De Anima (On the Soul)
41. How the Senses and Reason Are Acted On Differently, Two Kinds of Ability, and What Reason Knows
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/041-how-the-senses-and-reason-are-acted-on-differently-two-kinds/

[0:00] Now, notice up to this point, he's done two things really, huh? He started with this comparison that understanding is a bit like sensing, right? Okay. That's an undergoing, a receiving, right? And then in the middle here, he brought out that the receiving in understanding is going to be not in the body, right? Huh? They can't be mixed with the body, otherwise it couldn't receive our natures. Now, in the last paragraph in this particular reading. He's going to

[0:39] clarify some more that this likeness should not be overextended, right? And that the receiving of the senses and of reason is in many ways different, huh? And the difference he's pointing out here is that when we smell something very strong, very pungent, that temporarily prevents us from what smelling other things, right? You know, like eat something highly seasoned, you know, and you can't really taste other things, huh?

[1:16] So that's why, you know, if you're going, if you're tasting wine, like a wine tasting thing, right? You, you know, bread is probably the best thing to have there, right? Something very bland, like bread is, huh? See, rather than than chili or or corn chips or something, you know, that is going to interfere with your tasting the what the wines, huh? You see? And you know how when a very bright light hits you, right?

[1:50] You're temporarily what blinded, as a worm, okay? Um, but with reason it's the reverse, right? When it thinks about something very understandable, then it turns to lesser things, and it's easier for it to what understand that, huh?

[2:12] That the impassibility is not similar in the sensitive and intellectual parts is clear from the sense organs and the senses, for the sense is not able to sense after sensing what is very sensible, as sound after a great sound. In fact, you might be made permanently deaf if the sound is too great, right? Nor after strong color or smell is it able to see or smell,

[2:38] but whenever the mind understands something very understandable, it does not understand less understandable things less, but rather more. Now, what's the reason for this, huh? Well, because the senses have a bodily organ, right? They're going to be affected in some way, like matter is affected, huh? And if the thing is very strong, it's going to destroy or temporarily interrupt, right, the operation of the organ,

[3:10] but because reason doesn't have an organ, right? It can't be affected in that way at all. So, when it understands something very understandable, and it turns to something lesser, it but seems what easy to understand, huh? Okay. I was taking the example there at the students out at Thomas Aquinas College, right, huh? In their freshman year, maybe they're doing some Euclid, huh? In the first books of Euclid, and it seems difficult to understand these things at first, huh?

[3:43] The first time you meet them, huh? And you know, if I give my students a logic, a theorem in Euclid, you know, they go complaining to the dean, you know, oh, he's doing such difficult things, you know, these, we can't use those things, you know, it's too difficult. But at TAC, after they've gone through a number of books of Euclid and then gone on to even more difficult to understand things, right?

[4:17] You know, then these earlier things they learn seem kind of what, awfully easy, right? You see, I sometimes you know apply this a little bit to the judgment of what music, right? Okay, because music is rational by what participation. It's not essentially rational, but the best philosophers I've known, like Assiter and De Koninck and Dion and so on, they all recognize Mozart as the best composer. But they obviously recognize the excellence of the music of the 18th century over the what, Romantic period, huh?

[5:02] You know, like in Austin Farrell's essays towards evaluation of music, they realize that this music is far more what, reasonable, right? And that the Romantics are not aiming at being reasonable. It's so obvious to them, right? But this is something much less understandable, right? Than geometry or philosophy of nature or you know logic or these things, right? Well, when they turn to these lesser things, they're not prevented from the fact that they study these higher things.

[5:32] They can see these things even more what, more clearly, right? You see, just the opposite of what happens to the senses when they are acted upon by very strong object of their kind. They might be temporarily or even permanently in some cases right, incapacitated. I used to work in the factory there in the summer, you know, and you get down next to one of these rookie men, and he's bang bang, you know, you know, you know, like hurting my ears, you know, and I say, you know, how come it doesn't bother him?

[6:05] Well of course? He's not actually hearing that sound anymore. They actually deaf to that sound, you see. So he's not hearing better for having bang, you know, being acted upon by something very audible, right? But now he's less able to hear things, huh?

