De Anima (On the Soul)
55. Knowing in Some Way, Choosing the Apparent Good, and the Deliberative Imagination
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[0:00] It goes on here on the next page for the immediate pleasant thing, right? Appears to be both simply pleasant and simply good because of not seeing what is to what come, huh? Okay. Now,

[0:24] I think I've spoken about this before. We talked about the fallacies, right? But notice Aristotle is talking here about the kind of mistake, huh? That's being made, huh? Okay. Now, I think I mentioned before, when we're in logic, maybe that in the book about sophistical refutations,

[0:53] Aristotle distinguishes the mistakes that come from language, and then the mistakes that come outside of language, huh? Okay. And the first kind of mistake that comes from language is a mistake that comes from mixing up different senses of the same word, huh? Happiness is the end of human life. The end of human life is death. Therefore, happiness is death, right? I mentioned how you know I spent a lot of time in philosophy of nature, showing that nature acts for an end and so on.

[1:35] And if I get on the final exam, you know, a student saying, you know, nature can't be acting for an end because if nature acts for an end, all things would come to an end, but if they haven't come to an end. then for nature can't be acting for an end. Well, the student is obviously mixing up two senses of that, right? Okay, but there are five other kinds of mistakes from words he talks about there in the in the work, such as sophistical refutations But then he goes to the seven kinds outside of language, right?

[2:08] And the first kind is the fallacy of the accidental, right? Mixing up as such and by happening, right? But then the second kind of mistake is the one that he's touching upon here, right? The the mistake from mixing up what is so simply with is what is so in some way, right? Okay. Now this is a distinction that people don't understand too well, but they're overlooking that distinction, huh?

[2:40] Mistake from mixing up or not distinguishing, another way of saying it, between what is so simply or without qualification and what is so in some way, okay?

[3:12] Now I often give a very simple example in class, you know, of this kind of sophistical argument, huh? I pick out a young lady and I'll say to her, Do you know my brother Marcus? And she'll say no. And I'll say now, turn the class. You all heard what she said, right? She doesn't know my brother Marcus, right? I'm going to make her contradict herself. Okay, you heard what she said.

[3:46] She doesn't know my brother Marcus. Okay, and then I say now, Do you know what a man is? And she'll say yes. That's what my brother Marcus is? She didn't know my brother Marcus. See? Has she really contradicted herself? No. No. Notice simply

[4:14] she doesn't know my brother Marcus. But in knowing what a man is, or even knowing what a brother is, she in some way knows my brother Marcus, right? In knowing what a man is or what a brother is, in a way you know every man in the world, don't you? Every brother. Do you see? Okay. Now when you study the Meno, you see how easy men get deceived by this, huh?

[4:40] And go one way or the other, right? Socrates says he doesn't know what virtue is, right? And Meno says he does know right Well Socrates has an examination conversation and by the end of that conversation it's clear that Meno doesn't know what virtue is either. So at that point, Socrates says, "Let's put our heads together and try to find out what virtue is."

[5:08] And Meno says, "Well, well, how can you go looking for what you don't know?" Yeah. And so if I say to you know, we get me one, we get me one, and you say, "Well, it'd be pretty by chance I got you what you wanted because I know what you want. Yeah. Uh-huh. So how can we, you know, direct our thinking and our conversation towards what we don't know?

[5:34] Is that true? Is that true? See, if I go into the filling station, gasoline station, I ask the man, "How do you?"Get there. What's he going to say to me. Where? Tell me where you got to get boy I Can't tell you how to get there if I don't know where you're going. See. So, is it possible to direct yourself to what you don't know?

[6:05] Is it? You see, if Meno's objection were good, there would be no art of logic and no art of counting or calculating either, because logike, as the Greeks called it, and logistike, these are arts that direct us to knowing what we don't know. Yeah. And someone might say, "Well, how can you direct yourself to what you don't know? "

[6:39] You have to know what you're aiming at, right? See. Well, the point is that what you don't know, you could know in some way. Yeah. And that might seem at first impossible, right?

