De Anima (On the Soul)
12. The Soul as First Act of a Natural Body Composed of Tools; How Body and Soul Are One
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[0:00] Now, the way he begins at one fourteen, at least in this translation, you'd say, "Well, is he talking about natural bodies as as complete substances? See, whence all natural bodies sharing in life. This one fourteen now, whence all natural bodies sharing in life will be substances. Substances with us as a composite. It seems to be the opposite of what I was saying, right? Okay, he seemed you know in one thirteen to be starting off with bodies as substances, right?

[0:30] He doesn't say bodies seem to be part of material substance. This is bodies seem to be substances, right? Okay, But not unless he goes down. He's going to make the transition, I think. But since they are bodies of such a sort, for they have life, the soul could not be the body,

[0:52] for the body is not among things which are according to an underlying subject, but are rather as underlying in matter. Now he's taking body as what a composing part. Okay,

[1:06] therefore it is necessary that the soul is substance as the species or the form of an actual body having life, what potentially. Okay, so he's concluding that concluding that the soul is in the genus of substance as species or form. Okay,

[1:33] of a natural body having life potentially, substance order in the sense of actuality. Therefore, the soul is the act of such a body. See, first speaks of it as as a substantial form as a word of the body, right? And that's the way the the text there in the in the church council speaks of it, right? As a form of the body. Okay, we'll look at that text sometime We'll look at that next time.

[2:02] No, I can complete this consideration, of, this definition here, before we bring it to the church. You know, all things into order, right? And then goes on to say that that this is what actuality, right? That's act, huh? And then in one fifteen he recalls the third division on the side of the soul, the division of act into what what we call first act and second act.

[2:30] But this act is said in two ways. The one is science, the other as what considering according to that science, what you acquired it. It is clear, therefore, that the soul is as science is as a first act, right? Rather than the act of of the operations of life. For it is in the soul's present that both sleep and waking are right. Very concrete, right? For waking is analogous to consideration, while sleep is analogous to having science and not what using it, right?

[3:10] So when one is asleep, one seems to be not operating, except perhaps on a plant level, right? Okay. But one is still alive, right?

[3:26] So the soul, at least all the soul, right? Okay. So the soul is an act, but as a first act, right? Okay. Do you see that? Okay. Rather than the operations of things alive. But in the same person, science is prior in generation. So that's why I was saying it's going back to the first sense of before, before and time, Because before and generation is before and time.

[3:51] right? Although I may have something in the second sense too that you said. Whence the soul? Here you see now the phrase, the first act. Whence the soul is the first act of a natural body, huh? Having life, what potentially? Now he says having life potentially, he means the operations of life. Okay.

[4:14] Now, but such a body is what would be organic. Now Aristotle is going to change the phrase from an actual body having life potentially to and I don't like the translation here. Okay.

[4:34] The Greek word taught us how to translate that, you know, taught us how to translate that. You see, we get the word organ and the word organized and so on, right? We get it from the Greek word organon. the Greek word organon is the common word for tool. Okay. So a hammer is a tool. A hammer is a what? Organon, right? Okay. A knife is an organon.

[5:21] A knife is a tool, right? So Aristotle doesn't say in Greek that this is an organic body, as some of the translators have, or organized body, right? The way De Koninck would translate is a body equipped with tools. Okay. The way I translate it usually is a body composed of tools.

[5:52] Okay. So the eye is a tool for what? Seeing, right? And the ear is a tool for hearing. And the heart is a tool for what? Pumping blood and maybe doing other things, right? And the hand is a tool for grasping and so on, right? The teeth in front are tools for biting,

[6:19] and the teeth in back are tools for what? Chewing, right? Huh? Okay. If you go through the body, you can see that a living body is a body composed of what? Tools.

[6:35] Okay. The Platonic phrase was "equipped with tools," but you might say, "No." That's about the idea that it's actually composed of tools, right? Because you might say, "You have to put my guns on." No, the soldiers go in the battle; they're equipped with all kinds of tools when they go into battle. But but the living body is what composed of tools, right? That's a very interesting thing because even the plants, in a way, huh?