[6:23] You see, but that's because it's a what, material organ, the senses, huh? My friend Jimmy always was a little hard to hear going here because he boxed. That's the ear that got hit, you know. He's got yeah, yeah, got turned around.

[6:46] But the same thing could happen, you know, with a very strong object, right? So they say these kids doesn't know this loud music and they're getting kind of what deaf, right? They they say too, you know, that when they talk about the tongue, you know that sometimes or often, in fact, women have a better sense of taste or smell than a man does, huh? And they attribute it partly to the fact that men tend to season their food more than a woman does, you know.

[7:19] I mean, even man, I put more salt, pepper in my food than my wife. They don't put so much salt here, you know. That sort of stuff, man. I do that, right? And we eat some hot sauce or something, you know. You know, they burn their their their taste buds out, so they can't.

[7:36] Even the wine taste, you know, sometimes knows that women has you know can smell certain things a man can't seem to smell, right? The man is just burns his senses out.

[7:47] But that doesn't happen here with the with the reason, right? So sometimes I took you to bed with me, saying, you know, just kinda relax. a couple of theorems of Euclid, right? People say, how can you possibly relax with that? You know, they'd be struggling to understand it, right? But I've been I've been reading about the Trinity, or I've been reading about the the incarnation, or something like that, and I've been reading what you know, something very you know, very understandable, but very very.

[8:23] I mean, exercising my mind and these other things seem, you know, you can see kind of relaxation, you know, easy, you know. You see, but it's

[8:35] something true about the senses, so so he's showing the difference in the way that they are what undergoing, huh? And the reason for it is because the one is undergoing in a body that can be injured in these ways, and the other is not, huh?

[9:00] Okay, we begin the next Lexio and Thomas. At least the first paragraph, because it's very closely connected with what's gone before. Thomas Not Thomas, but Aristotle has indicated that the reason is what inability before it's enact, and in the first paragraph he's coming back to something that he used before. He's talking here about how

[9:31] reason. goes from ability to act, and if you recall what was mentioned before when he was talking about the senses, this distinction between first act and second act, right? So he's saying, after reason has discovered something, or after reason has learned something from someone,

[9:57] it's still in a kind of what ability to thinking about these things, right? But in a different way than it was before. It what discovered these things, or before it what learned those things, right?

[10:17] That's like the distinction there between what first act and second act. So you might speak of first ability and second ability, right? In some sense, I'm able to think about the right angle triangle, right? Before I've learned the Pythagorean theorem, right? But after I've learned the Pythagorean theorem, I find Pythagoras after I've discovered it, right? I'm not always thinking about it, right? And then I'm able to think about it in a way I couldn't before I learned it from Euclid or discovered it by myself.

[10:57] Okay. So he says, when the mind comes to be each thing, as a knower according to act is said to do, this happens when it's able to work through itself.

[11:13] It wants to. Even then, is in potency or inability in some way, but not in the same way as before learning or discovering. And he points out something which I'll come back to in that difficulty at 331. And then it is able to what? Understand itself. Okay. So he's saying that reason has to understand something else before it can what? Understand itself, right? Okay. But he's not really going into that at this point.

[11:53] It's just kind of an aside, almost there, right? Okay. At this point, he's merely bringing out, right, that there's a kind of a double potency here, right, and a double act, right?

[12:09] Because he's been saying in the previous reading there that reason is an ability towards this object, right? Okay. And then later on, it's an act, right? Well, you might think, well, okay, that's two ways: ability in two ways, and corresponding to that, act in two ways, right? Okay. And that's the distinction we saw before: first act and second act, then. Okay. So I'm able to know the Pythagorean theorem when I get into the geometry class for the first day, right?

[12:51] Or someday I'm in there anyway. I'm able to know it, right? But after I've learned the theorem, after I've gone through the proof, right? Then I'm able to know the theorem in other way, right? I'm able to think it how whenever I what? Want.

[13:15] You see? I usually do it during final exams, you know, kids are doing the final exams. They go through the proof of the Pythagorean theorem on the board. Just so I don't forget it. You see? But I'm in ability to understanding that theorem a different way than I was before I read Euclid.

