the one on memory and reminiscence.

[28:01] And because it also pertains to consideration, what makes a difference about sense and sensing, he determined about sleep and being awake. In the book about sleep and what being awake. Okay. So this is that middle group of books, right? And they're shorter than the books in the third part, right? But they're either talking about life in general, right? Or they're talking about what locomotion, the organs of locomotion, or in a general way, or they're talking about senses, right?

[28:39] And the memory and reminiscence and so on, sleep. Now, Thomas says, how should you order these middle books? Well, instead of ordering them from the general to particular, Thomas has another way of ordering them,

[28:58] and knows his principle. And because it is necessary, per magis similia. ad similia transire, to go from things that are more alike, right, to things that are more unlike. This seems to be reasonably the order of these books. That after the book about the soul, the three books about the soul which we'll be looking at, in which he determined about the soul by itself, immediately there should follow the book on sense and the sensible, because to sense pertains to the soul more than to the body.

[29:35] After which should be ordered the book about sleep and being awake, which implies a, you know, gathering up or a untying of the senses. Then follow the books which pertain to the motive powers, which is more near to sensation, huh? And ultimately are ordered the books which pertain to the common consideration of life,

[30:01] because. in. That is considered most of all the disposition of the body. So he orders those intermediary books, right? Because some of them are closer to the way of considering, right? That you have the De Anima where considering the soul kind of by itself in a kind of separation, can't be a complete separation from the body, right? And therefore, the more immaterial powers like sensation seem to be closer, right, to the soul, right?

[30:33] Okay. And so he takes up those works on sense and sensation and memory reminiscence next, sleep and waking up and so on. And then the ones dealing with locomotion, because the senses are involved, as we see in the third book on the soul, in what moving from one place to another. In fact, only the animals that have the higher senses like sight and hearing or smell will move from one place to another, right?

[30:59] Because either senses that know things at a distance, right? For those forms of marine life that don't move from place to place, they only need what touch and maybe taste, right? You see, because their food comes right to them, right, from the motion of the water, right, just gravity. But the cat that has to pursue its mouse, right, is going to have, you know, hearing and not catch a scratch on it, no, you stop turning around right away.

[31:29] You got to have the senses that enable them to pursue something at distance. So he goes from the books on sensation and memory reminiscence and so on to the books on what progression from one place to another, on the organs of progression. And they're going to be distinguishing between walking animals that walk and ones that fly and ones that slither and all kinds of ways that they have moving.

[31:53] You know, you see these kind of little bugs, you know? Kind of cute. They hump themselves up like that and then they spread themselves out again. You see those Going across something? and then... So all those differences Aristotle's interested in, right? Okay.

[32:09] And then after that would come the very particular books, you know, on the investigation of animals. These books on the parts of animals. Aristotle did anatomy and so on, and these books on the generation of animals.

[32:25] Incidentally, in the book on the generation of animals, he says the human soul comes from without, doesn't come from the parents. You know, he does that on the basis of what he learned about the human soul in the three books about the soul. Okay. Kind of amazing he saw that.

[32:45] Okay. So we're going to be concerned here with the De Anima but I thought you might, you know, see a little bit. And in a way,

[32:59] another way of looking at this a little bit differently here, you could say as you go from the books on natural hearing. To the four books about the universe, and then to the books on change of sensible quality, and substantial change, we're going down towards what matter, right? Okay. And then when you go from the three books on the soul to the intermediary books, and down to the books on particular kinds of animals and plants, you're again going what towards matter, right?

[33:33] So it's like twice you go towards what matter. Okay. It is interesting, huh? That sometimes Aristotle will distinguish between nature and what soul. We'll see that a little bit in the De Anima itself. Again, in, the ninth book of Metaphysics he distinguishes between nature and soul. But sometimes he would consider soul to be a what nature. It's the beginning cause, right? Of motion, rest, right? Within, right?

