De Anima (On the Soul)
72. Summa I, Q.76, Art. 1: Is the Understanding Soul the Form of the Body? The Objections, and Words for Beginning, Mode and Happiness
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/072-summa-i-q-76-art-1-is-the-understanding-soul-the-form-of/

[0:00] is if you leave out the differences, right? Or even one of the differences you're going to have them both there. So there's no way to compact these things, right? You brought me a great paperback by Warren Murray. It's that I advocate slow. Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic Doctor, help us to understand all that you've written.

[0:36] Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. This is is a long article. If we want to get through one article today, I don't know. We have some time left. I'll show you that little passage there from the Pope and Saint Teresa of Avila It's not exactly the way I quoted, it, but I think I could defend that very easily from the text. Okay.

[1:03] Okay. Question seventy-six about the union of the soul to the body. And about this, he says there are eight things that are asked. First, whether the

[1:19] intellectual principle, right, the intellectual beginning, is united to the body as a what form, right? Second, whether the understanding beginning is multiplied in number according to the multiplicity of bodies. whether there is one understanding of all men. This is something that the Arab philosophers now Averroes made famous, right? And so Thomas is always

[1:55] correcting correcting that, yeah. And that's he wrote that work called you know the De Unitate Intellectus contra Averroistas, right? On the unity of the intellect against Averroes' interpretation and thinking was very popular in his time, so that's why he has such a prominence.

[2:16] Whether in the body of which the understanding beginning is a form, whether in the body there is some other soul, right? Huh? Like Plato spoke as if that were, you know, plant soul in there, maybe an animal soul and a human soul, right? And that one comes into the heresies too, you know. Now they'll say that Christ has what placed the human soul. He's got the the word, but then he's got animal soul for his body.

[2:47] Some horrible combination, but all kinds of things. But those don't come up here. they come up in the third part here when he talks about that. But

[2:59] okay, now the fourth article is like the third. Whether in it there is some other substantial form, as if there's a substantial form for the body other than the soul itself.

[3:18] The fifth. Thing that's asked whether there ought to be or what of what sort ought to be the body, right? Of which the understanding beginning is the form. And whether sixth article, whether it is joined to such a body by some other body as a middle, that's what Descartes position, right? That the the pineal gland up here somewhere in the brain there is where the oh the mind you know is joined to the body.

[3:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whether it is joined to the body by reason of some what accident, huh? And then the last article, which is a very interesting thing here, whether the whole soul is in each part of the body, huh?

[4:09] Or is a part of the soul in one part of the body, another part, another part of the body? Well, if you imagine the soul to be that kind of a air like substance, right? Which is a false imagination, huh? Then part of the soul would be in this part of the body, another part, another part of the body. But

[4:30] but how can the whole soul be in each part of the body? That seems difficult, huh? Yeah. But people, you know, either they imagine the soul to be that body like thing, or else they imagine the soul to be something like a point, but having a particular location in the body. Oh yeah, okay. And the soul is neither one of those things.

[4:54] But that's that's something very interesting, but takes a while to understand it fully. So the first objection here, the first article, to the first one proceeds thus. It seems that the understanding beginning, huh? And that's the word beginning there in Latin and in Greek and English. It's been more extended perhaps than the English word beginning. When I was in in grade school, you know, they were always implicating the good sisters there.

[5:32] The difference between a principal like the sister who was principal of the school, right? And principal in an art or a science, right? Right. And a little difference in the spelling, right? Right. So the principal of the school, um, whom we're all a little afraid of, you know. Sure. Sister. Yeah. What's your name? Problems.

[6:15] Yeah, I remember one time my brother Mark had been sick for a number of days and missed school, you know, and. I was coming up the steps, and she was there. This is Saint Joseph, and she stopped me and asked about my brother Marcus. Of course, I am looking down like this, you know, saying, "Well, he's sick," you know. And she says, "Look at the person to whom you are speaking."

[6:39] But notice, despite the difference in spelling here in English, it's basically the same word in Latin, principium. Okay, and the word prince, related to that same word, huh? Okay.

[7:04] Now, the first meaning of principium in Latin, like it would be for the Greek word arché, would be the beginning of the table, right? The beginning of the line. A point is the beginning of a line, right? Okay.

[7:26] And then the second meaning that they give of principium or arché is where you would begin your journey, right? Which not be for the beginning of the table, right? Now, I get up to leave this table to go home. I start from the beginning of the table, right? But if you are sitting in the middle of the table, you are not going to go to the end of the table and then start from there, are you?

[7:51] Sure. You are going to start from where you are. That's the second meaning of principium, huh? Where it's most convenient to begin, right? So my stock example in class is that if I go to Boston on Route Nine, I am not going to go to the beginning of Route Nine, which is somewhere out in western Massachusetts. I am going to start right where I am, where I can get access to Route Nine, right?

