De Anima (On the Soul)
2. The Proemium of the De Anima: Why Knowledge of the Soul Is Most Desirable, and What 'Soul' Means
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[0:00] Okay. So let's look here at the beginning here. Now, almost everything Aristotle wrote is divided in into what two parts. Plato kind of anticipates this in the Timaeus, which is more like a treatise than a dialogue. Proemium. Yeah. Usually. In Latin, they'll say the proemium and the tractatus, right? Okay. Now let's go back to those words over here.

[0:51] If you look at at the Timaeus of Plato there, right? Timaeus is going to give a discourse on the universe, right? Kind of cosmology, but he begins by giving a proemium.

[1:12] and Plato breaks it up because when he finishes the proemium, Socrates, you know, applauds the excellence of his proemium, right? Now, proemium comes from the Greek word meaning what? Paving the way. Paving the way. Yeah, It's probably the best way to translate, paving the way.

[1:36] And the peremium is to the main body of the work, you might say, something like a what? The prologue is to the play, of Romeo and Juliet, right? Okay. Most of Shakespeare's plays don't have a proemium. I mean, a prologue, but Romeo and Juliet does have a prologue, right? The prologue is very short, right? But it kind of prepares the reader for the play, right? Likewise, the proemium prepares the mind, right, in some way, for the main work, right?

[2:08] The most essential thing in a proemium is the what's called the the scopus in Greek, right? Which means the what target? What you're aiming at. Okay. So when you start to read an author, the first thing you want to have in mind is what is he aiming at in this book, right? What's his target? What's his goal, right? And sometimes, once that scopus is stated, you can see the excellence, importance of it, right?

[2:39] But sometimes the author will elaborate on the what? The importance, the dignity, the usefulness, the desirability of what he's aiming at, right? Okay. That's the most essential part of proemium, right? But sometimes, in addition to that, he'll say something about the way we're going to proceed, the road we're going to follow, right? The order we're going to have. Okay.

[3:12] Now, in this premium, Thomas says there are really three parts, right? In the first part, he shows what we're aiming at and the desirability of it. In the second part, he says something about the order in which we're going to consider these things. But then he has a third part, which is actually the longest part, which is about the difficulty of this. Okay. And this is a very famous proemium in Thomas's commentary is very interesting.

[3:43] And when I was in graduate school, you know, we all tried to imitate this. You know, every time we wrote a philosophical thing, we have a little proemium and we talk about, you know, the desirability of what we're going to say here, you know, and where we're going to proceed, and the difficulty of it, right? And but. They say the most essential part is that first one, right?

[4:05] Then the second part, and then the third part, huh? So Timaeus has a, I mean, uh Timaeus has a proemium, and then he has the main body of his work. Now in Latin they call that main body they call it the tractatus,

[4:28] and that comes the Latin word for what? Traction, for drawn out, the drawing out, you might say, right? Okay. You want to get a little translation going on. But it might be more clear. See, it's the main body of the work, though, right? Okay. As I say, this is analogous to the prologue to Romeo and Juliet and the play itself, right? Okay. So almost all of Aristotle's works, as I say, have a proemium and then the treatise follows And the proemium will occupy the beginning of the what?

[5:03] First book, right? Okay. Not the whole first book. So we looked at the proemium I guess, to the wisdom, okay? And the the uh Nicomachean Ethics is the proemium, right? That first reading there in the uh eight books in Natural Hearing was the proemium there, and now we have the proemium here at the beginning. Um,

[5:34] I think I mentioned how in the Second Vatican Council, there, if you go to the Dogmatic Constitution there of Revelation, they call it English, I guess, but it's called Dei Verbum in Latin.

[5:50] If you look at the at the Latin text, not the English translation, because one of the English translations I have at home they call it introduction, and then no, you go to go to the Greek and then to Latin, the official text, and says proemium and it's a magnificent proemium that went to the Dei Verbum. I don't know who wrote it. Maybe the Holy Spirit wrote it, but it's magnificent, you know.

[6:14] It's really magnificent. That's that's incredible one of the most beautiful proemiums I've ever seen. really a perfect proemium you know. But one example, in a theological context that's really a good example you know. And a good use of the word proemium right?

[6:31] Uh you see, introduction, uh as far as the etymology of the word is concerned, it means what? Leading into, right? The proemium is something before that, right? Okay. So we might call it assumption college, you know, of course, called an introduction to philosophy, or you might have an introduction to politics, or introduction, you know, to some other science, introduction, and you're being, you know, led into the what?

[6:57] science or the art or whatever it is huh Okay The proemium, you kind of you know see what you're going to be into, right? Kind of preparing the way to actually going in. That work of Porphyry is called the what? Isagoge Remember that. Isagoge is simply the Greek word for introduction. And the Isagoge it's an introduction to the categories of Aristotle. It's also introduction to definition, division, and what?

