De Anima (On the Soul)
108. The Agent Intellect, the Father of Lights, and Memory in the Understanding (Avicenna, Habitual Knowledge, History vs. Poetry)
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[0:00] the brothers. So in the course of conversation, Father Boulay says, "You married yet, Burke West?" He says, and I said, "No," and he looks at the Greeks. Pray to me, says substance separate.

[0:20] I'm not quite a substance separate, right? But Thomas, you could say, you know, the angelic doctor, right? You know, that's a compliment is what one says, "by the way I mean, he's making fun of me in that sense." Oh, tell me, I heard the music. That expression, I was one day in class there, the tonic happened to in passing, you know, refer to Bach and Mozart, right?

[0:44] And so afterwards, I said to him, "I know you mentioned Bach and Mozart together." I said, "Would you put Bach on the same level as Mozart?" He says, "Oh, no, no, no!" He says, "Mozart, substance separate." You know, he's like a angelic.

[1:01] So you see, what we call them in theology, we call them usually what angels, right? But because we know the angels through sacred scripture, and when they are in their role as what messengers, right? Okay, but scripture does call them also ministers, looking back towards God, right? They're ministers of God. Yeah.

[1:30] So that's reply to the first objection, right? Which misunderstands in what way the agent intellect is said to be separated. But people constantly misunderstand things. Um. Now the second objection that it makes something one. To the second, it should be said that the agent intellect is the way they translate that sometimes, but the acting upon understanding. So I would translate it. The acting upon understanding causes the universal by abstraction or separation from matter.

[2:13] But to this is not required, or for this it is not necessary, that there be what one acting upon understanding in all those having an understanding. But rather that it be one in all according to the relation, right, to all the things of which it abstracts universal, with respect to which universal is something. One, and this belongs to the acting upon understanding, in so far as it is what, Immaterial, huh?

[2:50] So you have to have something one here in comparison to the many images, right? In order to separate out something one that's common to those many, that's where Aristotle, in the order of learning, you know, he says sensing comes first, and then memory, whereby you retain something which you sensed, right? And then he has a beautiful military thing, you know, where the troops are retreating from the enemy, and one guy turns around, makes a stop, stands there, right?

[3:19] And then encourages the other ones to turn around and join them, right? So in one of these things you sense, doesn't just go in one ear and out the other, as we say, but it makes a stop inside, right? And then another image of a similar thing stops, right? And you gather together many images of the same sort of thing, and then you have an experience of something, right?

[3:41] Okay, so experience of something, in a sense, of bringing together many memories of the same thing, and then the acting upon understanding can separate out what they have in common, huh? And that's the beginning of understanding for the possible understanding, right? Okay, and so in order to make one something one out of many, the acting upon understanding, the agent intellect would have to be something one itself, right?

[4:13] It's one power that I have. That doesn't mean that your agent intellect and my agent intellect would have to be one and the same individual power. Do you see that? To get the soldier to stop, do you have to stop and think? Stop instead of you know. Well, no, but you know, but it's yeah, in a sense, it's like that, huh? But just kind of a very vivid image that Aristotle uses drawn from Homer, right?

[4:41] I found like one one of Shakespeare's plays, one of the history plays, one of the battle scenes where somebody turns around, makes a stop, and the guy comes and I say, okay, now we've got the Shakespearean quote that corresponds to the Homeric quote, but that that is very you know, you know, Aristotle is not beyond very concrete what image there you know to to help you understand what's taking place there.

[5:05] I have trouble sometimes. Nothing stops. But so you have to be slower see? huh Sometimes when Thomas has a series of arguments, you know, if you read them too quickly, you know, you forget the first argument before you you go on the second one, right? You know, we read one argument, and kind of think about it a while, and wait until it calms down in your head, and then you know, then go back and now look at the second argument, right?

[5:36] You see, and it's kind of even in terms of memory, that's good, I think. If you want to memorize a Shakespearean sonnet, do you want to memorize a couple of lines and then wait till they settle down in your memory, and then add a couple more lines to that? And each time you go back, you start from the beginning, and you can't try to give them all together, you know.