[7:03] The roots and the leaves and so on—they are what for different functions, right? It's a very concrete way Aristotle has of speaking. In this translation, and almost all the translations you see in English, they use the word "organic" or "organized," and that completely loses the concreteness of what Aristotle was saying.

[7:28] And later on, Aristotle was attacking the false position there of the Pythagoreans and some Platonists. You know, the transmigrations of souls, so the soul can go from one body to another body, right? The question of the story is told of Pythagoras, right? He's walking down the street and somebody was beating a dog, you know, with a stick or something, and uh, the dog was whelping, he. Says, "Stop, stop!

[7:56] I recognize the soul of my old friend so and so this dog, right?" Shakespeare, you know, Shakespeare looks at you know the Pythagorean thing, right? When what is it in? uh In uh Twelfth Night I guess it is yeah Where where they uh trying to pretend that the guy's mad. He's trying to make him insane. Of course, he doesn't believe in transmigration of souls. Of course, he's very opposed to that, right?

[8:24] He's very savage and sanity. But one of the reasons Aristotle is here is that the soul is like a what? An art, and one art cannot use the tools of a what? Another art, huh? You see. So, my wife, when she makes a dress, let's say, or something like that, she's going to use a needle and thread without getting too sophisticated right now, okay? And but my brother-in-law, he makes something out of wood, so he uses a hammer and a what?

[9:01] Saw and so on. And my wife can't be to use a hammer and nail together the dress, and my Brother-in-law can't use a needle and thread and sew together the house and so on. So one art cannot use the tools of another art.

[9:22] The carpenter can't use a piano. The pianist can't use a hammer and saw them. But here, right? Okay. So Aristotle will say that, ah, you know, for one soul, you know, it's in this body to go into another body, right? Would be like one art using the tools of another art. Can't do it, right? But all that's lost, and you use the word organic.

[9:51] You know, we have even today. You know, we kind of speak of a living body as an organism, right? And you have the term organic chemistry, right? Because organic chemistry is about chemicals that were originally found, as far as the natural world is concerned, only in living bodies, right? Although we later on we synthesized some of these, but but organic chemistry is about those. But organic doesn't mean anything, basically.

[10:20] But the original meaning of organ is tool, and that's why we mentioned before in logic that if you look at Aristotle's logical works, they often call them the organon, right? Meaning the tool, because logic is the tool philosophy. It's not for its own sake, right? It's for acquiring the other parts of philosophy, especially looking philosophy. So, so it's just

[10:56] saying a body that's able to operate, right? It's alive and potent. See, he says it's a body composed of what? Tools, right? Okay. You Don't realize that these words that we use in natural philosophy, natural science, they are usually taken from what human art, right? Just like the word law, you know, is taken from practical.

[11:39] So you go back and look at the names of the body, right? Sometimes go back to the origin, the Greek or Latin words they have for the names of our bodies that the biologists or the the doctor might use. They usually have a what?

[11:55] An origin, right? From human art, huh? Because these things were named in human art first, and then we carried them over, right? Clavicle, and so on key, all kinds of strange ways these things are named, huh? But the the basic one here for the living body is tool, right? Tool first name is usually something like a hammer, a saw, a knife, ballpoint pen, right? But then in a way you can say the living body is a body composed of what?

[12:32] Tools, huh? Yeah. But it's a natural body, right? That's not an automobile or something like that. Yeah. So this is the definition of the soul. Then you can say that the soul is the first act

[12:55] of a natural body composed of tools. Okay. The kind of say would say equipped with tools, right? I'll just say composed of tools, and they get their parts of the thing, right? You also see it's a substantial form, right?

[13:26] Of a natural body composed of tools, huh? I don't know what the soul is, right? Until all your life without knowing what the soul is, that's

[13:45] how difficult it is to define the soul, right? Right. Took the Greeks hundreds of years to define it, right? But Oliver Wendell Holmes said about Aristotle, and he took centuries to understand what he what he's saying. It took other centuries to unlearn everything he said. Now take again many centuries to learn what he said.

