De Anima (On the Soul)
40. The Mind as the Place of Species: Universals, Truth and Understanding vs. Reason
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/040-the-mind-as-the-place-of-species-universals-truth-and-understanding/

[0:00] Now, he gives a kind of a corollary of that in three twenty-six, and if you look at this corollary of it, you can see the beginning of another argument for saying that the what reason or mind is what immaterial, not a body.

[0:28] And therefore, those who say the soul is a place of species speak well, except that not the whole soul is the place of species, but the intellectual part is such. Nor is it the species in act, but originally only in what potency or ability. Now, what does all that mean, right? Well,

[0:53] let's look at the words here a little bit. The Greek word for species, there, of course, is eidos. Say it a bit. And then

[1:08] species is a Latin word, right? Okay. And what would be the English word for eidos or species? Image. Look. Yeah. Actually, you could translate it

[1:32] by form. It's often translated by form. But the Greek and the Latin word have a reference to the eye, right? It's the look of the thing, right? Okay. But probably the use of it in English, we use more the form of the thing. Okay.

[1:54] So this was used in logic. The word eidos and later on species. What did it signify in logic, eidos or species? Well, it signified a particular

[2:21] kind of something. Okay. I'm going to put it more precisely. We call it a particular kind of one general kind of thing. Which they call what in Latin in Greek the genus, right? Or in Latin the genus, huh?

[2:56] General kind of thing. Now, in English, we tend to use the word "form" for that. Take, for example, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy are different what of government. Forms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we say democracy.

[3:30] Democracy is one form of government. Now, in Latin or in Greek, in Greek, it said democracy is one eidos, right? A government. In Latin, say one species, right? And then we should say one form of government, right? Okay.

[3:59] Sometimes I speak of the forms of fiction. Okay. Well, by forms of fiction, I mean the particular kinds of fiction, like maybe the novel, right, or the short story, or the epic, or the the drama, or the play, right? Okay.

[4:27] Or I might take play in reference to what tragedy and comedy, huh? And say, well, tragedy is one form of what drama, one form of play. Comedy is another form, right? Okay. I think Shakespeare has at least four different forms of drama,

[4:50] huh? Um. Now they tend to use the word romance, right, for one of those, huh? But not the word romance in the contemporary usage, right? With more of a classical sense, going back to the either the Greek romance or the medieval romance. I call them the mercy romances, okay, the love romances, the two different kinds. But anyway, these are different forms of fiction. Okay. Now,

[5:25] what did Plato do? What did Plato do about these forms? Huh? Well, one thing about these forms are they something individual, singular? Are they something universal?

[5:44] Universal. Yeah, yeah. There's something common to many, right? Okay. So there might be many democratic forms of government, right? Even though the same, you know, in kind, right? So you have the same kind of government, like say, in fifty states here, right? More or less. Right. Okay. So, um, with the exception of, what, Nebraska? Nebraska isn't. Louisiana. Nebraska isn't a senator

[6:18] like that. He's got one house there. It's kind of a bicameral legislature, but anyway. Um, but it gets the stuff democratic form of government. Okay. So the idea or species is something what? Universal, right? Okay. And it's really the object of what. Definition. Okay. Because when you define, what do you do? You give what the thing is in general, and then you give the differences that separates it from other particular kinds of that thing.

[6:52] So what you define is called a form or an idea or a species. depending upon the language, right? So that goes back to the what? A syllogism, right? What we just do is genus and species and difference and property and accident, right? And species is the name of what is defined, and genus is the name that begins the definition, and difference is the name, a kind of name that completes the definition.

[7:24] So, now Plato had a kind of a strange position. Remember the answer he gave to the central question of philosophy. What was that? Things, the way things are, is the same as the way we. Yeah. Remember the central question of philosophy. I just a little digression here, but relevant to what I'm going to say here eventually. Next year What was the simple question of philosophy? What's the simple question?

[8:02] Are the way things are the way we know? Well, in a way, yeah. Does truth require, right, that the way we know be the way things are? Okay. Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? I call that the central question of philosophy because it brings together, right, the end of the philosopher, which is to know the truth, right, with whatever he talks about.

