De Anima (On the Soul)
51. Imagination vs. Thought: Truth in Statements, Universal vs. Singular, Words and Metaphor, Music, and Loving Reason and Wisdom
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/051-imagination-vs-thought-truth-in-statements-universal-vs-singular/

[0:00] So now it's interesting the way our text proceeds here, because in 258 he says imagination is different from affirmation and negation. For the true or the false is an entwining of thoughts. The Greek word is symploke right? The one that I'm so fond of from the categories.

[0:30] Here he says it's symploke noematon. I think we pointed out before. Before he called it a synthesis, a putting together of thoughts, right? Now he says it's an intertwining, intertwining of thoughts. So is an image true or false?

[0:52] But this statement in the mind is either true or what? False. So if I imagine a glass mountain, right? Is it true or false?

[1:13] Strictly speaking, is it true or false? If I say there are glass mountains in the world, But that's not an image. no. See, that's a statement, huh? See, and that's either true or false, huh? See, if I imagine a unicorn, true or false? I'm not saying that something is or is not, right? So truth means that you're saying what is is, and what is not is not.

[1:44] And falsehood means you're saying that what is is not, or what is not is. Well, the image doesn't say that something is or isn't, does it? So it's it's very clear there that the image is not this kind of thought, right? Okay. Now, in the last paragraph, he doesn't really point out what the distinction is there, although Thomas does, huh? But by what well, the first thoughts differ so as not to be phantasms, huh?

[2:22] What would be the thought, say, of what a man is, or the thought of what a stone is, or the thought of what a triangle is? This is the example of that Locke is not seeing, right? Yet neither are those first thoughts phantasms, right? But they are not without phantasms, right? Now, the difference there Thomas makes it explicit but Aristotle knows it, I'm sure. That the thought is what

[2:51] of the universal, okay? And the image is of the what singular, right? Not only do I imagine a particular kind of triangle, right? But I imagine individual of that particular kind, right? Okay. Now it's interesting, huh? If you remember logic, you know, we talked about three acts of reason, right? And the first act of reason is understanding what something is. And the second act of reason is understanding the truth or the false.

[3:30] And in that second act, as he says, putting together or intertwining, intertwining two things understood by the first act, right? So I understand what a man is, I understand what an animal is, I understand what a stone is, right? And then I put these together and say a man is an animal, or a man is not an animal, right? Or a man is a stone, or a man is not a stone, right?

[3:55] And then I have something true or false, right? And then I put together these statements and I start to reason, right? Okay. But in distinguishing between imagining and thinking. He goes in the what reverse order, right? Because if you look back when he first distinguished imagining and thinking, he says I can imagine something without having any reason for imagining it. I can imagine a terrorist out there without having any reason to think there's a terrorist out there, right?

[4:26] But I can't really think that there's a terrorist out there without having some reason to do so. You see, I can imagine myself into a terrible accident on the highway the way home today. You know, semi trucks coming in both ends, and you know, but I've got reason to think that that is going to happen, right? To me on the way home, I was I stay here.

[4:50] Oh no! If I thought it was going to happen, I was going to get hit by semis, right? You see, I have a reason to think I'm going to get hit by semis, huh? And I don't have at the moment, anyway, any reason to think that there's going to be two semis coming at either ends at that intersection. where you kind of are going to be. Go down there.

[5:07] It's got 25 miles speed limit. You know, So so there gives them plenty of time to get you. If they're coming down the other highway, right? You know, going too fast, huh? You see.

[5:18] So he first distinguishes between the third act and imagining, right? And it's kind of easier to see, huh? And then he comes to the second act here in 358, where there's truth or falsity, right? And that's easier to see too, right? The most difficult thing to see is how what the image is of the singular, and the thought is of the what universal. And that's where Locke is having his difficulty there, right?

[5:45] Huh? Because he's trying to imagine, right, the universal. We don't have an image of the universal as such. We always have the image of a particular kind of triangle, and not even of that, but of an individual of that particular kind.

[6:07] But I have a thought of a particular kind of triangle, and even I have a thought of triangle in general. But the thought is of the what universal. But notice that follows from the fact that the that the thought is of the what it is, right? And what it is of a sensible or imaginable thing, of a natural or mathematical thing, is something universal. What a triangle is or what a man is, right?

[6:36] Something common. That's the most fundamental difference and the most but the most difficult to what see, right? Huh? You see that? I think it's kind of marvelous to see the way Aristotle proceeds, huh?