[8:15] And those are the first two meanings of it, right? And then the third meaning of principium is the fundamental part of a thing, like the foundation of a house is the beginning of a house, or the keel to the beginning of the ship, the center thing, huh? And the fourth meaning is this one where your prince, the fourth meaning of beginning, is the mover, huh? Okay. And then finally, apply it to the beginning in knowledge, and that's spelled with a different English, but it's basically the same what word?

[8:54] What was the fourth? The fourth meaning is the mover, huh? Mover. Yeah, the maker, right? So art is the beginning of things, right? Okay. The prince, the general, the man who commands others, right? He's the beginning, right? Your parents are the beginning of you; they generated you, and so on, right? By this third sense of principium, the foundation of the house, the fundamental part of the house.

[9:23] That's closer to the first sense because it's inside that of which it is beginning. See, just as the beginning of the desk is in the desk, right? But when I say the principal is the beginning of, or the prince is the beginning of those he moves, right? He's outside of them, right? Yeah. And then you go to the sense that is further from the senses, huh? The principle, the starting point in the mind, which we sometimes compare it to efficient cause, huh?

[9:52] And then finally, you have the general sense where any cause can be called a what? Beginning, right? Okay. That's the sixth one you said. Yeah. Any cause. So this is the first word that begins the beginning of the fifth book of wisdom, right? The Fifth book of first philosophy, The fifth book of the metaphysics it's called It's. the Word beginning right, and in Greek you see you have the word archaia.

[10:23] So archaeology right comes from that word. Monarchia comes from that same word right. So the princes are called archai right, and and the principles and science are called archai. It's the plural. Okay. So here he's talking about the intellectivum principium right. He means the beginning, the source of what understanding right. Whence first we understand. Okay. He says is that whence first we understand is that joined to the body right.

[11:05] Okay. And the first objection here says as a philosopher says and of course that's a what Aristotle by Antonomasia right. Yes. As a philosopher says in the third book about the soul that the understanding is separated right is not in a body right there isn't a body and it's not the act of somebody.

[11:34] Therefore the understanding beginning right is not united to a body as a what form right huh. Or you could say the soul that understands right can't be joined to a body as a form because the understanding the ability to understand is not a body right and not in a body. So how can the understanding soul that he calls the intellectivum principium here how can that be the form of a what body right.

[12:09] That's a very good objection right. Okay. What you notice is as you've maybe heard said sometimes it's a custom or the way of those mistaking to go to what extremes right huh.

[12:26] And so you know in the beginning they think of the understanding the ability to understand as being like senses some kind of a body maybe the brain or something like that right. Uh huh. And then they make man not too much different from the beast right. Yeah. But then when they come to understand that the understanding is not a body it's not in a body right. Then they go to the kind of opposite extreme and begin to think of the human soul as something that is a angelic like thing right that it's an angel right huh.

[13:04] And it's an immaterial substance right Entire distinct from the body with no connection with the body except perhaps the body is a prison or something right. And

[13:18] incidentally, when they talk about the the punishment of the of the evil angels, right? No. And they're afflicted by bodies, right? Oh. And Thomas will ask, you know, how is that, right? Well, because it can't be afflicted by a body in the way we could be, like fire, because they don't have a body, right? Yeah. But they can be what? By God. What? Forced to be attached to these bodies, right?

[13:46] Oh. Okay. So that they're in that sense joined to something what? Another. Or bound to something below them, right? Huh. And that's a fitting punishment for someone who's that proud, right? Huh. They see themselves joined, huh? Kind of attached to, right? Huh. Bound to something inferior to themselves, namely a body, right? Hmm. But those who think of the soul as being kind of a what? Angel imprisoned in a body, right?

[14:22] Right. Ah, the Platonists kind of tend to speak that way, right? And that's the way Origen understands it, right? You know, Origen thought that the souls were like angels, who were all created as complete immaterial substances, and some of us sinned, and then we're attached to what bodies, as if we were what imprisoned in bodies, huh? As a result of our bad choices, huh? In the spiritual world, huh?

[14:54] So that's what's behind this thought of saying it's, not united to a body as a form. So they're thinking it more as angelic, then. Yeah. Either thinking, you know, if they think of the soul as being like any other material form, something existing only in a body, right? Huh. Only having operations in the body, then they would deny that the soul is something subsistent or something incorruptible or something immortal, right?

[15:23] On the other hand, if they realize that understanding the universal, understanding what it is, is not an act that can take place in a body, that it's a act, therefore that is not in a body, then they tend to go to the opposite extreme, right? And think of the soul as being a kind of angel, a complete immaterial substance, complete in its nature, right? In the body, being something altogether accidental to the body, to the soul, right?

[15:56] Okay. Yeah. Yeah, a complete the complete sense. Yeah. Yeah. Not only something subsisting that has existence by itself, but something that has a complete nature, right? Okay, so they tend to go from one extreme to the what other?

[16:19] The second and the third arguments, as you'll see in Thomas's reply, are simply developing there what was objected in the first one, giving the reason for it, and kind of recalling even Aristotle's arguments a bit. The second objection: Moreover, every form is determined by the nature of the matter of which it is a form. Otherwise, there would not be required a proportion between matter and form. The matter and form are in a way relative to each other.