[6:54] An example I always give in class is a very simple one. Now, if I have a large class, I might say, "How many students are in class today? " I say, "I don't know. " Nobody knows here how many students are in class today, right? But I could direct myself to what I don't know with the greatest ease. In fact, I know exactly how to get there by counting, right?

[7:18] And then I count the students, right? And let's say I end up with 28. Okay. Now, how did I direct myself to 28 when I didn't know I was looking for 28?

[7:33] How do you do that? I didn't know I was trying to get to 28, did I? And yet I got to 28 with the greatest ease.

[7:48] Well, in some way I did know 28, huh? Just like in some way that girl knew my brother Mark in knowing what a man is or brother is. See. I knew I was looking for the number of students in the class today, right? And 28 is, in fact, the number of students in class today, right? So, in some imperfect way, 28 was already known to me, but not in the way that I came to know it by counting.

[8:17] You see? So I direct myself, right, to what I don't know by knowing it in some way. See, in some imperfect, very deficient way, huh? See.

[8:37] And Socrates makes the same mistake later on when he says that the slave boy, right. Already knew how to double a square, because the way to double a square comes out of the answers that the slave boy gives.

[8:58] But the answers the slave boy gave, the things he knows already that he recalls with Socrates' questions, are things through which and by which he is able to come to know he doesn't know. Is that the same thing as to already actually know? Yeah.

[9:27] I always take a simple example from the other art. If I know the length and the width of a rectangle, and I know how to multiply, do I know the area of the rectangle? Inability. Yeah, but not before I multiply one by the other, right? Right.

[9:50] So I don't really know the area, do I? Except in ability, I know it in some way. Inability Does that have to know it? In some way. Yeah. In that sense, the students know everything I want to say in class before I say it. In some way. Inability right? But learning is what coming to know simply, huh? Without qualification. So when Socrates asked the slave boy how do you double a square at first, the slave boy says to double the side, right?

[10:21] He not only doesn't know how to do it, he's mistaken, right? But eventually he comes to see that you take the diagonal. He comes to know it through things he knows already. But Socrates says, "What the way to double a square came out of his answers, right? He already knew it. He was just recalling what he already knew. " So Socrates is taking what the same kind of mistake here, right?

[10:46] He's saying that the slave boy already knew it because in some way he did know it. You see the difference, huh? Suppose you got a door like that with no windows, right?

[11:06] You're knocking the door, right? You know who that is? You know who's knocking the door? And you'd say no, right? We open it, and that's the abbot huh It's, Driscoll, or it's your mother or somebody, right? Huh? You know. Excuse me, you don't know who's knocking at the door, right? It's your mother knocking at the door. You don't even know your own mother? Or it's Father Driscoll.

[11:27] You don't even know? Huh? You see? Notice. You know your mother, or you know Father Driscoll, right? But in some way you don't know your mother or father. Driscoll. You don't know them as the one what. Knocking on the door, right? In some way they're unknown to you. Do you see that? So it's very easy to mix up those two, huh? And

[12:01] another another example of this annoying. Suppose a student asks a question, right? Okay. And you say now, does the student, when he asks a question, know what he wants to know? Does he know he's looking for?

[12:25] Well, if he already knows what he's looking for, and he asks a question. why does he bother to ask the question? if? He already knows the answer, right? If he doesn't know what he's looking for, how can I help? him? If he doesn't even know himself what he's looking for. Yeah, And how could I possibly help him if I don't know what he's looking for? But if he knows what he's looking for, then why is he asking?

[12:46] He already knows it. Isn't it? In other words, we ask questions before we get answers, right? So when he get when he asks a question, do we already know the answer?

[13:07] You know, in a certain way. You got it in some way, right? Okay. Or the man is being paid to to find the cause of cancer, right? Does he know what he's looking for? He has a clue. Yeah, he knows he's looking for the cause of this disease, right? Right. But that's not to know the cause of this disease, is it? But it is to know in some way, right?

