De Anima (On the Soul)
46. De Anima III: The Agent and Possible Intellect, and the Natural Light of Reason versus Faith
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[0:00] and then the act undergoing understanding can receive that, right. So, when when uh, St. John says, "and this was the light" there in the first chapter, "this was the light that enlightens every man that comes into this world," right. Okay.

[0:24] He's talking about how the light of our mind, of our understanding, is derived from this other light, okay. This is the light which enlightens every man that comes into this world. But it seems in those words of St. John, he's not talking so much about the light of what faith, right? Although that comes from the same light, right? When he says, "and this is the light which enlightens every man that comes into this world," was every man that comes into this world enlightened by the light of faith?

[0:57] Say, okay. Now those who are who are enlightened by the light of faith, they're enlightened by this light, right? But there must be some other light, for by everyone that comes into this world, right, is enlightened,

[1:18] and that is what. Just like Aristotle calls here, the act of what, the acting upon understanding. In other words, he says this is like a what, a habit to us, a having, right?

[1:39] And it's like what, light, okay? So this refers then to what we sometimes call, I guess, in the text, the natural light of reason, huh?

[1:54] What is the natural light of reason, huh? This inborn light, huh? Well, it's really the acting upon what, understanding. Sometimes Thomas kind of appropriates those two things we saw: knowing, grasping, and judging, right? He appropriates grasping to the what, images in which are the what, determined natures of things that you can grasp, right? But he attributes judging, which is the perfection of knowing, to the natural light, light of reason, huh?

[2:38] And there's some things we can judge, right, by the natural light of reason, huh? That a whole isn't more than a part, right? That something cannot both be and not be the same time and in the same way, right? There's some things we can judge by the natural light of reason, and

[3:03] some of these things immediately, and others we have to what, reason out from the things we actually understand, huh? But then there's some things like

[3:18] the Trinity, let's say, and the and the incarnation, right? Which you're not able to judge by the natural light of reason, huh? And therefore we need some additional light, huh? And the light of faith is necessary to judge. Are there three persons in God? Yes or no? The natural light of reason we can't judge between those two, right? There are three persons in God. There are not three persons in God.

[3:46] Which is true, you know? Which is false? Judgment is what, the separation, right, of the true from the false there. But there are some separations that we can't make by the natural light of reason, and require the light of faith, huh?

[4:09] I was? Looking at the beginning of Thomas's commentary there on Isaiah, the the prophet, huh? I don't get the impression from what he says or what Jerome says, because he's following Jerome there, but that Isaiah says the greatest of the prophets. I don't know, but he's suddenly putting him very high. But he's talking about how this word vision is used in talking about the prophets, and how we carry words over from the sense of what sight, and so we carry the word vision over, and we would speak maybe of prophetic light that the prophet has.

[4:55] But that's something other than the what than the light of faith, the natural light of reason. But you have that same carrying over the word vision and the word what light.

[5:12] It makes an interesting comparison there too, because he says that there are three visions that can take place in the prophet. One is you can see something with his ordinary eyes, or you can see something in his imagination, right? But the main thing is to see something with his what reason, right? If he just had the the the imaginary vision, like the what the Pharaoh has, but doesn't understand what it's all about, you know, the visions that has to be interpreted by by the prophet, right?

[5:58] You know, but the man who has intellectual vision, he has the full power of prophecy. Right? You know, if Nebuchadnezzar, somebody sees something written on the wall, right? This is a supernatural vision, and it's not natural vision, right? But through his own eyes, right? But what does this mean, maybe? You know, well, it didn't interrupt the argument, I'm sure. It has to be fully understood. So he says, the man who has the intellectual vision, in addition to these other imaginary or even sight, he has what the full power prophecy, right?

[6:41] Just like he says, the soul, right? Huh? In the human soul, you have the full power of the soul. In the animal soul, you have only some of that power, and in the plant soul, even less, right? So he makes that comparison, right, between the the two. But I recall here primarily because he uses the word vision, right, in talking about the prophet.

[7:09] He's one who sees things that are far off. Procul Procul, he says, things that are far off. Is that the undergoing understanding? Yeah. Is itself actually immaterial? So is that? Is the immateriality of the undergoing understanding? The acting upon understanding? No, no, no, no. But it's it's very nature as we saw. The very nature of undergoing understanding is to be in what potency, right? Potency in the sense of able to undergo, right?