[14:12] That's true. Yeah. What did you say again about the phrase having life potentially? Well, it doesn't. It's not taken there in the sense of of

[14:30] of not being alive, the body, right now. But having the operations of life in potency, I think that's taken to mean there. I'm sorry. Not not as what? Not as as if the body's not alive but it has the soul. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. And then so one of the things too is that really this sentence in the beginning of 1: 16 is really part of the definition.

[14:56] Well, yeah, he's in a sense going on to modify a bit, not not modify, but express it all differently. That a natural body has in life potentially is a natural body composed of tools, right? Okay. In the Greek, you know, you have organikou that's the genitive there. Entelecheia, right? What's the Greek word for act? One of them. proton, right? It's the first act, right? somatos, that's the genitive of a body, right?

[15:48] You get the word soma there in Brave New World, right? Somatos, physikou, which means what? Natural, right? Organikou, this is the genitive of a natural body that's organic. Right, but in the Greek you can see the word there, composed of tools.

[16:22] See, it means you explain the plants there, right above there, that even the plants have that, you'll say. organa de kai ta ton phyton merē organa right? organa. see. also, ta ton, futon. That's the genitive. Meri. The parts, right? And even the parts of a plant are tools, huh? Okay. Because the root has a different what? Function, right? than the leaves, let's say, right? Okay. And the trunk has a different function, right?

[16:59] Okay. He compares the roots to what? The stomach, right? This is, I mean, to the mouth. This we take in our nourishment through our mouth, so the plant draws things to its. Right. It's like upside down, right? Upside down man. Okay.

[17:18] Notice he says in one seventeen that this would be the most common definition of soul, right? If ever one must say something common about all souls, meaning what? Not in man's soul, but the. animal's soul and even the plant's soul, right? it would be the first actuality, the first act I suppose did they say in English? They? Tell me that's not good English, but I'd say it anyway.

[17:47] It's the first act of a natural body composed of tools. Interesting, you know how the Greek order, the Greek grammatical order, is closer to the logic order, right? Because when he gets down to place there in the Greek, he says. um ti koinon is something common. epi pasēs psychēs about every soul. de legomenon entelecheia it's the act. hē prōtē so act is more general, right? He prote the first.

[18:31] So you put hē prōtē after entelecheia yeah. And then he says when he gets to the side of that of which it is the first act, right? sōmatos body. physikou natural. organikou so in a sense, the grammatical order in the Greek is closer to the logic order, right?

[19:00] Same thing in Latin, you know. We can put the the adjective after the noun, right? But we have to do the reverse, right? And the genus comes first in our thinking, and then the difference, huh? So you first, you know, say, what's a square? What's a quadrilateral? What kind of quadrilateral? Yeah, the differences. Well, you state it grammatically, you'll say it's an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. You have to put the adjective before the noun, right?

[19:25] In English. But in our thinking, what's signified by the noun comes before what's signified by the adjective. So some way the grammatical order—you don't want to confuse grammatical order with logical order—but but the grammatical order is closer there to the

[19:44] logical order, which makes things some ways more clear, right? It ends with composed of tools in the Greek. Well, it's in the Greek. It says organikou, right? Right. So they just turned that organic, but you don't see the word tool in that way you would in English. I mean, if you wanted to make it one word in English, you'd say it's a first act of a natural toolled body, right?

[20:15] Right. Right. You know, but that's I think the more clearly statement is composed of tools. Sure. Tools may not be as clear as. Sure. But he says just before that, you see, he's talking about the plant there, and how this definition will apply into that. He says that in the Greek there that the parts of plants are also what tools, right? Okay. So obviously he's understanding by organic organikon body that has tools, right?

[20:46] Okay. But I have to say composed of tools, figuring out that the tools are really parts of the body. It doesn't just have tools like when you have a, you know, a belt here, you know, and your tools in your belt and so on, like carpenters have. What is the Greek word that he's using for plants are tools?

[21:10] Organa. Organa. Yeah. So that's a plural, organa. organa kai ta merē the meros is singular for part merē ton phyton but they're much more simple, but they're much more simple. He says, right? He's trying to exemplify them.

[21:52] Okay. Now, in one eighteen, there he answers a certain problem that is a terrible problem for Plato, obviously, and for Descartes and everybody else who doesn't understand what the soul is. Whence also one need not ask if the soul and body are one, or how they are one, right?

