De Anima (On the Soul)
75. Summa I q.76 a.2: Is There One Intellect for All Men? Against Averroes and Plato
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[0:00] becomes life in a sublime manner for the good and service of mankind. I need this text with you You want to Look at it more Yeah, You can get it back to me. I don't know if I still get the attention of the folks.

[0:27] Yeah, looks like yeah, older copy. Him at the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, ordain luminous images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. And help us to understand what you've written. The Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. I know what the year of the 15th says. We learn more from a year of the study of St.

[0:59] Thomas than from a lifetime with the study of the Church Fathers. Yeah. That must be why he made it so simple. Yeah. Yeah. Make it accessible. People like me.

[1:17] Okay, we're up to the second article here of question 76. The second one proceeds thus: It seems that the understanding beginning right, the understanding soul, is not multiplied by the multiplication of bodies, but there is one understanding in all men.

[1:50] This is opinion that you had with the with the Averroists and some of these thinkers like that, and in a way, Plato leaves himself open for this opinion with this position that the early Socrates' position that the soul was the whole substance, right? We'll see that in the objections here. Why there would be

[2:18] even the first objection there? For no immaterial substance is multiplied numerically in one species. There's not a number of what of the same kind, right? There's no two immaterial substances of the same kind. Okay. But the human soul is an immaterial substance,

[2:54] for it's not put together from matter and form, as has been said above. Therefore, there are not many in one what species? Yeah. But all men are of one kind, of one species. Therefore, there is one understanding, understanding principle of all men.

[3:21] Notice, huh? Plato, in a way, saw some of the truth about immaterial substances, because in the world of forms, as the name indicates, huh? As I mentioned before, sometimes they badly translate or transliterate that word. I'll say "platonic ideas," with a capital I. Yeah. Well, of course, "idea" in English has a much different meaning than "idos" in Greek. Because "idea" in English means either what the thought or the image inside the man, but Plato is talking about a form, right?

[4:03] That's what Greek word "idos" means—a form that exists by itself, right? Apart from material things, right? And apart from our mind, and so the world of forms is a world of immaterial what substances, and there's in Plato's understanding of these forms, there's no two forms of the same kind. So Plato, in a sense, sees something of the truth—the angel, huh? Of what the immaterial substance is, like the angels or like God, for that matter, that there can't be two of the same kind.

[4:45] The same kind of immaterial substance cannot be multiplied numerically, right? Okay. Now, the other thing that Plato saw was that in an immaterial substance, like his forms, there's no difference between the individual and what it is.

[5:19] That Gabriel and what Gabriel is are the same, and Raphael and what Raphael is is the same, huh? Okay. Now, in material things, huh?

[5:40] Not only in things that have sensible matter, like natural things, artificial things, but also this kind of imaginable matter that you have in mathematics, where you have part outside of part. In material things, what a thing is and the individual are not altogether identical.

[6:08] So there's something in Socrates or in Plato or in you or in me, right? Besides what a man is. If Socrates and what a man is were identical, Socrates would be the only man,

[6:29] and to be a man and to be Socrates would be the same. Now, how is it possible to have many individuals of exactly the same kind when you have matter, when you have the continuous? Huh? Well, think back to the first theorem there in Euclid, huh? On a straight line to construct a what? Equilateral triangle. Equilateral triangle. If you recall, the way he does it is to take successively each end point of the straight line, and with that end point as a center and the line as a radius, to construct a circle.

[7:16] Circles. And then, okay. Yeah. So you have two circles of exactly the same what? Size, even right? Exactly the same shape, right? How do they differ? Position. Yeah. One's here and the other's there. Okay. Because the continuous, as you know from one of the definitions of the continuous, that whose parts meet in a common boundary, the continuous has part outside of part, right? So what is continuous, or the continuum if you want to call it that?

[7:57] I can hang out of it. Has part outside of part, and therefore, if you have enough of this material, you can make many individuals of the same kind—one here, one there. Hmm.

[8:15] So we could have many window panes here of exactly the same kind, same size and shape, and so on, because you have enough glass.

[8:28] And so you could roll out a sheet of glass, right? You have part outside of part, and you can cut the glass, right? It's big enough into enough window panes to fit that whole window over there. In the same way, Grandma can make a number of what Christmas cookies, sugar cookies, at Christmas time, right? Huh? She rolls out the dough, right? It's something continuous with part outside of part, and she can stamp this part with her little cookie thing, press, and this part, and this part, and this part, right?