[16:57] Yeah. So not just any form is in any what matter, right? Right. And of course, this is a basic principle in natural philosophy, huh? Like we were saying, you can't have just any soul in any what body, right? Right. Because the soul is the body to some extent, like an art is to its tools, huh? And you can't have the art of sewing, let's say, huh? Use the tools of the carpenter.

[17:31] And the tools of the carpenter and the carpenter or the art of carpentry can't use the tools of the what tailor or seamstress, right? So my wife makes a dress, or my daughter does. They use a scissors and what needle, right? Okay. My brother-in-law who does some carpentry. uses a hammer and a saw, right? He can't do his work with a what scissors and a what needle.

[18:05] You'd be kind of suspicious of that. Okay, trying to build a house, using his scissors, It could be a cardboard house, but not the house we're going to live in, huh? Okay. Because he couldn't cut the wood with the scissors. He couldn't, you know, sew together the the he's got nailed together, right? Huh? Okay. But vice versa, a hammer would be quite useless to my wife making a dress and hammering the buttons or whatever.

[18:33] Break up the buttons, right? Huh? Sure. And you know, she's using a saw to cut the dress and pretty rough-with the dress. as she gets through with it, huh? Okay. I used to take an example: you know, you can't expect the glassblower to use the tools of the carpenter, right? Ah. You know, blowing the glass like, can you go with a hammer and saw? And of course, we have a proportional principle there in political philosophy, where Aristotle points out that you can't realize just any form of government.

[19:06] In any what people, right? So, and you know how the United States sometimes, yeah, would naively set out, you know, to transport our form of government to all these underdeveloped countries, and you kind of, you know, plaster things over and give them names, but in practice, you don't really have a uh American form of government possible in these people, right? Yeah. And so, you need

[19:37] a people who, by education and customs and so on, are suitably what proportion to this form of government, and so matter and form are like what relatives, huh? Relative to each other, this form in this particular matter, right? So that's kind of a common thing in political philosophy as well as in

[20:07] natural philosophy, huh? That's why you see too that the perfection of different things, which is tied up with their form, right? Is not the same. The perfection of the eye, right, is not the same as the perfection of the what ear, right?

[20:26] What perfects the ear is going to be different. What perfects the eye? So each form is its own matter. So he says every form is determined by the nature of the matter which it is a form. Otherwise, would not be required a certain proportion between the matter and the form. Aristotle actually reasons in that in the second book of Natural Hearing, the so-called Physics, to say that it belongs to the same science to consider matter and form, because there's the same knowledge of what opposites, right?

[21:00] And matter and form in a way are opposites in the way in which relatives are to be opposites, huh? So we make one any sense for one science to be about fathers, another science to be about sons, right? Or one science to be about the double, another science to be about the half. Double and half naturally belong to the same science, right?

[21:25] And so he's going to make use of that truth here to say to construct an argument here. If therefore the understanding was united to a body as a form, since every body has a determined nature, it would follow that the understanding has determined nature, and thus would not be knowing of all things, huh? Okay, which is against the definition of the understanding. That's kind of the first thing Aristotle showed, and Thomas repeated that, right?

[21:59] That the understanding is in what potency, and ability to receive the forms and natures of all material things, huh? Just as my tongue is able to receive the flavor of all different kinds of things, right? And that the sense, just as the sense has to lack any of that quality that's going to receive, right? That? If my tongue was was salty or or sweet or something, right?

[22:28] My tongue could not taste all things, could it? And so, and if my eye was colored, right? The fluid, I wouldn't be able to receive all colors, huh? And if Mozart was always sounding in my ear, right? I wouldn't be able to hear anything else. Some people think I can't, but anyway. So that if the understanding had any determined bodily nature, right? It would not be able to receive the natures of all material things.

[23:01] So it's simply saying the understanding cannot be a what form of a body, right? Okay. The third argument is similar. Moreover, whatever potency is receptive. Of the act of somebody, receives a form with matter, right? And individually, and this is the old principle: whatever is received

[23:33] is received in the receiver according to the way of the what receiver, huh? Okay. So you can say the same thing to thirty students in class, right? Yeah. And on the exam, you are going to get back not the same answer because some of them will receive it what fully and completely, and others Not at all. At all, if there is something of an excursus, I've seen that elsewhere where it calls it a thing is received in the mode of the receiver, and I just don't really know what, in a sense, I don't really know what mode means exactly.

[24:17] Well, mode originally in Latin has got the sense of something determined by measure, right? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I mean, the most concrete example of this is when you when I was in Italy, and we were in this tour bus there, and they went over there at the bishop and so on, and the tour bus stops at the restaurant there, and you walk in and wonderful food, and these big kegs, you know, and I heard this woman behind me saying to her husband, "Oh, they got beer here, you know?