[7:28] Demonstration. But Porphyry has a magnificent proemium right, To the um uh Isagoge right, Where he says what he's going to talk about, right, and why it's desirable. and necessary to talk about this, right, and something about how he's going to proceed, right, because he says he's going to consider what genus is and what difference is and what species is and what. property is what accident is right He says to the guy he's addressing.

[8:04] To this is necessary, he says not only to understand the categories of Aristotle. Aristotle's talking about ten genera and talking about species and differences and so on, properties. But it's also necessary, he says, to understand definition. You define a species by its genus and difference, right? It's necessary to understand division, he says. Because one of the kinds of division is the division of a genus into species by differences.

[8:35] It's necessary to understand demonstration, he says. Right? Because in a demonstration you prove a property of a species through its definition. So he really shows how important this is, right? But then he says he's going to proceed in a way that's appropriate to the beginner, right? Because it's the beginning of logic, which is the beginning of philosophy, and so he's gonna speak in a way that's proportioned to us, right?

[9:02] And he does it very well, right? Um. So that's a new synonym that Porphyry has. Okay. So Aristotle's giving a premium here. And forward would forward just be a premium? Yeah, yeah. Forward is is you know not uses quite the the precise way sometimes in our in our language. You know, it's premium, but you could, yeah.

[9:35] And some of the Thomas's works there, you have prologus, huh? Prolog, right? Which is like forward, right? Actually, more or less the same thing as a premium. Maybe not quite as strict, you know, but something the same as that, huh? Okay. But in a way, the word forward is not bad because forward is really not an introduction, is it? I don't think you'd call an introduction forward.

[10:06] We have a whole semester course called Introduction to Politics or Introduction to Economics or whatever. Introduction to. I think we call it a forward to, essentially. Forward is something, you know, before we get into work. Okay.

[10:28] So let's look at the beginning here now. Assuming I don't know if that's really a good translation there. Aristotle's not assuming. Okay. Holding that all knowledge is among things good and honorable, right? Okay. Let's stop there for a moment. I'd like to contrast knowledge and love of the here at this point. Aristotle's

[10:59] saying, "Behold that. All knowledge. You might want to add as such. All knowledge as such is good. Now, why do I say all knowledge as such is good? huh?

[11:33] Wasn't all knowledge as such a perfection of the knower? Completion of his ability to know and so on, right? And not only is knowledge of the what good, good, but also knowledge of the what

[12:00] bad, right? Okay. Knowledge of the good is good, and knowledge of the bad is good. In fact, they're kind of the same knowledge. It's the same knowledge

[12:34] of the good and the bad. So, if knowledge of the bad was bad, all knowledge had to be bad, right? You know. So ethics is a knowledge of both virtue and of what vice, right? And logic is both a knowledge of correct reasoning and of what incorrect reasoning. And grammar is both a knowledge of how to speak correctly in this language and how to speak what incorrectly, right?

[13:06] And the medical art is both a knowledge of health and of sickness, right? Of normal blood pressure and of what abnormal blood pressure and so on, right? And the fifth book of Aristotle's Politics is a knowledge of how to conserve governments and how to what Overthrow them, right? Okay.

[13:28] Same knowledge of what? Contraries, right? Opposites, right? But now, add as such right as such, right? Because if a man has a bad will, right,

[13:49] is going to misuse his knowledge, right? Then you could say. Happening, the knowledge is bad, right? If I am going to shoot my wife, it's bad that I know what a gun is. right? If I

[14:14] am going to poison you, it's bad that I know what poison is, right? Where it is, where it can be gotten, right? I am objecting it

[14:25] sometimes from people, you know, it's about sex education, right? Okay, and many cases such knowledge is is bad, kind of information given, right? Okay, but that's that the knowledge as such is bad. No, but the person whose appetite is not yet trained and so on, right? Or not habituated to be good, they can be led astray, right? Okay,

[14:56] so it's not the knowledge as such that is bad, right? But the bad desires that they have, right? Okay. Aristotle talks about this when he's in the rhetoric, because rhetoric is the art of persuasion, right? Well, if I am a master of the art of persuasion, I can maybe convict an innocent man, right? Or get a guilty man to go free, right? So I can misuse that, right?

[15:28] The same way a doctor can use his medical art to kill you, and sometimes he does, right? So is the knowledge of such bad thing? or I could use the knowledge of the politics to overthrow my government, even if it's a good government, right? Okay,

[15:48] but is the knowledge is such bad? Just as a strength, the strength is such bad. No, I can misuse my strength, you know, grab the oldies, press and knock her down, so on, right? Beat somebody up.

[16:11] Okay, but now what about all love? You can say love of the good is good. Can you say love of the bad is good?

[16:34] No, love of the bad is bad. Okay. That's a very interesting difference between knowing and loving, right? And shows you, in some sense, that love goes out to the thing loved. By knowing, you're putting the thing into your mind, right? So it's in the mind, according to the character, the condition of the mind. But love is tending towards the thing as it is in itself. So the love of the good is good, but the love of the bad is what?

