De Anima (On the Soul)
58. De Anima's Last Chapter: Why Touch Is Necessary, Then the Summa and Music's Power Over the Soul
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/058-de-animas-last-chapter-why-touch-is-necessary-then-the-summa/

[0:00] But it's kind of funny. One time I I took a sabbatical there and I was studying, you know, the causes of mistakes and so on, right? And our thinking, you know, and so on. And after a year of doing that or semester of doing that, I feel a little bit like this one guy I knew was a friend of my brother Richard's, and he went and got a medical degree, and I got a.

[0:20] They went into psychiatry, right? You know, and his impression was, you know, that everybody that he meets in society is just near to going over the edge. You know, anybody's going to, you know, any day, you know, start acting very strangely, you know. But he has kind of that that that sense, you know, that they're all kind of, you know, tottering, you know, on the edge of insanity.

[0:48] But I kind of reminded that guy, you know, because you get through studying the different causes of error, you see how easily the mind is deceived, right? See, like my students here, you know, being deceived by equivocation and these words, how easily the mind is deceived.

[1:06] You know, it's a little bit frightening, you know, you know, to see the the human condition, huh? Yeah, obviously. And and see how how reasonable is the fear of mistake that that. Socrates has right.

[1:24] Okay, let's look at this last chapter here now. Nothing too much new here, but anyway, he's attacking the the Platonist position there that there are these what

[1:41] animals made out of fire or air, right? Okay. And Shakespeare, I see in the Tempest there, right? He has that creature called Ariel who's in the service of of Prospero, right? And Ariel is a what an air like creature, okay? Well, the poet can do this, right? But can it be such a thing?

[2:07] It is apparent, however, that it is not possible for the body of an animal to be simple. What the Greeks thought was simple, anyway, as being fire or air. Why? Because without touch, it can have no other what sense. For every ensouled thing is a tactile body, as was said. The others besides earth can become sense organs, but all bring about sensation by sensing through something different and through a medium.

[2:37] Touch, however, is by touching them; whence also it has this name. And indeed, the other sense organs sense by touch, but through something different. It seems that this sense alone is through itself, whence no body of an animal would be from such elements, because it couldn't have what that medium, that middle ground necessary for the sense of touch. Nor indeed is something earthy, for touch is like the mean of all the tangibles, and the organ is receptive not only of whatever are differences of earth, but also of hot and cold and all the other tangibles.

[3:19] And because of this, we do not sense in the bones, right? Because the bones are too what hard, right? And in here, in other such parts, because they are too what earthy, right?

[3:36] Interesting. Remember the words of King Lear there when he's holding the dead Cordelia in his arms, right? She's dead, dead as earth. And no plants have sense because of this, that they are of earth.

[3:58] Okay, so this is fairly simple chemistry, right? That Aristotle is using here, right? But the Greeks, from the time of Empedocles on, thought of the matters being basically what the fundamental kinds of matter are: earth, air, fire, and water, right? And of course. Earth seems to be the furthest from what life, right? Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return. Okay, that's referring to death, right?

[4:25] Huh? Why the soul? You know, if they think of the soul as being one of these elements, they would think of it usually as being what fire or what air, yeah. And so the common man and the poets, you know, represent the soul as being an air-like creature, right? And sometimes we compare the soul to what fire, huh? Like when Othello comes in, you know, to to suffocate Desdemona, right?

[4:56] And he has the the candle in his hand, right? And I don't remember the exact words, but you know, if he puts out the candle, he can again what light it, right? But if he puts out the life of Desdemona, he doesn't know whether it's that Promethean fire that can Wow illumine here again. Re really, very beautiful. Words, but Mm but no one thinks of the soul as being what earth, right?

[5:20] And that's why, as I say, when King Lear holds the dead Cordelia's arms, she's dead. You would say dead is fire, right? Dead is air, but she's dead. Dead is what earth, you know.

[5:38] So without touch, no other sense can be. In this sense, organ is not of earth nor of any one of the elements, but it involves a what a mixture of them, right? To get this kind of a mean or middle between extremes, huh?