[13:39] You see that? Because before I read Euclid, because I didn't discover it, but I learned it from another, right? Whether you discover it or learn it, there's a struggle there, right? And you can't think about it or understand it whenever you want to, right? But once you've learned it, really, really learned it from Euclid, or once you really discovered it by yourself, then whenever you want to, you can what?

[14:07] Think about that truth, right? So there's two kinds of what? Ability, right? The ability before you've learned or discovered, and the ability that you're in to think about this thing that you've learned or discovered are not actually thinking about now. Or there's two acts, you know. corresponding to that, right?

[14:34] One is the what? The possession of this science now, right? And the other is actually thinking about the things of which this science is a science of. Okay. So again, what Aristotle is pointing out, you know, something we talked about regarding the senses too, that there's two senses here of ability to act.

[14:58] So he's he's clarifying, you know, a little bit how reason goes from ability to act. It's not just there's ability and act. That's it. But there is what?

[15:10] An ability for your mind to be formed, right? By discovery or learning, and then the ability to think about these things once your mind has been what formed, huh? Okay. But second ability and first act are really the same.

[15:32] Hmm. Yeah, but you're not you're not thinking about this the same aspect of it when you say both, right? Okay. You know, one day the apostle says to our Lord, "Teach us how to pray," right? Okay. And so He taught them the words of the Our Father. He gave them the words of the Our Father, right? Okay. So as a child, maybe you memorized the Our Father, as some did, right?

[16:02] Okay. Now once you memorized the Our Father and understood the prayer to some extent, then you can use that prayer whenever you want to use it, right? Okay. And I think a lot of us have a certain number of prayers we memorized, and not every prayer we use we have memorized, but maybe a certain number of prayers that we use a lot. Um. I was noticing I was going to bring it up there.

[16:30] The the latest Pope speaks had the people addressed there that he gives every year to the. priests there the one that he gives for a Holy Thursday, yeah. So he was talking about the Eucharist there a little bit at the beginning. It's mainly about penance he was talking about. I don't know if you've seen it? But yeah, he's quoting the Thomas there, Adoro te devote that prayer, right?

[16:51] That's the prayer that Thomas apparently said. They think he said it when right after he consecrated. Okay, Now, I use it like when I go into you know a chapel,

[17:05] or a church, you know, before mass. You know, I tend to use it then because can't use it on the mass because mass is going on. You know, after the consecration, you know, but it's kind of way of you know, so I can use that prayer. I memorize that prayer. I can use that whenever I want to use it, right? Okay, but I'm not always saying that prayer.

[17:29] I may be saying some other prayer, not saying any prayer at all, right? Okay, so there's again you can make the same distinction there, right? Before I learned that prayer, I was in a certain potency, right? But after I learned the prayer, I'm not always saying that prayer, right? Right. So I'm able to say that prayer when I want to. So it's two kinds of ability there, isn't there?

[17:51] And two kinds of what act, right? I actually know that prayer. I think I do. Okay, See my Latin pronunciation, isn't good but I pretty well know what the words mean and everything, right? You see? See, I actually know the Our Father and the Hail Mary and a few other prayers. See, I'm not always actually saying them, right? So that's two kinds of act, two kinds of ability, right?

[18:18] So that's not too hard to understand, right? But it's important to see though those what distinctions. It's important to get to to ethics too, right? Because is happiness a habit, or is that you know which what virtue really is, or is it an act proceeding from and in accordance with a virtue? Which is it?

[18:47] What's the ultimate thing? See, the act proceeding from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Aristotle will not say that virtue, which is the habit, is happiness, right? Right. But then what virtue got to with happiness? Well, virtue enables you to do this act well, right? See, so when our Lord taught the apostles the words of the Our Father, and I assume they memorized the words, and that's how we got the words written down for us.

[19:21] Although Luke has a little less than Matthew, and and and what Mark and John don't have it all, right? But but but we follow Matthew's words, right? Now more. More distinct, more complete, but

[19:42] you know there is an ability to be actualized by those words, huh? Okay, so I mean this is a distinction. Once you see a distinction like that, Aristotle, you know, was comparing that earlier. He's talking about the senses, right? And he says, you know, the first act in the senses is when you are generated, right? And you and you get by nature, right, these senses, huh? And then you are ready to go to the second act right away.