[25:01] Well, I guess they did have beer, but these are kegs of wine, right? " And then they had these different size carafes, right? Yeah. So you get a little carafe or big one, a great big one, and then you pour your wine yourself from the big keg, right? Pull the thing like a tap, and then you go through the thing and pay, you know, according to the size carafe you have, right?

[25:22] Okay. Well, notice, huh? if you went and filled all these carafs, right, Right, Each caraf would not receive the same amount of wine, would it? Sure. Because one is bigger than the other, right? One is smaller, right? Okay. So they're going to receive according to their what capacity, right? Huh? Yeah. Okay. Okay, thank you.

[25:54] Some of your doctoral thesis have all just done the word modus, huh? Oh, it's an important word there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The okay, I mentioned how how I see you go from Latin to Greek and English. You know, you do sometimes translate the same thing, not translate, but to say a little bit differently, right? Yeah. And

[26:20] I think I was mentioning how. You're dealing with the ethics there, and you find the word happiness in the English text, and then in Thomas' text, it's Felicitas, right? And in the Greek, it's Eudaimonia, And it's kind of interesting. The etymology of these words is a little different, right? Oh yeah. Because happiness actually comes from the word hap, meaning what? Luck. Luck, yeah. Oh yeah. And if you want to understand the original meaning of happiness, we've kind of tended to take the word happy to mean joyful, right, as opposed to sad, right?

[27:09] All right. But you're happy in the sense of joyful when you're lucky. At least the common man thinks that, right? Right. So if you look at Shakespeare's play there, the Two Gentlemen, you'll see original meaning of the word, where one of the gentlemen is going off, right? And his friend Proteus says to Valentine, he says, "When you meet good hap, huh? Uh-huh. Wish me partake of your happiness."

[27:36] huh? Uh-huh. Okay. Okay? There it is, yeah. And there's an allusion to this again at the end of the play, right? You know, it's your wonder what a fortune, you know, this whole this whole play. Now Aristotle, when he talks about the play in the Poetics, he uses not the word eudaimonia, he uses the word for happiness, eutuchia Eutuchia. Yeah, which means good luck. You see, but that's kind of a more plebeian name for this, right?

[28:13] Yeah. Because the common man thinks of luck as having you know a lot to do with these things, and it does have a lot to do with. Huh. You know, but but really happiness is more result of what you've chosen to do or not do in this life, huh? And but etymology is taken from luck, huh? Yeah. Now felicitas comes from the Latin word felix, meaning fruitful.

[28:40] And so in a sense felicitas means fruitfulness, huh? That's a little bit closer to what you're really talking about in the Nicomachean Ethics. And you know when Christ says, "By their fruits you shall know them," right? Can the bad tree produce good fruit, and so on, right? And when we have the expression the fruits of the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah. The fruit is something what ultimate or last, right?

[29:04] And something pleasant, right? Yeah. And therefore it well names the end or purpose even the life, because that's what's last, right? It's that for the sake of which everything else is, and it's pleasant to have achieved that, right? Yeah. Although felicitas is not pleasure, but it's something that when you get, you are pleased, right? Yeah. And this here, you know, there's no more. what the emphasis is in Nicolaiic and Ethics, Because Aristotle's talking about how a man is is happy or miserable by what he's chosen to do or not do in his life.

[29:38] And if you choose the right thing and do it right, you're going to be what? a fruitful life, right? And if you choose the wrong things and do the wrong things, then you're going to end up being miserable, right? Okay.

[30:00] English word for misery, though, of course, is, what? richness, huh? And if you study that etymologically, it goes back to the idea of shipwreck, huh? Oh yeah. Yeah. And you notice how even I think it was when Pius XII. Was declaring the mystery of the assumption was it? Yeah, assumption. Yeah, Matthew Conception was the one that Pope Pius XII did, right? And then 100 years later, 1950, right?

[30:28] He said that this is not an article of faith, right? And that if someone therefore was to deny, you know, the assumption, he would have suffered what shipwreck, with faith Saint Paul, yeah. Okay. Saint Peter. Yeah, and and Shakespeare often used that metaphor, you know, of life as a voyage, right? No. Life's uncertain voyage, huh? Of course, in those days, voyage was a very uncertain thing, right?

[30:55] You heard about the way insurance was done those days? No. Let's even make a a boat trip, you know, from England down to to Italy or someplace, right? Well, I bet about your not coming back, right? And maybe you'd put up a thousand dollars, let's say, whatever the sum is. And I put up a thousand dollars, right? And if you get back safe, you collect your thousand dollars plus my thousand dollars.

[31:19] If you don't make it back, I get back my thousand dollars plus I get your thousand dollars. So it's kind of a common thing. So here it's

[31:31] got the idea of fruitfulness, huh? You see, fruit is a natural what result of what the tree does, right? And that gives something of the what truth of happiness and misery, right? Happiness is the natural result of virtuous action, virtuous choices. Misery is the natural result, you might say, of what?

