De Anima (On the Soul)
4. Aristotle's De Anima Proemium: Nature, Substance, and How to Define the Soul
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/004-aristotles-de-anima-proemium-nature-substance-and-how-to/

[0:03] how it's done. One interesting little footnote here to read. Yeah, it's kind of interesting, I think. In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen. Name of the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:19] God our enlightenment guardian angels. strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illuminar images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, pray for us and help us to understand all that you've written. In the Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Do you know the plot of King Lear a bit.

[0:44] We see Gloucester, you know, who's the father whose son has betrayed him in a sense. He's cruelly what tormented by his daughter and her husband of King Lear, and his eyes are put out, right? Okay, terrible thing. And he's wandering off blind, and he's in despair, and he wants to take his own life. And he runs into his good son, who's disguised because he's being pursued if you are the enemy, and he wants him to lead him to the cliff of Dover, right, right to the edge, and then to take off.

[1:26] And he's going to jump forward and go down the cliff, right? Well, the son of course is not going to cooperate in his father's attempt at suicide. So what he does instead is he says, "Now we've come to the cliff of Dover. He describes, you know, beautiful. It seems so real, right? And the father jumps forward, right? Of course, he stumbles, right? And then the son comes forward in his different voice, right?

[1:51] And he says to Gloucester, 'This is above all strangeness upon the crown of the cliff. What thing was that which parted from you? ' He jumped off the cliff. He thought he did, right? But but somehow he's been saved spared been saved, spared, right? Despite this fall, that is unusual, the way Edgar's saying. And Gloucester, says, a poor, unfortunate beggar, he was conducted in there, right? Through the Edgar.

[2:17] Edgar says, "As they stood here below, methought his eyes were two full moons. He had a thousand noses, horns welked and waved like the rich sea. It was some fiend, huh? This fiend was what? Leading him to you know this terrible thing, suicide, right? Therefore, thou happy father, right? Think that the clearest gods, you know, setting kind of pagan situation King Lear, so these gods are all right.

[2:50] But notice the expression here: think that the clearest gods, who make them honors of men's impossibilities, have preserved thee, right? Okay. Now let's make them honors. The gods who make them honors of men's impossibilities, Furness, right? Quotes Luke seventeen or eighteen: the things which are impossible with men are what possible with God, right? So. Think that the clearest gods who make them honors, right, of men's impossibilities.

[3:28] When God does what is impossible for man, then we tend to what honor God, right? Huh? Think that the clearest gods who make them honors of men's impossibilities have preserved thee, huh? Okay. Now, the footnote on that adjective describing the gods, right? Clearest, as opposed to the fiend, huh? He gives a bunch of explanations, but the last one I think is is the best and the most interesting.

[3:59] Theobald, one of the editors, says, "Open and righteous." Okay, doesn't get exactly what "clearest" means. Of the openness, something in the meaning. Johnson, clear-sighted. Well, that's. There's the gods, right? Capel, huh? Um. Oh no, excuse me. Johnson was the purest, the most free from evil. Oh. That fits God, right? Sometimes they interpret the word "holy" instead of God in terms of purity, right? Then clear-sighted for Capel, Schmidt says, "Bright, pure, glorious," right?

[4:38] Mm-hmm. Um. Stewart says, "Who perform miracles to make themselves clear to those who do not believe." Okay. This last one is the most interesting one. It's taken because I had never heard before, but the author is Reyher R-E-Y-H E R-E-R, and it's in French. The original thing, apparently, "Essai sur les idées de Shakespeare," right? Page 500. Anyway, comment on the word "clearest" there. Kind of interesting, I think.

[5:11] This word, which expresses the pure and luminous essence of the divinity, reflects the clear and profound nature of the man who utters it. Kind of beautifully said, right? Huh?

[5:30] This word, which expresses the pure and luminous essence of divinity, those two words he takes that are saying originally. We speak of God as being most clear, right? Because there's no mixture of anything in Him, right? He's altogether pure. He's holy, right? A lot of times they understand the word "something" that way, being pure, right? But also the idea of clear in the sense of what luminous, right?

[5:58] That's interesting, huh? This word, which expresses the pure and luminous essence of the divinity, reflects the clear and profound nature of the man who utters it. I think it's not saying the actor, but the the man who wrote the words. Shakespeare, I guess. That's kind of nicely said here. It sounds like Shakespeare is probably thinking of Latin "clarus" and "clarificatio." You know, we saw that in Saint John, where he uses that as "glory yeah, yeah, gorgeous.

[6:24] One of the other words they had, yeah, yeah. Shakespeare's very close to Latin, and a lot of times he uses the English word that's derived from Latin. In the Latin sense, you know, you see that a lot.

[6:39] So, I'm going to return the premium, when I get down to line twenty in your text, there, I'm going to make a little digression here, okay?

[6:54] Excursion, as Heath calls it, right? Illuminate something, huh? If you recall, the premium is divided, as a lot of things divided into three parts, right? And in the first part, he talked about the excellence of this knowledge, the desirability of this knowledge, right? Both in itself, because it's about a wonderful thing, he says, the best thing in the natural world, you could say. But also because we have a certitude within us of having a soul, right?