[9:04] And she keeps making exactly the same cookies, right? Because she has enough dough, right, until she runs out of dough. So it's matter as subject to quantity that is said to be the

[9:21] cause of there being many individuals possibly right of exactly the same kind in material things. It's like that in mathematics, huh? You can say you have the continuous, right, and therefore part outside of part. So you can have two triangles exactly the same shape, right, even the same size, one here and one what there, right?

[9:51] And that's why, as I mentioned, I was kind of aside there in modern physics, huh? When the theory led them to say that electrons come together, they lose their individuality, right? Because you can't say one's here and one's there, and so there's no basis to say that they are distinct. What individuals, huh? So you take away matter, you take away the continuous. We saw that when we studied the material nature of our mind, right?

[10:24] That the understanding, reason itself, is not what continuous, right? And it's not in the continuous. Well, then there's no basis to have many individuals of the same kind, and therefore you have only a difference now of what of kind, huh? A difference of form, and a difference of form is going to be a difference of what of kind, okay?

[10:56] So now Plato's in kind of, or Socrates in, if one man holds these two positions, he has this inconsistency. If he holds that there are many what

[11:10] human souls, right? Yet the human soul is a complete immaterial substance like the forms are, then there should be only one. Uh huh. See, But as we learned before the human soul is not a complete immaterial substance. That somehow or other got imprisoned in a body, right? Like a man puts on his clothes and shuffles off his clothes, you know, shuffles off this mortal coil, as Hamlet says.

[11:41] Um. But the human soul is the what form of a body, right? And so, therefore, there's a what basis for the distinction between your soul and my soul, huh? Because your soul is made to be the form, substantial form, the first act of your body, right, huh? And likewise, my soul, right, of my body, huh? Even if you and I were identical twins, see, your flesh and my flesh would not be the same, huh?

[12:19] And because you have enough flesh, enough bone, and so on, we can have many individuals of the what same kind. So my soul is made for my body, and your soul is made for what your body, huh? So there's a basis, there for, in what the soul is. It's the first act or substantial form of a natural body, right, composed of tools. Okay. Ah, so there is a basis in its being proportioned to this body, right?

[13:00] That matter can, in some way, not be the cause of its individuation, right? But corresponding to its individuation, huh? Yeah, it's not that the body is the cause of my soul being an individual soul, right? But my soul individually differs from your soul because my soul is proportioned to my body. My soul fits my body, and your soul fits your body.

[13:34] Um, take a comparison. I don't want you to probably extend this, right? But you know, if we had two bolts and two different nuts, right? And one nut was bigger, and one nut was smaller, right? Huh? The bolt that fitted the bigger nut would not be the same as the bolt that fits the what smaller one, right? Huh? But yeah, if you separated the the what bolt from the nut, the bolts would still be what distinct, right?

[14:09] Even without the nuts, right? But because they're what they fit different ones, huh? Okay. So my soul doesn't fit your body, and your soul doesn't fit my body. See, huh? Okay.

[14:29] So when it comes time to thank God, you thank God for having created your soul, right? Then you thank God for having your father and mother meet, right? Since your body was produced, right?

[14:45] The flesh and blood out of which your body was made is not the flesh and blood of which my body was made, huh? Okay.

[14:56] So in a way, we don't know, you know, fully what Plato or even Socrates thought, but these two positions are not really what compatible, right? The one that sees in the forms that an immaterial substances must differ from complete immaterial substances in kind, one from another, right? So t here is no two of the same kind. And then the thought that the human soul is a complete immaterial substance, by its very nature, yeah.

[15:32] That is a haec aliquid Yeah, haec aliquid in a complete sense. Immaterial substance would be the same thing as calling it a haec aliquid Well, haec aliquid in the full sense of the word is a complete individual substance, right? Oh. But in some respect, you can say the human soul is a haka liquid because it can exist by itself, right? Yeah. But it's naturally the form of a body, right?

[15:57] Yeah. So it's not a complete. But the error What I say. I say the error comes is why in the world of forms, right, which are immaterial substances, why? Are there no two forms of the same kind? See, well, Plato saw the truth there, right? That an immaterial substance, what it is in the individual, would have to be the same. And therefore, if there is a multiplicity of immaterial substances, they are always different in kind.

[16:34] And that's why I was making a little joke there, right? If the angels were to get together for their Independence Hall, right? They'd say we hold these truths to be self-evident that no angels are created what equal, right?