[17:18] Is bad, right? That's nice contrast there. Aristotle's beginning here by saying that I'll bring the Greek if I didn't, but the Latin is a little more accurate here.

[17:54] About the first, it should be known that every knowledge is good, and not only. Good, but also honorable. Okay. But then he goes on to say that there's two ways in which you can say that one knowledge, as such, is better than another. For one sort is so more than another, either according to its certitude, or by being of better and more wonderful things. I say two ways you can say one knowledge is better than another.

[18:31] Now, why are those two ways? Just consider as knowledge. Well, you could say in all knowledge, or in all our knowledge, right? There's a distinction between what you know and what, how you know it, right? Okay.

[19:09] What is known and how it is known. Okay. So you can say using knowledge in the kind of broad sense, there's two ways one knowledge can be better than another. Either because you knowing a better thing, right? The more wonderful thing, right? Or because you're knowing something what? Better. Okay.

[19:54] And that's why he speaks of certitude there, right? Okay. Now, you might say, for example, it's better to what? To see the sunset than to see the garbage, right?

[20:17] Because of what? Because what you're seeing, right? It's better to hear Mozart than to hear noise, right? It's better to taste wine, good wine. You know the joke here about the the I joke about the French being you know, huh? It's an old saying. It's in the Bible. vinum laetificat cor hominis Wine rejoices the heart of man. The French have added to, put upon scripture, right? They say good wine rejoices the heart of man.

[20:56] Scripture says wine rejoices the heart of man. Okay. So it's better to taste wine than some things I wouldn't want to mention, right? Okay. Okay, but in all of these cases, you're what knowing a better thing, right? Okay. But

[21:16] even knowing the same thing, one person might know the same thing better than another person, right? He's more sure, of what he's saying huh? So if everybody everybody knows in the loose sense, broad sense, of, the word the Pythagorean theorem, right? If you've gone through book one, of Euclid, right? You know that theorem much better than the man who just accepts it because the geometers say so, the teachers say so, right?

[21:47] Okay. So two different criteria, right? Okay. Aristotle is going to apply that to the study of the soul, right? Those two criteria, right? He's going to see an excellence in both ways, right? Okay. But Thomas, in his commentary there, he says, which of these criteria is more important? Aristotle doesn't say here, but Aristotle does say in the first book of the Parts and Animals, which of these criterion criteria, to use the plural, is more important?

[22:23] In other words, if A is the knowledge of a better thing, right? But B is knowing better a lesser thing, right? Which criterion is outweighs the other, right?

[22:44] The thing that's what is known if it's better. Yeah. Yeah. And Thomas says that this is really more essential than knowing what is known, right? This pertains to the very substance of knowledge; it's knowledge of something, right? And how it is known is more like the quality, right, the knowledge. So it's less substantial to what knowledge really is. So you could apply to this actually that distinction there of what simply in some respect, right?

[23:13] If I know better what a triangle is, let's say, than what the soul is, right? But the soul is a better thing to know than the triangle, right? Which is better than for me to know imperfectly what the soul is, or to know perfectly what a triangle is.

[23:39] Yeah, yeah. That's substantial, right? What knowledge is. Okay. This is more like the quality, right, of the knowledge. Aristotle teaches that, as I mentioned in the fifth book or the first book of the Parts and Animals, huh? It's a very beautiful way of showing it too, you know. He says, just as he says, a glimpse of those we love, right? Is better than a what long view, of some we don't love, right?

[24:13] Example I take for students is you know suppose you can see the old nasty boss there all day long, you know, you know, you kind of become used to there, you know, while you are working, you know, so you can you can see the boss very well, right, very clearly, you know. But maybe your girlfriend is there in the office building across, right? You go to the window, she is, and she waves to you.

[24:34] That means more to you, right, than this what long leisurely view of the boss. And instead, you know, you know, we even you know talk to someone on the telephone, right? And the communication is not too good sometimes, but someone we love very much, right? And that's more what important to us, right, than a long conversation with somebody right there that we don't care about, or you know.

[25:00] I'd rather hear Mozart in imperfect, you know, machine than to have a grand thing, you know, hear some lousy piece of music that's being, you know, performed in equipment that's all. Or

[25:13] perfect, right? As I say, it's better. You read a poet. It's always better to read the poet in original if you can, obviously, than to read him in translation because you what lose in translation, right? But Homer in a good translation is still better than most people in their native language, right? So although it'd be better to read Homer, you know, fluently in Greek, you know, it's better to read him in English, you know, than to read many most English authors, right?

[25:45] Shakespeare's up there, you know. Shakespeare's the only rival of Homer, right? I was looking at King Lear there, you know, where he his daughters, you know, closing the doors to him and so on and so on, and he's telling a weeping woman, right, you know, you know, touch me, you mean the gods, touch me with noble anger, he says, you know. And of course you know how noble anger is involved in Achilles, right?

