De Anima (On the Soul)
22. Sensing as Undergoing: Empedocles, Potency and Act (De Anima II.5, Part 1)
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[0:02] Let's look here, at chapter five. These things being determined, he says about the living soul, right? The reproducing soul, the plant soul. Let us speak in common about every sense. The first thing he wants to really bring out about the senses, and in general in this whole reading here today, in the fifth chapter, he wants to bring out that sensing is a what? Undergoing, right? Sensing is acted upon by its what?

[0:42] Object. Okay. And this is one way, you know, of dividing the powers of the soul into those where the power acts upon the object, like in the digestive power, for example, right? And a power like the senses, where the object acts upon the what? Power. And that seems to be an exhaustive division because if the power didn't act upon the object,

[1:18] or the object in no way acted upon the power, there'd be no connection, right, between the object and the power. Okay. So it begins in one seventy there by indicating that sensing is a undergoing. These things being determined, let us speak in common about every sense. Sense or sensing occurs in being moved, right? It's moved by its object and suffering, as was said. Okay. Now, let me come back to that word suffering there.

[2:02] I think we talked about it, but it's good to see it again here. Maybe. Aristotle says, "What is worth saying can be said twice."

[2:15] Hmm. And the Greek word here, which is translated in Latin by "passio," and "passio" has that sense of what? Suffering. Like we speak of the passion of our Lord, right? Hmm. Okay.

[2:32] Um. But that first meaning of suffering is not going to be the meaning of suffering when you talk about sensing. What is that first meaning of suffering? Well, when you suffer, you're being acted upon by another, right? Hmm. In a way that is contrary to your what? Well, to your nature, yeah, to your well-being, right? You're suffering, huh? Now, the English word "suffering" seems to be stuck in common speech, anyway, to that first meaning, huh?

[3:25] But the Greek word there and the what Latin word were carried over to sensing and things like that. In what way were those words carried over to sensing,

[3:46] In the third way, by leaving aside part of the meaning and being extended, yeah. In other words, they keep the idea that you are being acted upon. They keep the idea that you are receiving something, right? But they drop the idea, or that part of the notion of suffering, that what you are receiving or the way you are being acted upon is contrary to your nature. It's actually perfecting,

[4:20] actualizing what it's acting upon in this case, huh? But it's not acting in a way that's what contrary to it, huh? Nevertheless, in the case of sensing, there's still something bodily, right? And if you look at something bright too long, your eye is going to be what? Damaged. Could be injured, right? Okay. Now, when you get to talking about the the reason, Aristotle will also say that understanding is a kind of suffering, but there it's going to be a completely immaterial being acted upon, and you're not going to be what hurt by thinking about something very understandable.

[5:14] In fact, your mind would be more perfected by thinking about something very understandable. Now, myself in English sometimes, instead of translating this by the word "suffering," which seems to be stuck, as they say, in the first meaning, sometimes I translate this Greek word, the Latin word here, by the word "undergoing." Okay.

[5:51] I think undergoing originally has something of the sense of being. Acted upon in a way that is what harmful, right? And I often point to two signs here in our language. If we say, you know, I am under the weather, what does that mean? You've been acted upon by the elements, right? In a way that's made you kind of what sick, we'd say, right? Okay.

[6:27] Or if we say about somebody, you know, he's undergone a lot, or she has undergone a lot. What does that seem to indicate to us?

[6:46] Suffered had a hard time. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now undergoing in a way is the correlative there of what acting upon, right? Okay. And if you take acting upon,

[7:12] you say what is the correlative of that? If you wanted to, you could just make this passive and say acting upon and being acted upon, right? And kind of synonymous for being acted upon would be what undergoing, right? And the idea of acting upon is, I think, much less so if at all any sense of it necessarily being something bad, right? Okay. And so if being acted upon is the correlative there of acting upon, it means that you are receiving something, right?

[7:51] You are being moved by something, but not necessarily in a way that is contrary to nature. And if undergoing is a kind of synonym in English for being acted upon, it lends itself this word more to what happened in the Greek and the Latin, where it was carried over to the what other meanings, right? Okay. That's kind of interesting because the Greek word there, huh? Just to give the text here for a second, the Greek here is paschein right?