[16:50] See, there's no two of the same kind, huh? And one is always greater or lesser than the other. Thomas, I think I mentioned how Thomas has interesting answer to an objection, you know, that says, "Wouldn't the angels love each other more if they were equal?" Oh, huh? And Thomas has a very interesting answer to that, right? He says that the more understanding a substance is, huh, the more it loves the common good, huh?

[17:26] That's the basis of its love, right? No, in charity, I love you because I love what God, right? Huh? And because God is the what common good of the whole universe, huh? So one angel loves another angel primarily because he loves the common good, and the common good is served more by this distinction of kind, huh? Than would be having several individuals of the same kind, huh?

[18:05] That's part of the problem in human society that we're too much alike, huh? So who should rule and who should be ruled, right? Now between me and and the dog, huh? It's pretty clear that I should do the ruling, the dog should be ruled, right, huh? See, or me and the horse, right? The horse should obey me. The horse should go where I want to go, right?

[18:32] Um, but in case human beings, you see, it's not so clear who should be ruler and who should be what ruled, right? Okay, so the order of the universe is more seen than the angels, huh? Which differs in kind, huh? So they love each other more being unequal because they see this contributes more to the common good, and they love most of all the common good.

[18:59] Okay. Interesting. So if they see that truth there in the forms. Well, then, if you think of the soul as being a complete immaterial substance, right? There couldn't be two souls of the same kind.

[19:24] So, because the human soul is capable of existing without the body, right? There is some element of the truth, obviously, in thinking of it as a material substance. But it's not a complete substance, huh? It's naturally a part, the better part, obviously, right, of the body, right? I mean, of the man, rather. Okay, but still, it's a part of a what complete substance?

[19:58] And that's why you know the resurrection is so much in harmony with the natural desires of man, huh? Okay. So this objection, you say, the human soul is an immaterial substance. You're not thinking of it as being different than the other immaterial substance. You're thinking of as being another what, more or less complete immaterial substance, huh?

[20:32] And the second objection. Moreover, the cause removed, the effect is removed, huh? The cause withdrawn, right? So the effect is withdrawn. If, therefore, by the multiplication of bodies, human souls are multiplied, consequently it would seem that the bodies being taken away, as what happens in death, the multitude of souls would not remain, huh? But from all souls there remain only one soul, which of course is heretical, right?

[21:11] But there would perish, right, the difference of rewards and what punishments, huh? Okay. Now that's was giving a little kind of a homely likeness there to the nut and the bolt, right? Which I didn't mean to what, to or extend that likeness, right? But you can say that nuts and bolts are made for each other, right? See, and this bolt fits that nut, and another size bolt fits another nut, right?

[21:49] Okay. In that sense, they're relative to each other, right? And yet the two bolts could exist, right, when they're separated from the nut, huh? The nut is screwed off it, right, huh? Okay. So it's not as if the distinction of the two bolts, right, depends upon the what they're being screwed into the nuts. Nevertheless, they are what relative to different what?

[22:23] Bolts, yeah. But the existence is not right. And Thomas argued from that way in the reply to the objection that the unity of a thing follows upon its existence, right? So if the soul can exist without the body, then its unity, right, can be without the body, right? But nevertheless, its unity and its distinction among the souls is because they're apt to be the forms of different bodies, right?

[22:52] And numerically different bodies. Now the third objection. This is another one that you have from the Averroes, right? If my understanding is different from what. Your understanding. And my understanding, then my understanding is a certain what individual, right? And likewise, your understanding is individual, because particulars or individuals are things which differ in number and come together in one species or kind. But everything that is received in something is in it by the manner of the receiver, right?

[23:36] Yeah. Therefore, the species of things in my intellect and your would be received what individually, right? Right. Which is against the definition of the understanding, which is what?

[23:53] Which knows universals, right? Yeah. Okay. As Boethius says, the thing is singular when sensed, and what universal and understood. As Aristotle said, the proper object of our mind is the what it is. Now, something sensed or imagined, and that's something universal. What a chair is, right? Is something universal, common to many. And what a square is is common to many, huh? Okay.

[24:32] That's interesting objection. My individual mind, right, is going to receive what things individually, right, and not universally. But notice, if there is one immaterial substance that we all are, this kind of crazy position, that would be an individual, right? And so, none of these immaterial substances know the universal. You wouldn't save what he's trying to save, in your position.