[7:29] And these are the two ways that one knowing is better than another, okay? But then he says it also seems to be what useful for all truth.

[7:42] Now, remind me that that passage in the Book of Proverbs that you were saying you checked the translation a bit, right? Because there was saying there's no good without knowledge of the soul, something like that. The first part of the verse, and kind of you can see the importance, you know, of the knowledge of the soul for all truth and not just for itself, huh? Okay, so that's in the first two parts of your paragraph.

[8:10] Okay, then in the third paragraph, yeah, the second part, right, of the premium, where he's talking about the order in which he's going to consider things.

[8:27] He says we seek to consider and to know the nature and substance of the soul, and then whatever are accidents of it, huh? Which would be these various what abilities or powers that the soul has.

[8:45] So, in the rest of Book One, which you don't have here, but after the premium, Aristotle looks at what his predecessors said about the nature of the soul, and then begins the second book, which we'll be looking at after the premium. Aristotle begins to investigate and determine exactly what the soul is. Okay. Now, notice the words that Aristotle uses there: the nature and what substance of the soul, right?

[9:16] And later on, you'll see, like down line fourteen, when he's talking about the question there. I mean, the question about the substance and the. What it is, right? Okay. So just stop for a moment on those two words in that phrase:

[9:36] the nature of a thing and the substance of a thing, and what it is of a thing, or what a thing is, right? Okay. Aristotle is using those three as being sort of synonymous, right? Okay. Now

[10:12] he's seeking what we sometimes call the definition of a thing, right? Okay. You seek to know the nature of a thing. You seek to know the substance. Of the thing, you seek to know what it is. You're seeking, if it's possible, a what? A definition.

[10:40] So sometimes when we talk about what a definition is, you'll see them use the word nature. Or in Greek, they use the word phusis, right? Okay, Greek word for nature. Or you will see,

[11:04] I'm using sometimes the Greek word for substance, which is ousia Okay. Or else, you know what it is in Greek, right? Okay, describing a definition.

[11:20] Now, I can mention you know all kinds of places. I was looking at Ammonius Hermeias in the Greek of Ammonius Hermeias And Ammonius Hermeias, you know who he is at all? He's a Neoplatonic philosopher who was active in Alexandria there. And let's see what it be.

[11:44] Confused now as to what text century it was, but maybe around the 400s A. D., right? Ammonius, there are many Ammoniuses, but he's called Ammonius Hermaeus, you know, he's the son of Hermaeus, or what it was, but that's he referred to. And he was apparently the teacher of none other than Boethius. You know, Boethius studied in Alexandria when he was younger, right? But anyway. Was the one who taught Plotinus a different one?

[12:18] That's different Ammonius. That's Ammonius Saccas, I think. Now Ammonius Hermias begins some of the great commentaries on Aristotle, but in the logical works. And in particular, a very famous commentary of his is on the Peri Hermeneias, the book on statements, huh? And they mainly studied there with the Latin text of Ammonius that Thomas may have had, right? And

[12:46] how closely Thomas follows Ammonius. And he's always in a difficult passage. He may refer to six or seven different predecessors who've commented on it, right? And usually ends up, you know, rejecting or modifying what they said, right? Except for Ammonius Hermeias Okay. And even Thomas's examples are very what? Similar to those of Ammonius, right? You know. So you get you know from the vein there the Latin text you get it now of Ammonius' work there in the Peri Hermeneias.

[13:22] I have it in Greek in my office. But they have footnotes, you know, from Thomas's commentary, so you can see how closely he's following it, right? And I've also been told that you know Thomas's commentary on Peri Hermeneias is incomplete. He breaks off at some point. Cajetan completed it. It breaks off, or one of the Latin manuscripts of Ammonius breaks off. It's kind of interesting, right? So Ammonius, at the beginning of his commentary, not in Peri Hermeneias now, but again one of the categories too, but his commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry.

[14:06] He says he has an introduction to philosophy, and he wants to define what philosophy is, et cetera, right? But before he does that, he wants to define what definition is. And the definition he gives of definition is that it's a logos, meaning a what? Speech, right? Okay. He says a logos syntomos, which means a brief or short speech. Reminds me of Shakespeare that brevity is the soul of wit, huh?

[14:36] Deal on showing right the nature of a thing, right? Okay. So he defines definition there, which is speech, as we say sometimes, making known what a thing is, right? Or speech signifying what a thing is. He defines it as speech, what? Short speech, showing the nature of the thing, right? But that's equivalent to the other definition, that it's speech making known what a thing is. You see that?

[15:17] Okay. Now in the Categories and elsewhere, I see in Plato too, I think, when they're referring to the logos, the speech that is in fact the definition, the phrase Aristotle uses in the Categories is logos tes ousias. Okay. The account of the what? Substance of the thing, right? The very beginning of the book, you know, he's saying you know how a name can be said of many things, or things have a name in common, and sometimes they also have the logos tes ousias, right?