[32:04] Yeah, yeah. Remember what the the doctor says there? He sees this terrible condition of Lady Macbeth, you know, how it happens to her. Lady Macbeth is what? Committed murder, right? Right. And now she's, you know, having these terrible nightmares. She can't sleep. She's out, out damn spots, you say, you know, like she's still trying to wash her hands in the blood and so on. And the doctor realizes that her problem is not what physical.

[32:30] Yeah, not medical problem, but she's got a problem in her soul, right? And he says, unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles, right? It's interesting. The breed is the idea to what generate, right? So unnatural deeds, evil deeds, right? Like murdering a king, your own king, right? It breeds naturally what produces these unnatural troubles, right? Yes. Misery, right? Huh?

[33:09] Now, eudaimonia, is taken from what? A daimon, which. You know, didn't have the sense of demon at first, right? Right. A daimon was some kind of a superior what, being like an angel, right? Okay. And the eudaimon would be what a good daimon, like we'd say a good angel, right? Our better angels, as this phrase of Lincoln, right? Okay. Sometimes you're speaking about a good angel, leading you or directing you towards the good, and a bad angel tempting you away.

[33:46] And yes, to the your better angels or your worse angels. But eudaimonia, in a sense, is saying that our happiness, right, depends upon a superior being, right? That you are well guided, huh? You have a good daimon huh? A good angel, right? Someone above you looking after you. I think it's kind of marvelous to see those three words. And you know, I first read Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I read it in English when I was in high school.

[34:18] See. And Aristotle's quite familiar with the word happiness there. Then I started to read them in Latin, there was Thomas's commentary, and there the word is lichitas, right? If you know the Greek, it's eudaimonia, right? So you have three words that being used synonymously for the same thing, the end or purpose of man, but the etymology, that from which the name is taken, is different, right? And there's some truth, perhaps, in each of the etymologies, huh?

[34:46] That my happiness is, to some extent, determined by good and bad luck, right? If I step out in the street there and I get hit by a car, or something falls on me and I'm crippled, you know, that's going to, you know, that's going to influence my happiness, you see. But what I choose to do or not to do, right, is going to very much influence whether I'm going to be happy or miserable in this life, right, and for certainly next life, right.

[35:24] But it also what depends upon some superior being, like an angel or God Himself, right? You see. And in Nicomachean Ethics, of course, in a way, the emphasis is upon learning what you should choose to do or not to do in order to be happy and avoid misery, right? Because we can't control so much luck or chance, right? And the higher being, we can't determine what the higher being does, right?

[35:59] Although we can pray or do something this sort, right? Okay. When Aristotle gets into the to the book of Politics, there, he's talking about the best form of government, right? And he thinks we'll take unusual circumstances, though, to realize the best form of government. And so he calls it, you know, kat' euchen, according to a prayer, right? You know, something one would more pray for than hope to be able to accomplish, right?

[36:33] Because you need such, you know, exceptional circumstances, right, to realize the best form of government. Aristotle and politics that talk about the best form of government, period. Then the best form of government that most men are capable of, something lesser than that. Then the best form of government for this people here, which might not be even the best government that most men are capable of, right? Yeah.

[37:00] So you know it's very nuanced Aristotle's position, right? Now this this word modus. I first started noticing it like when you're talking about, you know, I worked my doctoral thesis, right?

[37:20] Thomas speaks, you know, of the modus procedendi, the way of going forward, right? The way of proceeding. Now, English we translate that as the way of proceeding. If we want to put it in Italian English, the way of going forward. The way of going forward.

[37:49] And so Aristotle and Thomas follow him. They'll talk about the way of going forward in reasoned-out knowledge, right? The common way of going forward. This is tied in logic, right? And then they'll talk about the private way of going forward in geometry, right? Or in natural philosophy, or in wisdom itself, right? Or in ethics and so on. Um. Now, the Greek word is what? Tropas, tropos apagoge So the same as this, tropas.

[38:27] Okay. Now these are the exact words we use, right? Aristotle speaks of the tropos apagoge, which is the same as procedendi, the tropos of going forward. Plato will speak of the modus and the what English of the way, right? Now tropas in Greek, sometimes

[38:56] they'll translate it as way, very much a English word, but tropas has a sense in in Greek, originated of what turning. Okay. So it's like a turn of mind, huh? Okay.

[39:16] Modus, as I mentioned, huh? Is something that is fixed by some measure, and way in English, of course, is closer to what to road, right? So when we have we always translate the words of our Lord, I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? Yeah. But the Greek word there is not tropos, that's translated way. It's odas, road. Yeah. We get the word odometer, you know, measures the road, right?