[8:52] He talks either about the way things are or about the way we know. So, natural philosophy we talk about the way natural things are, right? In political philosophy, we talk about the way political things are. In logic, we talk more about the way we know, right? Okay.

[9:16] Now, does truth require that these two be the same? As I always say to students, there, what are the two possible answers to this great question? Yes and no. Yes and no. Yeah. And

[9:37] Plato and Aristotle seem to what? Disagree. Disagree, right? Plato seems to be answering yes, at least implicitly, right? And Aristotle is saying no. And you go down the whole history of philosophy, right, right to the 20th century, right, and you'll see philosophers answering either yes or no, not maybe explicitly, but at least implicitly in their thinking. But probably you'd find more philosophers apparently agreeing with Plato than with what Aristotle, right?

[10:16] Okay. And I've given the reasons why I think they tend to agree first with Plato, and that is that we all have this common understanding of truth as being the agreement of our mind with things, the harmony of our mind with things. So if you say Berquist is standing now, you're speaking truly. If you say Berquist is not standing or Berquist is sitting now, you're speaking falsely, right?

[10:51] So there's got to be an agreement, right, between your mind and things, for truth, right? And therefore, not thinking too much beyond that, it seems that, but if the way we know is not the way things are, we don't have what this agreement of the mind with things.

[11:13] Now, you may recall that in the second book of Natural Hearing, there Aristotle was talking about one place where he sees an exception to this, right?

[11:32] And that's very important for this this part here. He spoke there of how one can know in separation things that don't exist in separation.

[11:47] And the simplest example of that is where you have two things found together in the same thing, but you know one without knowing the other.

[12:01] So you have this even in a way in the senses. If sugar is both white and sweet, is the eye false in knowing white without sweetness?

[12:17] No. It's knowing whiteness now, the whiteness of the sugar in separation from its sweetness, isn't it? But in fact, the two of them go together, right? And is the sense of taste false in knowing the sweetness of the sugar without its whiteness?

[12:36] Aristotle says if one is knowable without the other, there's no falsity in knowing one without the other. The falsity would come if I said that this white thing is not sweet, or vice versa, this sweet thing is not white. But the eye is not saying that. The sense of taste is not saying that, right? Okay. Now, same with the human being, right? Same. You might know me to be a philosopher, and not know that I'm a grandfather, right?

[13:13] Okay. Someone else might know me to be a grandfather, leaving out that I'm a philosopher. I'm sure the nurses down at the hospital they certified that I was in fact a grandfather. Before that, they take care of the grandchildren, but they didn't at all know that I was a philosopher. Right. I'm sure my students in class, some of them, don't know I'm a grandfather, though grandfather examples start to come in, willie nilly.

[13:45] But but they know I'm a philosopher, right? You see? Now, are they false in knowing me to be a philosopher, leaving out my being a grandfather? That's part of what I am. I've got a little Cecilia's picture right there where I read, consoling me and keeping me enthusiastic about life. See? Or is the nurse mistaken in knowing me to be a grandfather, leaving out my being a philosopher?

[14:16] Or is one of these knowable without the other? Right? The falsity would come if you said that because I know him to be a philosopher and nothing more, then he's nothing more than a philosopher, or vice versa. Right? If you, or especially if you said this philosopher is not a grandfather, or this grandfather is not a philosopher, then you would be what? False, right? Okay. If you say this man is a philosopher, leaving out his being a grandfather, that's not false.

[14:51] It's not a complete knowledge of me, right? Is it false? Is it? Is it? No, no. I'm not saying that's all, all that there is to you, right? You see. So it is possible to know in separation things that don't what exist in separation. Now, what about the universal, right? This is something universal. Now,

[15:33] can I know what you all have in common, leaving aside your individual differences? You're all monks, let's say, right? Or you're all what students, huh? Or you're all human beings. You're all men, right?

[15:54] Now, when I understand what a student is, can I put Thomas here in the definition of what a student is? Are you part of the definition of student? No. Are you part of the definition of student? No. See? Are you part of the definition of man? See? The definition of man leaves out every individual man, right? Socrates is not part of the definition of man. If you had to put every man in the definition of man, you'd never be able to complete the definition, right?