[15:54] The definition of what they are. So notice these three, right? Okay. Now, not to go into the words nature and substance here, because that would be a whole lecture in itself,

[16:13] but the words nature and the word substance are both words that you find considered by Aristotle in the fifth book of wisdom, the fifth book of the Metaphysics. And the whole of the fifth book of the metaphysics is devoted to seeing the distinction and order of the meanings of the words used, especially in wisdom, right? But which are also the words used in the what axioms? Like I mentioned that before, right?

[16:53] And because of the commonality, the commonness of the subject of wisdom, right, which is being as being in the one, the many, and because of the common character of the axioms, right, these are also the words used to some extent, what everywhere, right? Okay. So if you want to understand the word nature fully, or phusis in Greek, or ousia in Greek, or substance in Greek, right, you have to read the chapters or axioms, the one on nature and the one on what substance, huh?

[17:33] Okay. But it's not going to be there right now because there would be a couple of lectures in itself. Um. But I want to mention something else about this. When Thomas in his commentary on metaphysics, when he divides Book Three, he divides it. Excuse me, Book Five. When he divides it, he divides it into three parts. As many things are divided into parts, huh? And Thomas says the first group of names are names of causes or something like that.

[18:12] Names of retaining causes. The second group of words are names of the subject of wisdom, being in one, and that's where substance comes in. And then the third group of names are names that pertain more to the properties. Okay. And he's very good reason for saying this. He says every science, in the strict sense, every episteme,

[18:39] has some subject, right, about which it shows its properties and gives the cause or the reason why those properties belong to that subject. So it's really three things in every science: the subject, the properties, and the causes. Huh? So it makes a lot of sense, huh? And it fits very much with Aristotle's doing. So the first word Aristotle takes up is the word beginning, right? The second word he takes up is the word cause.

[19:09] The third word he takes up is the word element, huh? The fourth word he takes up is the word what nature, right? And we saw how nature, in one of its earlier meanings, is the beginning and cause, right? The motion and the rest, okay. And then he takes up the word

[19:35] I mentioned, beginning, cause, element, nature, and then the word necessary, right? Because the effect follows necessarily from the cause, and so on. Okay. Then he takes up the words that pertain to the subject of wisdom. He takes up the word one, and the word being, and the word substance, which is the chief subject of wisdom. And then he takes up the names of the parts of one and the parts of being, huh?

[20:01] Like quantity and quality and same and other and so on. And then finally, he takes up the words that signify more what is in the way of a property. Words like perfect and whole, perfect and imperfect, right? The perfection or defect of being. So it's interesting that the word nature appears among the words signifying causes, right? And substance refers to a word signifying the chief subject of wisdom.

[20:35] And of course, both words have many meanings. But one of the many meanings of both is what it is. If you look at the word nature or physis, there, the first meaning is what birth,

[20:56] if it comes from nature, nativity, prenatal, postnatal, and then it's carried over to the source of the baby within the mother. And the idea of within or from within is kept in every meaning of nature. And then it's generalized to the meaning we met in the second book of Natural Hearing beginning and cause of motion and of rest and that in which it is, first as such, not be happening, right?

[21:28] And that's the definition of nature that defines natural philosophy. And then it's carried over to matter in particular in the genus of substance and form. And actually, Aristotle after he gives the definition of nature in the second book, he goes on to show that matter is nature and form in the genus of substance and nature. And eventually, after that, he comes the sense of nature and the sense of what it is.

[22:00] So it's the last sense. The substance has other meanings, but perhaps the two main meanings of substance are the individual substance, like you or me or the cat that comes in here sometimes, It's in my class. But the other sense of substance is what it is.

[22:25] I think it's kind of interesting because a word in the first group and another word in the second group of names they intersect in one meaning. That's kind of interesting. It's kind of interesting, you know, if you study Book Five. It takes a long time to understand each word by itself. But after you understand the word by itself, it's kind of interesting to compare these words because sometimes they, what words in the different groups, they tend to what overlap, right?

[22:59] For example, Aristotle gets to the third group of words. One of the meanings he takes up is the word end. And of course, he points out how sometimes we call this the beginning of the table and that at the opposite end, the end, right? But sometimes we speak of the ends of the table, calling the beginning end, right? So in some cases, there's a certain Overlap there, right?

[23:26] Okay. That the beginning is an end, in some ways the end is a beginning too. Because in Aristotle it's all the meanings of the beginning. The first meaning of beginning is the beginning of the table here. The second meaning of beginning is where you would begin to leave the table, right? Where you have to be sitting, right? The third meaning of beginning is the foundation of a house.

[23:49] The fundamental part of a thing. The fourth meaning is the what? The mover. Okay. And the fifth meaning is where you begin to know something. And then the sixth meaning he says every clause, even the end, is in a way a beginning. So the end is in some sense a beginning. It's first in what? Intention. Last to be being achieved, huh? That's first in your intention, right?