[20:14] But the reason you have to what maybe acquire this habit before the act can be what perfect, right? That's why sensing is is easier, right, than understanding, huh?

[20:28] But the angel is is like that, like the one who's already. can. Think about whatever he understands. Actually, whenever he wants to, right? His mind is, as Dionysia says, right, filled with forms. We have to acquire these forms, and then we can think in accordance with them. But the angelic mind is created with already formed.

[21:00] Because there are many other ways the angelic mind is always more actual too. There's always something he's actually understanding, huh? But I don't know if we're always understanding much. So that ends the first of three parts here. Now, what he wants to say about the undergoing understanding, right? There's going to be an act of understanding to talk about later on. But what he's been mainly emphasizing is the fact that this is a what?

[21:40] An ability that is acted upon by its object, right? Okay. And because it's able to receive, in some way, all the material natures of these things around it, it itself can't have any material nature, huh? Okay. Just as the senses, right? Don't have the object that they're able to receive. Okay. Now, in 329 and 330, which are very brief but very profound and very important, he's going to say now, what is that object of reason, huh?

[22:20] Okay. And you obviously need Thomas's commentary here, right? You obviously need this to be unfolded a bit, huh? Aristotle is a little bit. What did the Kierkegaard say? I mean, a book would not be so long if it was not so short.

[22:55] But since the magnitude is other than big magnitude, and water and being water, now what does that mean, huh? Well, Aristotle has a phrase which you'll meet a lot in metaphysics, among other places. And he's talking about definition. He used the phrase "what was to be. " Okay.

[23:26] And it's kind of strange that he speaks that way, but I think there's a reason why he does, huh? If you go back to the second book of Natural Hearing, there, Aristotle is distinguishing the four kinds of causes, right? And the first kind of cause, and the most known kind of cause, is called what? Matter, right? Okay, and he defines matter as that from which something comes to be, and is inside of that thing, right?

[23:57] That from which something comes to be existing within it. So the metal chair came to be from metal, and the metal is within the chair, right? The wooden chair came to be from wood, and the wood is within it, right? And the brick wall, whatever it is, the fireplace came to be from bricks, right? And the bricks are in it, right? Okay. But in each of these cases, what came to be?

[24:29] A chair, a bookcase, a table. Was finally determined not by the material that it came to be from, but by the form or the shape that the what brick player or the carpenter or the metal worker gave, right? Okay. So what is this? We'd say it's a chair, right? But more in terms of its form than in terms of its being metal. Because what is that? A chair, right?

[25:01] Okay. So Aristotle has this phrase: "What was to be." It might be a chair. It might be a table, right? And it's determined by the form. So he tends to use that phrase, right? And then, for some, I won't say God forsaken reason, but for some

[25:21] reason, he a kind of contraction of that, right? Is what he'll say to be. We say sometimes translate by what being, right? Okay. But it'd be more clear to us if he was to say, but since magnitude and what a magnitude is are not the same, right? Okay. And water and what water is are not the same. Okay. There's some distinction between them, right? Okay. That's why he starts off by pointing that out.

[26:06] Now the two examples he gives are very significant because one is taken from mathematics, right? And the other is taken from what? Natural philosophy, right? Okay. So he's saying, for example, let's make it a little more time period. A circle.

[26:32] And what a circle is are not entirely the same. Okay, a circle, what a circle is, are other, huh? I'll be saying they're not the same. There's some distinction between that, right?

[26:55] And water, let's take an example. Water and what water is are not. You might want to say entirely the same, but not entirely the same, not completely the same. Okay.

[27:21] I know it doesn't make any difference, but example, I could say a square and what a square is are not entirely the same. A a man and what a man is are not entirely the same. A dog and what a dog is are not entirely the same, right? Now,

[27:47] why does he say that? Well, if let's say let's take an example, if Socrates, huh, and what a man is were entirely the same, if there's no difference at all between Socrates and what a man is,

[28:09] then to be a man you'd have to be Socrates. To be a man and to be Socrates would be the same thing. And is Socrates the only man around?

[28:24] If there's no difference between Champion, the great horse of Gene Autry, right? Do you ever meet Champion? I saw Champion in person one time, if I can say in person.