[16:30] Okay. Now, is my mind false in separating and knowing in separation what you have in common? Is there really out in the world a man himself that isn't some individual man?

[16:50] Well, you see, Plato. Thought that Socrates had shown that we really do know through definitions, right? But through definitions, we know, in fact, what the universal in separation from the singulars. So, if we truly know through definitions, and the way we know must be the way things are when we know truly, right? If we truly know, therefore, the universal in separation from the singulars, it must truly what exist in separation from the singulars.

[17:30] And so here you have what could be called the world of what universal forms that apart from individual men, right? There's the form of man himself, and the form of dog himself, and the form of cat himself. Now, sometimes that's very badly translated into English. You know, they'll speak of Platonic ideas, right? Ideas It does not all translate this, right? It'd be much better called the world of forms, universal forms.

[18:06] Whereas Aristotle sees that as really nonsense, but he reasons against it very clearly in metaphysics, in the first and third books, in the seventh book. But where does, the universal exist in separation from the singulars,

[18:35] in the mind, right? Okay. So it says those who say that the soul is the place of species speak well, except they could be more precise and say it's the what understanding part, right? It's the mind, right? Okay.

[19:01] The things are what, as Boethius says, singular when sense, but what universal when what understood, right? So the reason is the what place of universals. Okay, man is universal when I understand what a man is, and I separated what's common to men,

[19:33] which I can do without falsity, right? Okay, there's nothing false in understanding what you all have in common. The falsity would come if I said that what you all have in common exists outside my mind and outside of you too. You see, in other words, the falsity would come in by trying to ram these two things together, right?

[20:00] Now Aristotle shows after distinction that the order in which you know things doesn't have to be the order in which things are. In fact, it can be what the contrary order,

[20:20] without you being false. So I always start with the simple example in class, and my students all say, "I know you a little bit. I know you before I know your parents at all. So you are before your parents in my knowledge. But in reality, your parents came before what you. Now, am I false in knowing you before your parents?

[20:55] Am I? Am I? No. The falsity would come if I said that because I know you before your parents, therefore you must have come before your parents. Then I'd be identifying the way I know, in this case, the order in which I know you and your parents, right? With the order in which you are. Now, more generally speaking, when Aristotle talks about cause and effect,

[21:26] usually we know the effect before the cause. And so, every time we ask why, when we're puzzled, we know the effect but not yet the cause. So almost always, the effect is before the cause in our knowledge.

[21:47] Is our knowledge false because we know the effect before the cause? Are we? No. The falsity would come if I said that because I know the effect before the cause, then the effect must have given rise to the cause. So Sherlock Holmes says in the great detective stories,

[22:15] I was reading the biography there of Chesterton, you know, Chesterton quite clear that the Sherlock Holmes are the best detective stories, and much better than his father Browning was. right. He's quite clear about that, right? You know, but Sherlock Holmes says to Watson, you know, we have to reason backwards. And Watson said, "What do you mean? " So we got to reason from the effect back to the what?

[22:44] Cause. But as far as reality is concerned, you're what? Starting at the wrong end. It's like seeing a movie played backwards, right? Okay. Not the best way to see a movie, but you may be able to figure it out eventually, right?

[23:03] Why are they fighting? Well, to get to the reason, as the movie is played backwards, right? To get to the thing that led to the fight, okay. So is a detective, huh? When he finds a body, but he doesn't know who done it. or when it was done, maybe, right? Is he false in knowing that someone's been murdered before he knows who done it?

[23:31] Um Falsity would come if he thought that the dead body was responsible for whoever shot him, right? Shooting, Just the reverse, huh? So the

[23:48] we can truly know things in separation that don't exist in separation sometimes. And we can truly know things in the reverse order, right? So, God is what in philosophy? God is considered in the last part of the last part of philosophy.

[24:14] Okay. It's the reverse of God's knowledge, in a sense, because God, by knowing Himself, knows all the things. Now, was just a little touching upon here, right? Touching upon the fact that our mind or our reason knows universal. I'm going to bring this out more clearly in the next reading, but

[24:44] is that also a sign that our reason is not a body? That's not something what a part outside of part, like the continuous, right?