[24:20] And but another way the beginning is sometimes called a what? End, right? Okay. So I might say the line. Let's say, make say this point here is the beginning of the line, and this point here is the end, right? Another time I might speak of the two end points of a line, right? Called beginning and end. So the end can be called a beginning, beginning and end, right?

[24:48] That can be confusing for a person at first, right? But you have to realize that that's the way the words are, right? That they have many meanings, and sometimes you know one comes under the other in some way, right? Or sometimes they have a meaning in common, right? So substance, you know, if you take the Latin word, because in some ways we're interested in the Greek word, substance comes from standing under, right?

[25:16] And it's because substance is what more fundamental, than accidents, right? And so substance is named from standing under. By nature is named from what birth, right? Well, birth and standing under are quite different, aren't they? But by different roots, they both, to some extent, in one of their meaning, right, arrive at the idea of what it is, huh? Okay. So that's a little excursion there, right? One could you know take more time if want to go and study the the fifth book of wisdom, right?

[25:59] So in talking about definitions, sometimes we define definition or note it by the word substance, and sometimes by the word nature, and sometimes by what it is, which is one of the meanings of nature and substance, huh?

[26:17] Um. So if you look at number three here, we seek to consider and to know the nature and substance of the soul, right? Well, those two words there are more or less what synonyms, right? Okay.

[26:36] In in their use right there. Now in the Greek, would say we seek to to again to know the physin, which is the accusative of physis and ten ousian which is the the accusative of ousia. Okay. But then later on, that's what he says here, right? In number four, and this is the start of the third part now the proemium, where he's going to talk about the difficulty of it, right?

[27:12] How to grasp some conviction, get some kind of belief about it, is in every way a most difficult task. And then he begins with the difficulty of knowing how to investigate what the soul is, right? For this being a question common to many other things as well, I mean the question about the substance and the what it is, right? Those are asking for the same thing, right?

[27:40] So, science put the three words together, right? First you have nature and substance, and now you have substance of what it is, matter of nature and what it is. Now the Greek here,

[27:55] lego de to peri ten ousian about the substance, kai to ti esti, right, the what it is. Okay. Do you see that? Okay. So there's a certain richness there, you might say, huh? In the fact that you can refer to the what it is by the words what it is, or by the word nature, or by the word what substance, right? So in the Summa Theologiae, Thomas takes up in question two of the prima pars the existence of God, right?

[28:34] And then in questions three, right, through what would it be? Eleven, right? He takes up the substance of God. What does that mean? What he is. Yeah, what God is, huh? Although we know more what he is not than what he is, right? But you're trying to talk about the substance of God. Do you see that?

[29:02] Okay. So the substance of a thing is what it is. Now, in English, we've kind of lost the earlier meanings of nature, right? We speak of nature, although we use sometimes the word nature kind of in a hazy way for the natural world, right? You know, the collection of natural things out there, and so on. But we often, you know, speak of the nature of a thing, right?

[29:38] The nature of government, the nature of God, right? Okay. And that's not the meaning of nature that defines natural philosophy, because that's found in every science, right? Okay.

[29:52] Okay. I'm making even longer digression. I get a little further on here. Okay. Now, notice quantitatively here, right? Paragraphs one, two, and three contain the one, two, the first part of the premium; three, the second part; and four, all the way over here to page four, right? The third part, right? And maybe that says something, right, about the the difficulty of this, right? Okay.

[30:32] So he says and notes at the very beginning, however, to grasp some conviction about it is in every way a most difficult task, right? In fact, you use the word pistis now, which can mean belief, right? But means a kind of a way of saying what? It's hard to get complete certitude about what the soul is, right? Okay. But even this imperfect maybe state of the mind, their pistis, is even a most difficult task, right?

[31:09] Now the first now, as Thomas points out in the commentary, he first talks about difficulties in investigating that first of those two things that he mentioned in paragraph three, what the soul is, right? And then difficulties about its what, accidents or properties? Okay.

[31:32] Is this pistis the same as opinion? What pistis? Yeah. No, I don't think so necessarily. See, pistis is the word you have in Latin for belief. Sure. Okay. So belief

[31:49] is something like that, but it's not exactly the same thing. It's more founded than opinion, right? Yeah. Yeah, but it's a little weaker though than the knowledge, right? It's there too, right? Okay. And it's part of your philosophical modesty. I don't think Aristotle is saying you can't in some way be sure about what the soul is, but so difficult, right? Yeah. He speaks that way, huh? Sure.

[32:13] Okay. So now in in paragraphs as these guys number four, five, and six, right? He's going to talk about the difficulty of knowing what the soul is, right? Or we could say the difficulty of knowing the nature of the soul, right? Or the difficulty of knowing the substance of the soul, and so on. And then in the rest of the proemium, there starting with paragraph seven, some of the difficulties to be considered in regard to the what?

[32:50] Passions. Yeah. Using those words kind of you know loosely, right? Whatever the yeah accidents, whatever the properties, right? Okay. Of the soul. Okay. Now the first difficulty talks about in the fourth paragraph is the difficulty of knowing how to investigate what the soul is, right?