[22:36] This is a problem for Plato, right? If the soul is is one thing and the body is another thing, right? And each is is is a complete substance in itself, right? Well, how is the soul and the body one? They'd be no more one than a man and his what? Yeah. That's why he always described Plato's position as you know the sailor in the boat, the man in the car, right?

[23:03] Yes. Or even if you you know people imagine the soul sometimes to be a an air like substance, right? And more or less in the shape of the man, right? Well, what would be the unity of these two things? Sometimes you see it represented in movies, you know, where the soul leaves and and the you know in some of these humorous movies too, you know, but you know you have the air like thing there standing next to the.

[23:34] What makes the two one, right? How can even be in the same place, right? And Descartes had this absolute distinction between mind and matter, right? Huh? To try to find some connection there in some part of the brain there, you know, where the soul was getting able to act upon the body? But it's just like me, you know, finding the the place to drive my car out there, right?

[23:59] You know, you know, me and the car are one through that that you know that starter there, right? But when you when you have matter and form, right? Then it's like asking, you know, he says I think his example about the wax there, right? The wax in its shape, right? Or you have the the clay and its what shape, right? Because the form is not like what another complete thing, right?

[24:29] So you have two actual in the body, you know, another actual thing. Two actual things can only be juxtaposed or sit alongside each other, or you have to what you know screw them together or tie them together or glue them together or something like that, right? But form is nothing other than the act of the ability of the matter, right? So just as the the shape of the of the clay or the shape of the chalk or, the shape of the wax, right?

[25:00] Um. Is nothing other than an act of the ability of the other. So likewise, the soul is not like what, and the body like two actual things, but one is the act and the other is what ability. So it's in that way that Aristotle is able to understand the unity of man, the unity of body and soul.

[25:28] But nobody else can understand that if they're thinking of the soul as an actual substance by itself, and the body as an actual substance by itself, right? Then you have to have some third thing, like two you know boards that we have to screw together or glue together or tie together or something of that sort, right? Okay, but they're not actually one together. Okay, like the bricks there in the fireplace, right?

[26:02] You've got to cement them together, right? So they're really two different actual things, distinct from one another. Two of those bricks, they have to put together. No, no. I need a third thing now, like cement or something like that, or if I kind of have to put it together or something, you know. But I simply can't. of themselves, they don't become one, right? So you have all these clumsy attempts to try to unify man.

[26:27] right? It was like Humpty Dumpty, right? Uh when they misunderstood what the soul is, right? They didn't understand what the soul is, and misunderstood I should say, what the soul was. they couldn't put them together again, right? He's just in pieces,

[26:45] and so so one or two things. Either they get into some awkward attempt to try to put them together, like Phaedo is a terrible problem, or Descartes, or else they just you know talk about the ghost in the machine. That's one of their common phrases. Or else they they just you know stop talking about the soul at all because they can't make any sense out of this So,

[27:11] So in name of ignorance, They stop talking about the soul. You know, a lot of people, even the church itself, are in that position. They can't understand the soul, so they say let's not talk about it anymore. Nobody else understands it either.

[27:32] Maybe we get through, you know, with these cracks in the definition of the soul. Well, look at that text. Yeah, yeah. On so on and so forth.

[27:44] It's very clear. The soul is the form of the body, right? Look with all the distinctions that Aristotle does here, they're obviously supporting that

[27:54] position, right? Even coming to know the definition of the soul, and not really kind of in remote ability. you have to understand all these divisions there. You have to know the natural terms, the physics first, but natural hearing, you have to understand the matter and form, and so on.

[28:20] You have to understand the categories too. In the first and second act. You have to know what a tool is too. So, if you go back to the two main opinions in the Phaedo. That the soul is the harmony of the body, right?

[28:52] And the soul is a spiritual, immaterial substance, you know, complete in itself, distinct from the body. Both opinions have a part of the truth.

[29:09] The harmony of the body is a form of the body, but an accidental form of the body, right? Okay. And that's a position that is mentioned by Simmias as a probable opinion.