[13:34] We have different men that are being paid to research and try to find the cause of different diseases, right? If a man doesn't know what he's trying to find out, why would you pay him to do this, right? Is it? So you can see how easy it is to get those two mixed up, huh? And

[13:55] if you ever have a chance to to go through the some of the books of wisdom, right, huh? We'll see that the final mistake about the universe, right, is a mistake of this kind.

[14:10] The reason why they say matter is the beginning of all things rather than God is because of a mistake of this kind. But we'll see how we get to the ninth book of wisdom. Okay. But as I tell the students, now they're having a hard time seeing what this distinction is and what this kind of mistake is. I say we're doing this all day long in our daily life, right?

[14:35] We're choosing something what bad. Because in some way it's good. See, I choose to rob the bank because in some way it's good. It's going to increase the money in my pocket if I don't get caught anyway, right? See, or I choose to murder somebody because they what? Annoy me, right? Or because they stand in the way of my promotion, right? So in some very imperfect way, murdering them is good, isn't it?

[15:09] Gets rid of an annoyance in my life, right? Makes possible my promotion, right? See, so we're choosing something bad because in some way it's good, right? I might choose to drink a delicious poison because it's delicious, right?

[15:30] So is it good to drink a delicious poison? No, it's bad, right? But in some way it's good. It's delicious. You see, so we're choosing something bad because it's good in some way, right? Or vice versa, right? We don't do. What is good? Because in some way it's what bad, right? Huh? So I don't get up and go to mass on Sunday, like some people don't get up, right?

[16:01] Because it interferes with their getting what some more sleep, right? You know. Yeah. See. Or as I said, the students they don't study when they should study, right? Because it prevents them from going to the party, prevents them from watching the movie or something, right? And notice, there's nothing in this world so good that doesn't prevent you from doing something else, which is good, right? Say, so going to mass prevents you from sleeping another hour, right?

[16:38] Studying prevents you from going to the beer party, right? You see. So we don't do what is good to do because in some way it's what bad, or we do what is bad because in some way it's what good, right? Huh?

[17:01] So the people get an abortion because they're embarrassed by it, or they want to, you know, want to have their career interrupted or something, right? You see. So they choose something bad because in some very imperfect way it's what good, you see that? So we're making a kind of mistake all the time. Whereas Aristotle is saying that, right? If you look at the Greek here, right? That's why the Greek is important in these things, you know, for making the connections there.

[17:34] But he gets the sense here down here. For the immediate pleasant thing appears to be both simply pleasant and simply good because of not seeing what is to come, right? Okay.

[17:54] He says, phainetai it appears, right? To d' eidē hedu. What is here pleasant? Kai haplos hedu. we need to be simply pleasant and simply good, right, on account of not seeing the future, right? Okay.

[18:19] So fornication can appear to be good, right? In some way, it's good, right? It's pleasant, right, to the senses, right? But if you consider the fact that you may get this disease, right, or you may go to hell, right, because of this, right?

[18:36] Then this is not a good thing to do, right? See. So you can say fornication is bad. Why do people choose it then? Because in some way it's good, right? Yeah. Okay. And to look just at the here and now and this pleasant here and now, then they're thinking that because it's good in some way, that simply speaking, it is what good, right? You see the idea?

[19:08] Okay. Or if I'm angry with you, right, I'm going to hit you and maybe even kill you or maim you or something, right? You know, what seems what desirable here and now, right? It's going to relieve that anger I've got. If I hit you, see? But if I look at the fact that I'm going to injure you, right?

[19:33] And not only that, but I I myself may also be in trouble because of what I've done to you, right? Then that momentary relief of my anger, right? Not what worth it, huh? Okay. I know sometimes when people get angry at somebody, they feel like saying something, you know, and it's better not to say something, right? You know, and that you'll regret having said, and you know, let's let it roll off, you know, you the the insult or whatever it is that they they did, right?