[33:20] For this being a question common to many other things as well. I mean the question about the substance of what it is. In every reasoned out knowledge, we ask what something is, right? Perhaps there might seem to be some one method about everything of which we wish to know the substance, just as demonstration is of accidental properties, whence this method ought to be sought. I notice Aristotle using the word method, which in the Greek is the word methodos, right?

[33:52] Here, something not only over a road, but something maybe that is about a road. Okay. Close to the use of method in English, right? Okay. Okay. Is there a road to be followed in defining something? And if you look at the Posterior Analytics in the second book of the Posterior Analytics, he he speaks there of two different roads whereby a man might try to arrive at what a thing is.

[34:22] And one way is by looking at what many examples of the same thing, right? And trying to separate out what those examples have in common. That's why they're hard with the soul, because it can't exactly set up three souls that we have in common, right? The soul was more hidden, right? Than that. The other way he he mentions there of investigating what something is is to find what its genus is, right?

[34:51] And then to divide the genus by its differences and see under which difference it comes, and then add that to the genus. And if that speech is convertible, maybe you've arrived at a definition. But if it's not convertible, you might have to make another division, right? Okay.

[35:10] So is there one way of arriving at definitions? He raises the question. But if there is not some one in common method about the what it is, the undertaking becomes yet more difficult, right? For it will be necessary to grasp what is the mode in each case.

[35:33] Okay. Now notice, huh? We saw that when he was distinguishing between natural philosophy and mathematics, he pointed out that there's some difference in the way these two sciences define.

[35:52] And when you get to the sixth book of wisdom, he distinguishes natural philosophy, mathematics, and first philosophy or wisdom. There are three different ways of defining. Okay. That's only one distinction that we've touched upon before, right? In the way things are defined, huh?

[36:18] But there's another distinction that I think we talked about when we were in logic, if you recall. Say. Because that distinction that we just talked about, that you don't define exactly the same way in mathematics and in natural philosophy. In mathematics, you define without what? Any kind of sensible matter, right? You define without any reference to motion, right? But since nature is defined by motion and so on, and things that move have matter, you can't really define actual things without bringing in matter or motion in some way.

[36:56] But logic doesn't talk about that because that's pertaining to the what? Particular differences among the sciences, huh? Okay. But if you recall our study of definition in logic,

[37:13] we pointed out three distinctions of definitions in logic. Remember that? And two distinctions were very similar. We distinguish between defining a thing by its genus and species-making differences, right? And defining a thing by its genus and what? Property. Property. Yeah. Okay.

[37:43] What is the difference between what Aristotle does at the end of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, where he defines virtue as a praiseworthy quality,

[37:57] and then later on in Book Two, where he defines moral virtue as a habit with choice existing in the middle towards us as determining right reason? What's the difference between those two definitions? The same thing. Well, praiseworthy quality seems to be defining

[38:21] virtue by its genus and a property. Because praise is something outside the virtue, isn't it? It's more on the one who's praising you than in you, right? While he defines moral virtue as a habit with choice existing in the middle towards us as determining right reason, he seems to be getting more into what makes it virtue. Okay. That's one distinction between that, right? Between defining something by its genus and species-making differences, and by defining it by its genus and property.

[38:59] As long as we define it by its property, because you don't know the essential difference, and the property is more manifest, right? So I define a cat as a what? Four-footed animal that meows. And a dog is a four-footed animal that barks. Well, is it a cat because it meows, or does it meow because it's a cat? See. Is it meowing that makes it to be a cat, or is it because of what it is, namely a cat, that meows?

[39:32] See, well, I think meowing is more like a what effect, a property, a passion of the cat, right? You see, but I'm too stupid to see what the real intrinsic differences between the cat and the dog. But the meow and the bark are known by my ears and so on, right? Stands out to my senses, so I tend to define them at first, at least by a property, right?

[39:58] Maybe if I studied biology more, I might be able to give you a more intrinsic difference between the cat and the dog, but that would be harder for me and not as clear to my my senses, huh? Do you see that? Now, there's a second distinction which Socrates, in a way, is touching upon in the Meno, and Thomas touches upon it, in Aristotle in many places. And that is the difference between a definition by cause and a definition by what?

[40:30] Effect, Effect, right? Remember that distinction. Yeah. So Socrates says to Euthyphro, when he defines the pious as what pleases the gods, what the gods approve of. He says, well, is it pious because they approve of it, or do they approve of it because it is pious? You know, in a sense, he's asking, is that approval by the gods that what makes it to be pious, or is that a what?

[41:03] Effect, right? It's being pious. And Socrates tries to argue there that it's really a result of being pious, He really hasn't told me fully what piety is.

[41:18] And it becomes very important to ask that question when we talk about the good or the beautiful, right? The good is first defined as what is desired by all.