[8:37] Huh? Just a direct analogy to passio, Latin, or the verb form. This actually is verb form, huh? And so what Aristotle uses in the categories when he's talking about the. Ten categories, which I usually translate in English as to act upon and to undergo, right? Okay. But in Greek, it has that first sense of something of suffering, right? But it was extended. So

[9:20] that's why I sometimes translate the word suffering by undergoing. it. Although the translation of it by the word suffering does capture the first meaning, right? But sometimes the fact that in English the word suffering seems kind of stuck in that first meaning—it's always something bad.

[9:41] Although Shakespeare does have an expression there, you know, "you suffer love for me," right? And there you see almost the word being moved, right, to the other, but the other senses, right? Yeah.

[9:58] I think it's speeches in Benedick, you know. He says, "Yes, I do suffer love, and that's well said, you know, because I love you against my will, right?" That's it.

[10:12] Let me mention another word that's fairly connected with this too. When Aristotle in Greek talks about the powers of the soul, and Greek word I emphasize it here is dunamis, okay? That's a Greek word for the powers of the soul, right? In Latin, they'll translate that by the word what potencia, right?

[10:46] Now, how do you translate that in English? Power. Yeah, usually it's translated. You'll see in English texts by the word power, right? Okay. Which is a little bit like translating the word paschein there by to suffer, right? Okay. Because the English word there seems to be stuck on the first meaning of these words in Greek or in Latin.

[11:22] And the first meaning of the dunamis or potencia or power is ability to act upon something, right? Okay. The active ability or power, but then in Greek and Latin, dunamis and potencia are carried over and applied to the ability to be acted upon. Okay.

[11:48] But you can see in English, when we take words derived from dunamis or potencia, usually tied to the first sense, like the word dynamite, or see somebody's a dynamo, right? A lot of energy, right? Potent, you know, something that's strong that can act upon other things, right?

[12:13] And the word power seems to be again stuck in that first meaning. I sometimes translate it. By the word what ability, instead of power.

[12:28] And I think when we hear the word ability at first, we're thinking of the first meaning of duni misu potencia, the meaning that power is stuck on the first meaning, ability to do something, right? Okay.

[12:47] So my example I was giving in class is you know they put Perpust in the ring there with Cassius Clay and bang bang bang bang Perpust doesn't have any ability to you know, and they mercifully stop the fight, you know.

[13:04] But if you stop and think about it though, you could say that Perpust is what beatable, breakable, right? We do in English use the word able, which you know corresponds to ability.

[13:23] For in the passive sense, right? That glass is what breakable, right? This table is burnable, right? Okay. Something is movable, right? It can be moved by another, right? So again, the same principle I was giving over there is the problem about translating these things. The word power in English very much signifies an active ability, right? The ability to act upon another, and so on. The word ability doesn't bring it out quite as clearly, but I think it first has that sense.

[14:05] But the word ability is moved in English, certainly the word able is very easily, right? For the passive ability. So you see some analogies here in these two words that I'm trying to point out here.

[14:22] The word suffering, which is used in this translation for paschein right, or passio in Latin, right, seems to in English at least be stuck on the first meaning very much. The word undergoing, although bringing out just forcefully that the first meaning of undergoing is something contrary to nature, right? The word undergoing, though in English is more moved to what the second meaning, huh? And the same thing here, right?

[14:56] Okay. So some thing to be seen in using the word suffering, the word power here, because you see that's the first meaning, right? And if you see Perpust in the ring there being beaten by Cassius Clay, you wouldn't say Perpust is a powerful fighter, would you? That doesn't seem right, right? But you could say in English that he's beatable, breakable, bustable, right? And therefore, you have at least the word able there, and therefore, what and ability is the purpose has for a body that's beatable, breakable, combustable, and so on, right?

[15:31] Well, it's his passive sense of ability. You see the idea, okay? So don't be too shocked here by by the suffering, right? Um, if you ever have a chance to teach you that course on love and friendship, right? Um, Thomas will point out that in loving, right, basically the ability to love is acted upon by the object. Okay. Sometimes you see that in the way we speak in English.