[29:28] Here you have an accidental form of the body. Now, Socrates seems to be thinking that the soul is a spiritual or immaterial substance, a complete spiritual substance. Okay. Well, the element of truth in this position here is that the soul is in the genus of substance; it's not in one of the genus of accidents. okay.

[30:13] But there'd be a complete substance in its own right. That's false. Now, this opinion up here has an element of the truth. The soul is the form of the body, but it's not the what? an accidental form of the body. It's a substantial form of the body. Okay.

[30:44] Aristotle finds the truth, which is in between these two mistakes. Now, you see, if you maintain that the soul is an accidental form of the body, you're going to run into problems, huh? Because later on, as we see, especially in the state of human soul, the human soul does things not in the body; it understands the universal not in the body.

[31:27] Why, if the soul were an accidental form of the body, it would do nothing, right? We do nothing through the soul except in the body. So we can't understand that why the soul does those things, right? Or even why the soul sometimes opposes the body, right? Okay.

[31:49] But if you say that this is the truth about the soul, then you can't really understand the unity of man. The one who thinks is the one who feels pain in his body, right? And that was go to that experience of your body being in pain, and you are trying to figure out how do you relieve your pain, right? And you got a muscle cramp, or you got a headache, or whatever it is, right?

[32:15] And it's a matter of inward experience that the one feeling pain and the one thinking about how to relieve that pain is one and the same. And if you kind of, you know, deny the obvious to deny that you have that experience, huh? And therefore,

[32:39] this doesn't explain the unity of man that we all experience. So, Aristotle says, with the truth, all things harmonize, right? With the true definition that we've seen here of the soul, you can understand both the unity of man, which is this here would be more in accordance the unity of man, right? Because matter and form in that central form in the way forming unity, right? But this would also explain the fact that we have some operations that are not in the body, and also explain the fact that we're one substance too.

[33:23] So, when you get into into political philosophy, huh? We have something analogous to this thing about the soul because we talked about the form of government, right?

[33:50] Then we talk about the the people, right? In whom this form of government can or cannot be realized, huh? And the people are like the matter, huh? And this is like the taxis, the order, right? And the people have to have a certain what

[34:12] experience, a certain set of customs, right? Certain dispositions in order to have just so that form of government. Aristotle says, you know, that as a political philosopher, it's not sufficient to talk about the best form of government, because the best form of government can't be realized in every people.

[34:35] We have to talk about the best form of government for most men, as well as the best form of government which would require unusual circumstances, right? Aristotle's phrase is kat' euchen, according to a prayer, according to a wish, right? That the circumstances that would be necessary to realize the best form of government would be one that you would more wish for or pray for than expect to take place in the world, right?

[35:02] But he says you have to talk not only about the best form of government, but the best form of government for most men, considering the virtue that most men will have, and also the best form of government for these particular people, right? Which might not be the best form of government for most men. And so, you know, our State Department and other people in the United States might try to make the world safer democracy, and try to give the African people, let's say, some of those nations, a Western form of government.

[35:34] But people are not really ready for that form of government yet, and you get really not that form of government at all then, in appearance of it, right? And you get some form of tyranny or something, right? You know, these terrible things happen in these African nations. But no, the point is something similar: that not just any form of government can be realized in people, but there's a correspondence between the two, right?

[36:00] And that's analogous to not just any soul can be in any body, right? Just as not any art can be in any tools, but there's a proportion among them. And they're Relative to each other, right? That's where Aristotle says there. He's talking about how governments change. You change the ethos, right? The customs of the people, and you really will change government, right? And even though the government might appear to be the same, it isn't.

[36:29] It's not functioning. It's not the same at all. But you see, the accidental form of the body, the disposition of the body, is not the soul, but it's connected to the soul. The just like the ethos of the people is not the form of government, but they're connected, right? You can't have any form of government in just any people, but there must be a harmony, right, between the form of government and the education and ethos of the people, the customs of the people.

[37:01] And so, likewise, the soul can't be in just anybody, but in a body properly disposed, right? And so, when the accidental form of the body is lost, when the dispositions of the body are lost, you're going to lose the soul, right? Not because the soul was the accidental form, but because the accidental form was involving the what? The dispositions of the body are necessary on the side, not of the soul itself, but of the body, which it is the form, right?