[26:15] Ajax and Sophocles play, right? It's very much tied up with tragedy, Coriolanus, the noble anger. Those two poets. So on these two criteria, then what is known is simply speaking better, right? To know a better thing, right? But in some way, secundum quid, right?

[26:50] Certitude right? There's also you know comparing there, you know, he talks about the heavenly bodies is much better than the things down here, right? But he complains about the fact he doesn't have much evidence for what he says about the heavenly bodies, right? But it's better to know even imperfectly these better things than to know perfectly. These things that are right around us. He's comparing, you know, his anatomy of dogs and cats and the animals, right, with his inability to know the higher things, you know.

[27:21] But still, it's better to know imperfectly those higher things. In Thomas, you know, he uses that thing that he's talking about in the Summa Contra Gentiles and he's talking about how to know something about God just by faith, you know, is better than to know something else. But I might say the demonstration, right? Because you're knowing a what a better thing, right?

[27:53] I was mentioning how when you get to wisdom, there wisdom has to be both a knowledge of the first cause and. a Knowledge of the what best thing, right? And if the first cause is the best thing, then everything fits together. But if the first cause is matter, that's not the best thing, then you got schizophrenia, right? Two different ends, right?

[28:23] Doesn't make any sense. So we get the ninth book of wisdom there. We'll see how natural it is to see that the first cause is also the best thing, right? But notice if you apply this, you know, to the knowledge of God,

[28:46] how much better is God than other things? Infinitely better, right? Okay, infinitely better than all other things even together, right? So therefore, a knowledge of God is infinitely more desirable than knowledge of all other things, right? So Augustine says, you know, miserable the man who knows all other things but doesn't know God, huh? Blessed the man who knows God, even if he knows nothing else, right? Blessed also the man who knows God and other things, but not the more so for knowing other things, but for knowing God alone, right?

[29:27] It's like there's really no comparison, right? So suddenly I just throw all my books away, just except my theology books and the Bible, right? Okay, because knowledge is infinitely better, right? So we only study these lower things in order for the sake of what? Knowing God. Yeah, Thomas says they study the body so I can know the soul. They study the soul so I can know the angels.

[29:55] Study angels I can know God, and that's it. Okay. My old teacher Kasurik had a nice little passage in his translation there of the first two books of the physics, but a nice little passage there from Albert the Great, you know, who said that everything else we study we study for the sake of knowing God. And if we if a man studies other things for the sake of something other than knowing God, unless he be forced to it by some necessity, he says, right?

[30:27] Um, is a pervert, perverted, perverse desire to know, right? Okay. So Aristotle, this point here is to say he doesn't distinguish which of these criteria is more important, right? As I say, he does in another place, and Thomas in the commentary referred to that place. Okay.

[30:57] He's saying due to both of these, we should reasonably put first the inquiry about the soul. He's saying that the knowledge of the soul, in some way, right, excels the rest of our knowledge, at least in natural philosophy, right, because of the excellence of the thing being what known, right. But also because there's a certitude there, right? They've got to be very careful about it. because in some sense the knowledge of the soul is something very difficult, very difficult to get certitude about the soul.

[31:30] But in some way the knowledge of the soul is very certain, and that's seen in a way even Descartes, right? He says I think, therefore I am, right? One is very certain that he has a soul from an inward experience.

[31:47] Okay, I sense, right? I desire, I think, you know, and so on, right? I'm very much aware that I have a soul. And because it's an inward experience, you know, I have all this problem that you have with sometimes the outward senses, right? Okay. But could you also say that the soul is the best thing in the material world?

[32:14] Not simply speaking, right? Because the angels are better or God is better, but in the material world, is anything better than the soul? Well, no saying too much about what the soul is. What we understand in the beginning here we talked about the soul. Because one thing that strikes us is kind of strange here in the first book in natural here, I mean about the soul, is when Aristotle looks at what his predecessors said about the soul.

[32:56] They all have different opinions as to what the soul is, but they had no disagreement that man and the other animals have a soul. Okay. In fact, you know, in Latin the word animal comes from the Latin word for soul.

[33:15] Okay. We still use the expression animate matter for what? Is a synonym for living matter, right? The animate matter means matter that has a what? Soul. Okay. But the reason why the animal is named for soul more than the plant is that the what life is more manifest than the animals and the plants is kind of hidden. Now, what did the Greeks understand by the word soul?

[33:48] So that they had no disagreement as to the existence of the soul, but they were investigating what it is. As nowadays, when you talk about the soul, there is kind of a conspiracy to eliminate the word "soul" from the Bible. You notice that. You notice they go to mass on Sunday, right? That these readings that I am familiar with from youth, they systematically removing the word "soul.

[34:17] " Okay, instead they might "soul" magnifies the Lord, by being proclaims the Lord or something, right? Okay, was it profit of man if he gained the whole world and suffered the loss of his what? Soul was it profit of man if he gained the whole world and suffered the loss of himself? Other translations. If you ask people, you know, do you have a soul? They probably say, "What?

