De Anima (On the Soul)
15. The Levels of Life, the Soul's Powers, and the Soul as That by Which We First Live
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/015-the-levels-of-life-the-souls-powers-and-the-soul-as-that/

[0:00] So he's going to develop here, I guess, the minor premise first. huh? Starting 125 there. we say, therefore, taking the beginning of the inquiry, that the in-souled is to be divided from the un-souled by living. By living being spoken of in many ways, even should some one alone of these be present, we call the thing living. Like understanding, sensing, moving around from one place to another. Moreover, motion or change, according even to what nutrition, right, and growth and diminution and so on.

[0:42] These are all the things that we attribute to what living things. Whence also all plants seem to be alive, right? For there appears in them the having of such a power and principle, to which they receive growth and diminution according to what opposite places.

[1:07] And us, he insists upon that because he's trying to see how soul, in a way, is a little different from nature. Because nature seems to be determined to what.

[1:22] Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll take the example of the stone. You go the stone, and it what? Falls down. It goes only one direction. But the tree grows up and grows down, right? So already there is kind of anticipation of what you'll see fully in the understanding. what is the same knowledge of opposites, they kind of transcend that opposition, right?

[1:56] Notice, huh? If you have a lead balloon, what's it going to do? Down. Yeah. Have a helium balloon. Goes up. Yeah, but the helium balloon doesn't go up and go down. It just goes in one direction, right? And that's the way these non-living things seem to do, right? They seem to be tied to one or two opposites, either down or up, but not both. What does it?

[2:18] How does a tree grow? Up or down? Both. Yeah. You get to metaphysics. I'll explain how wisdom grows like that. Yeah. So in a way, it overcomes this dichotomy of its being limited to one of two opposites. You have this more in the animals, and most of all in man. So, like Shakespeare says, there in Coriolanus, nature not being able to be more than one thing. So sometimes we call the soul a nature, but sometimes we divide it against nature

[3:00] because it's not just determined to one way. Nature is. It has its openness to opposites. I was mentioning how before, in the beginning, of natural hearing in the physics, you learn the definition of nature, here we learn the definition of soul, and how you go through this process, you know, from the general to particular, but even more so, this process towards matter twice in natural philosophy. When you go from the physics to the On the Universe to On Generation and corruption, you're going towards matter.

[3:41] Then you go from the soul to his other works. on. living things do it again There's kind of a distinction between the nature and the soul, most of all between nature and reason, nature and will, up to the highest soul, is kind of anticipation of it in the lowest here.

[4:05] For they do not grow up, but not down, but similarity in both, right? Okay. Whatever always feeds also lives until the end, as long as able to take in food. So we'll talk a little bit particular later on about food and the fed, right? Aristotle's famous discussion of whether the food is like the fed or unlike the fed.

[4:35] Because some of his predecessors said food is like the fed, And others said food is unlike the fed. Each of them have an element of truth, Aristotle says. We'll find out what the element of truth in both is. But it's interesting how we sometimes, maybe even metaphorically, but certainly in some way, we we carry the word food over, which is the object of these lower powers, power of nutrition and growth to some extent, right?

[5:02] The reproduction, right? If it's necessary for all of these. We carry it over sometimes and apply it to the objects of the other ones. It's very common food for thought, right? But we also speak, you know, feeding somebody's anger or something like that. Shakespeare often, a lot of times, uses that.

[5:27] Very clear example: food is the object of these lower powers. It's curious how we transfer the word food to the objects of these other powers sometimes. Socrates would talk about a feast of reason, right?

[5:43] Of course, in theology we use that a lot, don't we? Feast of faith. Yeah, convivium. You know, Thomas, you know, calls the Eucharist a convivium, right? A Banquet, and also the the beatific vision is called a banquet. huh But you have that in Scripture. It. Didn't start with Thomas, right?

[6:02] With riches of a soul, I mean, of a banquet. My soul shall be satisfied, right? With exultant lips, my mouth shall praise you. That's on there. O God, you are my God, whom I seek. For you, my flesh pines, my soul thirsts. That one, huh The earth parched life is on the dark water As if I gaze towards you, in the sanctuary, to see your power. and your glory And then she speaks of it as being like a banquet, right?