[28:38] My son was just out in Los Angeles there, and I guess they have now they have movie stars and their fingers or whatever it is, you know, in the cement, right? But they got then though Gene Autry's hands or feet or whatever it is, and and the hoof of Champion out there. So, but as a little boy, I went down to the Gene Autry the rodeo there and Champion the magnificent horse, you know.

[29:04] And at the end, you know, he he waved his hat, you know, and Champion went sideways all along the whole, a whole huge thing, you know. It's time. You never said I'll just get on. So, but is Champion and what a horse is the same thing, or is there some distinction? Yeah. If to be a horse was to be Champion, then Champion would be the only horse there is, right?

[29:34] You see that? That's where I was pointing out, right? What a horse is and a horse, not the same thing. We have this cat back here, Moppet, right? Now, to be a cat and to be Moppet, is that exactly the same thing? See what a cat is seems to be common to all cats, right? You can't simply say that what a cat is is identical with Moppet, right?

[30:07] Okay. Even though Moppet is a cat. Now the same thing is true with these mathematical things, right? Is a circle and what a circle is identical? Are they exactly the same thing?

[30:26] If they were, could there be two circles? Would you get through that first theorem? of Euclid? You know, where you're going to construct a what equilateral triangle on a straight line, and so you what rotate this line around this endpoint, and you rotate around the other endpoint, and you draw a line to the inside. But you have two circles there, right? So if a circle and what a circle is were identical, there's no distinction at all.

[31:00] Could there be two circles that we have here? If a circle like this circle right here, and what a circle were the same, then could the circle have to be this circle? This would be the only circle there is.

[31:19] So Aristotle is pointing out something very interesting, that in natural things, right, and in mathematical things, right, or more generally, you could say, in things sensed, or things what at least imagined, right, the thing and what it is are not identical. Okay. Now you have to see that, right, because you're going to point out that the senses or the imagination directly know a man or a dog, right, or a cat or a body of water, right, and the imagination knows directly a circle or a triangle or a square that you can imagine.

[32:16] But the reason knows what what a square is, what a circle is, right? And as knowing as we saw before, when it defines what a square is, it leaves out what's individual or singular in these things, right? When I define what a circle is, I don't put this circle or this circle or this circle or this circle in the definition, do I? I don't say it's something here rather than there, because that pertains to distinction between a circle and another a circle, right?

[32:57] You see? Okay. He's pointing out something very profound that most people have never seen clearly. By reason is knowing that what it is of a mathematical thing, or that what it is of a what natural thing, right? Or more generally, right? It's knowing what it is of a thing sensed, or the what it is of a thing imagined.

[33:29] Now, what Aristotle goes on to point out here is that our reason's own object. Is the what it is of a thing sensed or imagined,

[33:50] and therefore it doesn't understand what a thing is that cannot be sensed or imagined, although it might know something about a thing that cannot be sensed or imagined, but only by what reasoning, right, from the things that it can sense or imagine. But when it speaks about what those things are, right, it has to maybe speak by the likeness that they have to these things, right? But it's going to have to negate

[34:32] what belongs to the things sensed or imagined, like for example, when we talk about God, we say God what is incorporeal, right? God is not a what body, right? So we're understanding first what a body is, right, and then we reason from bodies in some way that we can see when we study the existence of God. But we understand more what God is not than what He is, and so we say God is what not a body, right?

[35:21] Even the words that might be affirmative grammatically, like God is simple, right? That's the first thing we have about God. Question three: actual existence,

[35:37] and like Saint Teresa of Avila says, right? God is altogether simple, and the closer you get to God, the simpler you become. Okay, the simplicity of the angel of the saints, huh? But when Thomas shows that God is simple, he shows that He's not composed as a body is composed. He's not composed of matter and form. He's not composed in any way, right? See, so it's really knowing more of what God is, what not what He is,

[36:13] as distinguished from what we call the what beatific vision, right? Where you know Saint John there is talking and was the first I think it is article or chapter three verse two something like that where he's saying we're the children of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be though. But when he appears, we should be like him, he says, for we shall see him as he is, right?