[34:40] I don't know. What's that? " You know. And and why is it that for the Greeks there is no doubt at all, no question? You have a soul. It's obvious. The question is, what is the soul that you have? Now,

[34:59] you might say in this whole Greek tradition, from from, Thales all the way down to let's say Shakespeare, right? The existence of the soul is obvious to everybody, and I often quote this one passage there from. Much Ado about nothing? I think I mentioned that before, but I don't know if you know this play Much Ado About Nothing.

[35:36] But it's kind of pun I guess the word nothing, which is like the word noting. Okay, you know the play. Much Ado about nothing? Well, in that play, anyway, hero, right, who's getting married

[35:53] on the night before her wedding, another young lady, right. Has a conversation with a man outside her window, right? Adopting the name Hero, right? This is a plot of the little Don John, right? And the groom on the night before his wedding, he thinks that his bride to be is having a what? An affair, right? Okay. Doesn't see it, but he sees the conversation. Right, sees nothing.

[36:26] So, with his ally, he decides, you know, to denounce her in front of everybody in the congregation. And of course, she she faints, right? You know, okay, and he he marches

[36:42] off. She faints, and the friar there, he he's watching the girl, right, and he he can read faces, right, and that her fainting is not due to what? Exposure, right, but to you know this. Indignation, you know, the shame, you know, to this false charge, right? Okay, and so he said, "Well, let's go out that she has died, right? You know, and then we'll try to find out the truth about this, right?

[37:11] Okay, so or eventually, of course, they they find out the truth. They have to play how they do it, but anyway. But Beatrice, whose Benedict is her boyfriend, if you want to put that way, Beatrice wants Benedict to go what challenge the groom, right? Because she's a cousin of Hero, right? And he says, "Well, she's sure that Hero is innocent, right? Okay, and she says, 'I am sure that she's innocent, as that I have a soul.

[37:46] ' Okay, not that way of speaking, right? It's like if I was to say, 'I'm as sure about that as I am that two plus two is four, right? That'd be a way of saying what I'm very sure about, it right?

[38:01] must no it's there, you find reflected that same thinking that goes all the way back to the Greeks, right? She's very sure that we'd be sure that Hero her cousin is innocent of this charge, right? She's sure about that, isn't she?

[38:19] Now, part of the problem is, as De Koninck explains in his essay "Introduction to the Study of the Soul, " is just in the word itself, right? Okay, and uh he wrote the Induction of the soul in French first, right? So he takes an example from one of Molière's play, right? And the man distinguishes between poetry and prose, right? And you probably make that distinction between poetry and prose as a kid, right?

[38:51] In grade school, something like that. Of course, the man finds out I've been speaking prose all my life. I didn't know it! well, yeah, this is a comedy, right? You see,

[39:12] but the point is there, the problem is just three D than he was in the word, right? It's not the nature of the word. So, when we hear the word "soul," you see, if we hear it all nowadays, we probably hear it only in the context maybe of the church, right? Or in the context of the Bible before these changes, right? Okay, and you are thinking of the immortal soul of man and so on, right?

[39:38] What Christianity says about the immortal soul and so on, right? And that is not obvious, son. Okay, that man has the spiritual soul, this immortal soul, etc. Right now, so if you are thinking of that in particular, what the church might teach or touch upon as to what the soul is, or something about what the soul is, that's not obvious to everybody, right? Okay,

[40:09] what did the Greeks understand by the word "soul"? Well, what they understood simply by the word "soul" was what you might call the first cause of life

[40:25] within living bodies. Okay, this is kind of like the meaning of what the word would be, right? The Greek word would be psyche, huh? The Latin word would be anima, right? And this word was soul. Now, is it obvious to everybody that some bodies are alive and some are not? Everybody knows that, right? Okay, there may be some question, right? In some cases, right. But that cat that comes around here when I'm lecturing, sometimes I have no doubt the cat is alive, right?

[41:06] But the stone out there, you know, not alive, right? Okay. And secondly, everybody has this rough notion of life as being what? Self-motion. Okay.

[41:29] My stock examples there, you know, you're walking down the path, you're in the woods or something like that, and you what? Kick a stone, right, and it rolls a bit. You don't say it's alive, do you? See? If you step on something, right, without kicking it or something like that, I'll say, shoots up.

[41:51] Okay. And sometimes you know I see it on in the carpet at home, a little speck on the floor, and you know it's a bug or something like that. It's just a piece of thread or something, you know. But other times, it shoots it off. So why do we call this one thing alive and the stone, although it moves, right, when I kick it, you don't call it alive because the one thing seems to move itself, right?

[42:20] Okay. I'm taking as a very simple example there because it shows that we have in mind, and we're going to spell it out all the time. We don't think of life as simply being motion, but as being what? Self-motion, right? Okay. And that means that the cause of the motion is what? Within, right. So everybody knows that there is a cause of life, right? Within living bodies, right?