[5:56] It is apparent, therefore, that necessarily being deprived of this sense alone, animals die. Huh? For it is not possible to have this not being an animal. Nor is it necessary now, right? So you're talking about that sense of what can be without others and not vice versa. Nor is it necessary being an animal to have any other sense except what this, huh? And because of this, the other sensibles, being excessive, do not destroy the animal like color and sound and smell, but only the what sense organ, the sense power, right?

[6:34] See. So you know if you if I left my eyes open and just you know looked at the light, I'd eventually go what blind, right? That's why eyes are always blinking, right? But if you know you you taped up my eyes, you know, torturing me like the during the Spanish Civil War, there, you know, my eye would eventually go blind, right? But wouldn't kill me, would it?

[6:53] See. And they say you know these young kids you know listen to all this crazy music you know, well the ear that's there goes what? Deaf. Goes deaf and doesn't hear the sounds, huh? I used my brother Mark and I used to my brother Mark. and I used to work in in the factory there in the summer, and you know you work with all these guys been working down there for twenty thirty years, and they're bang bang and ooh you know you're hearing that sound, and you think how can that guy stand that?

[7:21] Well, he doesn't hear that sound anymore. His ear has been what? Deadened Yeah, it doesn't hear it. And they always say you know that a woman's sense of taste or smell is better than the man because the men tend to put too much salt or pepper or mustard or it is, and they burn out their sense of taste, you know. And even you know I've been in wine tasting, you know, they say sometimes a woman is get better, you know, her senses are more sensitive to these things, right?

[7:53] Because she works in the kitchen, but also because she doesn't maybe you know do the excessive things that a kid does, you know. And season your food too highly or something, right? And and I know if you go to these some of these Chinese restaurants, you get a hot meal. You know, the really hot meal, right? I mean, one time got the lunch with my wife, and so I try the hot thing, you know.

[8:21] And after about four or five bites, I couldn't taste anything more. Just a burning sensation in the mouth. That's all there was. And describes people eating the Indian food there. You know, someone was. I was talking to somebody one time that we were out to dinner there at some conference, and we're talking about England, you know, and you know, I had heard people say you know, place to eat in in England is to eat in the Indian restaurants, right?

[8:44] The English restaurants are no good. But anyway, he's describing, you know, these two guys out there, you know, having a contest to eat the hottest food. You know, his pores went out like that, you know. He says that's not my idea of how to enjoy a meal, right? Yeah. But you can see it's all kind of excessive things, right? That you're going to what burn out the sense organs and maybe not be able to to taste things, right?

[9:08] And I guess even maybe things like maybe smoking affected the like sense of taste. I remember this one guy I used to eat dinner with sometimes, and he he finally gave up smoking, right? You know, and then his senses had to gradually coming back. You know, he's discovered the taste of everything again, like a kid. The first time, you know, like for years he wasn't tasting things because of the smoking.

[9:32] I don't know, but I mean, so anyway, say men tend to, you know, but it doesn't kill you, right? And okay, and because of this, the other sensibles being excessive do not destroy the animal, but only the sense organ, the sense power. If not accidentally, they might right. As when together with the sound, there is a great what impulse and a blow, right? Okay, then it could destroy you, right?

[10:05] Okay, when the air itself is corrupted and so on, huh? And a flavor, insofar as it happens at one the same time to be tangible, destroys in virtue of this. But the excess of the tangibles of hot or cold or hard kills the animal. For every excess, the sensible kills the sense organ. You remember Aristotle made use of that fact to give a sign of the difference between the understanding and what the senses, right?

[10:37] That the senses are our bodies, right? And these bodies are what affected by what? Oh yeah. Excess of object. Yeah. But with the understanding, if you think about something very understandable, like God, for example, right? Then you come down to to lesser things like the triangle. You can understand them what better, right? Huh? See. But when you taste something, you know, very hot and something like that, then you can't taste anything else, right?

[11:08] Um. With with pizza, my opinion is that pepperoni is the sole pizza. Okay, but if you have a lot of pepperoni, see, in the pizza, it kind of destroys your sense of taste, at least temporarily, right? So if I if I drink, you know, say a wine, I can drink a fine wine with pizza, right? Because I wouldn't be able to taste the what, the wine, see?

[11:36] Or even if I have, you know, I'm not going to drink Cabernet Sauvignon with with spaghetti with with that tomato sauce, you know, because even that's too strong. You need a Chianti or something, you know, that kind of has a strong pickling flavor, right? To balance it, right? The Cabernet Sauvignon, you won't be able to taste it, right? Because you know you're being kind of what, burnt out, right?