[7:57] Able to receive, right? So it's like very much like in the order of the understandable, like the first matter is that we talked about in the beginning of the first book of the actual Hearing, right? Like matter is in the sensible order, and the acting upon understanding is like an agent that you have in the actual world, right? It takes art as being more obvious to us, and that acts upon the matter, right?

[8:30] It makes the matter. You see, it's in form, right? So this is has ability to receive. Ability to undergo and this ability to act upon, right? Okay, within the order of the understandable.

[8:50] That's why our our understanding here is the lowest place of all, and why the understandings above us, they're by nature somewhat actual, right? And the higher you go, the more actual they are by nature. But the divine understanding is by nature what completely actual; it's pure act, right? Okay. The angelic understanding is like a combination of matter and form, right? Or the divine understanding is like pure form, but our understanding is like pure matter.

[9:37] It's in what potency, in ability, in the whole order of the what understandable. So that's a very important proportion there to help us understand these, right? But the more basic, you know, proportion is that the acting upon understanding is to the undergoing understanding something like art or the agent is to what matter, right? Okay, but the one in the sensible order and the other in the order of the understandable.

[10:13] Except it seems that it's the proportion really isn't exact because, as you were saying, it's not the acting upon understanding acting upon the undergoing understanding. No, yeah, but you could say that the images are are in a way like a what tool of the act of understanding, right? So by acting upon the what images and separating out right the universal natures of these things, that it in a way acts upon the undergoing understanding.

[10:48] Okay. Yeah. As opposed to the to the art, there say where the artist has the man's going to make a chair. He has the form already in an intelligible way in his art, right? You know, he has a in an understandable way the form of the chair he's going to put into the chair, right, or into the wood. Okay. Now, if the act of understanding had already

[11:19] the determinate natures of these things, right, then you wouldn't have to have images at all in order to acquire your knowledge. But then there'd be no reason for our soul to be joined to the body, You see? But because our soul is naturally.

[11:40] ordered to something that's only what potentially understandable, right? It's naturally joined to a body, so it can receive these things. So the kind of cooperation there between the images and the what act of understanding.

[11:58] And he'll point out when he goes on there in the next chapter. This is why, not the next chapter, the chapter after that. When he compares this with the senses, you'll see later on the reason why we don't understand without at the same time imagining.

[12:22] And this is what kind of confuses people as to what, as to the immateriality of the understanding. Okay, but but let's save that till we get to that point. He's going to hint at it at the end of this reading here, right? I still don't see why the the undergoing understanding is actually immaterial, right? Yeah, but in the in the order, yeah, that's true. But in the order of the of the understandable, it's something only in what potency.

[13:05] Okay, so it's. That's a little bit like saying that matter is is what is in the sensible order, yeah, in a way, yeah. But it's like potency there, right, in the sense of order. The undergoing understanding is like that.

[13:23] That's why it's proper object is that what it is is something material. It doesn't actually understand what an angel is, what God is? It understands them more by you know analogy and by negation,

[13:43] in relation to these material things. But it is actually a certain immaterial nature. Yeah, you can say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So kind of. That's that's what he's reasoning there. See, that's what he's reasoning because he says, "In this mind, referring now to the active understanding, is separate from and pass on next you see? And the reason he gives for the making the maker, you could say it better, I think, is always more honorable than the what the one undergoing, and the principle meaning the active mover, right?

[14:20] Than the what matter, right? Okay. So in a sense, he's already shown in the previous readings that the undergoing understanding is immaterial, right? Okay. But it's immaterial, but nevertheless, what in potency to receiving its object, right? But a fortiori, the power that makes its object actual, right, is going to be something immaterial. And in addition, as it says in the fourth thing, it's going to be as act, right, as hexis I'm trying to understand the word hexis there.

[15:05] How do you do that? Okay. So let me guess. Why can't there just be one understanding, which, insofar as it its immaterial nature, it's able to separate things, but it doesn't have any. But even if it has immaterial nature, its nature is to be like a tablet, right?

[15:41] That's in potency or an ability to what its object. Just as the senses were, right? Okay. In the case of the senses, you don't really need an active sense because they're being acted upon by the material things around them. Okay. Now, if the understanding or reason, as we usually call it, but the undergoing understanding here to be more precise, now we have to introduce that, right? Way of speaking.

[16:20] The early Greeks, you know, they spoke as if it was acted upon by these sensible things too, and therefore they didn't really distinguish between the senses. huh? They're both kind of a material body, right? Okay.

[16:41] But as you study the senses, which are undergoing too, right? You realize that the senses have to be what free of their particular object, right? In order to what receive it, huh? So that my tongue can't be salty or sugary or sweet or bitter or oily, right? If I want to taste all those things, right?