[16:12] My typical example in class is you know you go to a party or something like that, and hear someone say afterwards, you made a big impression on her. Or you made a big impression upon him, you know, or something like that, right? But that means that you would have what? Acted upon. Yeah. See, because if I impress something, I am what acting upon it, right? Okay. And of course,

[16:45] even in in mythology, there, right? Cupid has what? Arrow. Yeah. Obviously, the arrow is acting upon you. Yeah. But in the original sense, an arrow is going to be acting upon you in a way that is what. Suffering contrary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, and in

[17:06] the spiritual love, you know, Teresa Avila, you know, receives right an increase of love under the what sense of image of an angel piercing your heart, right? It's actually, I guess, something shown in the heart there afterwards, you know, after she died. But that brings out very clearly that you are being acted upon by the what object. Not that you want to be acted upon by the object in a way that hurts you or contrary to, but when you are acting upon that way, it's very clear to you that you are being acted upon.

[17:43] I think I've talked about that before, right? Or I just say I'm acting upon your eyes and I'm acting upon your ears throughout this lecture, right? But if I came down and started sticking a pin in you, I'd be acting upon you in a much more recognizable way, right? See, you don't usually think, you know, the fact that your eyes are being acted upon by what's out there, do you?

[18:12] Even though they are, some way, being acted upon by their object. But when you're acted upon, when somebody's kicking you, or sticking a pin in you, or stabbing you, or poking you, or something, then it's it's very clear you're being acted upon.

[18:28] And so there's some advantage to taking a word like suffering, right, and carrying it over to these other senses of being acted upon. Even though, in a way, there's a tremendous movement, isn't there? Because when you're acted upon by a knife, let's say, you're actually being harmed, right? But when God is acting upon your heart, right, or the beautiful painting is acting upon your eye, you're really being perfected, right?

[19:09] So you go from something bad in its first meaning to something good, even very good, right? In the end, huh? What's interesting, huh? Nevertheless, that when God is giving, my example, with Teresa of Avila, there's a similar one. in. Saint Teresa, of Susa right? She's at the station of the cross, and she again, he sees like a wound, right?

[19:34] But sometimes, you know, even in secular love, they speak of that too. I gave the line from Romeo and Juliet, right? You know, Mercutio is making fun of Romeo because he's moaning about what Rosalind, right? And and so he says he jests at scars who never felt the wound,

[19:56] which your your heart has been wounded, right? Moral object that would be the same sense, would it? What moves Your will. Yeah, yeah. You know, you and I begin to discuss love. I won't get into it now, but I kind of use a little dialectic, right? Because there are some passages that speak of love as being something active. So we often say to give your love, right?

[20:30] The other passages that seem to indicate that it's reverse, that the heart is not giving but receiving, right? So which is it? But we'll say that in French, of course. Okay. But the reason I'm brought in love at all now is the fact that that sometimes, you know, we speak of the wound of love, right? We speak of Cupid's arrow and so on, right? Even though this receiving might not be really harmful to you, right?

[21:02] Okay. So, sense, or maybe we should say sensing occurs in being moved and suffering, as was said. That's kind of interesting, huh? The Greek word there that he translates by sense in 170, he translates in 171 by sensation.

[21:56] Now, the Greek word "aisthesis if you look it up in the dictionary. It can be translated first of all by sensing, right? But then it can also be translated by what sense, the power itself. Okay. Now you'll find that, and before I come back to you know which is the proper way to translate this, you'll find that in these powers of the soul, sometimes. That we have the same name sometimes.

[22:28] We use the same word sometimes for the ability or the power, and for the what act of that power. Okay. Um. Take for example the word

[22:47] understanding, right? Is understanding an act or a power? Or is it used for both at times? Both and so on. Yeah, yeah. So we say that

[23:07] you know an essay on human understanding there by by Locke. He's talking about this faculty or this power that man has, and understanding is being used for the power. But we can also use the word understanding for an act of that power. Well, the Greek word, if you look at the dictionary, there, "aisthesis here occurs in both those first two paragraphs. It can be translated by sensing, right, which is the act of senses, or by the word what sense meaning the power itself.