[12:06] See? But when you understand something very understandable, you can turn to something less understandable and appreciate it more, right? And I I see that you know how how you know men like Charles de Koninck or Monsignor Dionne and so on, they would have good judgment, you know, about literature or about things that sort, right? And they're not impeded from their consideration of God that they can come down and and understand these things that are much less understandable, right?

[12:36] But they can understand them better because they've thought about God, right? You see? But when you get something very strong in taste, like the pepperoni pizza or the sauce or a fortiori, this Chinese food, I mean this you know hot stuff in the or Indian restaurant, you know the three stars or it is, then you're prevented from tasting other things, son. See? See that? That's a sign that that there's something bodily there in the sense organs, but that the reason is is immaterial.

[13:10] That's not affected in the way a body would be affected by a very strong object, I bet, son. Okay. Yeah. Like that with love too, isn't it, huh? If you love God, then you can love your neighbor better, right? So if you love something very lovable, like God is most lovable, right? You can love these less lovable things too, like your neighbor, better, right? You're not prevented, huh?

[14:00] Whence also the tangible destroys the touch, but the animal is defined by this, for it was shown that it is impossible for there to be an animal without touch. Whence the excess of the tangible destroys not only the sense organ, but also the animal, because it is necessary to have this alone. The animal, however, has the other senses, as was said, not for the sake of being, but for the sake of what?

[14:25] Well-being, right? Although he did say before, for the animals that move from one place to another, they need these ones to be too, though, huh? Okay. Since it is in air or water, or generally, since it is in the transparent that we might see, taste, due to the pleasure and the painful, that it might sense this and food and desire and be moved. So, to some extent, we have the sense of taste for the good life, right?

[14:50] De fortiori, we have the sense of sight and hearing and so on. I notice that Thomas, in the Summa contra Gentiles, he says that in the next life there will be the pleasure of the senses that is not incompatible with that life, right? So, there won't be the pleasure of eating or reproducing, right? Because we'll all be immortal then, right? But there will be the pleasure of seeing something beautiful with your eyes, because the world will be beautiful, right?

[15:19] And the bodies of the saints will be beautiful, right? And there will be what laus vocalis, he says, vocal praise of God, right? So there'll be beautiful music for the what ear, right? It's kind of interesting, right? That you have those pleasures. that won't be the greatest pleasures of heaven, but in the higher senses, huh? De Koninck gave a very though interesting talk there, you know, one time at Assumption the old days, Stadio Ergo sum, it's called.

[15:53] I sit there forever, but he's talking about the importance of the sense of touch, nevertheless, in our life. And one thing he pointed out about the sense of touch: see if you compare it with the eye.

[16:16] The sense of touch is a sense of what certitude, okay? And you know, kind of a classical example, you know, for Christians, that of the doubting Thomas, right? Huh? That unless he can put his fingers right in the side of the lance wound, right, his fingers in the nail holes and so on, he's not going to believe, right? Huh? So he's going to trust his sense of touch more than his sense of what sight, right?

[17:01] Okay. And you know, sometimes I always think of when I was a little boy. There used to have these fountain pens, you know, and people would have to have a little bottle of ink and so on. And these things would get spilled, as you know, and so on. And used to have this little piece of metal, looks like a pool of ink, you know. And you'd come in and you put it on top of your mother's white linen, you know.

[17:31] Just come in and so on. And but once you put your finger down in the thing, right? You realize that you've been what deceived. Yeah, yeah, but you trust your sense of what touch, right? More than your sense of what sight, huh? So it's a sense of certitude, right? And the old expression there, the touchstone of certitude, huh? Okay.

[17:59] But it's also the sense of the what interior, a sense of the what inside, right? Huh? Okay. And I think I was mentioning how Thomas, in the commentary of the Psalms, there when he's talking about the words there. Taste and see how sweet is the Lord, right? He's talking about taste insofar as it's a kind of touch, right? This is said, of course, metaphorically, but the idea that you're knowing God what, inwardly, right?