[25:06] Well, let's expand that a little bit here. How is it possible to have two things of the same kind, exactly same kind? How, on this board, for example, could I have two what exactly the same kind of figure? Two, let's say, circles or two squares, same size circle.

[25:44] Where I could have one here and one what there? That's the way I can do it, right? But because the continuous here, this continuous surface, has part outside of what part, right? Isn't it? And I could have two squares. right?

[26:13] So what is received in the continuous? Like this is continuous, in two dimensions, the surface here it's received either here or there, right? Okay.

[26:27] So we see the continuous as tied up with the ability to have many individuals of exactly the same kind, because one is here and one is what there, right? Okay. That's why in modern physics, there when they discovered in quantum theory that they couldn't pinpoint particles, right? It seemed to them that they begin to lose their what individuality. Oh. You can't say one's here, one's there. Yeah.

[26:59] And the distinction, right? Two of the same exact thing, right? Being the exact same thing. Now the same thing is true in the sensible world. Why could you have many window panes here, right? Of exactly the same kind, or many chairs here, right? Of exactly the same kind.

[27:20] Well, before you can have many window panes of exactly the same kind, right? You would need enough what? Glass, right? You have enough glass, you can make many window panes of exactly the same kind. If you want many metal chairs here of exactly the same kind, you've got to have enough what? Metal. Metal, right? You want to make many Christmas tree cookies, you know, like your mother or grandmother makes.

[27:51] you've got to have enough dough, right? to Make a dozen or two dozen, or whatever you need, huh? You need enough what? Dough. Okay. You want you know the wooden chairs here, right? You need wooden chairs of the same kind. You want, you need enough what? Wood. I notice enough there touches upon what quantity, right? And what kind of quantity? The continuous, huh? So you have some kind of matter that is what quantified, right?

[28:31] And because of that, you have part outside of part, and you can cut it and make many chairs, many window panes, many Christmas tree cookies, and so on, right? Huh? Many rolls, so on, right? You see that? So it's matter as subject to continuous quantity, huh? Which is really what you mean by a body, right? Because in a body you have what matter, and you have length and width and depth, right?

[29:08] So what is received in the continuous? What is received in matter as continuous? Is received in there as universal or as singular? Whatever received in the continuous is received either here or there or there, right? And this piece of dough or that piece of dough, this piece of wood, that piece of wood. So it's received not as circle or square in general, but as an individual, right?

[29:45] Square, a singular square, or an individual window pane, a singular individual pane, right? So if reason is the place of species, huh? If something was received in reason, and especially once received fully in the form of a definition, if it's something universal, right? Is it received in a body? In the continuous.

[30:22] Well, whatever is received in the body continuous is received as here or there, right? And any triangle you put here or there in the continuous will be what singular. So it's received as universal. And not as what singular.

[30:46] Therefore, it's what. That's a sign that the mind or reason is not a what body, right? If it were a body, continuous, right, was received in it, would be received in the continuous, and therefore it be received as what particular, as singular, right, individual, and not as what universal. So, though Aristotle doesn't make explicit here at this point,

[31:25] he does see that, and Thomas, of course, makes that explicit in other places when he talks about this, right? Okay. But see, the connection there is seen now. Aristotle is pointing out there is a connection between saying what we said here in 324 and 325 that reason or the understanding is not a body, right, because it's able to receive the natures of all bodily things, and what he's saying in 326 that it's the place of what universal, right?

[31:59] It's where the universal is. It's where things are universal. It's not in this world of forms that Plato thought, right? But in the what reason itself that they are universal, and therefore they're received in an immaterial way, and not received in the what continuous. yeah with sensing though, sense receives particular, right? Yeah. But yet the sense isn't. I don't know.

[32:40] No, it is. The senses there is a certain immateriality in the sensing, but insofar as they receive only the singular, they receive in the way that the continuous receives. Yeah. But because reason receives these things in universal form, then it's not receiving them in the continuous. Yeah. This becomes

[33:08] even more clear when he gets into the to the object of reason more explicitly in the next reading here, really starting in 329. there you know, but just anticipate that a bit, huh? If you understand what a line is, right, and that's what reason does, as opposed to the imagination. Imagination imagines a line, right? Um. But in understanding what a line is, is what a line is continuous as it's understood by reason.