[6:28] You could apply that to the Eucharist, as Thomas says, sometimes, or to the beatific vision, right? Precorte ut ad illud ineffabile convivium, right? I pray that you you know give me lead me to that ineffable banquet right But he calls the Eucharist sometimes or sacrum convivium right? now in one twenty seven he talks about how this is power is found without the other powers but not vice versa in bodies at least right this power is able to be separated from the others but it is impossible in mortal things notice the exclusion he's making there right that the others are separated from this one

[7:25] notice the plants to some extent in some way nourish themselves right they grow and they reproduce right all the animals do the same thing don't they and even man does the same thing right so you can find nourishing and growing and reproducing without sensing as you do in the plants right without emotion as you have in the plants right and without understanding and willing like you have in man but you don't find the higher things in mortal things he says right you don't find sensing or emotions without finding what nourishing and growing and reproducing right and you don't find an animal that understands like man does and wills who doesn't also what eat and grow and reproduce and notice the exception he makes but it

[8:26] is impossible in mortal things that the others be separated from this one because in the angels right and in God you have what understanding and willing without sensing right emotion and without what growing and reproducing and

[8:50] eating yeah yeah so it's metaphorically huh You know Dionysius says you know the higher angels are as food to the lower ones you know Thomas has to explain the words of Saint Paul you know where he says talking about the fatherhood of God the Father right after whom all fatherhood is named in heaven and on earth right and Thomas says what does he mean on earth we know what you know there are human fathers and animals even have father right mother but angels right one angel is not the father or mother of the angel right Thomas said well we speak of fatherhood there in the way we speak of a teacher as being a father right Okay.

[9:49] By the way, was it Saint Catherine of Siena called Saint Saint Agnes of Montepulciano. You? Ever heard of her? Saint Agnes of Montepulciano. She called her mother, right? Spiritual mother, right? Okay. An abbot, I guess, means what? Fatherhood. Yeah, yeah. See, so in that sense, you have fatherhood in the angels, right? Because the higher angel illumines the lower angels, right? And the teacher does, and the abbot might struct, right?

[10:16] Okay. That's the way Thomas understands that fatherhood in heaven as well as on earth. Okay. But no, in the strict sense, on the one angel, angels don't reproduce, right? Okay. So

[10:44] it's very significant that Aristotle says this power, the powers of what, nourishing itself, right? Power of growing, power of reproducing, these powers, these sense living powers, can be separated from the other powers, like the power to sense and the power to what for emotions, right? And the power to understand, and to choose, and so on. But they can't be separated from it in what mortal things, he says, right?

[11:20] See, it's significant what he's saying there. This is apparent, he says, in the plants, huh? For not for not one other power of the soul is present in these, huh? Only these basic ones, huh? Living therefore is present living things with such a principle. But now the animals, he says in one twenty-eight, they have something beyond this, right? Meaning that they're able to sense.

[11:50] Even the animals, some low ones that don't move from one place to another, right? But they have sensation. For things which should not move or switch place but do have sensation, we call animals, and not only what living, right? So it's just that we're living there for the lowest common denominator, in a sense, right? What's common to all living bodies, right? They take in some kind of nourishment, right?

[12:16] Some kind of food, right? And they grow and reproduce themselves in some way. Marvelous! Marvelous! Nice. He makes an analogy here. Of the senses, touch is present in all first. And so he's going to go to say that touch can be found without the higher senses, but you don't find the higher senses without the sense of what touch, right?

[12:56] And so there might be some of these lower forms of life that don't go from one place to another, but they seem to react and touch them, or if there's something that comes in contact they can eat, it, right? They don't need the senses like eyes and ears or smell, which are the senses of what of distance, right? They just have touch and maybe taste, which is a kind of touch in a way, because they only react to what comes in contact with them.

[13:28] So they don't need the senses to go from one place to another. But the animals that hunt have to have sense of smell and sense of sight and hearing, right? Of? These touch is present in all first, just as the nutritive power is able to be separated from touch and from all sensation, thus touch can be separated from the other senses. We call the nutritive power that part of the soul in which even plants share, but all animals appear to have the what, at least the sense of touch, huh?