[37:36] Again, the phrase can't really do justification to that, right? Why the soul leaves the body, when the body loses these dispositions. But the fact that it does is a sign not that the soul is an accidental form of the body, or there's a disposition of the body, but it's either disposition of the body, or there's some connection between the two, right? The same way here, the fact we can't realize the American form of government in these uneducated and

[38:10] customarily disposed and people, right, doesn't mean that that custom is that form of government, but it means there's connection between the two. It's only people with this education and these customs that are a suitable subject, in which you can realize that form of government. You see, I kind of got states, in a way that we kept on adding states, right, and each state has kind of a you know a public and form of government, right.

[38:51] And but you had people who were somewhat what similarly disposed in terms of education and their customs, right? But then you take some kind of an African nation that might not have education of those customs, and you can't really

[39:09] realize that form of government at this time, anyway. So, matter in form. Are sometimes spoken of as as relatives, huh? There's a, you know,

[39:29] it's like two and four. One is double, one is half, right? They, they put together, right? And four can't be double of anything other than two, and two can't be half of anything other than four. And so, likewise, this kind of soul can't be in any kind of body other than that kind of body, and that kind of body can't be informed by any soul other than this kind of.

[39:52] So there's a one-to-one correspondence, right? And Aristotle didn't see that part in the physics, but part where he talks about matter and form being nature, and that matter and form belong to the same science, right? Was the same science of opposites, and relatives is one of the forms of opposites, huh? So we'd have to study them in the same what science, huh? And that's why you know the modern so-called social sciences, huh?

[40:21] It's kind of a false division there because you might have politics, which is studying political science, which is studying more the form of government, right? Then you might have a sociologist who, in part at least, is studying the what customs of the people, right? No, but really they belong to the same knowledge, right? Because they're relative to each other, right? I remember reading years ago the sociologist there, Philip Rieff there, and the book was called the Freudian Ethic, And he was talking about how the Freudian ethic was replacing the what was called the Protestant ethic, right?

[40:59] In the United States, right? And that this had implications for our government eventually, right? But yeah, that's well understood in that sense by him, right? You see that the the ethos of the people change, then really the what government would change, huh?

[41:19] And you you know that's a question with Russia now, right? Because Russia doesn't have quite the the ethos that peoples in the West have, right? And so it's not maybe quite ready for a fully Western style or a form of government, right?

[41:37] Maybe the Italian government, right? They want to change the government all the time, right? In the fridge in some way, right? So we say art imitates what nature, right? And so in political philosophy there we imitate, since what we learned here about body and soul, right?

[42:09] Interesting in the way the word soul is used sometimes. Aristotle has a famous passage in the. Book on the poetic art, right? Where he talks about plot and character and so on. But he says plot is the what? Soul of drama, right? Soul of tragedy, huh? And I don't know if you're familiar or not, but first when we're singing him, you know, I'll do the 13th, you know, speaking of that the study of the sacred page, right?

[42:41] He says we're the soul of theology, huh? I think it's kind of interesting, huh? A lot of things to be considering that in that comparison.

[42:56] Grace is the soul of the soul. Yeah, or brevity is the soul wit, right? But you know, you know, I was mentioning how when the great Ammonius Hermiae says defining definition, right? I use that Greek word for brief, asuntomos, right? But the definition of the soul here, he can say, is in a way the soul of this understanding, right? Definitions are the key thing, huh? That definition, the reason that we studied earlier, I think Shakespeare's definition of reason, that's really kind of the soul, the whole use of your reason, huh?

[43:33] The soul of the whole development. Okay, now I think we're going to stop there at four to five, huh? Okay. Um. Now one nineteen, we're going to start next time one nineteen.

[43:58] And Aristotle is going to one nineteen down to the end of this chapter, 2nd Lectio, I think it is in St. Thomas. He's going to manifest, right? That definition. He's going to kind of illustrate the definition, right? By certain likenesses, huh? Okay. He's going to, as Monsignor Dion would say, there. He's going to lead you by the hand, right? Okay.