[33:46] I think so, right? But it understands it to be continuous, right? Yeah. But is it understanding it? As continuous, huh? The way it's understanding it. If it were, then what a line is? How long would it be?

[34:09] You have to get some length, right? Yeah. And then wouldn't fit all lines, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what it is to be a line is to be two feet long. No, it wasn't be one foot long? Well, if you try to give what it is to be a line, some definite length, you are going to end up making it not fit all lines. right yeah okay.

[34:30] the same way you understand what a triangle is, right? if you try to, you know, imagine a continuous triangle, you're going to make it either equilateral or saucy's or scaling either right-angle up you can't make it all of these at once end up like like that dummy thing Locke saying it's all and none of these, right?

[35:00] Now, there is other ways that we can reason from the continuous to reason not being continuous, huh? And we've talked about the thing before a bit, didn't we?

[35:20] When I understand, let's say, what a triangle is, or understand what a square is, example there. I understand what a square is in the form of a definition, right? So a square is a what? Equilateral

[35:41] and right-angled quadrilateral. Now, is this definition of square, which has these three parts, right? The genus and the differences. Is this definition of square? Is the definition itself continuous?

[36:19] We saw before it's not divisible forever. these thoughts, right? And do the parts meet at a common boundary? Is the definition of square a line or a surface or a body?

[36:40] Can't say one or the other, right? So the definition is not continuous. So reason understands the continuous in the form of the definition, right?

[37:00] So it understands the continuous in a non-continuous way. Okay. Now he asks, why does reason understand the continuous in an uncontinuous way? Is it because of what is understood, or is it because of what understands? What understands? What can't be because of what is understood? Because what is understood it is continuous. That's understood to be continuous, right? What's understood in an uncontinuous way? Yeah. So the reason itself must be what?

[37:41] Non-continuous. And that's why it understands continuous things in its own way, in an uncontinuous way. Okay. If reason itself was continuous, then it would understand the continuous. in a continuous way, the way that my eye does my eye, you know. In a sense, when I see you, right, I cover up half of my eye. Maybe I see only half of you, right? You see, and so in a way, I see part of you with part of me, another part with another part of you, right?

[38:14] You see, and part of you is outside of part of you, of you inside me, right? You see, but that's not the way these things are, right? And in fact, equilateral is really what determining how the four sides of quadrilateral are, right? So if it was outside quadrilateral, it couldn't do that. It's like saying it's this and this and this, huh? Just

[38:56] like one part of this page is outside another part of this page, right? So one part of this page is not determining what the other part of the page is, making actual the other part of the page. What about the end of three twenty six? Aristotle says, "Nor is it the species in actuality that in potency. " What he's saying to begin with, he's talking about reason originally, right?

[39:25] Yeah, okay. It's all things in ability, right? He said back in three twenty four, it's possible, but dunaton dunaton is a Greek word for able, right? Okay. But I know that's the best translation in Latin. They call it intellectus possibilis, right? But it means the intellect that is able to receive, huh?

[39:54] Aristotle sometimes later on he compares it to a blank tablet, on which nothing is written. but it's able to receive all, right? uh huh Was the page already had a bunch of letters on it that would impede its receiving, right? Letters. Got to be transparent, blank, able to receive all.

[40:22] So Aristotle doesn't develop this argument I've just been giving you, but but in a sense he sees the connection here between what was shown in three twenty four and three twenty five that it's not material, and the uh fact that it's the place of the universal, right? Where the universal is, huh? That's how concrete Aristotle is. You use the word "place" there, right? It's in the Greek to topos, right?

[40:49] But of course, that's the first sense of it in place, right, and then. He carried the word in over in all those different meanings that we mentioned before about that, but he keeps place there, right? Be very concrete, a little bit like very very Great, right? Instead of saying that anger disturbs, you know, the part of our soul that sees or understands, he says anger disturbs the the mind, the eye of the soul.

[41:23] Very concrete way of speaking, huh? What Aristotle's saying here, he's not using place in the original sense, right? I can speak of the place of the body, right? But it's that in which the what universal is. The universal is not in place in the original sense of the word place. There'd be something what Some singular body, right? An individual body. Yeah. Is that a question about the meaning of another word we used today.