[14:09] Not the higher senses. We will say later through what cause each of these occurs, right? Now, however, let this much alone be said that the soul is a principle of the things named, and is defined in a way by these, by the powers of nutrition, sensation, and thinking thinking and motion.

[14:45] Now you've touched upon some difficulties here, which is not going to entirely clear up here, but just look at them a bit. But whether each of these powers is a soul or part of a soul, and if part, whether thus that is separable in account alone or even in place? About some of these is not a difficult thing to see, but some present difficulty.

[15:10] For just as among plants, some being divided appear to live, even being separated from each other, as if there is in these a soul one in act in each plant, but many, in ability, huh? Many in potency.

[15:28] So when you divide the plant and both ones live, each one has a what? Soul, right? And that's because there's a much diversity of what? Tools, right? Or organs? In them, right? And this seems to be true even of some of the lower forms of life, like he talks about certain insects, like the worms, right? We seem to divide them and both parts move around, right? Okay.

[16:02] For each of the parts has sensation, motion according to place. But is sensation then also imagination, and appetite meaning what? Desire, right? For wherever there is sensation, there is also what? Pain and pleasure. Wherever there is sensation, there is a sense of touch, right? At least, where the sense of touch, there's pain and pleasure, and where these are, there's also what? Desire, because you want what is pleasant and you want to avoid what is what pain for, right?

[16:37] So even these things are attached to the floor of the ocean and seem to only touch, but you stick them with a pen and they'll react as if that this is not pleasant to them, right? Okay, so

[16:54] the desiring powers within some of them at least will follow upon the fact that you have sensation. It kind of shows that through the fact that if you have sensation, you have at least touch, right? And if you have touch, you have pleasure and pain, and then you are going to have desire for the pleasure and aversion for the pain. Okay.

[17:17] But in the lower forms of life, as he's talking about, where you don't have much diversity of organ, maybe you have enough in both parts that if you cut it, both parts have what they need to function, right? If you cut a man in half or something like that the two parts are not going to live cut a man in half or something like that, the two parts are going to live because the two parts don't have all the parts that you need to live.

[17:39] Okay. That's why he gives man or even a dog as an example of a substance before a plant, because a plant almost seems to be what able to be divided into two substances, right? It's close to that, huh?

[17:56] and and also certain lower forms of that life. But then in these cases, it seems you know that throughout the body you have these powers, right? Rather than this power in this part and this power in that part.

[18:15] Okay. Now in one thirty-three again, this is kind of a footnote at this point, right? About the power of the mind or consideration, nothing is yet clear, but it seems to be a different kind of soul, right? He's talking about the human soul, right? And this alone can be separated, right? As the eternal from the corruptible, right? And he's already hinting there at what he's going to show in the third book, right?

[18:43] That the human soul is the one that can be what exist in separation from the body. That's because it has a power that is not in the body. It is manifest from these considerations, however, that the remaining parts of the soul are not separable, as some say.

[19:10] Okay. But as we'll see later on more clearly, even these parts that might be in the same part of the body, they differ in definition, right? Even though they might not have a different location, huh? So the sense of touch, for example, might be throughout the body, right? Yet the sense of touch differs from the sense of what sight, right? Even though my my eye has touch as well as sight, huh?

[19:37] Okay, two different powers for them. For it is, but it is manifest that these remaining parts of the soul are different in account or definition. For being sensitive and being opinative are different. If even sensing and opining are different, we'll find out later on what they are. Similarity in each of the other parts mentioned.

[20:07] Okay, let's get a text here. Check a little bit there. Interesting. Aristotle's weird sometimes. One thirty-three there is translated about the power of mind or consideration, right? The Greek says peri de tou nou okay. Well, nou is well that's a genitive in there, but you should get it in the nominative nous, right? Okay. Aristotle uses often his name for the understanding, right?

[21:34] But then, easy consideration? Well, what he says, kai tes theoretikes dunameos okay, He calls it nous, which is one word, right? And then he calls it the what? Theoretikes dunameos huh Dunameos is a Greek word for what? It's the genitive again here. Power. Power, yeah. dunamis, right? The word dynamite right? Power, ability. But he calls it the theoretike, right? That comes the Greek word for what? Theoria, is the Greek word for what?