[18:32] Huh? Rather than outwardly, that can tend to go through the eyes or the what, ears, huh? So it's the sense of the, assertitude and the sense of the interior, and therefore it's the sense of what, nature, right? Okay. And also it's the sense of the what, good, right? That's where you first get the idea of good after the sense of touch.

[19:06] It's interesting that things like the good and nature that the moderns don't want to talk about. It's because it kind of ties up with the what, eye, right? And with the imagination,

[19:23] which are more mathematical, right? But it's also the sense of what, sympathy, the sense of what, pity, okay? It's interesting how we speak of that, right? Yeah. We're touched with somebody's what misfortune. Sure. And and I always remember what De Koninck said one time when you see this famous movie there. What's the one?

[19:55] The one that's set in Vienna there after the war, one that Orson Welles played in, and Joseph Cotton and so on. The Third Man. Yeah, The, Third Man. Yeah, kind of a haunting movie, you know. But this man is making money diluting medicines, right? After the war, right? And people are dying and so on, right? And his old friend Joseph Cotton, shows up and he begins to realize what Orson Welles is doing, right?

[20:21] And eventually he you know he cooperates with the authorities, right? Wow. But they're up in one of these merry-go-round things, sort of you know these closed things that go around like this, you know? And they're looking way way down, the people down this little, you know, speck on the horizon, I guess. You know, so it's funny, you know. Wow. But but you know, it's the eye they're looking down for a great distance, right?

[20:47] Oh yeah. And you're kind of what cut off with these people, right? And they're just just we see a number today or something, you know? Sure. Still specks there from them all, so no problem, right? But the sense of touch there is more the sense sympathy, right? So there's a lot to be said for the sense of touch, nevertheless, huh?

[21:16] Interesting, you know how how they find too. You know the sense of in the hospitals they found out, you know, sometimes that the babies, you know, whose mothers had died or something like that, the baby wasn't developing physically. They got to be held by the nurses and hugged, you know, and they don't even, you know, develop emotionally, but they don't even develop physically without this kind of what of hug, you know.

[21:40] Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of a brief look at the De anima there of Aristotle. We didn't see everything, but I think the next thing to do is to go to the Summa Theologiae now and to the Prima Pars. And the part we want to read is starting with what question 75 and going through, what eighty-nine, right? Okay. And we'll try to do at least two articles each time, maybe you know.

[22:19] So question seventy-five, I think has seven articles. You might be looking at the first three articles at least, right? Okay. Okay, but we're trying to at least do the first two of, I guess, of those, you know. And we're going to meet a lot of the things we saw here before, but Thomas also asks a lot of other things that Aristotle doesn't explicitly ask here, right? Okay.

[22:43] Okay. So I think it's good to see. This is the prima pars now, which is part of the Summa Theologiae. I think it's good to see the soul, you know, again some of these things again, and see some other things that go on as Thomas wrote the Summa, you know, for beginners in a way, and so it's a little easier to read in some ways than the De anima in the form it's come down to us.

[23:12] But it's good to see this. This is kind of the gateway to eventually understanding the what angels and then ultimately understanding God, right? As Thomas says, I studied the body so I can study the soul. I studied the soul so I can study the angels. I studied the angels so I can study God, and I don't say anything else. That's it, you know. So might be good for us being so central, but this is also central for ethics and for what moral theology, right?

[23:46] And central for understanding literature and understanding rhetoric and so on, and logic and so on. In fact, in fact, as Thomas, as Aristotle says, that the knowledge of the soul is not only desirable in itself because what the soul is, but it seems to contribute to all of our knowledge in some way.

[24:12] So it's good that we study the soul some more. Okay. Notice how the higher senses, of the sense of touch in particular—I mean, excuse me—the sense of sight and the sense of hearing are the senses of the what? Beautiful, right?

[24:44] So you know, if the food is well prepared, I say, hmm, this is good, but I don't say this is beautiful, do I? Or even the sense of smell, and I say, ah, smells good, you know. I don't say it smells beautiful though, do I? See. When I hear the music of Mozart, ah, that's beautiful. See. Or I see the beautiful painting, you know, the beautiful fall foliage or something, beautiful sunset, right?

[25:13] You know. And that's kind of a sign that the sense of sight and the sense of hearing are more what spiritual senses, huh? And the sense of touch and the sense of what taste, right? And the sense of smell is sort of in between, huh?