[20:08] You see. And but if you're just thinking of the immediate moment, right? You want to relieve yourself by saying something nasty or something, right? But something that's going to get in the way of what you want your relation to be with this person, maybe in the future, right? You see.

[20:32] You see the idea? That's Aristotle's talking about there, right? See. But I think he's hitting the nail on the head, huh? Yeah. I mean, I wasn't thinking of this text in particular, but when I tried to explain this this this fallacy, right, you know, and try to make it a little more concrete for them, you don't realize what a role it plays in our daily what life, huh?

[20:57] We're always choosing something bad because in some way it's good, right? Yeah. Or refusing to do what is good because in some way it's what bad, right?

[21:13] I should get more exercise, right? Mm-hmm. It's good for me to get some exercise, right? Doctor looks at me and he says, "You don't get too much exercise, do you?" Mm-hmm. Sedentary. I guess years ago, I guess Ron MacArthur wasn't feeling so well, right? You know, being kind of sedentary life, right? And and he went to the doctor. What was wrong with him? He says nothing wrong with him.

[21:37] He said, you just don't get any exercise. Yeah. exercise is something you need to get some exercise, right? But in some way exercise is bad, because? It's a little bit painful, right? A little bit uncomfortable, right? So you put it off, right? Do you see the idea?

[21:59] So we're making this same what kind of mistake, right? Aristotle says in the ethics, the man who sins, right, is mistaken. Okay, but what kind of mistake is it, right?

[22:18] Well, I suppose it'd be more than one kind of mistake, but he's always a mis. This seems to be the most common mistake, right? When he chooses to do what is bad, because it's good in some way, right? He's mistaken into thinking that what is so in some way is so without qualification. And when he refuses to pursue what is good for him to do, right, because in some ways bad, right?

[22:47] He's thinking that something is bad because in some way it is bad. Prevents him from going to the party, wherever it is, right? Now, in the remaining part of the chapter here, he's simply unfolding a little more fully the order, right, of these movers, right.

[23:28] What is altogether first is the good or the what desirable itself, right? And that's, as Aristotle says, in a way, the unmoved mover in this series, huh? For this moves not being moved, huh?

[23:48] But it moves eventually, right? The body by being understood or imagined, and also by being what desired, right, huh? Okay. In number, however, the the movers, the move movers, are many, huh?

[24:10] Now, in 378, he's laying out the whole thing there, huh? Since, however, there are three things here, you see the order here, right? First of all, there is the mover, right? Then that by which it moves, right? And there he's thinking of the bodily part by which the animal moves, whether it be wings or legs or fins or whatever it has. And further, the thing moved, right?

[24:43] Okay, that's the order there, right? But the mover. Is twofold, right? One is the immobile, the unmoved mover, which in this case is the what good understood or imagined and desired, and the other is what the moved mover.

[25:05] Okay, and that's a special desire, right? So the immobile mover is the practical good, right? The moving and being moved, the moved mover, you could say, is the desiring power, right? For the thing desiring is moved insofar as it's what as it desires, huh? And the appetite and act is a certain motion, but a motion now not in the original sense of motion, but it's an activity, right?

[25:36] Huh? And the thing being moved is the what animal, right? Huh? So you see the order there, huh? First you have the good. Right, the end,

[25:56] which is then understood or imagined, right, and desired, right. Especially the desire is the moved mover, right, and that moves somewhat. He's going to say some organ of the body, right, which then moves the animal, right. However, the organ by which the appetite moves this already is bodily, right. Whence one must consider this among the works or acts common to the body and the soul. So Aristotle has two books on that subject, right, on the motion of animals, right, and on the progression of animals.

[26:35] But there you're considering what the body more concretely, right, and so he's going to reserve it to that. Okay, here he's looking at more from the point of view of the soul in itself, right, and so he's saying in the soul itself, what originally is the mover is either understanding or imagination and desire, right. But before them is the good desired and understood or imagined. huh? Okay?