[7:01] And that's why, again, coming back to Shakespeare's definition of reason there, he defines reason not by its knowing the universal, but by what discourse, right? Which is, you know, knowing one thing to another, right? Huh? Say. But you're not doing that when you imagine, right? So you're not in the way of a reason anymore. But you can see how imagining, you know, in a way resembles discourse a bit, because in imagining I could take, you know, I've I've seen gold and I've seen mountains, and then I kind of form this image of a gold mountain, right?

[7:46] Say. And that's a little bit like what reason does, right? Putting together thoughts, huh? There's a sumploke right? As I say, you see also in the way we speak in English. How we do use the word "what"?

[8:10] Imagine thinking sometimes. You know, think they're going to win the game this Saturday. I think so. Yeah, I imagine so. Yeah, yeah. Do you think Santos is going to be reelected? Yeah, I think so. I imagine so. Just they meant the same thing, right? Right. I was mentioning I was looking at partridge there. You know, the etymological dictionary and the word "think" thought. You know, and talk about me think.

[8:35] You know, seems to me right. Kind of has that sense almost of of the words that Aristotle uses in talking about the phantasm, right? So they're very similar. And a good place in Shakespeare where you see that use is is in the the prologues there in Henry the Fifth, right, where he's trying to get the audience, you know, to fill in what he can't represent on the stage fully, right?

[9:03] Where you see a couple of guys, you know, whacking them with the swords, you know, imagine you know two armies, you know, and get two two nations here at war, you know, a hundred years war and so on, and imagine the horses, you know, their hoofs, you know, putting in the sand and so on, and but but he's appealing to their imagination, right, to fill out the picture, but sometimes use the word "image" and sometimes the word "what" thought there, right?

[9:30] Just it just kind of naturally does it, and you wouldn't notice that I mean unless you're a philosopher or something like that, because we tend to to use them in that kind of a interchangeable way.

[9:48] So it's really most necessary to to separate those two. And see when Locke uses the word "idea," there you see "idea" there is is often English that can be used referred to a thought or to an image,

[10:09] and there's a likeness between those two, and the fact that when you think, you have to imagine, right? That's another reason why you tend to confuse these two. You don't have one without the what other, right? You don't have a thought without an image anyway. You know,

[10:32] I guess Dr. Burkes that something about that seems puzzling to me that you never have a thought without an image, and that seems like sometimes some sort of like sort of understanding a thing intuitively all at once sometimes seems to happen without imagination or image. Is it just one is unaware of what's going on? Well, yeah, you're not really concentrating on the image in that sense, but what you're understanding, you know.

[11:06] But there's kind of a reason why you don't think without an image, huh? What would that be? The reason why? Well, that is that the object of the reason is the what it is, as something sensed or imagined, right? I think you have to understand that through the help of that proportion that we gave earlier, right? See, what is the object of the eye? See, you know, it's the color of something outside the eye, right?

[11:36] Right. And so does the eye see the color of your clothes or the color of the bricks over there without the bricks? No, the bricks aren't either. All the bricks have to be there for the. Yeah, yeah. And the reason knows the what it is of something sensed or imagined. So that what is sensed or imagined is to thinking, like the exterior bricks are to the eye, right?

[12:06] And so I don't see the color of the bricks without the bricks being there. I don't understand the what it is as something sensed or imagined without imagining it, at least.

[12:23] If if the what it is was like Plato thought, existing the world by itself, right? And our soul was knowing it by being in contact with that world, then it would know the universal, the what it is, without turning to the what images, right? Right. But if it doesn't make sense to say that there is

[12:54] man himself by himself, as Plato calls him, if doesn't make sense, because the nature of man to be material, right? And this man himself by himself cannot even be material. Then he wouldn't be himself, would he? Yeah. But man is. Okay. So.

[13:22] See, once you understand that, then you you understand a lot of other things, you know. Um. You know, why why does man have to express his affection, let's say, with a hug or a kiss or something like this, right? I say, or a handshake or something, right? You know. It's because he's he's not an angel, right? But he's an animal with reason, huh? And this is why, you know, they speak of the sacraments as being what proportion to man, huh?

[13:57] Right. That he needs a sensible sign, right? In order to um um to receive grace, right? Even though I presume the grace is being received. In the soul rather than the body, right? But nevertheless, you know, it's appropriate to man to receive it through a sensible sign, and it's kind of interesting when Aristotle talks about definition and statement and syllogism and logic. There, he's always talking about the definition in words, not the definition in thoughts. He's talking about the statement in words, right?