[34:12] And when he talked in the very beginning, when we were defining nature, if you recall, he took examples of growth, didn't he? Right. So the soul, which is responsible for the growth of animals or plants, and

[34:28] comes under definition of nature, right? So sometimes he speaks of soul as nature. Sometimes he divides nature against soul, and especially to get to the higher soul, right, the human soul. And we've talked about that way of naming things, right? And it's kind of reflected in the use here of the term physical sciences for these sciences of the non-living, right? Because physical comes from what nature, right?

[35:01] So if you contrast the physical sciences with the life sciences, right, you're contrasting nature with you with the soul, which is the principle of life in living bodies.

[35:14] Okay. Now, why is it that the soul gets a what new name, right? And the things that don't have the soul, their nature keeps the name nature. Why does he have that contrast now? Something added. Yeah, yeah. And quote Shakespeare, right? Nature not being able to be more than one thing, nature is determined to one thing. But the soul, even the plant, there seems to be what growth in what opposite directions, right?

[35:48] And the higher you go in the soul, the more the soul seems to be open to opposites, and especially to get to the rational soul where we have the same knowledge of opposites.

[36:05] So that's interesting, huh? He does go from the towards matter twice, as if you put it all in one. what? Highly right. He's going from matter as he goes from this, um, change of general to change of place, and then gets down to this inner change. He's getting more down in the matter, and then in the order we just saw, the books of life, he's going towards matter.

[36:44] Remember, I was just talking to Monsignor Dionne about the order in wisdom, you know, and Dionne's phrase was towards the immaterial. In wisdom, you go towards the immaterial. We start off with these common things that, like being and one and many and so on, that can be found in the material world, right? But need not be found in the material world, right? And you go towards the immaterial substances that cannot be in the material world.

[37:15] So you're going towards what? The immaterial. The less immaterial, to the more immaterial. Here you're doing the reverse, right? You're going down towards what? Matter.

[37:30] But the eight books of natural hearing and the three books about the soul has something in common that we talked about before, that they both seem to.

[37:50] We depend only upon our common what? Ordinary experience. When you get into these other parts here, the what we call the physical sciences today, right? And you get into these later, more particular books, right? After the three books of the soul, then the further you go, the more you seem to require a private experience, huh? Okay. So the the three books about the soul and the eight books of natural hearing depend only upon common experience, but the books after that, right?

[38:34] More and more depend upon the what? Private experience, right? And sometimes I like to contrast in the way that the the Greeks there and the and the moderns, huh? Because the Greeks perhaps thought they could get further than you can get on the basis of common experience, right? Okay. If, for example, earth, air, fire, and water, if they were in fact the first forms of matter, right?

[39:05] Then you could arrive at some knowledge of the first forms of matter by common experience, right? But if the first forms of matter are something like hydrogen, oxygen, or proton and neutron, electron, or quarks, if there are such things,

[39:24] common experience is not sufficient to arrive at the first forms of matter. Okay. Okay. Now, but if the mistake of the of the Greeks is to try to get further than you can get on the basis of common experience, right? The mistake of the moderns is the reverse. You can't get anywhere on the basis of common experience.

[39:52] Okay. As if there's nothing you can understand, right? That's reliable about the natural world or about life for that matter, right? For which common experience is sufficient, right? Okay.

[40:10] So those two different mistakes there. So one is to think you can get further than you can get on the basis of common experience, right? And the other that you can't get anywhere at all on the basis of common experience.

[40:33] How do you deal with the Greeks? How did they do that? Make the mistake of making. I said the Greeks tried to understand the natural world, not only on the basis of common experience, because Aristotle did anatomy and things of this things down here, and he knew that. But the Greeks, it seems, in retrospect now, right, in hindsight, the Greeks thought you could get further on the basis of common experience than you can, in fact, right?

[41:01] Okay. You mentioned the theory there of Empedocles, right? That the four roots of all things are earth, air, fire, and water, right? And that was the standard theory accepted by by most thinkers for two thousand years, right? Okay. And you know, you find it still in Shakespeare, right? Shakespeare referred to earth, air, fire, and water, just you know, take for granted that's what we're made of. So for two thousand years, that was the standard theory, right?