[5:59] Unless you have one of these photographic memories, you know. I was reading Boswell's famous life of Samuel Johnson. He must have had a photographic memory. He's a little boy, you know, and they gave him, you know, a poem, you know, to keep him busy to memorize this long poem, you know. And then the mother went upstairs and like that, and you know, and mother, you know, have you done that?

[6:23] Yeah, he takes it off of memory, right? I had a guy like that in high school. Had a memory like that, and he'd give him a, you know, a long poem like this, you know, a couple of pages like that, and he'd remember once. Close it for me.

[6:40] Yeah, because you know, at these parties, you know, where there'd be a lot of girls, you know, you introduce them, you know, and you tell their name once, you know, you remember all those names, right? So you can go around, you know, hi Mary Jane, hi, you know, and they go for that, you know. So you know, a little envious of this guy.

[6:57] But you can see how good that'd be for a politician. Who was the? I forget the name of the guy who was a big manager for Roosevelt. There, you know, but I guess because he'd have these little prompt things, you know, so he'd know the names of all these people down below, and he'd walk down the aisle. Hi Joe, hi Bill, you know. You kind of get caught, you know.

[7:21] Everybody's looking at you, you know, so you feel kind of good about the big guy recognizing you, you know. It's like it's interesting. They quote him because in the writing manual at St. Thomas Aquinas College, even though he had this photographic memory, he says anything that's written hastily is generally not worth reading. Yeah, yeah. So he must have thought too, along with that. Samuel Johnson, yeah, yeah.

[7:50] Student comes in for a class today, you know. He has one of these little drink. I know what it is. I said, "What are you drinking?" Oh, I don't know. He said. So I quoted Samuel Johnson. He said, "You know, if a man doesn't think about what he eats and drinks, he says he's not apt to think about anything else." Put that guy in his place. Okay.

[8:20] Before you understand, you have to gather the images. It seems like you would have to have some common idea already in order to recognize Well, it's not really distinct yet, though. see? Yeah, so I mean, there's already the influence of reason there, though, in gathering these, what they call the particular reason, huh? You know, but it's it's you haven't

[8:47] really separated out that thing distinctly from them yet. Of course, you see this in all the dialogues of Plato there. Because when Socrates asks somebody what something is, they will start off and give what? Not a definition. They'll be able to say what they have in common, but they'll they'll you know give examples of it, huh? So if you ask a little boy what is a nose, you know, he's a nose.

[9:11] There's a nose. There's a nose. Point them out, you know. You already see a little bit of the influence of reason there, right? That's where Aristotle sees experience as something more human than bestial, right, huh? You know, why why sensing, you know, the beasts can have as well as us, and even memory, you know, but experience there seems like kind of bringing together there, right? Okay.

[9:40] Okay. So the third one now. This is the one now about the fact that we all share in this common understanding of the what they call the axioms in philosophy sometimes, but the statements that are what known to themselves by all men. And

[10:09] how to explain that thing? Well, to the third, it should be said that all things which are of one species, of one particular kind of thing, they come together in the action following upon the nature of that species, that particular kind of thing. And consequently, they agree in their what? Power, right, huh? In the power which is a principle of action, not that it be the same in number in all, right?

[10:41] But the same in what kind or same in particular kind, huh? But to know the first things understandable is an action following upon the what? Human species, huh? Particular kind of thing we are. In other words, it's it's natural according to our what? Common nature, right? And therefore, we all share in it, huh? Whence is necessary that all men come together in the power which is a beginning of this action, and this is the power of the what acting upon understanding, huh?

[11:23] It's not, however, necessary that it be the same in number and all, huh? But it must be the same in what kind, huh? It's necessary, therefore, that from one beginning it be derived. no, no, You see what he's saying. That behind this right or before this right is the Father of Lights, as we are invoking today, huh?