[27:07] And 379 is merely an anticipation of that discussion you'll have in the more material books there when he gets down to the body. Okay, he's talking about the circular aspect right of my arm here, right? Extend it and then comes back, right? The circular motion there.

[27:31] That that one moves by pushing and by pulling, right? Sometimes pulling towards oneself and then pushing away from oneself. Okay, but that's just kind of an anticipation of what you're going to go into when he talks about the bodily organ, right? So let's take a little break here now before we look at the 16th reading in Thomas there that begins in 380 and goes to this next shorter chapter.

[27:57] Okay. What do I do here? So now in the 16th reading of Thomas there, which begins at 380, there. He's going to talk about a little bit of the difference among the animals, man and the other animals, huh? In regard to these two moving powers, right, which are either reason or imagination and desire, right?

[28:25] So he says generally, therefore, as was said, as the animal is appetitive or desiring, by this it is motive of itself, right. But it is not desiring without what imagination, right? Okay.

[28:43] And now he makes a little distinction here. Why all imagination is rational or sensitive. Now, what does he mean by that, huh? What he means that the the imagination of man is in some way directed by what his reason, right, huh? Why the imagination of the other animals is merely what a sense power, huh? That's not being directed by any reason that they have, right, huh?

[29:17] Okay. Even the other animals, he says, in fact, as he says, share in the latter, right, huh? Okay. That is imagination. Yeah. See, in the Greek, he says, "Fantasia pasa." Every imagination is either logistikē, right, under the influence of reason, right, or aisthētikē, right, and merely a sense power, right? Okay. Okay. And of this, meaning the latter, the other zoa, the other animals, partake, right? Okay.

[29:56] So, in the you know, we used to notice the way the cat will be down the basement, right, and then in the morning she's coming up to get fed, right? She's being led upstairs, right? And she went up the stairs and down the hall and around the corner for the dishes, right? Well, she can't what sense around the corner? I don't think, to my knowledge, right? But she's got this image, right, of where her food is, huh?

[30:20] Yeah. You know. Okay. She goes directly to it, huh? Okay. But it's not a logistikē, huh? It's an aisthētikē huh It's sensitive. Okay. Now, the next part here is talking about those very imperfect animals, huh? That don't really move from one place to another, right? But they seem to have some kind of motion because

[30:50] they do in the water. They live in the oceans, say, right? When something comes into contact them, they will kind of grab it or take it in, right? And so on, huh? But they don't seem to have the senses like sight and hearing because those are senses that act over distance, right? And so usually they speak of of smell and then hearing and especially sight are senses that know things at a what distance, right, huh?

[31:23] So these vultures, you know, can smell a dead body from a great distance. Huh? They'll come from a great distance, huh? And you know, even the ants, right? Well, there's been some sweet thing spilt somewhere. They'll come from a great distance to these things, right? But these animals that resemble plants, you know, and are fixed to the floor of the ocean or something like that, they don't go from one place to another, right?

[31:53] So their food and so on comes to them through the motion of the what water right? But they do seem to have what pain and pleasure because if you stick them they what retract as if in pain right? And yet they when something edible comes in contact they will grab it right? Okay. But they seem to act only through something like touch right? Okay. So he's asking about them whether there's imagination in them or not.

[32:30] Well, there's certainly there's pain and pleasure in in what they do, the way they react to this thing. Whence in these necessarily there is also what desire right? Okay.

[32:46] And of course the Greek word there which he's been translating by desire all along is epithumia right? I say I usually translate it by the phrase sense desire right? Because I want to give that sense of what kind of desire it is.

[33:03] But how could imagination be in them right? Okay. But Aristotle doesn't deny entirely this imagination in them. Now, notice what imagination how is defined earlier. It's a motion caused by the senses in act right? So he thinks that these forms of life have maybe some kind of a indeterminate or confused image right falling upon sensation. Because when something edible comes in contact right, then they seem to what find it agreeable right and they pursue it right.