[41:32] Yeah. And they thought that earth, air, fire, and water were in fact the what? First forms of matter. You have Boyle there in the sixteen hundreds, I guess. You know, his work The Skeptical Chymist where he's skeptical whether this is really the ultimate, the first forms of matter, right? Okay. And eventually, with something like the Lavoisier right, The last is head in the French Revolution. Um, you went beyond water, right, to something more fundamental than water, right, like hydrogen or oxygen, right?

[42:07] And then eventually something more fundamental than that, like proton, right, and neutron, or electron, maybe something beyond that. Who knows? But the point is, once you start to go beyond earth, air, fire, and water, you need some kind of private experience. You need some kind of an experiment, right, to get beyond that, right? Okay. So the Greeks may have thought that they got further than they did on the basis of common experience, right?

[42:36] Okay. And Aristotle talks about the sun, the moon, and the stars, and so on. He complains, you know, about not having enough what? He's being so far away from them, right? So he was aware, you know, that thing, right? But nevertheless, he talked about the sun, the moon, the stars as they seem to appear to us in our ordinary experience, right? Okay. So. I say in retrospect, we say the Greeks thought, let's say, that they had gotten further than they did, right?

[43:07] By common experience, and we now know that you can't really get to the first forms of matter or the most basic forms of matter by common experience, right? Okay, you can't really know, you know, whether the the moon or the sun is made out of matter other than the matter these things down here are made out of, right? On the basis of common experience, okay? See, ah, so I say in retrospect, I would say that the Greeks thought they had gotten further than they did, right?

[43:46] Or therefore thought that you get further than you could, right, on the basis of common experience, huh? Okay, but we make the opposite mistake, see? Yeah. Of saying that you can't understand anything on the basis of common experience, huh?

[44:04] Not even a very what general knowledge of natural things or a very general knowledge of what of life, right? Okay. And as we said at the beginning of course, there the confused is both what is more known to us and we're more what certain of it, huh? Okay, than the distinct, huh? And therefore we're more sure or more certain of the general than the particular. Remember how we deduced that, right?

[44:42] Okay. Now, if the particular was not only more precise or more distinct, but also more certain, as Descartes thought, then the particular would replace the general entirely, right? And then the particular, the distinct, huh? Would replace the confused entirely, right? But if the confused is more certain and more sure than the particular,

[45:15] confused and the distinct, right? And the general than the particular, you don't replace the more certain by the less certain. I think we look at some of those texts to me from some of those scientists there, from Louis de Broglie, for example, or Heisenberg, right?

[45:37] Come back to some recognition, right? Heisenberg, for example, says in the Gifford lectures that the concepts of natural language, vaguely defined as they are, he says, have a greater stability in the expansion of knowledge and the precise terms of science. Well, more stability means more what? Certain right, you see that word stable in Latin You see it's stable. Certiora, stabiliora. We're certain the more stable, right? You see.

[46:07] So the moderns make the mistake of thinking you can't understand anything right on the basis of what common or ordinary experience. That's reliable right? You know Certain, things huh in a way,

[46:29] in defense of the Greeks, even our mistake, one could say that there is a kind of principle simplicity in the use of our knowledge. Right. If something can be known on the basis of common experience, right, then you should what? Know it on the basis. Yeah, yeah, rather than begin this other experience, right? Which is necessary to know that, right? Okay. So I mean, you know, let's have some scientific research tomorrow in our labs to find out whether the whole was more than the part, right?

[47:06] That's kind of absurd. You see. Because often they're making fun of these sociologists, right? You know, who have these elaborate things, you know, and they find out, you know, at the end, you know, men and women really are different.

[47:22] I mean, just you know, our young people and old people are really different, you know. We're looking, we're all the same way, you know.

[47:31] And things that you could know from common experience, you see. Um, you know, I talk to my students sometimes. You know, when you try to say precisely, distinctly what the differences between men and women, you know, you get into trouble often, right? You see. But everybody's convinced that there is a difference, and even not too sure exactly what it is, right? But they're very sure in their confused knowledge of men and women that there is a real difference there,

[48:06] and all the sociologists are not going to, you know, make you more certain of it. Okay. Um. So as I say, you know how the modern scientists, as well as the Greeks, are very much in favor of the principle simplicity, right? But it seems to me you could apply that principle in a way to what experience, right? And that you shouldn't use more experience or require more experience than is what necessary, yeah.