[14:40] When he defines it, he doesn't define it as a like he speaks here in the dynama as a synthesis or symploke of noemata, of thoughts, but he defines it as a phone, a vocal sound, you know. A statement is vocal sound, you know. And generically speaking, right, he's going to signify the true or the false, but it's it's vocal sound he's talking about there. And I always quote those words, you know, of

[15:16] Prospero to either Prospero. There's some question about whether the lines belong to Prospero or to Miranda. But until they taught Caliban to speak, he didn't even know his own thought.

[15:31] So, you know, I certainly don't know what you think if you can't put it into words, right? But do you know what you yourself think until you put it into words, right? And when I try to define something, I've got to define it in words, right? Even though the definition might involve this condition of thoughts, right? I can't inspect my thoughts without using words.

[16:02] And when I, you know, I think about something, I'm in the way thinking in words, right? And you know, a sign of that is is you know how commonly the human mind is deceived by the equivocation of a word. And I say all the time with my my students, and how easily they're deceived by the equivocation of words. The general, in particular, you know, I hear there sometimes the thing.

[16:33] They all think Aristotle is contradicting himself, and they can't distinguish the two senses of particular and general. But only a mind that depended upon the senses could be deceived. You know, the thinking that there's one thing there, or even one thought there, that there's one word. What's his name? You know, Marx and Engels. You know, they read Feuerbach. you know, enthusiastically when they were young, right? And Feuerbach's syllogism is basically what: man's mind is infinite; the infinite is God; therefore, man's mind is God.

[17:15] And this is the first little work called "The Essence of Christianity," right? Where Feuerbach says the secret of Christianity is not that God became man, but that man himself is God. So you can see the enormous pride here, you know. I mean, we see enormous pride in that thing, but from a logical point of view, it's.

[17:38] The fallacy of equivocation, right? And the way in which man's mind is infinite, and the word "infinite" when you say "infinite" is God is not the same meaning, right? But deceives everybody, kind of, you know, Marx and Engels and so on. huh? I mean. A little bit of pride helps to

[18:00] to to be deceived in this flattering way, but shows you how dependent the mind is upon the senses. They can be deceived by something.

[18:23] Okay. So next time we'll go on to the. He's going to go on now to talk about the but the motive powers and the appetite, huh? Basically, he's through talking about the senses and reason by themselves. Now he's going to talk about what moves the animal, right?

[18:45] Some ends it now. Some ends up with those words. At the words, of went to listen to Jerome because he had a beautiful Ciceronian style, I guess. With the words, they were taking in, you know, the wonderful style. I think the thoughts correspond to those words. You know, that's how Augustine speaks, right? Huh? And Augustine's, you know, you know, pretty good mind, you know. But even him, right?

[19:09] You know how important the words are there. I always always joke about that. You know, when you hear these things in French, you know, you're not too good in your French, you know, but you maybe understand the guy's saying. But doesn't seem to be to come home until you get into English, right? And

[19:33] and that's why you use the metaphors all the time because that just appeals to the imagination. They see the image and maybe that's pleasing. Yeah, yeah. Now you see the thing that's striking there in the in the Summa there, and the first question is the objection is that Scripture should not use metaphors, right? Because Scripture is the highest teaching of all, and poetry is infima doctrina, the lowest teaching.

[20:02] And what's appropriate to the lowest should not be used in the highest, right? And Thomas, you know, the answer he gives there is that what they're dealing with things that are but beyond reason, right? But in the case of poetry, things that are below reason, and therefore outside of reason, right? And theology, things that are above reason, right? So in a way, it's for contrary reasons that we what do that, right?

[20:41] Just like when when Judas kisses Christ, right? I said you betrayed the Son of Man with a kiss, right? So he's using the kiss for the opposite of love, right? To betray the man, huh?

[20:56] So the metaphor is used in those two because they're beyond reason, but different directions, huh? Alfred Jim Francis used to say, you know, you tell her, I can't understand you, you know. They like that, he says, you know. But why can't you understand them? It's

[21:25] because they're all way above you. You're way above the earth because they're they're below reason. Saint Thomas said one place that says you can corrupt someone's understanding by corrupting their imagination. Yeah. Well, you'll speak of you know false imagination is kind of the fundamental cause of error on the side of the knowing powers, huh?

[21:58] And but you can see kind of you know connection here between imagining and thinking, right? And therefore, it's going to be an abundant source of error.