[41:32] But is it good because it's desired, or is it desired because it is good? Of course, the great Augustine in the De Vera Religione says. You know, the beautiful is that which pleases when seen, right? Well, is it beautiful because it pleases us when seen, or does it please us when we see it because it is beautiful? And Augustan says, I have no doubt that it pleases our eyes because it is beautiful.

[42:01] So you haven't fully brought out what the good and the beautiful is. You define it by its effect. right? Now notice, those two definitions, those two distinctions, rather, we said were similar because the property is like an effect. It's a result of the nature of the thing, right? And and also the species making difference, as they call it. They call it so many differences for short, but the full title is the species making difference.

[42:31] If you find you find Aristotle in the Topics, I think, the species-making difference species making difference. That's like the cause, right? What makes it to be what it is? Okay. So those two are somewhat equivalent, but a little differently stated, right?

[42:54] Just like Heisenberg's quantum mechanics, right, and Schrodinger's mathematical formulation of wave mechanics, right? We've shown to be equivalent, but they're a little different way of stating it. And sometimes, as Schrodinger pointed out, it's more convenient to use one than the other, right? Okay. So sometimes it's more relevant to use the distinction between definition by cause and effect, right? And sometimes the other distinction, right? But they're somewhat similar to the two.

[43:25] I think. You can see that, but then we had a third, a third way of distinguishing definitions, and there we went not so much to that by which that's going to end up, involving some difference in that by which you define, but we went to what it is that's being defined, right? Now I mentioned this because it's going to be very relevant to defining the soul, and to the question Aristotle raises here, right?

[43:59] If there's not one way of defining all things, right, then we got to find the way of defining each each thing, right? Okay, that might seem to be a vast task, you know, huh? Yeah. But there is some very fundamental distinctions among things that is very important for investigating what they are, and for seeing that they have somewhat different definitions.

[44:33] And Aristotle talks about this most explicitly in the seventh book of Wisdom when he's talking about substance and definition, right? And he makes the famously mark there that either substance alone can be defined and accidents cannot be defined, or if accidents can also be defined, it's a different meaning of the word accident of the word definition. Okay. Now, why does he say that, right? Well, the very etymology of the word definition, which comes from finis which comes from the word for limit.

[45:12] The idea of the limits of something is very what? Pesets, right? The outward limit of my body, say the surface of my body. The whole of me is contained within the limits of my body, right? No part of me is outside the limits of my body, right? No part of the table is outside the limits of the table. and no other chair here or door is within the limits of the table, is it?

[45:41] So the idea of limit, like the limits of the city of Worcester or whatever city it might be, seems to get tight fit, right? The shoe fits where, right? The definition has to fit just this one thing. So it seems contrary to the meaning of definition to bring in something other than what you're defining into the definition, just as there should be no part of of another city inside the city limits of Worcester, right?

[46:11] So inside the definition of a thing, the limits of a thing, right? There should be no other thing, right? But if you study logic and you know the distinction between substance and accident.

[46:30] You know that substance is a thing that exists by itself, not in another subject. An accident is something that exists only in another, and is incapable existing outside of this other. Right. Once you realize an accident and the kind of thing it is, it's something in another of another. Maybe you can't define an accident without bringing in the what subject in which it exists. Let me take a simple example of that, huh?

[47:06] If health is an example of an accident, health doesn't exist by itself, but exists in some body, your body or my body or the cat's body or something like that, right? Health is something of the healthy body, right? So maybe if I want to say what health is, I've got to say it's something like the good condition, right, or the good disposition of the body, right?

[47:39] And maybe moral virtue is the good disposition of the soul, right? Why health is a good disposition of the body. Was he mentioned a thing that I haven't run across in the sophist there of Plato? He's comparing the virtues of the soul with the virtues of the body. Did I mention that? I don't think so. Interesting, because

[48:09] he compares moral virtue to the health of the body, and compares knowledge to the beauty of the body. That kind of stuck me. You know, there's a movie out now that that was got the Oscar for, but but it's called A Beautiful Mind, right? You know, it's either kind of, like if you have a newspaper or something, you'll probably run around to see this. Okay, So Russell Crowe almost got his second Oscar for this, right?

[48:45] Okay, he's up for the Oscar. Now I presume when they call this man as having a beautiful mind, right? He got the Nobel Prize, right? It's based on a real life person. He's got the problems of a beautiful, but no, he also has problems. Okay,

[49:04] but his mind is described as a beautiful mind, right? Okay, but if you're right, you can speak of Aristotle's mind or Thomas Aquinas' mind as a beautiful mind, right? More so than you would call it a healthy mind.

[49:23] But if somebody has moral vice, you know. And he's abusing little children, take a common example nowadays. you can say he's sick, right? You know, yeah, he's sick. Some of these people, right? When you see that they're, you know, perverse in some way, you know, they're sick. You know, sick in the head, right? See. Now, I think I'd be careful about that because I think there's a way in which any virtue of the soul could be called the health of the soul, even the moral virtues, I mean the intellectual virtues, right?

[49:53] But I think it's interesting that Plato kind of sees the moral virtues as being more like health, right? Or health being more like the moral virtues, and beauty more like the other, right? It's kind of interesting.