[48:43] And on that ground, you should get as far as you can on the basis of common experience, right? And the Greeks, as they went further than they could. Or try to go further than they could, right? But at least they were what? Once you try to see how far you can get with this, right? Okay, you don't even do that by by what? Following it out, right?

[49:06] As far as you can. Okay. Now this is another thing that's kind of interesting, huh? That these two parts of natural philosophy, the eight books of natural theory, and the three books about the soul,

[49:29] are the parts of natural science in general that are closest to what? Wisdom. Okay. Because when you take up wisdom as we did a bit, we did a bit of reading, didn't we? You find out that wisdom is what? The most universal knowledge, and these parts are very universal compared to the other parts of natural science. So that's one way in which they resemble wisdom, right? Okay. And the second thing that's kind of interesting.

[50:04] If you just stick within the eight books of natural hearing, you're studying what motion mainly, change, and you're seeing first of all what's involved intrinsically in change, right? Then later on, you're defining change or motion. You're taking up time, things that are properties of motion, and you talk about the division of motion, and we saw the quantitative divisions in this course earlier. And only then you begin to see the dependence of motion upon a what mover, right?

[50:38] But eventually that leads you to the unmoved mover, right? In a way, you're going towards the immaterial there aren't you? You go towards the unmoved mover. The same way here, that the De Anima, he's going to talk about the soul in general, but then talk about what we have in common with the plant, like growth and things of that sort, reproduction, and what we have in common with the animals, right?

[51:04] And find what's unique to man, right? In a way, he's going towards the immaterial isn't he? Because growth and eating and so on is more material than sensing, and sensing is more material than understanding, right? So there's a couple ways in which the eight books of natural hearing, three books of the soul, kind of prepare the way for wisdom, right? Prepare our mind for that, because in both of them you're considering things in a very general way, right?

[51:35] And the short run here at least, right? Not going to get the whole picture here, right? But the short run is going a bit towards immaterial.

[51:48] So a man can go from a study of the eight books of natural hearing and the three books about the soul more easily to wisdom than he can go from experimental science to wisdom. It's just such a different thing, right? You're going so much down into matter there that your whole way of proceeding is contrary, and the more you proceed, the more different, right, from what you do in wisdom.

[52:13] Likewise, the very existence of material things. When we show that there's an unmoved mover, we can show that the unmoved mover is not a body, because every body moves only by being moved itself. So that's one place where we arrive at the existence of something immaterial. The other place is when we show the immateriality of our mind.

[52:39] So there's at least three ways there. Then that the study of the eight books of natural hearing, the three books about the soul, prepare us for what wisdom, right? It's in those two parts of the study of the natural world that we come eventually to the proof of the existence of something immaterial. Hence, there's nothing immaterial, as Aristotle says in the sixth book of wisdom, wouldn't be any science, after natural philosophy, Natural philosophy would be wisdom, But also as I say as far as the way of proceeding, wisdom.

[53:13] These anticipate that a bit because they're very general, right? Not as general as wisdom, but the most general parts are in natural science, and because in a short run they go towards the immaterial. they kind of prepare our mind for this other way of thinking, huh?

[53:33] I don't think a man can go from being an experimental scientist to being a metaphysician, but he could go from knowing the eight books of natural hearing, the three books about the soul, to what metaphysics, huh?

[53:56] But you know, as you go further into natural science, if you don't have that perspective from the more general books, you are just kind of being immersed in matter, you are kind of bound to materialism. So what you are thinking about is matter, right? Your whole life is sunk in matter, right? Yeah. So

[54:18] if you you know neglecting this knowledge that can be gotten just with common experience, you are never going to be a a wise man. That's it. All games over. Too much of a leap, huh? Now, t here is

[54:41] a little difference here between the common experience required for the eight books of natural hearing and for the three books about the soul. That the three books about the soul, the common experience is more our inward experience, huh? Of being alive, huh?