[36:41] When the church takes those words as you're referring to the beatific vision, right? There's two ways that Scripture speaks of this: on seeing God as He is, seeing Him face to face, right? Okay, immediate knowledge, huh? But this is a supernatural knowledge, is not our natural knowledge, right? Aristotle's talking about the natural knowledge of man, right? And the natural object of our reason, as he's going to go on to say, is the what it is of a natural thing, of the what it is of a mathematical thing, or you could say, perhaps more generally, the what it is of a thing sensed or imagined.

[37:25] That explains a lot of things, right? That explains why, as I've mentioned before, I think, why when we talk about God, as the great Dionysius says, and Thomas following him,

[37:42] no name is really what adequate to talking about God, huh? If we say God is good, that seems to imply that He has goodness, and therefore some distinction between the have and the had. But there is no distinction in God between God and His goodness, huh? But if we say God is goodness, well then we seem to be saying not that He's good, but that He's that by which something is good, because goodness signifies that by which the good is good, right?

[38:23] By good signifies what has the goodness, huh? Well, neither one fits God exactly, but we can't avoid using those words, so we say God is good because He really is good. He's not that just not just that by which something is good, but He is good Himself. But we also say He's goodness itself, because there's no composition between God and His goodness. God is whatever He has.

[38:52] But why do we have that funny way of thinking about God, right? Because the natural object of our mind is the what it is of a thing sensed or imagined, and in these things, what something is and what has that are not the same thing. You always have this composition of matter and form, and so all of our words reflect that. That's what we have the the what we call something as concrete, like good, and the abstract word like goodness, right?

[39:22] Or health and what healthy, right? So my body isn't health. But my body might have this disposition called health, right? This condition called health. And if my body has health, then my body is not health, but it is healthy, right?

[39:49] The same way, you know, if I have the virtue of justice, I am not the virtue of justice. I'm not justice itself, but I have justice. So we have those two kinds of words, right? Because the things we know, the things we know, the haveer and the had are not the same thing, right? And one word signifies what is had, and the other what has.

[40:21] He's denominated from it, but in God, the one who has something is what he has. And so we have to negate. So the great Dionysius and follows him in this regard, Dionysius said, all these words can be affirmed and denied of God, right? Okay, he can really be said to be. good. We can affirm that God is good because He really is good, right? But we can deny that God is good as far as what good meaning has goodness, right?

[40:54] Because that seems to imply a distinction, right? We can say that God is truly goodness itself because of simplicity, right? But we can deny that, and say this doesn't fit because goodness seems to signify that by which something is good, but God is not just that by which something is good; He's good Himself. You know, so as the great who is it? Is it Hillary or one of those?

[41:24] He says our mind stutters when it talks about God. Why does it stutter? Because our mind, what, is natural object, right? It's not adequate to talk about God. So we'll come back to three twenty-nine and three thirty, right? The second part here, but it's a little deduction, right? But think about that, right? Is a chair and what a chair is identical?

[41:53] This is a chair, right? Is this chair here, and what a chair is the same exactly? No, because then to be a chair, you'd have to be this chair. This chair. Yeah, we only have one chair. We really have a fight, wouldn't we?

[42:18] So this is a good place, though, because Thomas, as I say, divides this what we call Chapter Four here into these two parts, right? And the second part is beginning at three twenty-nine and three thirty, where he's going to talk about the object now more precisely of what reason. We know from the first part that it's in potency to its object, right? It receives its object, right, and he argues from that, but now he's saying more precisely what it is.

[42:46] But I sometimes summarize the teaching here by saying that reason's own object is the what it is of a thing sensed or imagined. That's why natural philosophy and mathematical philosophy are two basic kinds of philosophy, really.

[43:06] What it is of a thing imagined or a natural thing or a mathematical thing, primarily. That's why you know the early Greeks only thought, you know, that that's all it was. These things you can sense, or perhaps these things you can imagine, right? But that's it.

[43:40] Saint Francis knows all Franciscans, maybe. Okay, but that's because he, in some way, is the father of all Franciscans, or Dominic is the father of all Dominicans. Maybe he has a certain providence or concern over them.

[44:08] If you make an act of will, opening into your thoughts, is, isn't