[23:45] Okay. And so, I would translate just the reverse of the way he translated these two paragraphs. I would say instead of saying "sense" meaning the power occurs in being moved and suffering, I would say that what sensing, right? Oh yeah. See, sensing is being moved, right? Okay. Now,

[24:24] show you get to the second paragraph. He translates it by sensation there, which is the act. And Thomas, have you seen his commentary? And and Moerbeke in his translation takes it to be the what power of sense, but we'll come back to that. So I would translate this as sensing occurs in being moved and suffering, right?

[24:58] For it seems to be a certain alteration. Now later on he'll say, "It's not really alteration, or if you call it an alteration, it's really using the word in a different what sense, huh? "

[25:23] Now, in alteration, when you are acted upon by something, you are what changed, like when the hard becomes soft, right, or the soft becomes hard, or the hot becomes cold, the cold becomes hot, right? Okay. By saying sensing is something seems to be, he's saying alteration, right? He's going to qualify that as he goes on.

[25:53] Some authors say that like suffers from like. How this is possible and how impossible we have said in our general works on acting and suffering, on acting upon, undergoing. He's referring back to the book called Generation and Corruption, okay? But the truth that he shows there, in general, we saw in particular in the previous study of the living soul, right? The plant soul, the reproducing soul, right?

[26:23] Remember when he said, you know, is food like or unlike the fed? And he says, well, some say it's like the fed. Otherwise, you wouldn't have more of the same, right? You'd have you know a little bit of carrot here, a little bit of broccoli here, and so on, right? You've got to grow by addition of like to like, it seems, huh? And yet, unless you are cannibal, what you eat is unlike yourself, right?

[26:52] Okay. So he's saying that food, in the beginning, is unlike the fed, but in the end, it is what? Yeah. And that's true, isn't it? See. So when one thing acts upon another, right? It acts upon something that is other than itself, that's contrary in a sense, like the hard acts upon the soft, or the hot upon the cold, right? But if it transforms that thing and makes it like itself, then in the end, it is what?

[27:23] Like that. It's when God acts upon the soul, right? Now, of the sinner, right? The sinner is unlike God, right? But as he acts upon the sinner, becomes eventually what? Like God, right?

[27:44] That's kind of a universal principle there, right? Okay. Every agent makes something like itself in the end, but in the beginning, it is unlike itself, huh? Yeah.

[28:00] Now, one seventy-one here. Need a little bit of background to understand what he's referring to here. He's dealing with a mistake, in a way, made by his predecessors, and kind of the one that stands out in this thinking is in Empedocles right? Now, Empedocles, if you may recall from that fragment we handled of him. About knowing, he says,

[28:29] "By earth we know earth, and by water we know water, and by air we know air, and by fire we know fire, and by love we know love, and by hate we know hate." It's because we have these things in us, right? It's because we're composed of these things that we what know them, right? Okay. Now, as we mentioned a bit in studying that fragment, there is an element of truth in what Empedocles is saying, and that is that knowing takes place.

[29:05] In the knower. yeah, and because the known is in some way in the what Knower, right? So if I know you, gentlemen, and I recognize you when I come here every Wednesday, right? Well, then. Your shape and your color and so on, right? I've got them in my head now. I recognize you, right? Okay.

[29:37] But perhaps where Empedocles goes astray is in what way is the thing known in the knower, right? And he's thinking of it too much in the way something is in in matter,

[30:00] as if the soul knows things outside itself because it's composed of those things because it has earth, air, fire, water, love, and hate in itself. That's why it knows these things, huh?

[30:25] Aristotle often points out a difficulty in another position of Empedocles in this, because Empedocles made the interesting statement that there's no hate in God, which is you know very good in its own way, right? You know, as you know, John says God is love, right? No hate in God, and Empedocles says there's no hate in God. See, but then you put that together with what he says about how we know.

[30:59] There's no hate in God, then God wouldn't know what hate, and therefore we know something God doesn't know, which for all the great Greek philosophers is absurd to say we know something God doesn't know. Okay.

[31:16] So Empedocles sees something of the truth of knowing that knowing takes place by the knower being the known rather being in the knower, right? And that's why we say we talk about our mind. Can you grasp what I'm saying? If you can grasp what I'm saying, that means in some way you know what I say, right? But as the word grasp seems to indicate, when your mind grasps something, it's got that in itself, right?