[50:12] Sort of had to kind of side there, but but if you speak of the virtue of the body, right, like health and the virtue. Of the soul, and you really define these without being in body and soul.

[50:33] In other words, it's because of the you have two kinds of things here: substance and accident, huh? And actually, there's there's more than two kinds here. That substance, quantity, quality, so. But just see this this basic distinction here: two kinds of things. Well, if definition is speech making me know what a thing is, and you have two two kinds of things, then maybe you have two kinds of definition.

[51:06] You can't define these in exactly the same way. Now, the essential difference here, to make it even more general in a way, you can see the accident is something of another.

[51:24] Why the substance is something by itself, you might say. It's not something of another. So if we knew the nature of a substance, maybe we don't know the nature of substances very well because as the great Heraclitus says, nature loves to hide, right? But but if we knew the nature of a substance, we wouldn't have to bring anything into that definition other than what that substance is.

[51:59] But even if we know the nature, the what it is of a what accident, right? We'd have to bring in something other than that accident, because that's the kind of thing it is. It's something of a what. Another right Okay. Now that was important when we were defining, let's say, time. Remember the definition of time.

[52:28] Time is a number of the before and after in motion, right? It's something of motion, right? When Aristotle investigated time, he began from the fact that there's some connection between time and motion, and we don't perceive time without perceiving some motion. So either time is a motion, or time is something of motion. And then he reasoned and gave a reason why time is not motion. Therefore, he concluded time must be something of motion, and what it is of motion, right?

[53:09] And then he started to bring out that it's something of the before and after in motion, right? When I speak of any amount of time, like three days or three hours or three minutes, I'm really what? Giving you a number, right? But a number of the before and after emotion, you see. So I mentioned this because is the soul going to be defined

[53:42] by itself? Do you think? Or is the soul going to be defined as something what of another, right? See. Now, if the soul is an accident of the body, well, then it's going to be defined as something of another, right? But

[54:06] suppose the soul is something the genus of substance, and as he's going to point out a little bit after he goes into the question about the genus of the soul, right?

[54:21] Let's go and look a little bit. I'm going to get ahead myself and come back to where I was, but just to try to tie up right the question there.

[54:39] I could write around line twenty there, right? Which I'll come back to that text in a moment, but okay. For the principles of others are other as of number and of surfaces, so the number begins with the one, right? And surface and general, the continuous with the point, right? Well, the one and the point are not the same thing, are they? So he says, perhaps it is first necessary to decide into which of the genera it falls and what it is, right?

[55:15] Okay. Now, what it is is also used in the definition of genus, right? The genus is a name said with one meaning, right? Of many things, other in kind, signifying what it is, right? I mean, whither into this something and substance, right? Now, this something is the phrase that Aristotle uses, "to de ti in Greek, "hoc aliquid" in Latin, for an individual substance like you or me, right?

[55:48] Is it a this something and a substance, or is it equality, right? Or is it a quantity, or is it a relation of some of the other ten categories, right?

[56:01] I know it's some. We're not going to be going through all the opinions of his predecessors, but some think of the soul as a what substance, right? And a substance distinct from the body that is said to be alive, right? And Plato, as you may know, thinks of it as an immaterial substance, right? Somehow imprisoned in the body for a period of time, right? Perhaps as a punishment, right?

[56:27] Who knows? Others think of it in a more gross way, you know, of some, some what, material substance, right? So some said that it was water. Some said the soul was air, right? Poets speak of this, of the air. I mentioned how when the guy was dying in battle, there, right, his soul started to leave his body, and the great wind came up and pushed it back in.

[56:57] He survived. And others thought the soul was the element fire, right? Because fire seems to grow and be active, right? And Democritus thought it was these little atoms, you know, pushing your body around, and so on. So some thought it was a substance, right, distinct from the so-called living body, right, and moving that body, right, either in material substance or some other material substance that was kind of moving all the time, like the atoms were, according to them.

[57:28] Or some thought of it as a quality, like that's the category of quality. And I mentioned how in the symposium, Simmias brings in the opinion that the soul is the harmony of the body, right? That's kind of an accident, right? It's a good disposition of the body, but so he mentions quality before quantity because that's probably a more probable opinion. But you also ran the Pythagorean opinion that the soul is a self-moving what?

[57:58] Number? That would be quantity, right? See, so that's the first question: is is is the soul in the genus of substance, like Plato thought, or those who thought that it was water or air or fire, something like that? That's a subdivision, you know, material material. Or is it a quality, like those who thought it was the harmony of the body, right, or the arrangement of the body, right?

[58:21] Okay, the ratio, right? Empedocles spoke of what? Flesh and blood and bones being made out of the same elements, but in different what? Ratios, right? And maybe the living body differs because there's a different ratio of these things, right? Okay. Or quantity, but that's maybe the less probable. But some of those thought of the soul as being a number and things that sort.