[22:16] Looking Looking, yeah. Like in geometry they sometimes call these things theorems, right? What's a theorem? Something to look at with your with your with the eye of the soul, right? So he calls it the the looking power, right? Finding a little bit of Shakespeare's definition there, right? A reason, right? It's the ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, right?

[22:49] Aristotle will have another word later on. We'll see in the Greek text. here When he says "distinguish the powers," he uses the word dianoetike in distinguishing reason from the other powers, right? But dia dianoetike is the idea of knowing one thing through another, and it's almost like a synonym, therefore, what Shakespeare means by what discourse. Discourse, yeah, it's kind of interesting.

[23:21] If you look at the Posterior Analytics, you know, in the beginning of Posterior Analytics, Aristotle is showing how all dianoetic knowledge is through pre-existing knowledge. So, using dianoetike as an adjective, right, for that kind of knowledge, where one thing. Is known through something else. So he's using it for what? Discursive knowledge, right? Okay. Well, later on here, he'll call this reason here the what? The the dunamis the dianoetikē, right?

[24:00] The discursive power, I guess, if you were to say, right? Okay. But here he calls it the dunamis the theoretikē case, the power of what? Of looking. But looking in the way that. You know, reason looks, right? So I'm just trying to confirm Shakespeare's definition, right? But I mean, I think it's interesting, you know, the way he he um because usually we think, you know, Aristotle is

[24:34] calling it noose, you know, but you know, but he doesn't use the word here. He uses the word here, but then he gives a more distinct notion, right? He says it's the looking. Yeah. Yeah. Peri de nou about the mind, kai tis theoretikē dunamis. The one that looks.

[25:12] We'll see later on when he distinguishes the mind from the reason from the imagination. He first distinguishes by the fact that knows one thing from another. He gives a reason for something, right?

[25:27] That's kind of interesting. Reason is the only part of us that gives reason for anything. Huh? The real reason for something. But no, to give a reason for something is to know one thing in a way through what? Another, yeah. Which is, in a sense, what the word discourse means.

[26:06] What is the word that they have translated doxastikē doxastikē in 134? 134. Being sensitive and being, say, opinica. Okay, I'm stucked out here a little bit.

[26:23] Sensing and obtaining. Yeah, doxastical. Yeah, that's the Greek word for opinion, doxa. One might use. What would that? That would be referring to reason two, or probably yeah, yeah, it's reason, yeah.

[26:58] Why do you think you use that word? Well, the reason why he wants to do that is because you know there they seem very close, right? See, especially you get to the imagination, it's close. I imagine that so.

[27:15] In English, we sometimes use "imagine" to mean we think something is so, but we don't know that it's so, right? And I don't really like in English. I don't think it's too colloquial to say, you know, I opine that. You know, somebody says, you know, is President Bush going to be reelected? Right. Okay. Well, I think he is going to be reelected. I can't say I know.

[27:41] I'm sure he's going to be reelected. I mean, all these things that happen, you know, best man doesn't always win. Um, I wouldn't say I opine that he's going to.

[27:54] I don't think I don't think that's familiar English, anyway. I guess I mean it's probably correct English, though. I mean the sense you say, but I don't think it's very familiar. I think we tend to say, "I think," you know, for

[28:12] the mind is not certain, right? But it's that you know, it inclines that way, right? I think he did it. Not sure. I think he did it.

[28:31] Aristotle wants to, you know, contrast thinking and imagining, and the way he actually contrasts them or points out that they're different later on is by the fact that when you think, you need a reason.

[28:47] You know, I can imagine a terrorist out there is going to come in the door a moment and throw a bomb in here or a grenade in here, blow us up or blow himself up with us, maybe. Um,

[29:00] I can imagine that right now, but I'm not free to think there's a terrorist out there. I can't even think there's a terrorist out there without having some reason to think there's a terrorist out there, right?

[29:16] I can imagine somebody coming through the door now with that, with a big lemonade or something, right? Or ice cream bar or something, see? But I have no reason to think that. I mean, you know, I don't really think it's going to be a cup of lemonade, you know. But you can imagine somebody coming with a lemonade now, can't you?

[29:44] So notice that you are distinguishing, I am imagining and thinking by the freedom of imagining, right, and necessity of having some reason to think something is so. But that that shows the discursive nature of reason. If you know one thing for another, right?