[39:45] And that's where Aristotle usually talks about the road. You know, the odas. It's in Greek. This, but so it's an H sound, huh? Odas, huh? Okay. Next, we get the word odometer in English. If you ever had an odometer on your bike, you know, to measure the, you know, measure the what the road, right? You can turn it on, right? And you can measure how far you bicycled How many miles or whatever it is,So,

[40:21] but you talk about say the private modus uh I see people sometimes speak this way. You know, they'll say that an economist and a biologist and a philosopher and an English professor, each guy's got a different turn of mind. Oh. You see, his mind's turned a little different. And I see that, you know, in office you are not, you know, students of philosophy. You know, Washington Irving speaks, you know,

[40:59] in Mountjoy, right? It's a beautiful, beautiful little big Mount Shore one of the stories. But Mount Shore had a sort of turn of mind turn of mind, right? Okay,

[41:10] the mathematician's got another turn of mind, right? So it's kind of very concrete, huh? Yeah. And it's kind of interesting the way Plato speaks there, you know, because in the Republic, you know, he speaks as if the mind was looking towards material things, right? And they got to turn the mind around, so it's going to look towards what the immaterial things. What you do is you're looking at sensible material things, and then we turn the mind around, so it looks at mathematical things, and that kind of removed from the sensible world, aren't you?

[41:47] But still, these mathematical things are imaginable, and they're not completely, you know, separated from what you have in matter the continuous, right? And then you turn around and look towards what the immaterial substances, right? So Plato speaks as if the mind is being turned around. Okay. And so we have that expression a lot: turn of mind in education and Plato. But now here you can say that the way of proceeding has to fit the matter.

[42:25] So it's measured by the what matter. So we don't talk about triangles and squares in the same way we talk about human virtues and vices, right? Right. Okay. And by here you're closer to the idea of what a road, right? Of the way, perhaps not quite as concrete as road, right? I see. Because way is something of the sense of how you do something, right? Yeah. As well as the road you follow, right?

[43:01] Uh huh. So. So it's interesting. Now each word's got a little different etymology. Sure. And. But they're really being used here, you know, synonyms, words translating the same word there. But there's a little difference in the etymology, like up here, the difference in the etymology, huh? Yeah. So, to say, you can make a study this word modus because it's very important, huh? Yeah. And Thomas uses it a lot, huh?

[43:41] So Thomas is saying he's talking about the categories, right? And how we divide being according to substance, quantity, quality, right? And Aristotle in the Metaphysics says according to the figures of predication. And Thomas says, well, he says the modi ascendi,

[44:01] the modes of being, right, are proportional to the modi predicandi, the ways that something is what said of something, huh? But I said in English, I would use the word way, right? I would say the different ways that something can be said of individual substances

[44:22] are proportional, right, to the different ways that things are. But in Latin, they would have modi, huh? Thomas would have the modi. So you get these words that you know get to see them a lot of times in context, and then you get kind of a sense of the way the word is being used in that language. But Monsignor Dian would teach us sometimes, you know, that sometimes the word in one language is what better than in another language, right?

[44:59] For some reason, or other, you know, maybe dealing with the etymology. And so sometimes you lose something when you go from one language to another, right? Sure. Okay. Like you know the Greek word episteme, which is translated Latin by what? Scientia, right, huh? Okay. But episteme in Greek means coming to a halt or a stop. It comes to the Greek word for coming to a halt or a stop.

[45:28] And so it brings out the fact that episteme is at the end of a discourse a movement of reason, huh? Yeah. When reason has now reached certitude, huh? Yeah. But as a result of a movement first, right? Right. And scientia it doesn't have that etymology at all. It's the idea maybe of of knowing a certitude, but not the idea that you're knowing as a result of a discourse, right?

[45:56] Does it work sometimes that the Latin is actually superior than the Greek, or is the Greek generally better? Well, generally the Greek is going to be superior, but you know, Dion would often say that English was was superior on the whole to to French, yeah. Yeah. But the proportion that Dionne and Boulet used to was that. French is to English as Latin is to what? Greek, and the Greek is superior to Latin, both for philosophy and for what?

[46:28] As poetry. Poetry, yeah, it's more concrete, and English is superior to French both for philosophy and for poetry. That's interesting, huh? But you know, sometimes you know you might have some word Latin, and you know they might be better, right? And one example I would give is I think the word sapientia in Latin is beautiful. Oh, yeah. The way Thomas explains it, sapientia means sapida scientia, savory knowledge, right?

[47:02] Tasty knowledge, right? huh? See, that marvelous concrete? huh? Now, sophia in Latin, in Greek doesn't have that concrete etymology, right? Yeah. And even the word wisdom in English doesn't have that, huh? Say. Okay. But now the word understanding, huh? I think is better than intellectus. But in some ways, intellectus is better than the Latin than the Greek word nous, huh? And the way Thomas explains intellectus is intus legere, to read within, right?

[47:41] Okay. Um, but I think understanding is to what? To see what stands under something, right? Huh? To know something, what stands under it? Huh? And Shakespeare, at least two of his plays, he puns upon the original meaning of the word understanding, right? And

[48:08] the thing for understanding, right? Okay, you know, I mean the puns aren't that great, but I mean, but you know, someone will say, "I don't understand you," and he says, "Well, I can't understand." I mean, you can, you know, that sort of thing, you know. But

[48:25] then, when you take the Latin word substance, right? Do you see right away that it's the understanding that knows substance, right? The words tie in right away. The etymology is exactly the same. Or we speak of the underlying cause, huh?