[33:44] Or when something like a pin or something is stuck in them they seem to what contract like in pain right? So they seem to have some kind of a what

[33:56] motion falling upon senses whereby they recognize something as agreeable or disagreeable to their senses. But it seems to be what indeterminate or kind of confused compared to what the dog or the cat would have or the animal that goes a distance right and has to have some kind of what more determined imagination to be able to direct itself in some you know to go to where it needs to go.

[34:25] They're kind of just kind of fumbling with what's immediate there. Okay. Now in 382 he's going to contrast the other animals and man again in terms of the what he spoke at the beginning of the chapter in terms of their imagination. And again he's using that word.

[34:49] We saw before the aisthētikē phantasia. Phantasia is a Greek word for imagination, right? And aisthētikē is what? Sensing, the sensitive, right? Aisthētikē Yeah, so we get the word. That's a Greek word for sensation, right? So he's got it all translated here when he says the sensitive imagination, right? Okay. So he says the sensitive imagination is found in the other animals, right? But the deliberative one is found in the what?

[35:22] Ones having reason, right? Huh? We deliberate. Should I do this or should I do that? Right? Okay. For with it, will do this or that is already work of reason. And of course, if you're going to decide between two things, he says you need a third thing whereby you can what? Measure these two, huh? And which is the one to do or not, right? So you've got to be able to combine. three things, as Thomas says in the commentary, in your imagination.

[35:54] Okay. The two things, right? As you're deliberating about which one you should do, and the third thing by which you you're going to judge between the two, huh? Okay.

[36:12] It's necessary to measure by one, right? For it pursues, it tries to pursue the what? The greater or the better, right? Okay. Now I was doing that this week with the students there because we were reading the the Apology of Socrates, right? Okay. Now in the second part of Socrates' speech, he touches upon the division of all the goods of man. Oh. Okay. And the Greek philosophers usually divide all the goods of man into the goods of the soul, which would be the moral virtues and the virtues of what?

[37:05] Of reason. And then the goods of the body, like for example, health, strength, the beauty of the body, and so on. And then the outside or exterior goods, huh? Okay. Like my clothing or my house or my car, okay? Okay. My shoes, huh? Okay. My clothing and so on. Now this is a famous division of all the goods of man, and the philosopher talks about that division, but he also asks which of these goods are better, right?

[37:53] And one place where Aristotle talks about this division very explicitly is in the seventh book of the Politics, huh? And he points out two things: the agreement, the disagreement among men. He says everybody knows that there are these three kinds of goods. Maybe not as explicitly as the philosopher makes it here, but they're aware of that, right? And I always give as a sign of this the fact that even in our Mother Goose rhymes, almost or things like that, we touched upon these.

[38:27] And I always ask, early to bed, early to rise. Usually one student in class can finish it. Wealthy, healthy, and wise. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, right? See, that's touching upon the three kinds of goods, right? Because health is perhaps one of the greatest of the goods of the body. Wealth is an excellence of Exterior goods and wisdom is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the goods of the soul.

[38:58] Right. So everybody, to some extent, is aware of these three kinds of goods, and so the laws of the country, well, some concern health, some concern, you know, you construct a building. There's certain rules you got to follow, right? And there's certain laws about education, going to school, and so on, right? So to some extent, the laws will take into account these three kinds of goods, right?

[39:25] The second agreement among all men is that everybody knows we need some of all three. But now the disagreement comes between Socrates and the Athenians. That Socrates is saying the goods of the soul are much better than the goods of the body and outside goods. But the Athenians act as if they thought the outside goods and the goods of the body were the main goods. So Socrates is saying, get as much as you can of the goods of the soul, and be satisfied with the minimum necessary of the goods of the body and outside things, right?