[25:50] So the fine arts are tied up with the what sense of sight and hearing, right? You know, the imagination and fiction, speaking the beautiful.

[26:09] Now, sculpture would be part of fine arts, but that's kind of in between, huh? Yeah. But that I suppose. I think the way Hegel. Yeah. But the way Hegel divides the the fine arts is kind of interesting. The way he orders them. Oh.

[26:26] Because he puts you know fiction above music, but music above what painting, right? And painting above what sculpture, right? You kind of see the way you're you're moving there, right? Was it fiction? What is it? Yeah, you put fiction, right? Meaning you know, great fiction like the epics of Homer or the plays of Shakespeare or Sophocles. You put that above music, right? But he put music above what painting, huh?

[26:57] And painting above what sculpture and that above what architecture, right? Huh? I think that makes sense what he what he's doing there. I have some colleagues who want to maintain painting is higher than music. That's ridiculous.

[27:19] So would that mean that that the sense of hearing is higher than the sense of sight? No, it's kind of interesting because I remember when I was teaching the proemium to metaphysics, right? And Aristotle was speaking about the sense of sight, you know, as having a kind of preeminence as far as knowing, and more so than the ear. And I was giving as a sign that the sense of sight is is better than the sense of hearing, the fact that we'd rather be deaf than blind, you know.

[27:51] Right. There's one girl who was a great lover of music and played the organ and so on, and she said she'd rather be blind than deaf.

[28:00] But then she tried to argue, you know, that that music is what better than painting. Therefore, the ear is better than the what eye, you know. And of course, this is a good argument to use with Hegel because Hegel, you know, maintains that music is what. Higher than than than painting, right? Huh? Yeah. But notice the eye is more

[28:25] like the imagination and more like the reason, right? And a sign of this is is the fact that we metaphorically will carry the word "eye" over to the imagination and to the reason, huh? Like in in Hamlet, there, huh? When the friends of Hamlet have seen the ghost of Hamlet's father, have seen them with their eyes, right? Okay. And you know how the play begins there. You know, some of the friends have seen it at night time, and they've told Horatio, the best friend of Hamlet, about this.

[29:06] And Horatio, you know, yeah, just your imagination, right? You mean it? And of course, the ghost does appear, right? And and Horatio says, "You know, I would not have believed this without the sensible, you know, vouch of my own eyes, right? You know. " And there's something, you know, there's some reason why the ghost is is appearing, right? And so they decide to go to tell Hamlet about this, right?

[29:32] But before they're able to tell him about it, Hamlet says, "I can see my father now." And they're looking around, you know, like the ghost has appeared suddenly, and he says, "In my mind's eye," he says, huh? Well, he's meaning he can what? He can picture his father. He can imagine his father now, right? The way he was, and the way he looked, and so on, right?

[29:53] Okay. But notice he's calling the imagination there in my mind's what? Eye. Eye. And then our friend Gregory the Great, right? In the Moralia, Gregory the Great says that anger disturbs the eye of the soul, meaning that anger disturbs your judgment of your reason, right? But metaphorically, he's calling reason the eye of the soul, right? And of course, even non-metaphorically, we carry the word to see over from the act of the eye to the imagination, right?

[30:31] And finally, we call understanding itself a seeing, right? And we saw Aristotle also use the word light there in talking about the understanding, huh? So the eye seems to be more like the imagination and more like the understanding than any of the other senses, huh? And in that way,

[30:55] the eye seems a more spiritual sense, right? Okay. But it's kind of interesting when you compare this with the what nature gives us, huh? In some ways, what nature does in a beautiful sunset, right, or in the beautiful mountains, or in the fall foliage, it gives us maybe more beautiful things than our paintings, huh? See, but it's interesting with sound that with the music, say, of Mozart or Handel or somebody or Corelli, we get more beautiful sounds than we hear in nature, huh?

[31:38] And you go into the forest, you know, and you hear these sounds of, yeah, but not as beautiful as the sounds that we ourselves make in music, right? And the what's interesting too about music is that it's

[31:56] it's like thinking in the sense that it's what it's it's one thing leads into another, right? You see, yeah, yeah, right, discursive, huh? And the

[32:18] when Aristotle is talking about more education there in the in the eighth book of the Politics, right? And he speaks of how music is more important even than painting, huh? In moral education, and you can see that the effect of music is much more powerful than painting upon people, and you know a great problem for in our society now is that people listen to the wrong kind of music, right?