[48:42] Say. An English word for cause is ground, which stands under things, right? Okay. So that's something marvelous about the English word understanding, huh? And you know, when Thomas talks about about, it wasn't mean to understand a word, right? And if I say

[49:06] some Greek word, you don't understand what it means. Say, well, to understand a word means to know what stands under the word, right? Okay. Now in Latin, the word intelligere would wouldn't have that sense so much. It'd be to read within the meaning within the word, right? But in Latin, they'll speak of the impositio nominis, right? And in Greek, they'll talk about that, which means literally the placing of a name upon something, right?

[49:33] Okay. In English, we say popularly to put a label upon something, right? So you you imagine that the name is above what it's naming, right? So you put a name upon something, right? So to understand a name is to know what stands under the name, right? See, see, the English word "understanding" is is really absolutely marvelous word, huh? And when when I'm teaching wisdom, you know, if you ever have a chance to do a bit of wisdom, you know, the wise man most of all understands, huh?

[50:05] And you can tie right away with what the wise man knows, huh? He knows the first causes, what stands under everything else, right? He knows the axioms more perfect. than. Anybody else? And they stand under all of our knowledge of statements, huh? And he most of all knows substance, you know. If he most of all understands, right? And you couldn't do that with the with the Latin word and he for sure with the Greek word with the Greek word, right?

[50:33] You know. So sometimes the word in one language, huh? I know when Monsignor was explaining the word example there, right? It's a name. It's used in logic example in two ways, huh? In one sense, example means what? A a singular used to illustrate the universal, right? Mm-hmm. Okay.

[51:01] And so if I define what a hand is, then I might say, "Well, this is a hand, for example." Okay. But then there's another meaning of example in logic, where it's an argument from one singular to another singular of the same kind.

[51:19] Okay. So we appeased Hitler at Munich and look what happened, right? We appeased this dictator and it'll be the same thing, right? So you're arguing from one singular to another singular of the same kind.

[51:33] Monsignor went back to English and it's comparing the word example with the word what sample. You see, and sample is a piece of something to illustrate the what? Hole. So you've got a big cheese and you want to buy some cheese, right? And you're looking at and the guy says, "Well, let me give you a sample. " He cuts a little piece off and you take it, right?

[51:55] So that's a what? A small piece of the whole, right? Yeah. In an example, it's a singular to represent the what? The universal, right? So English is very concrete there. So at that time, Monsignor thought the English word was what better, right? Huh? Okay.

[52:20] When I try to translate the Greek word episteme, um, I don't translate English as halting or stopping. Maybe I could, but I translate it as by phrase. I'll say reasoned out knowledge, right? Because knowledge brings out the idea of certitude as opposed to guessing, right? But reasoned out—that's the end of a what? A movement of thinking out these things. Mm-hmm. So, um, excuse me Doctor you mentioned one about reading in.

[52:54] Was that? Yeah, Thomas understands the word intellectus, huh? Oh. intellectus. as being coming from intus within, right? Okay. And legere to read. Okay. Now some of the etymologists may challenge that, you know. Okay. A little bit, huh? Read between they sometimes understand it as, but. Oh. Read within makes a lot of sense, huh? Because the proper object of reason is the what it is of something, right?

[53:26] And the what it is is within the thing. That's why we use the word nature, right? Nature loves to hide, is a great, Heraclitus says, huh? So reason reads within, huh? And that's why we use the word insight for what? Insight. Another word for understanding, right? If someone has insight into people, he can read them, right? Yeah. You read that play of Shakespeare's, their, Cymbeline, right? What the end?

[53:56] Their Cymbeline realizes that his wife is the most evil woman, right? But she had been manipulating him, manipulating a lot of people, right? And finally, evil comes out at the end, right? And she takes her own life, if I remember rightly, but but anyway, he's completely misunderstood her all his life, right? And what does he say? Who is't can read a woman?

[54:21] Who is? Yeah, who is it? Who is't can read a woman, right? Isn't that very concrete? I remind you of the Greek, the Latin word to read within, right? Yeah.

[54:35] To read a woman, right, or any man, that, any person that matter would be to see what they're like inside, right? To have some insight into what they were, right? Well, he's completely mistaken about her, right? And her feigned love for him and all her evil plans, you know, and

[54:52] she's got the doctor, you know, showing her poisons and so on that she's using on animals, of course. And then she gives someone one of these poisons to get rid of him, right? Of course, the doctor has not trusted her with the real poison, but only a medicine that will what make you appear to be dead, like in Romeo and Juliet, right? Not really, so right. And so the beautiful happens to Imogen later on, right?

[55:19] But she takes the medicine and she thinks that someone's killing her. Oh, it's beautiful, beautiful scene, but anyway. Okay. So all this is because of the statement that whatever is received is received in the receiver according to the mode of the receiver, right? Okay. In other words, the degree to which you receive it, how much you receive it, and how well you receive it depends upon the receiver, right?