[17:14] And the same way my eyes have to be free of of color there, right? Huh? The liquid there to receive all these colors, huh? And then he argues, well, then the undergoing understanding, since it receives the natures of all material things, huh? It must be lacking all those natures, huh? But its nature is to be able to receive them. Okay. Therefore, at least in the order of the understandable, it says potency is ability, and therefore it's proportional to what to matter.

[17:48] As matter is in the sensible world, so this is in the understandable world. It says mere what ability or potency. A different kind of potency, I was in this one here,

[18:03] and therefore it can't bring itself to have right what it doesn't have, right? The old saying is what nothing what. gives what it does not have, right? So it can't give itself all these natures of material things it doesn't have, any more than the eye can give itself the colors of what things around it. But has to receive them from something else, because its nature is to be able to receive these.

[18:41] Yeah. But then there has to be something that is able that is that is if there's that ability there, which is going to be actualized, and the thing can't actualize itself, then there has to be something which is analogous to the art or the agent in the natural world that makes something actually right visible. Now, in Plato's understanding, since he had a world of forms, these forms could be to the undergoing understanding like the exterior sensible is to the what, sensible, and they can be acted upon directly.

[19:23] Once Aristotle saw that that didn't really make sense to say that what a man is exists in separation from from men and from matter and from our mind in a world by itself, then he realized that what a man is is separated from this man and that man and the next man only what in the understanding part of the soul. And that's why he said, you know, it's not bad those who say that the what soul is the place of forms, right?

[19:59] Rather than the world by themselves, right? That the soul is the place of the universals. That's what the universals are, right? But those universal forms that are received in the undergoing understanding, it can't give itself those, right?

[20:20] Nor can the images give it to them, right? Because all the images contain, in some way, these determined natures of material things they're not actually like, understandable until what it is has been separated from the material conditions.

[20:44] And so that's why we need this other power here. Aristotle was forced, in a sense, by the truth itself, to there being another power there. Once he saw that Plato was mistaken in having this world of forms. You see, if you read the Republic of Plato, he kind of compares the the soul there to a man turning around, right? And the soul was looking towards material things, right?

[21:16] But it can't really know those things because they're material and always changing. And then you start to turn the soul around, and now the soul is looking at the what mathematical world, huh?

[21:34] And there you're starting to get something more, less material, right? And then finally you turn the soul all the way around, and now it's at the world of forms. Okay? Now

[21:53] that's not the natural way for our soul to know, so far as it can know, naturally, these immaterial things, huh? So Aristotle said you have to go through the sensible things, huh, to the immaterial world. You have to reason from the material things to the immaterial things,

[22:22] and whatever we know about those immaterial things is by going through the sensible things that we come to know. Okay. We can't know them very well, right? But we know that they are, and something by likeness about them, and primarily though by some negation, right? You know their immateriality. But Plato was saying like we can kind of you know turn away from those things and go directly, okay?

[22:59] Now there might be some kind of supernatural knowledge of that sort, right? Huh? And and one example of that is is St. Paul in the Epistle to the Corinthians, right? He said, "No man, you know, was caught up to the third heaven, right? Whether in the body or not, he doesn't know, right? Okay. But notice he was what drawn up supernaturally, right? And Augustine and Thomas said that he actually saw God face to face, but in a kind of transitory way, okay?

[23:37] He's carried up to the third heaven, right? Okay. But that's not a natural knowledge of the higher things, huh? See? So Plato, in a sense,

[23:54] you could say he's mistaken, right? As to what reason can actually do, right? It can't, as the word, abandon the sensible things and naturally come to know the immaterial things, huh? It would have to like St John of the Cross or something, the Dark Night of the Soul, right? Huh? You know, mortify yourself, right? Huh? And so far as possible, right, withdraw from your attachment to the material world, huh?

[24:31] Okay. Like so many saints, they put ashes in their food and so on, right? Taking no, no pleasure in their food, right? Huh? Okay.

[24:43] But then you definitely pulled up by God, right? To see something, right? You see, and this would be, hey, what? Not through the natural light of reason anymore. You see. So there's a certain

[25:01] attraction the way Plato speaks for the Christian author, right? Because he sees something resembling, right? But Saint Paul and so on. But there's a certain danger in that, right? Because Plato is speaking as if you know the soul can gradually turn itself around, as if by itself it can come to know the immaterial things directly, even in this life, right?