[40:03] Like Saint Paul said, I got a little deed and a little thing to put on. That's enough for me, right? As far as these things are concerned, huh? But for the Athenians, get as much as you can for the outside goods and the goods of the body, and be satisfied with the minimum necessary to acquire or preserve these, right? Because a fool and his money are soon parted, you know.

[40:24] And if you got a little bit of moderation, otherwise you're going to ruin your health right away, right? You see. So we ask them which are what are better, right? Okay. Who's right, Socrates or the Athenians? Well, if we want to say that

[40:49] one is better than the other, you've got to have a third thing to to judge, right? Okay. So one thing we argue, we say, well, if God is better than man, right? Which is more like what? God, the goods of the soul or the goods of the body, right? See, well, no one thinks the body is more like God than the soul. So if God is better than man, and the goods of the soul, the soul is more godlike than the body, then the goods of the soul must be better, right?

[41:25] Or another argument we give, we say, well, if man is better than the beast, is he better by than the beast because the goods he has in common with the beast, or by the goods he has that the beast doesn't have? Well, it can't be by the goods he has in common with the beast, huh? So if man's better than the beast, then these must be better than the goods of the soul must be better than the goods of the body, right?

[41:51] So using a third thing to say which of these two is better and more to be pursued, right? Okay. Okay. So this is the rational imagination, right? Huh? Okay. So you have to be able to make one imagination from many images, huh? And the other animals can't do that, and this is the cause that they're not seeming to have opinions, right? So the cat doesn't seem to have any opinions, and doesn't have what is from what a syllogism, which is the basic kind of argument, huh?

[42:40] But deliberative imagination, this rational imagination, right, has this, huh? Whence appetite does not have the deliberative power, right? Now, sometimes though in man even, huh, the lower wins out, right, huh?

[43:20] And Aristotle is a beautiful comparison here to the old theory of the heavenly bodies, right, huh? Where the lower bodies and the lower spheres are moved by the higher ones, right? And it's like that in man when what his sense desire is moved by what his reason and by his will, huh? But when the reason or the will are moved by the sense desire, right, huh? Then you have what the incontinent man, right, huh?

[43:58] But the man who has continence or self control, his reason and his will are determining and are ruling over his sense appetite. Okay. But the scientific power, the one that knows the universals, and so on, that doesn't seem to be moved, but it remains, huh?

[44:28] So the universal doesn't move us to action until it's applied to the what particular, huh? And see, this kind of shows the reason why man has this conflict, especially since original sin, huh? Because to go back to what we saw there in the framing of wisdom. Whenever Aristotle was saying how the man of experience may succeed better than the man of higher science, science, and he gave as a reason for that that art or science is of the universal, and experience is of the singular.

[45:05] And what you do is not universal, but a singular. And Aristotle's example was that the medical art, the doctor, he doesn't cure a man; he cures this man, right? And so, if you have the experience of your own body, right, you might prescribe better for yourself than even the doctor. Now, I just mentioned a simple example there. My wife was giving birth to the children. After giving birth, they give them a dose of Demerol, right?

[45:37] And there's a standard dose they give everybody. In the case of my wife, that amount gives her a headache and doesn't make her more comfortable; makes her more uncomfortable, right? So the next time she's in for another baby, you know, it gets more experience each time. Just give me half of what they normally give. So she prescribed better than the doctor or the nurse for herself because she knows herself, right?

[46:03] Okay. And so a lot of times, you know, we kind of know, you know, if our stomach is upset or some other little ailment, we might know what is going to relieve our thing better than the doctor would know, right? Because we know ourselves from experience, huh? Okay. Well,

[46:24] another example here, huh? When you contrast reason and the senses. Well, reason's object, as we saw earlier, is the what it is, right? And therefore, it knows directly the what universal. But the senses know directly the what singular. And the same with imagination. So the senses are closer to action one way than the reason is. And therefore, if the universal is not applied to the singular, right?