[44:25] If you ever look at at the chapter there on the Lectio, not Lectio, the question, the article on the teacher there, Prima Pars, question one seventeen, article one, it's kind of the key text, the other texts, where Thomas says the the

[44:43] teacher leads the student from the known to the unknown in two ways, right? And one way, of course, is by what? Proposing the definitions and the arguments, right? The order, principles, conclusions. But before that, he says he leads him by the hand, by proposing what?

[45:06] Less universal statements, right? Sensible examples, huh? Likenesses. Opposites and so on, right? You can manifest by what? Cause of manifestatio in the text. So there's also going to have a manifestatio here, okay? But mainly by what? Likeness right? I was giving you manifestatio by a posita the other time, remember? Oops. Oh, sorry. I'll remember with that later. In the beginning of the second book, here beta.

[45:55] Excuse me. This definition right there, sir. Yeah, great job. So, talking about foolish, remember? Come unsavory guide, right? Remember that? Come bitter conduct. come. Unsavory guide Usually that's a mundiduxio for what wisdom is right

[46:20] The fool is bitter and what Unsavory Then wisdom is what Sweet and savory right I'm using the thing there from Thomas right Dulce sapere right You know the Eucharist To sweetly savor right Christ right Okay But he's wisdom itself right

[46:48] Sweetly savor The opposite of that is what Come bitter conduct Come unsavory guide. Now at once run on the dashing rocks, you know. I see, seasick weary bark and so on. It's kind of marvelous, right? See that?

[47:13] When I was writing about about the definition of comedy, you know, I was taking this starting point of Aristotle that the laughable is something what ugly, and uh, it's an ugliness that is not painful. And so, investigating, I went to this text in the Metaphysics where Aristotle says the three main forms of the beautiful are order, symmetry, and the limited. I said maybe the three main forms of the ugly then are what disorder, huh?

[47:51] The unsymmetrical, and the what? Unlimited. Yeah, yeah. And once you have to read the comic poets, you'll see that's what they're always talking about. You know, A guy paints himself into a corner. That's funny. You know, or you know, people sometimes they're distracted. They start dressing and they put on you know the underwear or the other clothes that they put the underwear on, or something in disorder like that.

[48:13] It's funny, right? You see this, right? In a very simple way. But the more you read the comic poets, you see that that's exactly what they do. So one opposite, right? I was using the beautiful to to see something about the ugly, right? And I was using Shakespeare, you know, using the bad, the foolish, to represent something about the wise.

[48:40] The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no God." Does that say about wisdom? Wisdom is knowing there is a God. Really, right? Wisdom is a knowledge of God. Ultimately. Aristotle's going to use a manuductio here from likeness, huh? He's going to compare the living body to a ballpoint pen or something like that, an axe or something like that. Compare it to what, the eye or the ear?

[49:22] He's going to start with the artificial and then he's going to go to the natural, right? Interesting. huh Monsignor Dionne pointed out in that there's three kinds of examples that Aristotle uses in the first book of the Physics that he starts from what is more known, he goes to what is more likely, to try to illustrate. In a sense, he does that here? He'll Start with the artificial tool like the saw or the hammer, and then he'll go to the natural tool like the eye or something like that.

[49:55] Using both of them by certain likeness to manifest what the soul is, right? If the hammer or the saw was a natural body, you know,

[50:09] would sawing be its soul? And then the soul would be the second act, right? What would be its soul? If the eye was the living body, right? Would seeing be its soul, or would this ability to see be its soul? You know, to manifest it by this, by

[50:31] this proportion, right? That's very important, right? We need that, huh? Because substance, and in particular, as we'll see later on, soul, but substance in general, it's not sensible substance. Therefore, its substantial form is not sensible, right? So it's very hard for us to understand something we can't sense or imagine, huh? We often falsely imagine what the soul is. Imagine the soul to be an air-like thing in the shape of you or me, right?

[51:10] And even Dante represents the soul that way, though. I don't think he thinks it's the soul, but he has to, right, to make it imagination, right? I bet you think your soul is kind of the air-like, thing, right?

[51:28] The oxford thing, they charge outrageous prices for these things, right? Yeah. And they're very cheaply bound too. They can fall apart very easily. Be careful of them, you know. It's outrageous to have poorly bound, expensive books, right? Excuse me. What can you do? Got a monopoly huh? I can buy sometimes the big ones. I see them like the ones with uh, all these, more or less nonsense notes by Ross, you know, but they're nicely bound, you know, and bigger print, you know, but cost you even more.