[55:02] That's interesting, huh? Is life as life, huh? More known to us from inward experience or from outward experience? Outward, from motion. Well, see up here, this is more our common outward experience, right? Of motion and change.

[55:26] But in the case of the De Anima Aristotle is basing himself on our common inward experience of being alive. Now, is life as life more known to us by inward experience or by outward experience? Same thing. Yeah. And if you think of even the first confused notion people have about life, huh? We think something is alive if it what moves itself, right? Okay.

[56:05] And and if for sorry if if it senses right, that's what makes us think that something's alive, right? Okay. But self-motion means the causes within, so that sense life is more known from what inward experience than from what outward experience. And those who study life only from outward experience sometimes end up denying that life really means anything at all, just a more complicated form of what chemistry, right?

[56:35] Huh? Organic chemistry. It's a subdivision of chemistry, right? Doesn't it? You know, like if you, for instance, a sign that something might be dead because it's not moving. So that sense of outward. How does that relate to what you're saying? I'm saying that life means not just motion, but what self-motion, right? Self-motion. Yeah. So it's the idea that the source is within, right? Well, I have experience of moving myself from within.

[57:09] I don't have when I see the cat even moving, right? So this is more in the sense of self-knowledge than life in general, or something like that. No, it's the idea. What do you mean by life? Say.

[57:22] And the first meaning we have of life is not simply motion, but what self-motion, right? Sure, but what's more known is the motion than the self-motion. Yeah, yeah, but that thing is back here, unable to get to here, right? We're talking about motion, right? This is most known, right? But I'm saying life as life, right? Well, life as life is not motion as such; it's self-motion as such, right?

[57:49] Okay. And therefore, say that that the cause of this motion is within, right? Okay. What's more known to me that I'm alive and that you're alive? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And you know, I experience let's say hunger, right? And anger, right? Which move me to do different things, right? Thirst and so on, which move me to do things, right? Now, when I watch your face, I might you know note that you're angry.

[58:24] I see signs of it, right? But I know anger more from my own experience of anger within me, you know, and I kind of know that you have something like what I have within me because of you know you get angry, you shout at me, and so on. Okay.

[58:39] I know what it is like for the cat to be hungry in some sense because I know it is for me to be hungry, right?

[58:51] I know how I use my senses in order to move, right, to something. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know where the class is here, right? So, I would say the eight books of natural hearing are based upon our common experience of natural things, right? But the three books on the soul are based primarily in our inward experience of life.

[59:28] Herman Weyl the scientist, there, mathematician, he said, from outward experience, he says life is most known in the what, plants, right? But from inward experience, life is most known what, in ourselves, right? And then next the animals, and least of all the what, plants, right?

[1:00:00] But we're more alive, really than. the Animals and the animals are more alive than the plants. Yet the modern biologists sometimes, you know, they'll start the study of life by talking about the cell. Well, the cell is least known from the point of view of inward experience, right? And life is not most known there. They're starting where life is, in a way, least known. Yeah. And they get puzzled.

[1:00:28] You know, they get these billions of cells in us. You know, each one is alive. You know, am I really one living thing or not? I'm just a congregation, you know, amoeba, you know.

[1:00:41] See. But everybody has the inward experience, really, of being what one thing, right? Nobody thinks of himself as we, except to be so-called editorial we. You know?

[1:00:58] Are we giving a lecture today? I would think of myself doing that, right? Are we going to dinner? Well, I, you know, I think a bunch of us are going to dinner, right? If I just go by myself. Are we going to dinner?

[1:01:24] Okay. So let's start to look a little bit at the De Anima here. What was that that you read from in the beginning of class again? The De sensu et sensato. Okay. Thomas's commentary, the very beginning of it, right? Okay. Okay. Actually, the Marietti would be a separate thing. I had them bound together when I was young, you know. Now it's all worn out. The the golden writing there, you know.

[1:01:52] But I had written, you know, Erickson's bindery there in Minneapolis, Minnesota, right? It goes back in those days.