[22:13] Corrupt someone's understanding by corrupting their imagination. For one reason, everyone should listen to music, right? But it seems you have in the in the politics or in the book there, eventually three reasons, right? And one is as a relaxation, right?

[22:44] Um. And Aristotle compares it to the use of music. I mean, to the dance and so on, right? Okay. And then he talks about music for moral education, huh?

[23:03] And then he talks about it being a diagoge, right? Of course, you don't have Thomas's commentary in the later books of the politics, you know. Thomas's commentary breaks off in book three, right? But diagoge translated literally into Latin is deductio.

[23:30] Well, it kind of struck me the day I was thinking about it again that music is a preparation for the moral life, right? And for the life of the mind, right? And the second reason Aristotle gives is in terms of the moral life, huh? It's moving our emotions in a way that is both pleasing to the emotions, but also in harmony with reason, right? And therefore, it's disposing us, at least in a remote way, for moral virtue, and for those moral virtues that restrain and order the passions, right?

[24:12] But then, insofar as music has order in a beginning, middle, and end, right? So on is preparing us for the life of the mind, right?

[24:23] We, you know, very high thing you could say about music. Aristotle says painting does doesn't do this at all to the degree that music does, and that's not be a preparation for the moral life or the, excuse me, the life of the mind.

[24:45] Listening, listening to Fantasia there, the Marquis there was it three ninety seven there. Very important, we have a CD, you know. I'm marvelous. He said it, you know. Was kind of like like preparing the life of the mind, you know. And I used to joke, you know, that the the D major quintet of Mozart, the Köchel 593 there, gives me the emotions of the philosopher at work, right?

[25:28] And I, at the time, playfully, I would say that, you know, but it really is something very much like that, right? Well, you look at the at the five of the last six symphonies there. Three D what? Six. Three D what? Yeah, thirty six, thirty eight, thirty nine, forty, forty one, right? That's really the most clearly part of moral education, huh? Really something when he does it in those pieces.

[26:30] Yeah, how how important how important uh music is. I think the same thing we said about Shakespeare's plays, right? Shakespeare's plays are like, like Paul the sixth said, you know, the really more education. It's really really impressive, you know. At the same time, the you know Shakespeare's plays are also a preparation of the life of the mind, huh? But you have to you have to admire Mozart and Shakespeare that they could do that.

[27:00] And I mean, they're kind of the par excellence example of how music and fiction can be both of those things, huh? You know, at least a remote disposition for the moral life, right? And at least a remote disposition for the life of the mind, huh?

[27:21] I was thinking, you know, I got to give the freshmen their taste, you know. Of course, we do this that brings into wisdom, right? Aristotle brings into reason, and Shakespeare's education uses reason, right? And that I have to

[27:40] see what they can do with the idea of is the love of wisdom and the love of reason separable? Can you love one without loving the other?

[27:56] They know the something someone wisdom is from the thing, and they know somewhat what reason is from Shakespeare's education. We've gone through that. I sometimes, you know, use the moneaducts there. Can you love health without loving your body? Can you love your body without loving health?

[28:21] Makes sense. Do I really love my body without health? Could I really love health without loving my body? So could I really love wisdom without loving reason? If wisdom is the greatest good of reason, huh? And could I love reason without loving wisdom?

[28:52] And then, then the other thing. Once you get into that, now I'm going to give this, but I mean, for complete thing, you might want to see. Can you love reason without loving distinction and order? Or can you love distinction order without loving reason? In the same way, can you love wisdom without loving distinction and order? Suppose it's this order, all right. And can you love distinction order without loving wisdom?

[29:21] See, so those gloves, I think, are really inseparable, basically. Okay, then you go to next thing, but but set those three, you know, to division. Now, can you love yourself without loving what? Reason. You

[29:47] see, if you love to sleep and feed is your chief good. You know, you're loving yourself as a beast, right? So you're really loving yourself, since you're not a beast. You see.

[30:10] It's in the Psalms, if I'm right, isn't it? Where it says, "The man who loves iniquity hates his own soul, " isn't it in the Psalms? I don't

[30:31] know exactly where it was, but I think it appears at least twice in the Psalms. Do you remember that or not? I'm just gonna be old man, not forgetting. You know. I don't remember the verse, but I don't remember where it is. Yeah, it goes in on the Psalms. But and it's interesting, right? You see,

[30:51] because since iniquity is is the evil of the soul, right, the bad of the soul, right. Like say, you know, can you love sickness and love your body? See, the man who loves sickness hates his own body, right? To have to say, right. Now, maybe

[31:25] one couldn't be that that mistaken, right, to love sickness, right? But if you did love sickness, then you would hate your own body, wouldn't you?