[41:55] Yeah. The mind. Yeah. It seemed in the beginning of this lesson that we equated with understanding or reason. Yeah. Isn't mind sometimes meant intellect and will, the higher part of the soul? Yeah, using that sense sometimes. Yeah, yeah. And Aristotle uses that sense sometimes too, you know. Because sometimes he'll say the will is in the mind, right? Or even the will is in reason, right? Meaning the rational part, huh?

[42:28] So intellect would be only part of the mind in this. In that sense, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes he uses the word mind for the the part of the soul or all the parts of the soul that don't have a body organ, right? So that's going to include the what he's talking about here, and the will, and this active understanding he's going to be talking about, and. And understanding and reason.

[42:54] Yeah. Well, let me just explain the word there, right? The Greek word is nous, and that's translated in Latin by intellectus, and in English by intellect or by the native word understanding.

[43:21] Now, understanding sometimes names the act, right? And sometimes it names what is able to do that, right? So if you're using understanding in the sense of what is able to understand, right? Okay. Then you say man has an understanding, right? Okay. Now,

[43:52] but when we come to talk, let's say about. The angels are about God, right? They're able to understand much more than we understand. And before we're able to understand very much, we have to do an awful lot of thinking. We have to think about things a lot to understand them. We have to think things out, right?

[44:20] So that man's ability to understand is kind of imperfect, and so some of the medieval writers said he has an overshadowed under understanding. Okay.

[44:37] So sometimes they'll divide understanding, meaning the ability now to understand. The act now they'll divide that into understanding for the angels or for God, and they'll give a new name to man's understanding and call it reason. Now remember this way of naming things. I don't know if you're there, and we talked about this, huh? Sometimes a name that is said of two things is kept by one of them, right?

[45:29] As its own name, and the other is given a new name, right? Now there's two ways that that happens, right? Sometimes when the common name

[45:45] belongs equally to both, but one of them has nothing noteworthy in addition to that, right? While the other one has something very noteworthy, then the noteworthy one gets the name. Okay. Now I give an example of what I mean. There, if you take the word animal,

[46:11] you mean by animal a living body, right? The senses, right? Well, that seems to be said equally of man or a dog or a cat, right? We're all living bodies and senses, right? Okay. So animal can be said of man or of the beast, done the dog, the cat, the horse, right? But the beast doesn't seem to what have anything greatly noteworthy beyond the fact that it is a living by the senses, But man has something very noteworthy.

[46:52] Maybe he has reason in addition, right? So sometimes the beast, instead of being called the beast, the beast will keep the name what animal, and man will get the new name. You see, because he has something noteworthy in addition to what's common to him. So sometimes we'll say man is an animal. We're not insulting you at all. Other times we'll say you're acting like an animal, and we're insulting you, right?

[47:23] Or maybe tell the truth. But the word animal has been used in different senses there, right? So I always saw my mother didn't like me calling man animal. You know, it's not seem right there to call man animal. I said, "Well, mother, I don't mean he's just an animal." Okay. You see, but sometimes we use the word animal to mean what? Thomas says, "cum praecisione," to mean just an animal, nothing more.

[47:54] See, and then. they. get to The name. You see that? Okay. What was the other way? Okay. Now the other way is where what is meant by the common name is had not equally by both, but it's had fully or completely by only one, and then that one keeps the name, and the one that has only in an imperfect way gets the new name, right? Now, example I often give is the word cat or the word dog.

[48:34] See? Now, if my little boy or girl or grandchild know, if they said, "What's the difference between a kitten and a puppy? " You know? Sometimes you'll find little child calling a puppy a kitten or a kitten a puppy. You know? You say, "No, no. A kitten is a cat, right? A little cat, and a puppy is a little dog, right? " Okay. So in one sense, you can say a kitten is a cat, right?

[49:07] And the puppy is a dog. But other times we divide the cat against the what? Okay. Or we divide the dog against the puppy. Okay. Let me divide man against what? Boy or something, right? Or a woman against what? Girl, right? But other times I'd say girl is a woman and a boy is a man, right? See. Now, why does the dog keep the common name and cat, or the man keep the common name, and the kitten or the puppy or the boy keeps gets

[49:56] a new name? Well, it's because they don't have fully yet what makes one to be a dog or a cat or a man, right? Okay. Who are able to be reduced and so on, right? Okay. He's just a boy. He's not a man. You know, excusing him, right? Okay. Um.