[42:49] Right. That's what the soul is. That's what the word means, right? See, in that sense, the existence of the soul is what obvious in our experience. What it is is not obvious, right? Do you see? But that some bodies are alive and some are not is clear in our common experience in the world, and that the ones that are alive are alive because they seem to in some way move themselves, right?

[43:22] And therefore they have motion whose cause is within, right? Okay. And so we call that cause within the soul, right? So if you use the word soul in that way, then it's obvious it uses soul, but not what it is, right? But if you had this more narrow meaning of the word soul, where you're thinking just of the human soul, right? And you're thinking just of what the you may have heard in some ways through the church or.

[43:56] I even remember the church, and I've heard people who are members of the church that the soul is some kind of immaterial, immortal thing inside of us, right? That's not obvious, right? Okay, that there's a immortal and material soul within us, right?

[44:16] Okay. As I say, it's so common here that even the what? Lightnings named the animal from from the word soul. huh? No, it wasn't the philosophers who did that.

[44:31] You see. So I'm sure I have a soul. I'm sure I'm alive, right? I'm even more sure I'm alive than that you are alive, right?

[44:48] You know some days they get a dead fragment, and they have electrical shock, and the legs move or something like that, right? You know, maybe somebody's moving you. I don't know. But I know I'm not. I know I'm moving myself.

[45:03] Is it? So I'm sure, very sure that I have a soul. In that sense, it's very what certain the knowledge of the soul, right? Okay. Not as to what it is, but that it is, right? I have a soul.

[45:21] So knowledge of the soul has, in one way, an excellence as far as what certitude is concerned, right? Okay. But now, in this world, all these material things are bodies, right? Which are better, the living body or the non-living body?

[45:40] Yeah. And the living body is better than the non-living body because there's a soul. So the soul must be the best thing in the whole what material world, right? Yeah. So in terms then of the two criterion, where one knowledge is better than other, that is more certain, right? Or that it's about a better thing. In both of these, we put the soul, the knowledge of the soul, in first what It's about the place?

[46:07] He says, right. So he's touching here upon you know what he's aiming at to consider the soul, right? But also the desirability of this knowledge, right?

[46:28] Okay. Now in the second paragraph here, he goes on to say how it's useful for knowing what other things, huh? It seems also that regard to every truth, knowledge of the soul gathers great things, but the greatest in regard to nature. For if the soul is like the principle of animus, right? Okay. But you know, as he's saying here that some way a knowledge of the soul is important for all of what we could say philosophy, right?

[47:05] That's unfolded a bit like Thomas does in the commentary. right? Aristotle is in the Nicomachean Ethics, right? He's in ethics. And ethics treats, as Shakespeare says, of happiness by virtue, especially to be achieved.

[47:33] About happiness by virtue, especially to be achieved. Now, the virtues are where? The soul. Yeah, in different powers of the soul, right? In different abilities of the soul, huh? Okay. And so. If you study the soul and you know the different powers and abilities of the soul, then you can find what powers and abilities are the different virtues, huh? So, for example, if you take the so-called cardinal virtues, which are very well known, you have foresight or prudence, justice, courage, fortitude, and temperance or moderation.

[48:34] Well, foresight is in reason, and justice is in the will. Courage and moderation are in the emotions, but two different kinds of emotions, which Aristotle distinguishes all these in the De Anima. The subjects, therefore, in which the virtues are found, are studied in what the De Anima. So Aristotle says the knowledge of the soul is the ethics, something like the knowledge of the body is the medical art, and just as the man in the medical art knows something about the body, what it is by nature, right?

[49:10] So the student of ethics and of the virtues has to know something about the soul, the powers of the soul, and so on. When Thomas begins his proemium to logic,

[49:25] he recalls what Aristotle says about the acts of reason in the what third book about the soul, and then logic is going to be directing those acts of reason. And when Albert the Great begins his logic, he says the first thing to be talked about in logic is universal. How do you know that a thing as Boethius says a thing is singular when sensed, but universal and understood.

[49:54] So the first thing to talk about in logic is universal. of what, it says. He's always quoting Boethius there, right? But we learned that in the De Anima, the senses know the singular, but the reason knows the what universal.

[50:12] So it's very necessary for ethics and logic, huh? And then for what? For wisdom, huh? Well, the knowledge of the soul, especially the knowledge of the human soul, is kind of the starting point for wisdom. Until you know there's something immaterial that can exist apart from a body, you can't you know that there is a science of wisdom, right? And when we try to know what these immaterial things are like, because they're immaterial, they're going to have understanding and will.

[50:45] So that the angels, say of God, as we come to know them later on, have understanding and will. We have to understand our own understanding and will, if we can understand the understanding and will of the angels, right? Okay. Because our own understanding will, are, to some extent, like their understanding will, but there'll be differences. I have to say, but you can't see the differences without first knowing our understanding.