[31:48] Okay. Um, but in what way is the thing known in the knower? Well, Aristotle's going to bring this out more at the end of this book, that the thing known is in the knower in a immaterial way, not in the material way.

[32:15] But now he's bringing out a little different point, huh? He wants to bring out that the sense powers originally have what they know only in ability. They don't actually contain in the beginning what they know, and therefore they have to be acted upon by their objects, and therefore they receive in some sense their object or a likeness of their object in some way before they actually know.

[32:58] But if the senses were, like Empedocles said, right, knowing what's outside of them because they're actually composed of these things, then they would always be knowing these things because they're always actually composed of earth, air, fire, water, and love and hate. And furthermore, since that's what their sensing is, right, and that's what the senses would be, they know what the senses are too. Now, does the eye know what an eye is?

[33:30] Or the ear know what an ear is? No. So he's going to point out two difficulties, two falsehoods that seem to follow from his position. If knowing takes place because the senses are actually composed of what they know,

[33:51] then the senses should know themselves, but they don't. And the senses should always know and not have to have the thing they know be present because they'd always already have it what within them. Do you see the problem? Okay.

[34:13] Now, as I mentioned before, here this is the way Thomas understands the text there in one seventy-one, and I mentioned this before that the word "aisthesis" in Greek, right, can mean either sense, the power, or sensing. Well, I would translate it in the first sentence of one seventy-one, "aisthesis" here by what

[34:42] sense? There is a difficulty as to why sensing of the senses themselves does not come to be, right? Why the senses don't know themselves, right? Okay.

[35:00] Just as back in one seventy, I translate "sense" by "sensing." Okay. Aristotle, we'll raise the question later on in the third book. We'll see about whether the senses.

[35:19] Sense their own sensing, and maybe he was thinking that in this translation that he gives here. You know, it comes up in the third book here. But Thomas understands that, as Moerbeke translates it, as being the senses, right? Okay, why the senses? Why there's no sensing of the senses themselves?

[35:41] See, if, if in other words, the senses are nothing other than a composition of earth, air, fire, water, and love and hate, right? And by having earth, air, fire, water, love, and hate, we know these things. Then the senses, by that very fact, should know themselves, but they don't. See, we don't sense the eye, do we? You don't see the eye, do you? It's just in the mirror, of course.

[36:11] But the eye as a whole, you don't see it, right? You don't hear the ear, do you? You hear something other than the ear, right? You see something other than the eye, right? So that's one difficulty, one thing that seems to be false, right? That follows from the position of Empedocles, right?

[36:35] See, now the second difficulty is, and why without what is outside they do not bring about sensation. Now, as if I know earth, air, fire, water, and other things in the world around me, because I actually had them in me, I don't have to have these things present in order to know them. Okay, and that doesn't seem to be true, right? I can't see you, gentlemen, if you're not here.

[37:09] Okay, I can't see fire if there's no fire there in front of me, right? I can't see water unless I've got my water glass there, right? Take away the water glass, I can't see water, right? Can't taste water. Of which things there is sensation in virtue of themselves, and in virtue of the accidents in these, Thomas says, in truth, it's in virtue of the accidents in these things we don't really sense the substance of these things.

[37:51] It's reason that really knows the things themselves, right? But the early philosophers, as we'll see more again, they didn't really distinguish between sensing and what

[38:06] and reason very well. Okay. The word sensation, that isn't that kind of equivocal. Yeah, it has. It can mean the power too sometimes. Perhaps, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the word sight in English. Sometimes you know, sight can mean even the object you see, and and the seeing of it, and maybe the power too, huh? Yeah.

[38:45] Those are words that become equivocal by by reason, right? Okay. So the conclusion from seeing those difficulties in the position of Empedocles is that the sensitive power, huh, is not in act to begin with, but it's only in what potency or ability, right?

[39:17] Whence it does not sense, right? Automatically by itself, right? And notice the comparison he makes. Just as what can be ignited does not ignite itself through itself without what can ignite, huh? Fire would ignite itself, and not one thing would need.