[30:02] It has to be something that leads me to think that they're going to bring lemonade in now, or a terrorist is going to come through the door. You see, the Greeks before Aristotle had a hard time distinguishing, like most people do, between those things, right? Even you know, in the later philosophers like Locke and Berkeley, as I mentioned, they talk about ideas, and sometimes they seem to be talking about images, and sometimes about thoughts, that kind of confused in their mind, right?

[30:47] Like when when Locke is trying to understand the general idea of triangle, right? He's trying to imagine a triangle that's neither scalene, isosceles, or equilateral. Well, he can't imagine a triangle as one or the other. But you can understand by your reason what is common to the three, and leave out their differences in your definition of triangle in general. But any triangle you imagine will be equilateral or isosceles or scalene.

[31:16] He doesn't know what to say. It's all none of these. He says. He makes no distinction. It's all none of these. Trying to attack the idea that you know the general before the particular, right? It's rather a hard idea. Idea triangle in general. I

[31:37] think it's something that's all none of these. Of course, it is impossible. It's all these and what? Ability, right? But not in that. He can't see that distinction. And then Berkeley can't see either. So he just says, "There ain't no such thing as a general idea."

[32:01] They're confusing imagination there with reason. Because reason is able to separate out what's common to these things and leave aside their differences. Imagination can't do that.

[32:29] Can you imagine a fruit? Is not an apple or an orange or some other one? That's it. Can you imagine fruit in general? No. But but reason can see something common to the apple and the orange and the lemon and so on, right? And understand what they have in common.

[32:51] But when you imagine, so is a particular one. So he's trying to understand the idea of fruit in general. He's every trying to understand something that is apple, orange, lemon, so on. It's all none of these, right? Just something you mash all these together, and you get your general idea. Kind of a mishmash.

[33:13] Neither one nor the other anymore. It's all none. But that's what you have in the early Greeks too, right? The inability to really distinguish between sensing and imagining and thinking.135. Now, moreover, all of these parts are present in some of the living things, right? Like in man, in some some of these, and others, however, one only. This fact will make the difference among living things. Afterwards, you must look into the cause.

[34:04] Something akin, going back to the analogy he made before, something akin happens in the case of the senses. For some have all, all five senses, shall we say? Some have some of these, and some only the most necessary one, which is what touch, right? You see that comparison he's making there?

[34:25] That's another proportion, right? Aristotle's filled with proportions, right? As I say, Pierre Duhem says this is the most common way theories are found in science, is by seeing a what proportion. And Einstein talks about how important that is in the evolution of physics, right?

[34:44] He says anybody can see maybe a superficial analogy, but to see a deep analogy underneath apparent differences, right? It's very important scientific work, and he takes the development of wave mechanics by Louis de Broglie, right, as a perfect example of this. But science is filled with these proportions, huh? The very way the word wave is carried over, right? So it's using proportions, right? Because they talk about wave length, right?

[35:12] Because they talk about wave length, and, all these waves, right? It's got to be very careful with that likeness, because there are waves that are what propagated in different ways, right?

[35:31] Horizontal, longitudinal, waves, and so. on. But anyway, he's not getting involved in that too much. So he's going to explain later on why you can have some of these without others, right? That's

[35:57] second sense of before, right? But applying the fifth sense of before to the second sense, right? He's saying you can have nourishment, growth, reproduction without all the other powers, right? But not vice versa in mortal things, right? You can have the sense of touch without the other senses, but not vice versa Okay, That's a before and the second sense of before, right? But then he's going to give the reason why, which is the fifth sense of before, if you want to call it the fifth sense, that of cause and effect, right?

[36:37] Why this is so, right? Okay, But that's there on. Now, in 136 he's, he's going to talk about the what major premise, right? Okay.

[36:56] You know what we're saying here, right? In explaining the minor premise. The soul is that of which we're, taking the human soul, which is the one where you have the fullest, right? But in general, you say the soul is that by which we first live, sense, move, understand, and so on, right? Okay. That's usually manifesting up until this point in this meeting. Now he's going to what?

[37:22] Talk about this major premise, especially this meeting, that by which, right? Okay. And he wants to you to see the difference between the way in which we say that by which, in the sense of a what subject, right, or matter, or something like that, and a form, right? Okay.