[11:50] And thus, that communication of men, that coming together of men in the first things understood, shows the unity also of a what? separate intellect, right? Which Plato compares to the what? Sun, right?

[12:10] Not however, the unity of the acting upon understanding, which Aristotle compares to the what? Light, huh? Okay. And thus, take take those two texts we're working with in Scripture, right? Mm-hmm. Um, in St. John, for example, in the first chapter of John, they talk about the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and so on, right? And then eventually say, and this was the light, what?

[12:37] The light that enlightens every man. And coming into this world, right? Okay. Now there you have one light. The word of that is enlightening all men, right? Okay.

[12:51] But now when you speak of the Father of Lights and every perfect gift, right? Every perfect giving and so on, is from above, right? Coming down, right? From the Father of Lights, huh? Well, there you're touching upon the fact that he has given each one of us, right, the light of reason, huh? Which is a power of our soul, right? The power to make what understandable, what is imagined, right?

[13:25] The power to make universal what is in the image, right? And therefore understandable, right? And from that we have this common what understanding of the axioms, huh? So there is the light which is a gift given to us, right? As our own what our own soul has given us, right? Which has this natural power in it, and then there's a light which is behind all those, right?

[13:56] The light which what enlightens all men coming into this world, huh? You see that? So Thomas is not denying that there's an element of truth in saying that there is a what one substance, right? Maybe the divine substance itself, right? That is the source of all the light in all of our minds, right? Okay. But from this one source, there's been given to each one of us, right, a share, you might say, in that light, huh?

[14:27] And that is the acting upon understanding, huh? Which Aristotle compares to light, huh? You see that, huh? Okay. Now, when you're saying prayer, that angels strengthen the lights of our minds. So then, yeah. Then the angels too have something to do with that. Yeah, yeah. And and the light of their mind, which is greater than the light of our mind by far,

[15:00] that also has come down from the Father of what of lights. I know she quoted that passage, part of that passage in the Eucharistic too. Yeah. And because it's kind of appropriate, you know, how the Pope has kind of expanded the Rosary a bit there with the Mysteries of Light. The mysteries of light, he calls them, right? And one of them is the what? Institution of the Eucharist.

[15:26] Yeah, yeah. So it's appropriate that referred to the Father of Lights here, huh? Yeah. You know. So the light of the of the angelic mind, right, is derived from the Father of Lights too. Okay. So.

[15:44] And all an angel has to do is will it to strengthen the light of our mind. If he wills it, we have it. All right, in like this. Yeah. Now, of course, the the devils don't do that, right? See, they don't. They want to deceive us, right? So the devils work through the imagination, huh? Because imagination is a great source of error. Yeah. And Thomas often gives you know false imagination as as the as the first cause of error, almost on the side of our knowing powers.

[16:16] Pride is on the side of the will, but on the side of the knowing powers, it's false imagination. And that means what? Imagining something other than it is right, which can be found even in those things that can be imagined, right? But a fortiori, imagination is is a cause of deception when you try to imagine that which cannot be what imagined, huh?

[16:46] Okay. Okay. So this is the danger, huh? You can see even in logic. I know this is a tradition, uh, The moderns can't understand the what universal, right? And they want to substitute for the universal class, huh? If you read the modern logicians, right? What's the difference between a class and a universal? Composed whole and universal. whole. Yeah, the universal is something one set of many, right?

[17:19] Okay. While the class is the what collection of many individuals or many particulars, huh? What's the difference between let's say, mankind, and man? Say.

[17:36] I'm a man, and you are a man, right? And every individual in the world is a man, right? Every individual human being, right? Um, but am I a mankind? Say, say, a mankind. You're thinking more of the collection of all men, right? Okay.

[17:58] Um, you know, I don't like people say we're church. I don't like that expression. Usually for other reasons, But I'm not church. I'm a member of the church. I'm a part of the church. I hope, right? Okay. You could I could say I am a Catholic. I am a what Christian, right? But I am a church. No, see, church is a collection. You know, it's got a lot of unity.