[25:11] It's a little bit like like that famous thing in natural philosophy where change inductively is shown to be between contraries or opposites. It's the wet that dries out, huh? It's a dry that is moistened. It's a hard that is softened, and a soft that is made hard. So it seems the hard becomes soft, and the wet becomes dry, and so on. And so Heraclitus says, within hot and cold, and wet and dry, and hard and soft are the same thing, And day and night are the same thing, right?

[25:49] Because one becomes the other. And if you become something, you are it, right? And if you say the hard cannot be soft, then the hard cannot come to be soft, and therefore the hard will always be hard. And there'd therefore be no change in the world. So he's admitting that day and night are the same thing, the hard and the soft are the same thing, the waking and sleeping are the same, because otherwise there couldn't be change.

[26:21] And He could point out, well, if hard and soft are really the same thing, then there'd be no change from hard to soft, wouldn't there? Or from soft to hard? So in trying to save change, he again what takes away change? If day and night are the same thing, there'd be no change from day to night or from night to day. Well, something like that, right? He's saying that an individual, right, cannot receive something universally or know something universally.

[26:53] The knowledge received an individual must be individual. But that same objection would apply to this separated substance. Would it be just one? That would be an individual too. So it wouldn't know the universal either. So he's trying to say that my understanding and your understanding are one and the same because they weren't. Your understanding would differ individually from mine. We have two individual understandings here, and therefore they couldn't know the universal.

[27:21] But that argument is good. Then that one immaterial substance that understands for all of us would be an individual too, and it couldn't understand the universal. So he's trying to save a knowledge of the universal by this denial of our what each having an individual mind.

[27:41] But even Raphael's got an individual mind too, and Gabriel does it. Moreover, the thing understood is in the understanding, understanding. In English, there we have to use the same letters, right? To translate that, how do you translate that? Moreover, the intellectual—that means the understood, right—is in the intellect, understanding, right? You could do it that way there, but in English, the word for intellect is understanding. Well, so it's in the understanding, understanding.

[28:26] But understanding there is used to name the faculty, the power, the ability, right? First, and then the act, right? But in Latin, it was a little different, grammatically, right? But in English, you would spell it the same way. Well, what he says exactly is further: the thing understood is in the intellect which understands. Yeah. Oh, you could you do it that way to to avoid the thing.

[28:49] Okay. I see. Want to be far exactly the way the Latin goes, right? You see, the understood is in the understanding, understanding. Yeah, it's in the understanding. Understanding,

[29:07] with two different senses of the word "understand," there, right? Right. Yeah. Because one case, you're saying the understood is in the ability to understand. Right. One is understanding, right?

[29:21] People have puzzled forever as to how to translate this exactly. Right. So be the Latin of Toriel, all tense idiot. You know what he's saying?

[29:33] If, therefore, my understanding is other from your understanding, right, is necessary that other is what is understood by me, and other what is understood by what you.

[29:51] Sometimes you get the modern philosophers arguing this way, right? Yeah, sure. Like I was saying there, you know, they say the modern philosophers can't say it's a scandal. He says at the end of the 18th century, it's a scandal that philosophers have not been able to prove the existence of the external world. And I always say, you know, the scandal is that they should have tried to prove the existence of the external world, huh?

[30:18] But because they think that what they have a little bit of the truth here, they think that the thing known must be in the knower before it's known, right? Right.

[30:31] So I know only what's in my mind, and you know only what's in your mind, right? Your mind's not my mind, so we're never knowing the same thing, right? I mean, you guys have studied geometry, haven't you? A little bit, huh? You see, and you've studied the saucy triangle, aren't you? And the teacher, or the two of you thinking about this, theorem, aren't you thinking about the same thing, right?

[31:01] See, how can that be, right? You're trying to get some of your stuff in your mind, to all mine. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like you know, if you have two mirrors here, right? Your face could appear in both mirrors at the same time, right? So there's an image of both. There's two images of you exactly alike there, two beings. And thus it

[31:35] will be individually numbered. This argument's proceeding a little bit differently than the modernizer, and it will be understood in potency only, because individuals only understood in potency, and it will be necessary to abstract a common intention, a common thought from both,

[31:59] because from diverse things it is possible to abstract something common, understandable, which is against the notion of the understanding, because thus it would not seem to be distinguishing the intellect or the understanding from the imaginative power. Again, he's partly arguing here that it's going to be something individual, right? Your mind and my mind, right?