[39:40] What is fire in actuality, huh? Okay. So if the water here was hot to itself, right? Wouldn't need fire to what? Become actually warm, right? It'd be actually warm to itself, right? Okay. But the fact that it needs the fire to become warm shows that the water is hot only but? In potency, or to use my word, inability, right? Okay. Aristotle is saying the same thing, right?

[40:16] If the sense, right, knew its object, right, through actually having it in itself already, being composed in the way of what it knows, it wouldn't need that exterior object to know it. It'd be like God, right? Anyway, huh? But it does need that exterior object, right, in order to see it. Therefore, it must be what? Inability or in potency to its what? Object, huh? Okay.

[41:00] Now, in the next paragraph, he's going to point out that although the sense is in inability to begin with, later on it is in what? In act, right?

[41:19] And he refers first of all to the fact that we do use the word to sense in two ways. But since, we say, sensing in two ways. For we say the potentially hearing or seeing hears or see, even should it chance to be sleeping, and also what is already what? Actually sensing at work, huh?

[41:45] Sense would also be said in two ways. The one as in potency, the other as in act. Similarly, also the sensing, one being in potency, the other being an act. Notice what he's saying there, right? Interesting. You don't stop and think about this sometimes, you know. Sometimes we use the word to see

[42:10] to mean that you have the ability to see. Okay. Sometimes we use the word to see to mean what? The act, the act of seeing, right? Now, let me point it out. Suppose somebody is blind, right? Okay, and he's sitting there in a room and so on, and

[42:45] you want someone else to realize the person is blind, right? And she doesn't, you know, make a faux pas or something of the sort, right? And you say he doesn't what? He doesn't see.

[43:01] What does it mean? He doesn't see. It's unable to. Yeah, he's blind. He lacks the ability to see, right? See. Okay, but now another time you might be someplace and someone doesn't recognize you, or they're on the other side of the room, or something like that, right? You want their attention, and someone say, "He doesn't see you, " you know. What do you mean by that? He's blind.

[43:28] No, you mean he doesn't what? Have the act of seeing you, right? Okay. You see the idea. So Aristotle is pointing to the fact that we use the word to see in the sense in these two different ways, right? And therefore, sensing is not only what the ability, right, we're talking about, but also what there's an act, there, right? Okay. Now later on, a little bit later on in the speech, he's going to take up the act and ability and be much more what precise about it, right?

[44:06] Because there's going to be two senses which we speak of ability, and two senses which we speak of of sensing, right? But let's wait till we get to that point, right? Okay. But now he's putting out that sensing seems to involve not only this being an ability that we saw in one seventy one, but also some kind of what act of that ability, huh? Okay.

[44:41] First, therefore, let us speak one seventy three now. First, therefore, let us speak as if suffering and being moved, and being at work are the same. Now that's interesting the way he translates that word there, "being at work, " huh? Because that's very close to the way the Greek word is, huh? Energein I think, is the word here. Yeah, energein right? And energein in Greek, I'll kind of emphasize it here.

[45:20] Today, it's the word ergon for kind of a work, right? Okay. But more generally speaking, energein has got the idea of to act, right? To be active. Okay. Now, Aristotle is saying something kind of strange. It first sight here. First, therefore, let us speak as if suffering and being moved and being actual, you might say, right, or being an act, are the same.

[45:52] Well, in some way they are because motion is a what? A certain act. We saw that in the definition of motion back in Natural Philosophy, though imperfect, right? As was said in a different work, another work was said in the

[46:12] third book of Natural Hearing, right? The Third book of the Physics, right? Okay. Now let's stop again on that. It's interesting that grammatically, huh? When we name the act of the senses, right? We use a what? Active verb, right? Okay. So to see and to be seen, grammatically speaking.

[46:48] To hear and to be heard, grammatically speaking, which is active and which is passive? The first is active. Yeah. Yeah. And what is seen and what is heard? That's the object, right? Okay.