[18:28] The church, right? He talks a lot about that in the encyclical, too. But church is not a universal set of each one of us, huh? Okay. So, but notice a multitude is more able to be what? Imagined, huh? When Aristotle talks about the word genus in genos there in Greek, and Porphyry in the Isagoge, you know, following Aristotle, and there are two meanings of genus prior to the logical meaning,

[19:06] and one meaning of genus is a multitude of men who have descended from one man, okay, and another meaning of genus is the one man from whom a whole what multitude have descended, huh? Okay, so if you look at me and all my grandchildren now, right? See, Why am I the genus of all those. I was telling you, I was in church one time, and I had a bunch of the grandchildren with me, and this guy used to work with me in the package store, you know.

[19:37] He says, you know, you are responsible for all this. So one sense, you know, would be this multitude of people that descended from me, right? Okay, and then the one man from whom this multitude has descended, huh? And neither one of those meanings is the logical meaning of genus, huh? But they have some likeness, both meanings, right? Like the one man from whom many men have descended, the genus is something one, right?

[20:15] Okay, but it's not, you know, one in the sense of an individual, right? Okay, and like the multitude, the universal extends to many things, right? But it's a set of them, right, rather than a what collection of them, huh? Okay, so logicians, huh? I mean, the modern logicians, a lot of people, they want to resolve to the imagination in understanding the universal, And then they get into all kinds of what problems, huh?

[20:50] They want to use circles, right, and things of this sort, right? Yeah. That's different than if they were just using it as a help, like a man of Dexium. Yeah, yeah. But they're kind of, we try to resolve to imagination, you see, huh? And you find this in the great dialogue of Plato called the Parmenides, there, where Parmenides is talking to this young guy named Socrates, huh?

[21:17] And Socrates is trying to understand the universal, and he imagines universal to be like a sail, you know, these big sails that covers all of us, huh? Well, of course, only part of the sails on top of my head, and another part on the top of your head, another part on top of your head, right? And that gets into all kinds of troubles because universal, the whole of what's in universal, is found in each one of you, right?

[21:39] You see, so if if we say man over all of us, huh? We don't have. I'm under, you know, rational, and you're under animal, or something, you know, and vice versa. No, the whole of this thing, is set of each one of us, right? So you can't imagine like a sail where, you know, we're all covered, but each of us is only under one part of the sail, right?

[22:01] You see. So Socrates is resolving to the imagination there, getting into all kinds of problems, huh? And I mentioned the the difficulties there in Locke and Barclay, right? Huh? Locke is trying to in the essay of Human Understanding. He's trying to understand the general idea of triangle, right? And there's a general idea of triangle, you know, equilateral, isosceles, or scalene? You know, right-angled, obtuse-angled, acute angles. And he doesn't know what to say.

[22:37] finally ends up saying, "Well, it's all and none."of these huh But what his problem is is that he's trying to imagine triangle in general. Now, can you imagine triangle in general? Now, any triangle you imagine would be an individual triangle, and therefore it be either equilateral or isosceles or scalene, right? Either right-angled or obtuse-angled or acute-angled, and so on, right? You see. And so he's kind of thinking, well, what is this universal idea of triangle?

[23:10] What's all of these things in some way, right? It's kind of all these things, kind of, you know. And like you had, you know, all those images, you're trying to combine them together in one image. Of course, you can't read it, huh? And so you end up with something that's all and none of these things, a little bit like Anaxagoras's view of matter, right? It's all and none of these things that it can be.

[23:32] And then Berkeley, as I mentioned, comes along and says, "I don't make any sense, you know." So Berkeley concludes, "We have no general ideas at all."

[23:40] But no, he's resolving to the imagination. He can't understand the universal. And then, a fortiori, you start to think about the angels, huh? Or think about God, huh? I was looking at the

[23:57] De Potentia there, the Quaestiones Disputatae De Potentia Thomas there. And they're getting into the fourth question there, where you're talking about Genesis, right, and the account of creation there, and various interpretations of that, and so on. And in Augustine, he has the most profound understanding, I guess, of these things. Then you have these people, you know, who are talking about were the angels created before the material world, huh?