[32:25] It remains. It seems, therefore, to remain that there is one understanding of all men. Now the fifth objection: when the disciple gets knowledge from the teacher, it cannot be said that the knowledge of the teacher generates knowledge in disciple, because thus knowledge would be an active form, like heat.

[32:54] So does this knowledge in the teacher generates knowledge in you, the way heat in the stove there generates heat in the water. The way it is. We wish.

[33:09] So this is clearly false, right? Right. It seems, therefore, that the same and number is a knowledge which is in the teacher, and this is communicated to the disciple, which cannot be unless there is one understanding of both.

[33:26] It seems, therefore, that there is one intellect, or one understanding, for the teacher and the student, and consequently, there is one understanding of all men. Now, the sixth objection: just to be proud for the text there. Moreover, Augustine says in the book on the quantity of the soul, "If I say there are many human souls, I will what? Yeah, but he means there are not many what?

[34:01] Individual souls. He's going to laugh at, but many what? Souls in kind, right? Huh? Right, complete substances. Yeah, yeah. Like somebody might think that the white man, the black man, have got different kind of soul or something, right? Huh? See, right. Okay.

[34:19] Now, against all this is what the philosopher, I guess that's by antonomasia Aristotle, right? But against this is what the philosopher says in the second book of Physics, second book of Natural Theory, that as universal causes are universals, so particular causes are particulars. This is what Aristotle talks about: how causes and effects are what proportional, right? But it is impossible that there be one soul in species that is of diverse animals according to species.

[34:53] Therefore, it is impossible that the understanding soul be one in number, one in number, be of diverse animals, right? Diverse things according to number. So, if you have many individuals and many particular animals, you got to have many what? Particular souls, right? Because the soul is the form of the body. You see what he's saying. He's using there from the proportion.

[35:25] I answer it ought to be said now that the for there to be one understanding of all men or one understanding soul, right? Take it either way is altogether impossible. Thomas got some sense. I'm sure Thomas liked this.

[35:51] And this, to be sure, is clear. If, according to the position of Plato, right, man is the what understanding soul itself, huh? For it would follow that. If Socrates and Plato, there is only one understanding, only one understanding soul. Then Socrates and Plato would be what? One man, right? And they would not be distinguished by from each other except by something that was outside the essence, the nature, what it is of both, huh?

[36:33] And therefore, the distinction of Socrates and Plato would be not any other than a man, what? With his clothes and what? What's Kapati there? He says one man with a tunic and another with a cloak. Yeah, yeah, something outside, right?

[36:54] So, like between you and me, right? You got that black thing, and I get this shirt here and pants, and so that would be the only difference between you and I, right? Does he really be one man, right? One understanding soul, which is which is omnino absurdum right? So now, is Thomas trying to prove that I'm not you, right? And that I differ from you only by the clothing I'm wearing.

[37:28] Something entirely outside what I am, right? Likewise, it is clear that this is impossible if, according to the position of Aristotle, the understanding is

[37:47] posited to be a part or a power of the soul, which is the form of man. For it is impossible of many differing in number that there be just one what form, right? Just as it is impossible that there be one what being or existence, right? Because form is the what beginning of being, the principle of being, yeah.

[38:28] So if my existence is not your existence, right? Then the form by which I exist and the form which you exist cannot be the what same, right? Huh? Okay. You know, get a little, a little bit of copy here, but follow through here a little bit. Likewise, huh? It is clear that this is impossible. In whatever way one posits the union of the understanding to this or to that man, for it is manifest that if there be one.

[39:09] Chief agent, and two tools. There would be said to be one agent simply, but many actions. As if one man were to touch diverse things by two hands, there would be one touching, but two what? Contacts. Yeah. If in reverse the instrument was one, and the principal agent diverse, there would be said to be many agents, but one what? Action. Huh? Just if many by one what?

[39:51] Rope or something. Huh? For drawing a ship, there would be many drawing, but one what? One drawing. Huh? But if the agent, the principal agent, is one and the tool is one, there would be said to be one agent and one action. Just as one mason or whatever is carpenter by one hammer strikes, and there is one striking and one striking. It is manifest, however, that in whatever way the intellect is united or joined to this or that man, it's clear that the intellect, among other things which pertain to man, has what

[40:40] principality, right? Huh? Is the chief, right? For the sense powers obey the understanding and serve it. If, therefore, is posited that there are many intellects in one sense of two men, for example, if two men had one eye, there would be many what seeing, but one what vision, huh?