[47:12] So we say the object that it is seen or that it is heard, that it is smelled, right? Okay. It's tasted and so on, right? And we say of the power or the ability that

[47:29] it sees and hears. Now the grammar here might seem to possibly lead you astray, right? And there is, if you study the fallacies inside of language, Aristotle in the book on Sophistical Refutations, he distinguishes the fallacies, common fallacies. He distinguishes thirteen different kinds, and six kinds are in speech, right? In language, the cause, and seven are outside of language, okay, or in things. And you know he begins with with

[48:17] the fallacy of equivocation. And the fallacy of amphiboly, and they're very similar in the sense that in equivocation or amphiboly, we have either a word, a name, or a speech that actually has many meanings, and you mix these up, right?

[48:46] Chianti is dry, but as dry is not wet. Therefore, Chianti is not wet. If that deceives you, it'd be because the word "dry" actually has two different meanings. Okay, and you mix the two up, right? If I say the Bible is the Word of God, and the Word of God is what

[49:13] the Son of God, therefore the Bible is the Son of God. The word of God, that speech has two different, what meanings, huh? That book there is Aristotle's book. Aristotle's book is the book that Aristotle owns. So I have the book, of Aristotle himself. Aristotle's book could mean the book owned by Aristotle, or the book of which Aristotle is the author, right?

[49:51] And then you have the fallacies of they call them composition or division, and the fallacy of accent, where either the the speech of the word has many what meanings potentially, but actually it has only one, right? So a word can be pronounced different ways, sometimes, especially the written word, right? And you can see that in students' papers sometimes, right? You know, they're right, the wrong one because of the accent.

[50:32] But then the last fallacy talks about is the fallacy of figure of diction, and this is, as Albert the Great has just pointed out, is kind of a imaginary multiplicity, right? Where a word because of its ending, say, seems to be signifying something that it doesn't really. Well, here you see

[51:00] the word to see seems to grammatically, right, indicate something that is active and acting upon something, and to be seen, something that is being what acted upon or undergoing. But is that in fact so?

[51:21] Now you hear a sound, right? Is my ear acting upon that sound, or is that sound acting upon my ear? Yeah, yeah. So the grammatical ending, right, of to see and to be seen, or to hear and to be heard, the grammatical ending could deceive you. You can imagine seeing as being active rather than what undergoing and being moved, right? First of all, you speak sometimes English, you're looking for something, you know, and finally my eyes fell upon fell upon it, right?

[52:18] You speak of something somebody is casting an eye upon you, you know, you see, and those ways of speaking fit the grammatical form of to see, right?

[52:31] But really, do my eyes fall upon the object, or does the object more fall upon my eyes? Huh? No matter. Yeah, yeah. So that's one of the six kinds of fallacies in language, right? They call figure of diction, right? At the ending of the of the word seems to make it seem to be something. You know, to imagine it to be something other than it does. The same thing is true about love, right?

[53:02] You see. When I love something, am I acting upon what I love? I've seen this thing one time. So again, in his office, there. There's a quote from the Greek German poet, Goethe that said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love, " and that's the way it is, right? We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. So they tell the students, they say, "If you love beautiful things, then you are already, in a way, what?

[53:43] A little bit beautiful yourself, right? If you love ugly things, you're already. That would be right. If you love wise things, if you love wisdom, you're already a little bit wise. If you love foolishness, falling, you're already something of a fool. Yeah. So you're really what? Shaped and fashioned by what you love, as beautifully said.

[54:11] See, that's even the fallacy there, you know. Theory, right? Being acted upon. And yet, as we saw in the definition of motion, motion is an act, although a what? Imperfect act, right?

[54:41] So you don't you don't be misled by saying that to see is basically what? Acting upon the thing seen. That would be a mistake, right? But to see is in some way an act, right?

[54:58] Just like being moved, right? Undergoing is in some way an act. That goes back to the definition, as he says, of another work. the definition of motion. Do you see that?

[55:17] Why would why would we why would that be that the grammar is almost the opposite of? Well, that's an interesting question. It's not really one for the magician to answer, right? What the magician, you know, sees is that

[55:45] a way of deceiving somebody there, right? A way of being deceived by that, huh? So it's a conspiracy. But notice how it does show at least one thing about this: that it's not as well known to us, right? That when I see somebody, they are acting upon my eyes, right? Yeah. As when I'm being kicked by somebody, right?