[38:04] Do I teach geometry by my mind or by geometry? Under the circumstances. Yeah, yeah. You might say that the mind is the subject of the geometry, right? Right. Okay.

[38:39] Is is the word? Is this the word "cat"? By its letters or by the order of letters? Yeah. One is more like the matter, and the other is that as the what form, right? Okay.

[39:09] So notice he's explaining the distinction here. Since, however, that by which we live and sense is said in two ways. and he's making proportion here, Just as that by which we know, we say the science and the soul, for we speak of knowing each of these. Similarly, also that by which we are healthy is the one by health, and the another by some part of the body, or even by the whole, right?

[39:45] You see that difference? Two senses of the word or the phrase by which. There's another sense of bias in there too. Where you have the extrinsic cause, right? But he doesn't have to bring that in here so much because he's talking about what we know to be within, right? The soul is the cause of life within what? Living bodies, right? Huh? Okay.

[40:17] Was it by which in the sense of matter or in the sense of what? Form. Form. Okay. Because the matter would not be capable of these operations, right? Until it has the form, huh? Okay. So.

[40:45] Notice these two examples he gives here. Of these, science and health are form, and some species in account, right? And as the act of the receptive, one of the scientific power, the other of the human. For it seems that the act of the doer is present in suffering and disposed in the one undergoing. But the soul is this, that by which we first live and sense and think.

[41:20] Whence it would be some account and species. huh? You can. I think the word "account" there, I think would be logos, huh? That's the word the first I was using there. It talks about form. Species Eidos, yeah. Logos. huh So it would be a logos and an aidas.

[42:01] But the soul is this, that by which first we live and sense and think. Whence it would be some account and species, but not matter underlying. Now he calls it the division we had before. For substance being said in three ways, as we said, of which ways one is the species of the form, one matter, and one that which is from both. And of these, the matter is potency, while the species is act.

[42:29] Since what is from both is the soul. The body is not the act of the soul, but the soul is the act of some body.

[43:09] You're talking about the eye, right? Is it the matter of the eye by which we're able to see, or is it by the power of sight that we're able to see?

[43:23] Oh, okay. But not until the matter has that power is it able actually to see, right? So you're first able to see once you have the power of sight. right? And that would be like a form to the eye in these parts, right?

[43:43] So if the soul is. That by which we first live, sense and learn then is it like the matter, the subject of the living body, or is it like the form of the living body? Yeah.

[43:59] So you go back even to natural philosophy. The first part there, I don't really see much. But Aristotle speaks of nature as being both matter and form. Right. Which is more nature, matter or form?

[44:15] Form. Yeah. And that, why is it more nature than matter? Because the matter needs the form in order to. Well, you could say that nature is that by which something is natural, right? Okay. But you have a natural thing by matter only in ability. You actually have a natural thing that includes form. So the form is more nature than the matter. Okay.

[45:00] Okay. Now, how do we know the different natures of things? How do we know the nature, let's say, of a stone is different from the nature of a tree? Because nature loves to hide. Hides, that's right. So how do we know the nature of the tree and the nature of the stone is different?

[45:31] Yeah, but but they do, right? See if the same sun and the same water and the same soil, the tree grows and reproduces itself and so on, right? And the stone doesn't do this, right? Okay. Um.

[45:50] So different natures are known to be different because of what they do, right? Okay. But a thing doesn't do what that natural thing does until it has that nature, right? And doesn't have that nature until it has its life. Yeah, Yeah.

[46:20] So he says that by which we first live, since we can understand, right, is the form of a body, right? Okay. It's not until it has its form that even this natural thing, right, a living body, will do what a living body does, right? So if the soul is that by which we first live, sense, move, and understand, it must be as a form, right?

[46:48] That's when you first live Okay, so you're talking about the the beatific vision, right remember the question I raised: Do we see God by our reason or by our senses? Let me ask the question that way, right? Do you see God by your reason or by your your eyes?

[47:27] Reason, you don't have your eyes. You don't have your eyes. Yeah, yeah. Now, Thomas, when he takes up the beatific vision, he says that you can only see God as He is, right? Through God Himself, God has to join Himself or join our mind to Himself, right? So that God is not only what we see in beatific vision, but is that by which we see, right? Okay.