[51:11] and will. So the knowledge of soul, in a sense, is a gateway to the knowledge of all the immaterial substances. That's why Thomas says, "I study the body so I can know the soul, and I study the soul so I can know the angels, and so I can know God." This

[51:29] seems to contribute to every part, you might say, of what philosophy, right? It contributes in a way to mathematics because you see the kind of separation from matter that takes place there in the mind.

[51:53] I don't know the Hebrew there, but you know, I was giving that lecture there to the College of Humanities there, the Legionaries of Christ. Now, lecture in that fragment, that words of Friar Lawrence. Wisely and slow, they stumble; they run fast, right? But in the Bible, I have at home there that comes from one of the verses in a way of the Book of Proverbs, and the first part is where there's no knowledge of the soul, there's nothing good, right?

[52:26] And then it says, "wise and slow, right? " I don't know what the what the the Hebrew says there, you know, because I find different translations every Bible I look at. It's a different translation of it, and Hebrew is kind of hard to translate. But it's kind of interesting, right? But here you see how important the knowledge of the soul is, right? So he's talking about in itself, a knowledge of the soul is most desirable because this is the best thing in the natural world, right?

[52:56] Has great certitude because you're very sure you have a soul, but it seems to also contribute to all of our knowledge, right? And I was mentioning logic and ethics and wisdom, right? They all seem to what depend upon a knowledge of the soul.

[53:17] Of course, the importance of the knowledge of the soul for theology is very clear. So it's you know it shows you how terrible it is now. You know, people misunderstanding not what the word soul means at first, and so on, and dropping that word soul. Bad translations

[53:34] now. Almost any text you know today, you know, you're hearing that, reading it, the use in the scriptures on Sunday in the parishes, the word soul has been dropped. You still have it yourself, the word soul in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, right? So

[53:55] it's obviously based. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is based not only upon tradition but upon the Bible, right? So why is you know crazy? Crazy, you're dropping the word, right?

[54:10] That's the old joke we used to have in National Review, You know, you don't think about something hard enough, it becomes unthinkable. Some truth to that, you know. People haven't thought about the soul, you know, a long time.

[54:31] But the project comes from the fact that they just do experimental science now, right? And the soul doesn't contribute much to experimental science. So, That's not the way you know it anyway, right? It makes you turn on experience. Yeah. Yeah.

[55:03] So the definition that we put up as the first cause of life within living bodies—that's not so much derived from their words. Well, that's the definition of the name, right? What did they understand by the word soul, right? So they all agree. They all agree as to that much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As Aristotle says, he didn't have the rest of Book One. He translated that the premium, but in the rest of Book One, Aristotle will show how they tried to investigate the soul through this idea of motion, right?

[55:38] Self-motion, and then to the idea of what sensation, right? Sense, right? Okay, mainly those two things. Life is is found in what animals more than plants because life is more hidden than plants, huh? But the animals are alive because they what move themselves one place to another because they sense, right? What is the the source of these two, right? That's where they investigate. First paragraph, the Scopas.

[56:19] Well, in the first two paragraphs, he has, in a sense, more than just the Scopas because he has the desirability of it, right? Yeah. Okay. That's kind of applied there, really, huh?

[56:38] But now in the third paragraph, he's giving the order, right? Right. The way to proceed. Yeah. We seek to consider and to know the nature and substance of the soul, what it is, right?

[56:56] And let's say the rest of Book One, after the premium, which you don't have here, but the rest of Book One is looking through what the ancients before him said about this, right? Okay. But in the second book, he will define what the soul is. Okay. And then he's going to take up the properties in the way of the soul,

[57:21] using the word accidents here, not as opposed to properties, right? And he says some of these accidents seem to be proper passions of the soul, but some seem to be in animals because of the soul. He's hinting there at the difference between what powers or abilities, like the ability to understand, right, and the ability to choose, which are in the soul, not in the body. But most of these abilities, like the ability to digest your food, right, the ability to grow, the ability to reproduce yourself, even the ability to sense. are. In the body, through this fact that you have a soul.

[58:06] Okay. So he's going to consider the soul first, and then the what abilities of the soul. Now, that could possibly mislead you as to actually how Aristotle proceeds,

[58:23] because he's going to point out later on here. He raises the questions here, the third part of the difficulty. He's going to raise the question of really four things, and the order which you have to know these four things:

[58:43] the soul and its powers or abilities, the acts of these powers, and the objects of those acts. So the soul has many abilities: the ability to understand, the ability to choose, the ability to sense, the ability to move from one place to another, right? The ability to digest, the ability to reproduce itself, and so on. And these abilities have different acts, like the act of understanding, right?

[59:42] The act of growing, right? Act of sensing, right? Act of choosing, right? Then you have the objects of these acts, like color, sound, food, and so on, right? And he's going to raise a question about that.