[31:38] Because to love the body is to wish good to the body. To hate the body is to wish evil to it, right? You know, and

[31:51] so if man is an animal with reason, he can't love himself without loving reason, and he can't love reason without loving wisdom, right? So you got to be a philosopher if you love yourself.

[32:06] We got to be somewhat careful about something because I don't, you know, I want to say we got to be a philosopher, right? I mean, the thing you said there, right? You know, you keep thinking about this. You know, I mean, I mean, this thing may may seem

[32:25] what's love of wisdom got to do with me, right? You know, or maybe you can't love yourself unless you love wisdom, right? And and basically, you know, if wisdom is a knowledge of God, right,

[32:45] then the beatific vision, right, seeing God as He is, as Saint John says, seeing God face to face, as Saint Paul says, maybe that's most of all wisdom for us, right?

[33:06] So, you know, unless you you love that vision of God as He is, that vision of God as eternal life, right? Um, maybe you don't really love yourself, right? I

[33:24] see Shakespeare's most profound, you know, statement of this is in the the dream of Richard the Third. Do you know that? I don't remember. Because it's on that, right? Does Richard really love himself, right? And fools think well thyself, right? You know, but then he he's done all these evil things, right? So you know, so he's really seeing in a in a sense in a unusual mode of clarity, right?

[33:59] Because in the dream there, um, that he's to really love himself Yeah it's going to be very interesting. just think this is the state of of mind that he's in there right now. Um.

[34:22] So I was telling the students, "Go into that thing, right? They don't love reason, and they don't love wisdom. Don't really love themselves, right? " That's a kind of. He said, "But I love myself. That is Richard. Is Richard? That is I am I, is it? But. "

[34:46] I remember a priest. He was explaining, saying that doing penance is really loving yourself. Looks like they're hating themselves, you know. He says that's real true self love. He says, yeah, yeah, penance. Yeah,

[35:05] that's interesting. Yeah. See, Aristotle talks about love for another coming from love for oneself, right? And then, of course, usually self love has a pejorative sense, a bad sense, right? He loves himself, yeah. But

[35:38] usually, usually, I mean, at least the most concrete example of that is the man who who favors his body, right? Huh? And doesn't really love his soul, right? See, indulging his bodies, as men tend to do, right? You know, that's self love, kind of the bad sense, right? And so, you know, indulging it, you know, the detriment to good of the soul.

[36:11] So Aristotle is saying that there's a a good, but also maybe you might say a true love of the soul, right? Or love of oneself, right? And so, you know, in the second commandment, there you to love your neighbor as yourself, right? So,

[36:37] must obviously be a a good sense of loving yourself, and a sense of loving yourself that you should love yourself, right? And the result, maturity, right? Huh? But it's kind of interesting that he doesn't make that the commandment, right? You know, the commandment to love God and to love your neighbor. What is the commandment to love yourself? Well, it seemed like superfluous, right? Because you naturally love yourself, but there's a little something there to be proud of, nevertheless.

[37:08] It seems to me, right? Because. The man whose chief put is to sleep and feed doesn't really love himself. That's a man who's saying love himself. huh

[37:34] Yeah I read some spiritual writers, more widely ones, talking about people who have a problem loving themselves because, say, that their parents didn't love them. Yeah. They have a problem with in the spiritual life, even loving God or believing that God loves them. Yeah. Because they don't have that kind of natural, yeah, love of themselves.

[38:02] It's an obstacle. Yeah, it's interesting. It's kind of easy to see, you know, that if your father was mean to you, you know, you have a hard time relating to God the Father, right? You know, that's kind of a common thing, right? You know, if people, you know, who had a terrible father abused them in some way, you know, and

[38:30] you know, the opposite, opposite there, I could say, Thérèse of Lisieux had a very good father, apparently, you know. And you know, you know, towards the end of her life there, you know, and what are you thinking about the the when the sisters asked her? She's just meditating on the words "of our Father" In the beginning. of. Our Father, how sweet it is to call him Father, right?

[38:48] How how could she? meditate how sweet it is to call God our Father if she had not had a wonderful, earthly father, you know? It'd be very hard to do that, right? You know, and