[32:48] And their musical they don't have any taste in music to begin with, and they're listening to stuff that's really very what making their souls kind of vicious, right? Huh? Okay. I always remember, you know, back in high school and so on, you know, these dances and so on, you know, that on the songs, the actual words of the song were, "I'm going to make a monkey out of you, just you wait and see."

[33:17] But in a sense, that's what the music was doing, right? But the other words weren't telling what they were doing. That's what it does, right? It's making you, apish, apish yeah, yeah, It's making you perverse in your body, right? Huh? And it's disposing your soul in a sense for what for evil, right? For vice, um,

[33:46] you know, when rock and roll first came on the scene, huh? Everywhere they performed it, they had riots, huh? And my my cousin was in the navy at the time, right? And the the sailors got so wild, they were throwing these kind of chairs, you know. Wow. You know, you can fold this thing up, right? You make these things flying through the sky, you know. But you can just see with the way people were behaving, right?

[34:16] Sure. And you see, sometimes you know these these riots and so on, right? Huh. And I've known parents who have gone to these concerts to see what they are like, you know. Which they shouldn't be allowing the kids to go to them, you know. But you can smell the, you know, not just ordinary smoke, you know, but all this drug. And uh, uh, but even you know, I mean, there is always some some rock band or whatever is coming to town, you know, and you see their picture in the paper there.

[34:49] They look like monstrosities, just the way they, you know, the way they dress and so on. And so, music is a very powerful thing, a very powerful thing. And

[35:08] so, I mean, I remember Father Belay made a collection there, you know, of texts from the ancients, you know, talking about. The importance of music and education, but Aristotle talks about in the eighth book of the Politics. and Aristotle talks about it in the Republic, right? But it's extremely important the kind of music that young people listen to, and so on. And do you know what we mentioned on nature?

[35:35] As far as sound level, it's deficient to human music. Say, is there any? Do you know what that tells us about nature? If it, if it. Sound. Yeah, you know, if nature can give us a more beautiful sight, but a less beautiful sound. Is there any? Does that tell us anything about nature at all? Well, maybe so, but it tells us even more about what music is.

[36:02] You know, it's interesting that that fiction and the original forms of fiction they all have a musical origin, right? So you know, tragedy means what? A song. Yeah, comes from the word for ode, ode,

[36:22] right? And you know, sonnet means what? Song, right? Lyric poetry is named from the from the musical instrument, the lyre, right? And you know, when when Homer presents Demodocus there in the Odyssey, there, you want to sing about the fall of Troy, right? He takes out his musical instrument from the wall and he starts to pluck his instrument and so on. Um. So in the beginning, these things were all what accompanied by music, huh?

[36:54] And a musical origin, huh? But even our modern day movie, I mean, the musical accompaniment is very important for the effect of the movie, huh? Of course, the Greek the Greek plays, you know, we don't really know how much the music was was, but it was very much in what the scholars say, right? Very much a part of it, huh? Um.

[37:18] But the see what one's one's one's emotions are moved in harmony with the music, kind of automatically, huh? And so, if the music represents the emotions in a state that is reasonable, your emotions are being moved in a reasonable way, huh? But if the music represents the emotion that is disordered, right? And your emotions are moved in sympathy with the music, you're being disposed for what vice, huh?

[37:54] From moral vice, huh? Is that why it's difficult to explain to people why music is so damaging? Because it kind of bypasses the reasoning process. Yeah, it's kind of. Even a good school like you know Thomas Aquinas College out there, you know, you know you get students who come from you know good Catholic families, but a lot of them have bad taste in music, right? And it's very hard to to change that because music is so natural thing, so connatural to us.

[38:41] See, I was fortunate having two brothers. I mean, when I grew up, I didn't have you know great desire to listen to bad music anyway. But but when I've been tolerated in the house with my brother Mark and brother Richard, right? And so,

[38:57] eventually acquired a good taste in music. You see, but that was very important that the right kind of music be listened to. huh Do you have a copy of that Father Boulet's compilation? I don't have a copy of that. No, but I know he made such a one.