[41:10] Sounds like a trinity, doesn't it? Huh? Is there that? Is there is there three understandings, or just one act of understanding? One. Just one act of understanding. Yeah. Three understanding, huh? Yeah. Um. But if the understanding is one, no matter how much are diversified other things

[41:48] which the intellect uses as tools, in no way would Socrates and Plato be except one understanding. I'm always going through all this? rigmarole, right? But see Avera was trying to explain this in this way. He said that there's one understanding for all of us. Right. But you understand that what it is is something imagined, right? And the images in your head are not the images in my head, right?

[42:19] Right. Okay. And therefore, he said, "Well, then, my understanding is not your understanding." Thomas says, "Well, if you had one understanding, but different images in your head and in my head, I have an image of a triangle, you have an image of a square, so I understand the triangle and you understand the square. No, the diversity there of the tools, you might say, the images in which it considers what a triangle is, would not make in the understanding itself there to be two different understandings, would there?

[42:56] It'd just be one understanding for you and me, huh? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. He's going to compare later on the fact that I could imagine what a number of triangles when thinking about what a triangle is. There's still one understanding, right? Even though the triangles imagined are many, right? Yeah. Okay. So the same way as if you had an image of a triangle, I had an image of a triangle, there is only one understanding.

[43:23] I have two understandings because there is two images of the triangle. Still, be one the same understanding for both of us. Yeah. Okay. He says, if the intellect or understanding is one, no matter in what way or to what extent I diversified other things, all those other things which the which the understanding uses as were as tools, right? But not so. He speaks of tools because when you try to understand what a triangle is, you naturally what?

[43:57] Imagine a triangle, right? Okay. And your understanding of what it is of the triangle you've imagined. So you are using right that image, right? In which to consider what your understanding. Right. He's saying, if those tools are multiplied in your head and my head, that wouldn't give us just because the multiplication of images a different understanding, one for you and one for me. If there is only one understanding, right?

[44:32] And if we add, he said, what we've seen before, that understanding itself, which is the action of the understanding, okay, and maybe put in English so you see the grammatical difference. If we add that to understand itself, right? To understand itself, that is an action of the understanding that doesn't come about through some organ, right? Except through the understanding itself, it would follow further that there is one agent and one action.

[45:04] That is that all men were one understanding, and there was one to understand of all them. I say with respect to the same understandable.

[45:19] Now one could diversify the action of the intellectual action, mine and yours, through the diversity of what images. This is what Averroes was trying to do, right? Yeah. Because other is the image of stone and me, and other in you.

[45:40] If that image, according as it is other in me and other in you, were the very form of the possible understanding, right? Okay. The ability to understand. Yeah. Ah, because the same agent by diverse forms produces diverse actions. Just as by diverse forms of things, respect to the same eye, there are diverse what visions, right? As we saw before. The image is not the form of the understanding that's able to understand.

[46:16] Yeah. But the understandable form that is separated from the what images, huh? In one understanding, from diverse species of the same kind, there is not abstracted except one understandable form. Yeah. Just as in one man it appears, in which they're able to be diverse images of a stone, or diverse images of a what circle or triangle, right? Mm-hmm. And nevertheless, from all of these, there is separated or abstracted one understandable form of what stone.

[46:57] Stone. Through which the understanding of one man by one operation understands the nature of a stone, notwithstanding the diversity of what images, right? So he says, if therefore one understanding were of all men, the diversity of images which are in this man and that one could not cause, right, a diversity of the operation of understanding itself, right, of this man and of that man as a commentator, and that's what antonomasia for Averroes Averroes It's not that Thomas would more willingly would be more what appropriately called the commentator, right?

[47:43] But he was commonly referred to as a commentator in those days, right? Because among the Arab philosophers whose works have come into Europe, right, he had commented on, I guess, just about everything Aristotle written, right, or more than anybody else had, right. So he became known as the commentator, right? Okay, but that's Averroes right? But notice what he says, as a commentator, fingit in three De Anima Now how does your text translate finget I don't see where you are.

[48:14] I almost said it was at the end of the body of the article here, right? Yeah. The commentator might say Averwes. I don't see that at all. I mean, I see I see reply to objection one. Are you above that? Yeah, I'm still in the body of the article. Last couple sentences, right before it remains there for that altogether impossible. It's the last sentence. So I don't see a commentator.