[1:00:06] Excuse me. Look at paragraph five. I'll just jump ahead for a moment here. Moreover, if there be not many souls but parts, by parts he means parts of the power, ability of the soul. Whether to seek first the whole soul or the parts,

[1:00:53] but it's difficult to determine how these parts are by nature different from each other. And whether one needs to inquire about the parts first, or the works of these, I mean the acts of these, right? I guess that would be a good translation. The works of these, more the acts, understanding, or the mind, which should be considered first, sense and sensitive. But one should seek first the acts.

[1:01:20] Someone will then be at a loss if one must seek first the things correspond to these, the objects. Okay. Now, here's a little better translation here. Should we consider first the soul or its powers, right?

[1:01:38] And when you consider the powers and the acts of powers, should consider first the abilities or powers or the acts. And again, the acts have objects, right? Should you consider first the act or the object, right? Should you consider first the soul or the ability to see? Should you consider first the ability to see or seeing? Should you consider consider first seeing or color? Right. Okay. You're raising it there in the fifth paragraph as a difficulty, right?

[1:02:21] A question or a series of questions, right? But when you determine the truth later on, you're going to say, we know the what acts through the objects, and we know the powers through the acts, and we know the soul through its what powers or abilities. Okay. That's what is going to determine that truth thereon. In paragraph five, just raising a question, right?

[1:02:56] In other words, is seeing the same thing as hearing? Well, both sensing. What's the difference? The object. Yeah. Yeah. Because seeing is sensing color, right, or light. Hearing is sensing sound, right. So if I don't know the difference between color and sound, how do I know the difference between seeing and hearing? So the object really has to be known before the acts, right?

[1:03:33] Which is more known to us, seeing or the ability to see? Yeah. In fact, I wouldn't know I had the ability to see unless I what. You saw something. Yeah.

[1:03:51] And. You know, if I get up in the morning, I can't get out of bed. I've lost my ability to walk or something, right? Okay. But I can get out of bed and walk. I mean, I still have the ability to walk. Yeah. Thankfully, you know, in the morning, right? You open your eyes in the morning, you couldn't see, right? Huh? You know, so my eyesight got blind, right?

[1:04:14] In the middle of the night, huh? And the soul is going to be known by its what? Ability, right? Okay. I mentioned that, you know, getting kind of ahead of myself there, because one might misunderstand what he says here, right? In paragraph three, we seek to consider and to know the nature and substance of the soul, and then whatever are accidents of it, right? You might say, well, you're going to consider the soul and what it is before you consider the powers of the soul, right?

[1:04:52] Um, and therefore you might think, well, then he he thinks that the soul is more known to us than the powers, right? That's not the way he he shows later on.

[1:05:06] So, how do you resolve that apparent contradiction? That we know the objects before the acts, and the acts before the powers, and the powers before the soul.

[1:05:29] We're going to argue later on that the soul is immortal because it has the ability to understand, and understanding is not in the body. Okay. We're going to have to understand the ability to understand, understanding, understanding. We have to understand understanding by what it's a knowledge of.

[1:05:53] So, how can he then, as he would do at the beginning of the second book, define the soul, right? And go on to take up in the rest of Book Two after that, he'll take up the powers that we have in common with the plants, and then the powers we have in common with the animals, right? And not until the third book the powers that are unique to man.

[1:06:26] How can he do that? Could you just repeat? You made a brief comment on this when he says, um, some of these accidents seem to be proper passions of the soul, while some seem to be in animals. because of that, because of the soul. You've got to say that some abilities of the soul, right, are in the body, right, through the soul, right. Other abilities, like the ability to understand and the ability to choose, right, the understanding of the will, are in the soul and not, yeah, yeah, because not in the body, right.

[1:07:15] Okay. Um. But you prove that right. You just you know indicating that right. But what's the order, right? You see. Well, when he investigates the soul in the rest of Book One, which we haven't translated here, um, he points out how the predecessors before him tried to investigate the soul through the fact that animals sense and move from one place to another, right. Okay, so they were in fact investigating the soul through its what its operations, its activities, right.

[1:07:57] Okay, they were going from this towards the soul, right. Okay, and when. Aristotle determines what the soul is in a general way. In the second book, the beginning of the second book, he is still what proceeding from a kind of general knowledge of the acts and powers of the soul. But then he's going to take up each one of the powers and deal with it much more distinctly, right?

[1:08:21] In which case, they have a more distinct knowledge of the soul as he goes through each of the kinds and powers in particular, right? Okay. So if you didn't realize that, you might misunderstand the whole order here.

[1:08:43] If you just look at what he says here in the third paragraph, he says he's going to define what the soul is, say what the soul is, the nature, the substance, soul means what the soul is. He's going to determine that before he takes up the powers, right? But maybe it could be more explicit here, right? He's going to come to a knowledge of what the soul is in a kind of general way through its acts and its powers, huh?

[1:09:10] Okay. But then he's going to study the the powers in a more distinct way, right? And there know the various kinds of souls, right? The plant soul and the animal soul and the and the understanding soul, as Shakespeare calls it, when he deals with those powers more in what particular, right?