[25:27] Which is impossible for naturally to do, that right? So there could be a kind of a what? Temptation to pride there too, huh? In the Platonists huh? But but nevertheless, there's a certain likeness, right? To what we say would happen to the soul by some kind of supernatural action, right? Very doubtful. huh.

[25:57] But you know, you about these saints there, you know, they're even physically they elevate off the ground, right? And and that's a very outward sign of something more than natural taking place within, right? Huh? But they're being separated from this world, right? Huh? Withdrawn from their senses, huh? But that's not the natural way for reason to know. At least when the soul was in the body, right?

[26:29] It naturally turns to images, huh? That's interesting. Thomas talks about that too. He quotes Dionysius, huh? In the I think it's when he's discussing the Jerome's prologue to the to Isaiah, right? And how Isaiah's excels the other prophets in a number of ways, huh? You know, the one way is by his sensible images that he projects, huh? You know, and then he quotes Dionysius about the importance of these sensible what images, huh?

[27:04] I mean, even our Lord when uses parables, he's using what sensible images to teach something, huh? That's only one excellence of Isaiah, right? He's also so clear in his prophecies, you know, that some of the church fathers say he's like a fifth gospel sometimes. You see, some of the passages I've quoted, you know, about the passion and so on of our Lord. So there's other ways that they might excel many of the other prophets too, right?

[27:36] I was referring to this one way where he's what using the sensible images and how necessary that is. Thomas quotes Dionysius to that effect. Yeah. It seems also perhaps important to distinguish the turning your mind away from sensible things or turning your will

[28:01] from attachment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is possible for God supernaturally to illumine the soul, right? Not through images, huh? Even the work like you know the the Apocalypse there, you know, I mean they're they're quite a sense of images. Was in chapter six there, Isaiah, you know, where he sees the Lord sitting, right?

[28:30] Okay. Now, what's he doing in 338? Well, this is really a third thing now. Before chapter five, he talked about the undergoing understanding, okay. Which before we know about that one, we might just call the understanding or reason, right? But then in the first two parts here, first two numbered parts there, he's talking about there's got to be this other kind of understanding, right? The active part, the acting upon understanding.

[29:10] And then he spoke about the nature that it was, right? That's immaterial, that substances act and so on, right? Now in the next paragraph here, next two paragraphs really, but the next one primarily, he's talking about the two together, right? And about that part of the soul, therefore, whereby we actually understand. And that involves what both of these, huh?

[29:41] He's going to say some interesting things about this, huh? The first thing he says is that signs in act, right, is the same as the thing.

[30:06] However, according to potency, it is before in time. In the mind that goes from what ability to act, right? But then he says very subtly, yet universally is not before in time. Okay. Now,

[30:33] this is something that Aristotle in a very universal way illuminates, right? In the ninth book of wisdom, the ninth book of wisdom is a universal consideration of ability and act. Take me ability here now in the passive sense, right? Okay. And in the ninth book of wisdom, it has really basically three parts, huh? And the first part is mainly just about ability. And the second part is about what act, right?

[31:22] And the third part is about the order of ability and act. Okay. And there Aristotle will point out how act is before ability in definition, huh? And how act is before ability in goodness, huh? How it's better and so on. But then when he comes to talk about in time, he says, well.

[31:48] In some way, ability is before act in time. But simply speaking, act is before any ability. What does that mean? But he goes on to explain.

[32:01] In the thing that goes from ability to act, ability comes before act in time. Okay. Okay. And so, in the senses, for example, and in our reason, right, they are able to know before they actually know. Okay. In that sense, ability is before act in time. He's saying that in particular here, right? Man is able to understand in time before he actually understands. Every student knows that, right?

[32:57] You're able to understand before you actually understand in time, and sometimes, you know, that's a long time. You don't get to the second one, right? There's no problem about seeing that.

[33:08] But then he goes on to point out, huh? How does something go from ability to act? Well, it goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act.

[33:25] Because what is only in ability doesn't have the act yet, right? So it can't give itself the act it doesn't have. So there must be something before it already in act. And if that must be ability to act, there had to be something before it. So in the beginning, you have something that is an act without ever going from ability to act.

[33:51] And that's true in the order of of being, and it's true in the order of of knowing, right? There's something he's hinting that actually knows and understands without ever having been what in ability to understand before. And that's of course ultimately the divine mind, right? Okay. So he always has in mind, huh, what the ultimate goal of all philosophy is, right, huh? And even if you read Aristotle in the biology books, there when he's, you know, doing anatomy, right, and seeing the order within what the parts of an animal or plant and these kind of things, but he has in mind, you know, that one wants to see the order that there is in the parts of animals in order to admire the mind that

[34:45] what. Designed that what order that we find in the animals, huh? So he has in mind, right, the divine mind, huh? That's the end of the goal, to know the divine.