[47:03] You may pursue the singular without listening to universal, and you pursue it maybe because it's pleasing to your senses. Huh? The senses know the good, not according to the universal reason, but according to what is agreeable or disagreeable to senses. So the man who follows his senses will often go astray, right? Because he's pursuing what is agreeable to the senses, or he's avoiding what is disagreeable to the senses, right?

[47:31] Not considering that there is a reason, right? Maybe why he should avoid something pleasant to his senses. It's adultery or it's fornication or it's too much. Or there's a reason why he should maybe undergo something that is painful to his senses, like defending his country or, you know, getting up and feeding the kids. kid or something, right? Going out your way to help somebody, right? Huh? Who's in need and so on, so that it might be disagreeable to your senses, right?

[48:01] To do this, but change the diaper or something like that. It's disagreeable to the senses, but maybe it's something you should do, right? But sometimes the universal is

[48:15] not what applied, right? Okay. So the man is being tempted, right? Huh? You see, if he's in conflict there, it's because he's considering under the universal that this comes under. This is fornication. This is adultery. or This is murder. Whatever it is, right? That it's something good or something bad, right? A reason. But he's also being attracted to it maybe because it's pleasant, or turned away from it because it's painful to his senses, right?

[48:49] And. So sometimes the lower wins out, right? Okay. But you got to realize that there's certain strength that the senses have, and even the imagination, because they're closer to the what? Singular, right? Huh?

[49:11] So reason says fornication is bad. This is fornication, therefore I should not do it. Or this is, you know, adultery. I should not commit adultery, right? Okay. Or this is murder, right? Huh? You see. But then sometimes one doesn't apply the universal right. The moment he chooses to do something that he shouldn't do, huh? So he he gets into it because of his senses, huh? But they have a certain strength there regard to action because of the the singular.

[50:05] So you got to put together the singular or bring the singular under universal, and you make your what judgment right now. And so people, you know, who support abortion, for example,

[50:27] they never put abortion when they support it under under murder, right? That's really what it is. It's kind of funny, you know, because people say, "Well, you know, if you use the word murder for this, I mean, they don't want to use the word. They don't want to call it spade a spade, right? " Yes.

[50:55] They talk about a woman's right to choose, which is, you know, a fiction, right? It's purely imaginary, right? There's no is no such right to kill kill your own baby, but they they never talk about what it really is.

[51:14] It's interesting that the the courts are in a state of contradiction, right? Because if if I beat a pregnant woman and her baby is killed, then I am held guilty of homicide, right? Right. So in that case, they're saying that the baby is a human being, and I have killed a human being. Right. Therefore, I'm guilty of homicide, homicide at least, right? Right. Not murder. And and then yet, if the woman doesn't want the baby and goes and has it murdered by the abortionist, right?

[51:52] This is not homicide, right? So, you know, so it's it's a right or a convenience. In one case, the other case is the homicide. Obviously, a contradiction, is it? But the courts won't face up to the fact, you know. You know, I always think of that with Socrates, because Socrates always goes around and he finds you in a contradiction, right? Or even if Perry Mason finds that the witness is and contradicts himself, something he's saying is false, right?

[52:27] See, so they want to have their cake and eat it, you know. They want to say it's homicide in this case, in other case, it's it's a right. But in both cases, it comes under the same thing: you're taking the life of an innocent human being. That's what that's what murder is, huh? So,

[52:53] but they have all these uses of missions to to escape the singular being put under the universal that it belongs under. So he says, universal opinion or universal thought doesn't move us, right? Unless it be applied to the what singular, huh?

[53:26] Of course, when when the the moral law is not taught very explicitly anymore, you know, you have no universal to apply, right? huh? It is, you know, kind of a moral chaos that they live in there. So the universal, in a sense, kind of moves us in a remote way, but an approximate way, the knowledge of the singular, right? So if the universal is not applied to the singular, then then reason is not really being used there.

[54:10] Do what you feel like doing. I say, okay, it feels right. Okay, I think we should.