[55:50] Right. So the Latin word "modus" there would imply that, but it's in a sense measured by that, right? Okay. Reminds me a little bit, you know, of what they used to say when I was in grade school, and I found years later in Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, right. We're all going to be fully happy in the next world, right? Right. But some of us are going to be more happy than others, right?

[56:15] See, and when Saint Teresa of Lisieux was trying to explain it, my my my Saint Joseph's sisters, you know, explained it to me when I was in grade school, right? Yeah. You know, you have different what size containers, right? You see, size buckets. You see, and so each bucket is full, but one is what got more in it. Yeah. But they're all full, right? Right. Sort of like when when we sit down to dinner or something like that, one person will be satisfied with eating less than another person, right?

[56:46] Yeah. And someone else is still. You know, I find you know I'm getting older now. I don't have the figures and appetites I had when I was younger, but I find you know invariably if I go out to you know most restaurants, they're going to serve me more for dinner than I really can eat, and either take it home or else it's going to be wasted. The food, right?

[57:07] And someone's saying, you know, you know that a lot of people have the experience in restaurants, and you see a lot of people taking stuff home they can't eat all. But apparently, it's it's a it's a maxim of the trade, right? That if someone leaves the restaurant after having paid a good price and they're still hungry, their experience has not been satisfactory, you know. And no one should leave restaurant being hungry, right?

[57:36] And but notice what one person needs to be what fully satisfied, huh? It might be less than somebody else, right? Okay. So since it's measured by that, right? So how much you receive, and you could do more subtle things. How well you receive it, right? Depends upon the what receiver, right? Yeah. And I notice that, like, say, you know, if you if you tasting wine or something like that, you're a wine tasting thing, you know.

[58:11] Some people are much better judges of wine than others, right? You know, you know, famous Parker, you know, that has a newsletter and so on. You know, they taste you know hundreds of wines you know week, you know. And of course, you have to spit it out because otherwise you'd be completely drunk all the time. But some of these people are really good at discriminating what wines are.

[58:32] Yeah. You know, I probably get you know, like fifty percent of the time or something, right? And not even that much. Some people they can tell you right away what wine they're drinking, and maybe even some details about where it came from or so on. You know, not only is a Cabernet Sauvignon they're drinking, but it's from California, or it's from Australia, or it's from France, or it's from Bordeaux, or it's from Saint Emilion, or you know.

[58:58] And it's kind of amazing, you know, to to to see how good some of these people are. And I think I told you a story where Ron McCarthy had some dinner one time for professors there, and for the fun of it, he had you know a different wine put in some. Empty bottles he'd saved, right? And everybody thought they were drinking what was on the label, except for Brother Mark.

[59:23] Brother Mark says, "This is not that, right? But they probably wouldn't deceive me, you see, you know. But but but not Brother Mark. So we're all receiving the same wine, but some are what receiving it better than what others, right? Their sense of taste or smell is more what more discriminating, right? You see. So we're seeing exactly the same wine, but one is receiving it what not more, but better, right?

[59:55] Right. Okay. The same way, you know. I speak about Mozart. I guess when he was young, there, you know, he blew a trumpet and he, he fainted because his ear was so sensitive, right? You see. But he would hear things that you and I wouldn't probably what hear, right? He's going to hear it much better, huh? And the same with a painter, you know, a painter, you know, is much more sensitive to shades of color than you and I are.

[1:00:28] It's kind of funny. My brother Mark was out visiting a friend there in Detroit, and this guy had some friends who were artists and so on, right? And of course, they're all to their eyes, they're painters. And when they come in, you know, to a room like this or any room that they haven't been in like this, you know, you know, they're all, you know, like there is a slightly different shade of yellow than I've ever seen before, you know.

[1:00:54] And to me, that's just yellow, you know. You know how how women tend to be more sensitive too to colors, you know, and you know this is blue. No, no, it's aqua, you know. All these particular names, they actually understand something by these names, right? And they can discriminate between these things. And to me, they're all the same, you know. It's like my father-in-law used to always say, you know, you know, all these wines are all the same.

[1:01:17] All these wines, you think I was, you know, I just paid for the name, doing, you know. Well, to him, they probably all taste the same, right? You know, but but.

[1:01:30] But you see, in English, you would say that you see it according to the way of the receiver, right? But there is something about the word that that that brings out something about it, right?

[1:01:43] And now I notice, you know, when I first tried to read Homer, you know, I couldn't get into Homer, right? Then. And then a couple of years later, I we got a nice edition of Homer always helps, you know. And then I suddenly read like a book at night, and she was. I found I wanted to read more than one book. I started reading a book, you know.

[1:02:11] And all of a sudden, I had acquired the yeah taste for it. Right. All of a sudden, I was exposed. I turned in the right direction, right? You see, and

[1:02:26] you got to turn to different. As C. S. Lewis explains a lot in his works, you've got to turn to different forms of fiction in a different way, right? You You got to expect something different, right? Yeah. So I mean, these words are all kind of revealing, yeah. And