[24:26] And Thomas says, "Well, some of the church fathers say yes, but Augustine says no. They were created the same together. " And and Thomas thinks that because Basil or Gregory Nazianzen has said this, you know, we're not going to say this is erroneous, right? But what Augustine says is rationabilior, more reasonable, right? And it gives a reason, right? But then he has a subsequent article. Could the could the angels

[25:01] could God have created them before the material world? Was that possible, right? And the one of the objectors, of course, is saying, "No, this is impossible because

[25:16] it's commonly said that two angels aren't in the same place, right? So angels got in a different place, right? " And well, you see, they're thinking of the angels as if they were bodies, right? And a body must be what somewhere in some place, huh? And when Aristotle's in the fourth book of Natural Hearing,

[25:39] he's talking about place, right? He quotes the common opinion of the Greeks. That whatever it is must be somewhere, and if it isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist, huh? So they're seeing to be in some place as a property of being, as being, right? And therefore, they're thinking that whatever it is must be a what body, huh? Or in a body, huh? And that's because we don't think without images, and the images are always what extended, right?

[26:12] So we're apt to be deceived by imagination and think that whatever it is must be a what a body. It must be extended, huh? Okay. And therefore, so long as you think of them in terms of what can be imagined, you are going to misunderstand the angels, misunderstand the soul. You can imagine the soul to be an air-like thing in the shape of a body, right? Misunderstand God and so on, huh?

[26:39] Um. But even those things that can be imagined, you can imagine them other than they are. C. S. Lewis has some work, some place where he describes this little incident in his life where he went to visit, I don't know, some relative of his, some uncle, and some part of England he had never been in, you know, and he got into the car with the uncle, and they're driving from the station, wherever it is, and and C.

[27:07] S. Lewis is looking at the scenery and so on, and says, "No, you know, I never thought it was like this. You know, this part of England, you know, it's thought another way." And his uncle kind of tore into him, you know. What right did you have to think that, right? It was that way. That way. Well, I always pictured it that way, huh? And haven't you always done that with places you've never been to, sometimes, or with

[27:36] some person you've never met? Huh? You kind of picture them a certain way, and then when you go to that place or you meet that person, you know, you know, not the way you picture them at all. But what right did you have? That's just imagination, just imagining things without really having any reason to imagine them that way, huh? I kind of joked, you know, how when I was in high school I thought how nice it'd be to be in college, you know, and imagined college to be wasn't as nice as I thought it was going to be.

[28:06] And then I was in college, and I thought I imagined it'd be so nice to be in graduate school, you know, and just concentrating on these things I really was interested in, you know. But then graduate school wasn't quite like that, you see. You start to do some things you don't want to do, you know, and so on. So what would be really nice to be out teaching?

[28:20] I think you imagine what it's like to be teaching, you know, and and you are sitting around at noontime, you know, and all these interesting conversations going on. None of this comes. None of this is really the idea. And it's kind of funny Sunday there where we were at the house there, and where I had the the picture there of one of the crowds there in Baghdad when they're Iraq when the city's there, you know, and.

[28:44] Just looking at the faces, they don't look very reasonable, you know. You know, and so it's kind of you know passing around the table there, you know, and and then one says, "What right did you have to assume they were rational, or anybody's rational for that matter? " You know, I mean.

[29:01] But we're constantly imagining things or picturing them other than they are, even though they could be imagined in some cases, right? But especially when you try to imagine something that cannot be imagined, you are going to be deceived ipso facto by very fact if you try to understand by that which you can can imagine. Well, it's kind of striking this thing about about the angels there. They say, "Well, they wouldn't really be distinct one angel or another unless one was here and one was there, right?

[29:32] " You know, if one wasn't here and one there, they'd be all you know. Yeah. See, You can only you know the the the the limited that. huh? Okay. Now go on to the next one or take a little break before we go on a little bit. Huh? Look at the objections at least. Okay. Because it's a little bit longer this article.