[35:01] My old teacher Kasurik used to have a nice little passage from Albert the Great, you know, where he said that if you study anything, right, for any other reason other than know God, unless he says you'd be forced to it by some necessity, right, you have a perverse attitude, he says, towards knowing.

[35:27] So everything else we study, we study for the sake of a wisdom, right? And wisdom is ultimately a knowledge of what, of God, huh? So I'm always quoting that little passage of Thomas where he says, I studied the body so I can study the soul. Which is a better thing than the body, right? And I study the soul so I can study the angels. And I study the angels so I can study God.

[35:55] But that's it. Like what you know, Bernard Clairvaux says, you know, and there's no love of God. He says the reason why God should be loved is is God.

[36:16] That's the reason why God should be loved. Nothing else. Okay. So it's beautiful, huh? What are you seeing here? First, he says that science and act, which is a result of the activity of both of those powers, right? It's the same as the thing, right? Yeah. Same in what sense? Well. the same number form. Yeah, I receive the natures of these things, right? So I have the natures of these things.

[36:53] So in some sense, I become all things, right? But in a spiritual way, not in a material way, right? But that that's what's marvelous about this, huh? Is that material things have only their own nature, right? But I have the nature of dog and cat and horse and so on because I what can receive all these natures in my understanding, huh? And that's why later on, you know, we anticipate a bit.

[37:20] But later on, when he gets through with consideration of this part of the soul, he's going to say the soul is in some way all things, right?

[37:30] Because the senses, in a way, are all sensible things, right? So the eye, in a way, is all colors. Why matter can only receive one color, and it's going to receive another color. It's got to lose the one it has, right? But the senses can receive all the qualities of that of their object, right? Under their object. So the eye, in a sense, is all colors, and the tongue is all tastes, right?

[38:03] Flavors, and here is all sounds, huh? So my ear is all Mozart, right? In some way. I can't be all Mozart at once, though, right? I got to keep on playing when they're they're playing the 102. 5 there. They're playing the 16th sonata there, you know, Köchel one B flat there, Köchel 570. So I'm just when I was driving up there. Really, really beautiful. Do you know that sonnet?

[38:37] Son. Actually, when my daughter was at the Trivium school and of course, she's taking piano all these years and so on, and so they always have a little recital there, you know, parents come and you get to play a little piece or not. Well, I said she's going to play the second movement of that B flat thing. So the music teacher says, and now he says. You know, Mr.

[39:03] Burckhardt always has a Mozart piece for us to hear. It's really beautiful that second. You know, it starts out. I get. I won't even try to imitate. But you know, it starts off this very, very beautiful melody, right? And it goes through once or twice, and then all of a sudden, it comes out underneath it another melody, right? You realize how profound this whole what mood is that he's got there, right?

[39:29] And then finally goes back to original ones. He says, "No, he's saying this is a interesting melody, but underneath it, there's all this other meaning, you know, just just beautiful, beautiful the way he does that. "

[39:45] There's Nicklaus last piano sonata he wrote. So in a way, all these sounds of Mozart, right, Palestrina, and the rest of it, right, you know,

[39:59] and my eyes are in a way all these, you know, get this beautiful fall foliage, right. It's all these colors, right, and all these paintings in the museum, right. You see.

[40:11] You know how people sometimes, you know, they're in a place where they're, they go to museum many times, you know, and they go and look at these paintings, and they go home at night and they get all these paintings in their what. Now as a freshman in college, the English professor, his son was orphaned in Spain, and he was going to the, was it the Prado, I guess, in Madrid there, then famous thing, and he was writing his father, you know, letters about these paintings, you know, these great paintings in this particular museum, right.

[40:41] Back a while, it become a part of you, right? All these beautiful paintings you see, you know. And even more so by the reason, right? Because the reason, in a sense, becomes the nature of all things. So.

[41:03] So science enacted is the same as the thing. However, according to potency, it is before in time in one, and there he's referring to our mind, right? Because our mind is what, like the senses, is able to know before it actually knows, right?

[41:23] Yet universally, it is not prior in time. He's hinting at the fact that there's some understanding, right? There's some mind that actually understands without ever being what. In the state of being able to understand before it actually understands.