[48:41] Did your text use the word commentator in there, or not? Did you see Averwes? What did they say? This is the last sentence. Yeah, either commentator, or commentator, Yeah. What do they translate? It's a modern English one. I mean, I don't know. It wouldn't mean anything to anyone. Yeah, it looks like they don't. Just leave it out. They don't name it at all. They don't. They don't.

[49:03] They drop that sentence. They go from therefore, if there were one intellect. The problem of the diversity of phantasms which are in this one and that one would not cause a diversity of intellectual operation in this man or that man. It follows, therefore, that. Okay, now let's it out. Okay, strange.

[49:19] Yeah. It says, "See ergo if therefore, unus intellectus esset." There was one understanding, right? Yeah. Omnium hominum of all men. Right. The diversity, diversitas phantasmatum, the diversity of phantasms or images, right? Which are quasud in hoc et in illo, which are in this man and that one, right? non posset causare to cause a diversitatem intellectualis operationis, a diversity of intellectual operation, huius et illius hominis of this man, that man, right?

[49:56] As the ut commentator, the capital C, fingit, F-I-N-G-I-T, which means in three De Anima. Well, that's the same word it word fiction from, right? Finge right? Yeah. And In English, you know, fiction. The native English, more we speak of something is what made up, right? Yeah. See. But it's the idea of the imagination, right? See. As he imagines it because you have a different image than I have.

[50:31] We have an image in you and an image in me. Yeah. That therefore the understanding of you and of me would be what different, right? But the images are not in the understanding, right? Right. And what the understanding knows is something separated from the images, something universal. So there'd be one thought for both of us, right? And not two thoughts because there are two images. And Thomas makes a comparison there, right?

[51:05] When I look at that first theorem, say in Euclid, there, you know, the first theorem there where. He says, on a straight line, to construct an equilateral triangle, right? Remember that theorem? Not really. We saw it earlier, right? What's the first? The first theorem in Book One, okay. All right. Okay. He says now. He says, take this end point here of the line as the center of a circle, and this is the radius, and rotate this line around there, right?

[51:35] Yep. Okay. So you get a what? Circle. Circle, right? Okay. And then he says, take the other end point. Yeah. And the same radius and construct another circle by rotating that line around that end point, right? Yeah. And then he says, when the two circles intersect, that point draw a straight line to the two end points. Okay. That's the way you construct an equilateral triangle on a straight line.

[52:07] But now you have to prove that the triangle so constructed is equilateral. Right. And you can prove that this line and this line are equal because they're radii of the same circle. Circle. So you put in the form of syllogism, right? Radii of the same circle are equal. Yeah. These lines are radii of the same circle. Therefore, they're equal, right? Yeah. And then you can prove that this line and this line here equal.

[52:41] Yep. Because they're both radii of the same circle. Yep. So you have exactly the same syllogism, right? Yeah. Radii of the same circle are equal. Right. These two lines are radii of the same circle, right now. Now, do I have two different thoughts of what a circle is when I do that?

[53:07] No, you have imagined two circles, right? Right. Two circles exactly the same size, right? Right. What a circle is is one, and because you have two images, huh? And if I, you know, a circle here and a circle here, the same size, yeah, I still have one thought of what a circle is. Yep. And so, what understands has one thought no matter how many images are the same you have.

[53:41] Okay, I don't have two thoughts of what a circle is because you have two images, right? I don't have two thinking what a circle is. Right. There's only one thing in this place. Right. Well, then, the commentator Averro is trying to say because you have an image of a circle, right? Right. And you have an image of a circle, and your image is not his image, right?

[54:04] Right. Then both of you understand what a circle is through this common reason or understanding that you that you share in some way, right? And you are connected with it because you both have an image, and this mind is understanding what it is of that thing imagined, right? But is there two thoughts in this one common mind and two thinkings because there is two images out there?

[54:30] Maybe one thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Thomas is saying he's what? He's being like a poet, right? Yeah. See. He's picking this up. If you read the De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas, yeah, that's one of Thomas's major works, right? On the unity of intellect, right? Okay. Against the the Averroists of his time, it's a very common mistake those running to the universities, huh?

[55:13] So, just like we're always talking about the evil of abortion, right? Huh? Okay, because it's a common thing in our time, right? Huh? Okay. Go back to Thomas; he'll talk about the evil of abortion maybe someplace, but he doesn't constantly what that coming up everywhere, you know. Mhm. But this is coming up everywhere because the Averroists are what over the place. Yeah. Okay. Um.