[58:54] But then he raises a second question, right? And what is among beings in potency, or rather in some actuality? Now you may recall that when we studied change, we saw that the thing that changes is composed of something like matter and something like form, right? Of ability and act. Well, if man is a substance and the cat is a substance, but men and cats come into existence and go out of existence, right?

[59:27] Then substance itself must be composed of something as matter and something as form, something as ability, something as act, right? That's a good question. Now, if you put the soul in substance, right? Is it in substance like man or dog or tree is in substance, or is it in substance like the matter of substance, right, or the form of a substance, huh? You see, In which case it would not be a complete?

[59:57] What substance, huh? Okay, you see that? Okay. And when Aristotle's going to investigate what the soul is by way of division, there in the second book, he would give that division not only of substance, quantity, quality, right, but just what is it in? But he'll subdivide substance into the, you know, the something. that's. a substance that's put directly in the substance, right? And something that is a principle of substance because it's the matter or the form of a substance.

[1:00:30] But form now in the sense of substantial form, okay? Now, how's that related back to the original question about definition? Well, if the soul is not a complete substance, but it's a form, which it might be, right?

[1:00:51] Form and matter, in a way, what are relative to each other, right? Maybe you can't know what the soul is without knowing that it is the form of of this kind of a what body, right? Okay. So although the soul would not be an accident in this case, it'd be the genus of substance, right? Nevertheless, there'd be resemblance between the way you'd have to define the soul in that case and the way you define accident.

[1:01:23] But you have to define it as something of another. Okay. Now, some people, you know, define the point as what the end of a line, right? No, a line is not a point, and a point is not a line. They're two different things, right? But maybe the point doesn't exist by itself. See, maybe it's only exists in the limited line, right? Maybe it's something of the limited line.

[1:01:58] What is it of the limited line? It's the end of it. Just like the surface of the table, right? In the strict sense, has length and width but no depth, right? And could you really cut off the surface of the table then? No. You have to be a body to exist independently, right? And yet, since this body doesn't go on forever, it does have a surface, doesn't it?

[1:02:21] If you give that surface any depth, you haven't come to the end yet, have you? But the depth does come to an end in this upper direction as well as other directions. So maybe the surface is the limit of a what body, but it can't be by itself, right?

[1:02:40] Can't have a surface maybe in the real world that has length and width but no depth. See, it just thing by itself. Kind of interesting to have such a thing, right? But see, but if all existence is bodies and what's in bodies, right? And this is not a body, then must be something of a body, right? And therefore, you have to define it as what it is of a body.

[1:03:08] What's not the disposition of a body, but it's the limit of a body. See. Maybe the soul has to be defined in a different way.

[1:03:20] And then it can't be defined up to this point, right? Okay. Can't be defined as an accident, right? It's something of genus of substance. And since even Socrates gave some good arguments against the soul being the harmony of the body, he said, "Why would the soul resist the body? " And the bodily urges that we do sometimes, right? The urge to eat or drink and so on.

[1:03:45] Okay, urge to go to sleep sometimes, right? I resist it. I'm driving my car down the road. I resist that urge to go to sleep, right? Now, why does the soul resist the body if it's just the harmony of the body, right? It's a kind of interesting argument, right? But a fortiori, if the soul has some activity that's not in the body, right? How could it be the disposition of the body, right?

[1:04:13] So many things that lead us away from the idea that the soul is something acting in the body, and the soul being something substantial, right? But there are problems. You make the soul a complete substance, differing from the living body, like a man differs from a dog or a tree from a stone, right? And you can't understand the unity that you have as a human being. When you're hungry or in pain, and you're trying to think where you can get food or how you can get rid of this pain, that the one who's what thinking about how to get food or get rid of the pain is the one who's suffering hunger, suffering pain, right?

[1:04:53] You know, it's not just being chained to the body, right? You're in pain. I'm trying to see how I can relieve your pain, right? And it's you know, Christians will try to relieve your pain, can't they? But I'm in pain. There's an urgency into my thinking how I can relieve myself, right? When I'm dying of hunger, right? You know, it's part of my inward experience that we talked about, right?

[1:05:19] That the one who's thinking about how to relieve this pain is the one who's feeling that pain. It's not my pet cat that's feeling it, and I'm trying to you know take care of my cat and make my cat feel better, right? Just not.

[1:05:38] It's not like a mother being concerned about her child being in pain, right? You know, suffering maybe more than the child in some way, right? But it's the same one who's suffering.

[1:05:54] So I mentioned that. So you tie up in the sense, without going into all the problems about defining something, is the soul going to be defined as something by itself, right? Or is something of another?

[1:06:15] Well, the others seem to be defining the soul either as an accident and therefore something of another, right? Others are trying to define the soul as some substance distinct from the body, right?

[1:06:27] Well, maybe the truth is somewhere in between those, right? That the soul is something in substance rather than accident, right? But it has to be defined in a way something like the way an accident is defined as something of another, because it's not a complete substance by itself, but it's actually a part of the complete substance, huh? And there's a connection between the form and matter, but just any form and any matter.

[1:07:00] So you see that, huh?