[56:32] I'm being acted upon by them. See. That doesn't explain fully why this takes place, right? But the fact that it takes place more in this here than in kicking and being kicked, right? Pushing and being pushed, right?

[56:58] It's more clear, right? That you're being acted upon, right? Yeah. You're pushed and kicked and shoved and stabbed, clubbed and so on. Okay. Okay. So don't be deceived by the figure of diction, huh? Okay.

[57:36] Now, one seventy-four is talking about the fact that things that are undergoing and being moved, suffering, are being what acted upon by something else which is already in what act, right?

[57:53] So the water, say, which is being heated, right, is being heated by something that is already what hot, like the fire. All things, however, suffer and are moved by what is productive in being an act. And then again, it comes back to the point we made before: whence it is that it suffers as if by the like, and is as if by the unlike, as we said.

[58:22] It's unlike maybe in the beginning, right? But the end, it's like. For the unlike suffers. It undergoes, it's acted upon, while the like has suffered. Right? Do you see that? Yeah. See, making that point again.

[58:43] So he's going to be saying about sensing and later on about understanding that in a way sensing is becoming the thing sensed, and understanding in a way is becoming the thing understood.

[59:02] And that's because they're acted upon by their objects, and so in the end of their being acted upon by their objects, they are like their objects. So in a way, sensing is things sensed, and understanding is things understood. And that's why he'll say later on in Book Three, after he's finished talking about sensing and understanding, he'll say. That the soul is in some way all things,

[59:32] because by sensing it's things sensed, and by understanding it's things understood, and so you see something of why the soul is such a wonderful thing to study, in some way all things. Not quite in the way God is all things, right? But you can see the soul is more godlike than anything else in this world.

[59:58] You know, Thomas often explains, you know, and God says to Moses or somebody, "You know, I will show you every good." Thomas says, "I am who am myself, you know, in some simple way, God is every everything, you know, but the soul, in some way, is like God, right? Because by sensing, it's all things sensed, and by understanding, it's all things understood.

[1:00:31] It's a very important thing to see, but you're starting to approach it a bit here, right? When you see that the senses are acted upon by their objects, and although in the beginning they might be unlike those objects, in the end they are what like them.

[1:00:51] Now, starting at one seventy five, you have another part of this consideration. He says, "Now we've talked about the senses of being in potency or in ability, as I say, and act, and so on, but we spoke without distinguishing the fact that there's more than one kind of potency or ability here. There's more than one kind of what act here. Okay, there's going to be two two kinds of ability here, or two senses of ability or potency, and what two senses of act.

[1:01:33] Okay. One must distinguish, Harvey says, 175 however in regard to potency and actuality about the word potency, I get in trouble sometimes with the word ability because people are familiar with the word potency. But I think the word potency in English, to some extent, is what tied to the active sense. Okay, and I mentioned words like potent or omnipotent, right?

[1:02:19] You know, biology we speak of impotent, right? Okay. This is an active sense here. If I say that's a potent thing you said, I mean it's a powerful thing you said, right? I think potency is a bit in English a bit like the word power in sense it. It's somewhat stuck on the active sense, right? And that's good in a way, the fact that these words get stuck sometimes in active sense, because that shows that that's the first meaning of the word.

[1:02:55] Okay. By the word ability, as they say, is more able to be what extended, right? Okay. my mother used to have that nice phrase you know to have that nice phrase, you know. say about somebody, you can't move the word can't move the word.

[1:03:13] And this happens, you know, to to to thinkers with these words that are equivocal by reason. They get stuck on the first meaning, and they can't

[1:03:25] Yeah, who's it? Who's that English philosopher, very clear about that. Hobbes, there, you know. You know, he's lacking, you know, talking about infused virtues, right? What means what? Pour it in, right? Yeah. Originally, infused means to pour in, right? See, and he's stuck in that first meaning of it,

[1:03:47] so that you know, I can't understand what would mean to speak of an infused virtue, right? But notice, huh? You speak of these virtues as infused. You are saying they're not coming from what the exercise of the power itself, right? They're coming from the outside, right? But he's kind of stuck in that first meaning.

[1:04:10] So ability, I think, is more able to be extended, especially you see that word able there, right? Values of impotency sometimes too, you know.