[55:44] This is like Plato's. Did Averrois get this idea from Plato? Is he mixing that up? Well, I'm saying I'm saying there's a little confusion in Plato and Socrates, right? If on the one hand he holds to the theory of the forms, right. And sees that in complete immaterial substances, right?

[56:11] You can't have two of the same kind, right? Right. And then either he's going to have to think that the human soul, like Aristotle, as the truth has it, is not a complete immaterial substance, right? Mm-hmm. But it's the what? For it's the first act of a natural body composed of organs. Or he's going to have to what? Say that is something complete, but we have only what?

[56:41] One soul then, right? Only one understanding substance here. Well, then you got a problem. How do you understand? And not just the immaterial substance, this angel, right?

[56:58] Like when I was a little boy, I used to have these pictures there. You know, you've probably seen the pictures, kind of. It's been reproduced from time to time. A little boy and girl going across the bridge, right? Yeah. And there's a guardian angel there over them, you know. Like they had one, had one guardian angel for the two kids, right? Yeah. Okay. But you had this one separated substance, right?

[57:18] That is doing the thinking for both of you. Well then, how does it become the thinking of both of you? Well, Averroes has to finge it, right? He has to imagine some way that it is, right? Right. Well, he sees that Aristotle says there that the understanding understands of what it is as something imagined, right? So if there's a multiplication of images, then there's a multiplication somehow of what?

[57:53] Understanding, right? Well, that has many defects in it. Because the thought and the understanding is not in the image, right? Right. As he argued before, the image is more like the object, right? Yeah. And before something is actually understandable, it has to be separated from the image and become what? Universal. So insofar as it's in the image, it's not actually understood, and vice versa. Insofar as it's actually understood, it's not in the what?

[58:27] Image, right? So he's kind of imagining that this multiplicity of images somehow or other enables us to have what? Two understandings, right? Because I have this image of a triangle, then I partake of the understanding of the separate substance. And you also have an image of a triangle, so, you also partake of this, right? But so and so doesn't have an image of a triangle, so he doesn't understand triangles.

[59:04] Hmm. But then, even if we did understand it by this other mind, it would be my understanding what a triangle is would be your understanding what a triangle is, right? It would just be the same kind. It'd be the same understanding,

[59:26] right? Yeah. That when I understand what a triangle is and you understand what a triangle is, it would be the same what understanding numerically, right? It's not just that I have a similar thinking to your thinking, but my thinking would be your thinking, right? Yeah. And he's in some sense wants to say that my thinking is not your thinking because my image is not your image. Yeah.

[59:53] Okay. But that doesn't suffice, as Thomas says, to give you two what thinkings. Any more than the two triangles here suffices to give me two thinking of what a circle is. Okay. Very subtle, right? Yeah. But he's dealing with the the verus. When Thomas goes through, if you look really the Latin De Unitate Intellectus contra Averroistas, he begins by saying that just as man has a natural desire to know the truth, he's a natural desire to avoid error and to repel it when he can, right?

[1:00:26] That's where he begins to attack the Averroists, and then you know he will he will refute their position, right? But because they try to also use the authority of Aristotle, right? He goes through the text of Aristotle, and the dynamic shows that he doesn't agree, right? And very thorough, and Thomas says they're very convincing, and Thomas says finally, you know, he wonders quam leviter errant how likely they err.

[1:00:53] But it's amazing, you know. I mean, the the lights that some of these mistakes or errors have. Yeah. It's amazing. So Thomas, you know,

[1:01:10] often you read the commentaries of the De Anima, you'll make you know a digression off the text when he's through commenting on Aristotle's text, you'll make a digression there and refute again the Averroists, right? So, it's such a common thing. He speaks in the Latin Averroists, He says they speak as if wisdom began with them.

[1:01:31] Kind of a strong phrase, huh? You see? This is what every modern philosopher writes, huh? Really? It's like Conrad writes in his introduction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as if he's been lucky, you know, to hit upon the truth, you know, everybody else has missed it up to this point. It all starts with me. Yeah. It's kind of curious too that all that came out of the Muslim world.

[1:01:51] It's not really a philosophical religion. Yeah. They disdain reason. Yeah. You know what that? Yeah. Maybe they're just considered heretics in their own. Some of them are, yeah. There's a controversy, you know. What was I quoting again? They speak as if wisdom began with them. Yeah. That was Saint Thomas said that. Yeah. About the other.