[52:04] It's rather cheaper too these books, you know, but they're in print. now or not I suppose they are What about those Loebs They're very cheaply bound too, you know.

[52:17] Sometimes you can have these things rebound, you know. But the Loeb translations are proverbially bad, you know. You know, sometimes they translate the things. I think in the beginning, of the physics they have exactly the opposite meaning of what Aristotle. said.

[52:35] Yeah, But even in the Oxford translation of the physics, right? Aristotle speaks of luck and chance, right? And chance is can be used both in in nature and in human affairs, but luck is the name for chance in human affairs. So he has two words in Greek, and so he says, you know, one is is broader. than the other. But they mistranslate them. They translate luck by chance, and they translate chance by spontaneity.

[53:09] It's a bad translation to begin with, but then they mix the two words. You know, so I mean, you know, as I say, until

[53:24] translators are philosophers or philosophers are translators, you are going to have bad translations, right? Yeah, someone who who knows Greek but doesn't know philosophy and mistranslates because of that, or or he knows philosophy but doesn't know Greek, so he mistranslates that.

[53:46] So we'll see you next Wednesday. I'm not going to wait until it's July 10th that we go out to see the number. How are your soul and my soul, the next man's soul, when they're separated from the body, right? How are they distinct, right? Because if you just have form, it seems that you have to have a formal distinction there. Therefore, you have different kinds of soul.

[54:10] See, but it's all one kind of soul that we have. See, but the point is that just as the human soul is relative to human body, and the plant soul to the plant body, right? So my soul is made for my body. Oh. And your soul is made for your body uniquely, and your soul is made for your body, so that even when my soul is separated from my body, right, still a soul that fits.

[54:39] Oh, with unique tools for your body. There's something unique, yeah, yeah. that my soul, has, the same, you know, not as great a distinction, obviously, as between the you know my soul and the soul of the ant. I'll see myself. See, but I just have that ant. An ant has its own soul. I thought that's what you were saying. I couldn't see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the way Thomas argues, you know, against those, you know, who say that that there's only one soul separated from all bodies, right?

[55:15] Because. There's no in immaterial substances, right? You can't have two of the same kind. You can have only formal differences, differences in kind, right? But because our soul is by nature the form of a body, right? Uh huh. Your soul, and and my soul is the form of my body, and your soul is the form of your body. See, there's a basis going back to matter, for the distinction, right?

[55:47] Yeah. See, not that not that the existence of your soul depends upon your body, but that your soul is fits your body, not my body. And that's how we're still an individual after we die. We're still linked to our body. We're still distinct. Yeah, yeah. That's why your soul wants to be joined to your body again, right? Right. When Thomas giving you know some of. These probable arguments for the resurrection apart, you know, from what we're told from authority, you know, that there's something unnatural about the soul existing without the body, and what's unnatural is not going to not be forever, right?

[56:28] So there's some probability to the idea of the resurrection. I thought that's what you were saying during class, but I just couldn't see that. Why can't my soul animate your body? It's got the same nature. I could see a dog, and there's a horrible, horrible story there. Was it Ligeia? One of those stories, those horror stories of Edgar Allan Poe. You know, the man's wife has died, whoever it is.

[56:55] and she threatened to come back, you know. He's married some other woman, you know. Oh. And gradually, Ligeia whatever it is, I don't know if it's Ligeia it's. One of those horrible stories, anyway. But the soul of his former, his wife who had died, right? is now taking over the body, right? Ah. But these horrible things, you know, but it's not possible. Yeah, it could maybe be possessed by a demon, right?

[57:21] but the demon would not be the form of your body. But I can see this James Gunn and Negronia the same way. The will, the will, you know, the power, the will to. Wow. Kind of distance of the. That's

[57:41] something. So we are unique. That's why we are unique. Totally unique. Yeah. Body and soul. I was reading over some of my notes when you were gone. I was going over the definition of nature, and I was having trouble distinguishing between first and as such, and not by happening. I went.