[48:00] Now you've got two things by which we see God. We see God by our reason, and we see God by God as by an intelligible or understandable form. Okay.

[48:17] Now is that in the same sense of by which or by what? But God is as the what? The form by which we see, right? And the reason, our reason, is as the subject, right, of that form, right? Okay.

[48:45] Now, if you ask, you know, do we first see God by our reason or by God? What would you say? See, our reason isn't able to see God as He is before God is joined to it as the form which it sees.

[49:10] So it's by God first that we see God, right? God is the form, right? Okay. Um, a little different example here. Is it by my my? Reason that I see the conclusion, or is it by the premises that I see the conclusion? Or just

[49:52] by both? Yeah, yeah. But in the same way, you know, that I see the conclusion by my reason and by my by the premises.

[50:07] Yeah. And the premises are like the what form, right? Okay. Understand what a square is. Equilateral, quadrilateral, right angle. Yeah, it's an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. Now, do you understand what a square is by your reason or by the definition of square?

[50:41] Well, you want to choose between those two. Is it by your reason that you know what a square is, or is it by the definition of square that you know what a square is? Yeah, but in the same way, by both. See.

[51:09] See that my reason, when it's informed by the definition of square, right, understands distinctly what a square is. So, definition is more like a what form, right? Definition is in my reason, right? My reason is the subject of the definition.

[51:42] So, before the definition is in my reason, I don't know distinctly. Don't confuse it, but before the definition is in my reason, I don't know distinctly what the square is, right?

[52:02] So, is it by my reason that I first know what a square is? I first know distinctly, you know, or is it by the definition that I first know distinctly?

[52:19] Yeah. First, there. In what sense? Well, you know, but that would be the before, right? When do I first understand distinctly what a square is?

[53:04] Or before, in the sense of a cause? See, when is when is rubber first done? A ball? That's rubber. What? Well it's round. Yeah, but when? It gets a shape, right? Okay. So we can say rubber is first a ball when it has the shape of a ball, right? Before then, right?

[53:54] First is that, before before it says nothing, right? So you're saying the body's first able to sense, move, and all the other things, and it has its soul, right? And has its form. By the form, it's your first half of things, right?

[54:22] You say it's by the by the body that you second half them. No, I don't know if I'd say that. I'm thinking more of the powers, right?

[55:00] So now so Aristotle is doing away in these two parts or chapters, I guess. There, he's first investigating the definition of soul by those six divisions, right? Three divisions on the side of the soul, three divisions on the side of that which the soul is something, right? And then the second thing he did was what? To manifest the definition found by two likenesses, a ratio, right? Two proportions.

[55:33] And then third, he's what? Demonstrating the definition of the soul, right? Through something more known to us, right? This goes back almost to the meaning of the word soul, right? The soul is the first cause of life in the living body, and so is that by which you first live, sense, move, and understand.

[55:59] And that's going to be as the what? It's going to be by which in the sense of form, rather than what matter, right? Because the matter has these operations only in potency before it sees the form.

[56:27] Now he runs into a couple of comments afterwards. This definition, and because of this fact, those assume well to whom it seems the soul is never without body, nor is some body, right? And also, that's similar to what we saw in the definition of what time, right? It's those people think well who think that time is what never without motion, but it's not a motion. But it is not a motion, but it's something of emotion.

[57:00] It's the number of the before and after in emotion, right? And likewise, the soul is never without a body, nor is it some body, right? So it's not going to show up on the dissecting table, right? You know,

[57:15] but it is not a body, but something of a body, right? The first act of such a body, certain body, substantial form, and because of this, it is present in a body and in such a body, right? And not, as their predecessors said, that the soul was fixed in the body in no way, defining in which and what sort of body, even if it does not appear in any chance thing, receives any chance thing.

[57:46] And so it is according to reason, for the act of each thing is in what is already in potency, and is apt to come to be in its proper matter. From these considerations, therefore, it is clear that the soul is some actuality and account of what is potency to be such.

[58:07] I think we'll stop there. In chapter three, he's going to start now to set the stage for a consideration of the various powers of the soul, right? And therefore, knowing the soul in particular kinds of soul in particular, right? Okay.