[50:19] So this is quite different from that over there, isn't it? Aristotle in the categories there. You have the word disposition, huh? Now some dispositions easily lost, and he keeps the name disposition for those, huh? But if a disposition becomes firm and hard to remove, right, then it is a new name, right? Because it has something beyond. Not only disposed, but you what? And a firm, right? And so he calls that a habit.

[51:00] You see? So disposition in this sense would be like a mood, right? In a bad mood today, right? Maybe I'll disappear, right? You know, people's mood changes, you know, sometimes in an hour or so, right? Won't see a nice calm down, you know. His mood is different.

[51:22] But a habit is something that's not easily removed. So vice is a what habit, right? And virtue is a habit. It's a firm disposition. So in one sense, Aristotle would call a habit disposition. It's a firm disposition. In other cases, he'd speak of he divide habit against disposition. But Aristotle didn't invent this. This is something that we naturally do in language.

[51:58] So sometimes you'll see Thomas will say that the angel has an intellectus, an understanding, and man has a ratio, a reason. Right? That's because what's meant in general by understanding is something that what man has in a very imperfect way. Man doesn't understand very much, right? He naturally understands very little, and in order to understand a little more, he's got to really what think and reason and struggle, right?

[52:35] See? But the angel, what his mind is full to begin with. Doesn't have to learn anything. My son Marcus, his little boy, you know, why can't we be born knowing everything? I'm not going to school and study and all that stuff. I said, you want to be an angel? That's an angel, right? He knows everything. Understands everything. He naturally understands. Able to understand right away. So he keeps the name understanding, right?

[53:05] He's able to understand, right? We're get a new name, right? This is like a in Latin, he says intellectus, obumbratus, an overshadowed, kind of a dark understanding, uh. You can see how weak the human understanding is. So we give it a new name because it doesn't have the common thing in a full way, but in a very imperfect way. You see that?

[53:41] Now sometimes people are amazed, you know, when people, literate people, when they That the translators of Homer is great epic, son. You know, they'll say the Iliad is a poem in I don't know how many thousands of lines, right? People are kind of amazed that they call this grand epic a poem, because they think of a poem, they think of what, except a little sonnet, right? It's an issue.

[54:11] But notice, huh? The word poem could be said of epic as well as these little Shakespearean sonnets, for example, right? But the what sonnet keeps the name poem sometimes, right? And we give to the Iliad a new name, like you said, you know,

[54:38] it's a heroic epic or something, right? You see, because it adds something very noteworthy, right? Something that goes beyond a little poem doing. You see? So you know the representation of human life here is so much more full, you know, and so much more present, and so much more moving in a big epic or even in a play than is in a little what poem, right? The same when you go to the what they call the nursery, you get a plant, right?

[55:11] You are going to buy a plant. Usually, think of these little things, right? You are going to buy a tree. You don't just say I want to buy a plant. You know, I get a tree. You know, this is a major thing, right? So the tree gets what the new name, and sometimes the little things they keep the name plant, right? See that? That's this kind of thing, now.

[55:36] But then there is this other way of naming things where one has fully right what is signified by the common name, right? But man has the ability to understand very weakly, right? You know, he's kind of stumbling, you know. He has to to reason, and Shakespeare says discourse, right? He has to go from one thing to another, right, and come to know gradually one thing to another, right.

[56:07] So man gets a new name, right, that signifies his what? Without the fact that he has imperfectly what is meant by understanding the ability to understand. So you say, man is is more able to what to think than to understand. You know, we're always thinking about things that we don't understand or barely understand, right? You see, and so reason is that ability to think. But it's not so much the ability to understand, except in that kind of perfect way, huh?

[56:52] If we could think out something, we start to understand it a bit, huh? It takes a long time. But nevertheless, you could say that reason is an understanding, right? In the same way, you could speak of a kitten as a cat or a puppy as a what? A dog, huh?