[29:58] Whether there is memory in the understanding part of the soul? To the six, one proceeds thus. It seems that memory is not in the understanding part of the soul.

[30:15] For Augustine says in the twelfth book of the Trinity, whose profundity that book is, is singled out that same thing on on St. Augustine.

[30:30] For Augustine says in the twelfth book about the Trinity that to the superior part of the soul pertains those things which are not common to man and the what beasts, huh? But memory is common to men and beasts, huh? For it said in the same place that beasts, right, can sense, huh? Through the senses of the body, they can sense bodily things, right? And they can what?

[31:06] mundana, they can send them to the memory, right? Commit them to the memory, right? Therefore, memory does not belong to the understanding part of the what soul.

[31:24] And that might indicate that if you can save the idea that there is memory in the understanding part of the soul, there is not going to be memory in the same sense as that memory which is common to me and and the cat, huh? Okay, the cat seems to remember where her dish is, huh? I can run up the stairs and around the corner where the dishes to see if there's anything in there.

[31:51] And I don't think she sees around corners, so I assume it's memory whereby she does this, huh? Okay. And I remember when we put the cat one time and didn't know any don't any better. Put the cat in the boarding place, you know. We went off to vacation, and then the cat was so happy to come back home, and she went to all her her old places, you know.

[32:18] And I said we felt so sorry for her, you know. And she was like, you know, almost crying, you know, a joy to be back in her old places, you know. But there's obviously memory involved here, I think. You see, you know. And you know, because I told you how the guy, uh you know, the guy was in a cage, and he says, "oh no leave it on."He's."got His big, you know, leather gloves like that.

[32:40] I just open the cage, right? Yeah, comes right out, you know. There he does. Snips my finger. Yeah, shoulder and so on. Digs in face. Stay at that damn face. Yeah.

[32:56] Moreover, memory is of what past things, right? But the past is said according to some what determined time, huh? Some definite time. Memory, therefore, is knowing of something under some what determined time, which is to know something as here and what now. But this is not something that pertains to the understanding, which knows the universal, but to what the senses that know the what singular. Memory, therefore, is not in the understanding part, but only in the what sensing part, huh?

[33:45] Moreover, in memory are retained or conserved the species, the forms of things which in act are not thought of. But this is not able to happen in the understanding, because the understanding comes to be an act through this that it is informed by the understandable form or species. But for the understanding to be an act is for it to what understand an act, and thus the understanding understands all things in act of which it has the forms within itself.

[34:24] Therefore, memory is not in the understanding part, and that argument goes back to what the great philosopher Avicenna, right? Huh? Avicenna said we had these forms in our mind only when we're actually thinking about them, right? And so we're constantly being emptied, you might say, huh? Okay, and we have to turn to the separate substance, agent intellect, right? To have these forms come in our mind again.

[34:54] But against all this is what Augustine says in the tenth book of the Trinity that memory, understanding, and the will are one mind. As we mentioned before, mind sometimes names the understanding or intellectual part of the soul.

[35:13] Okay, and of course Augustine is going to see in those three the what image of the Trinity. Okay. Now, you want a little break, or you want to go on today? Yeah, yeah. There it goes.

[35:33] I answer. It should be said that since it is of the. Definition you might see in memory to conserve the species of things which are not grasped in act. This should first be considered, whether the understandable forms or species are able to be conserved thus in the understanding. For Avicenna, who's an eminent philosopher among the Mohammedans, and one that Thomas often quotes with great respect, but many times also disagrees with, Avicenna posited or laid down that this was what impossible, right?

[36:30] Now, in the sensitive part, like we were seeing earlier when we were studying the inward senses, he said that this happened as regards some powers, in so far as they are acts of what body organs, in which can be preserved some species without there being actually what grasped, right? So for him, right, these things like memory, sense, memory, he calls that the treasure, right? And we have your treasure of these forms, right?

[37:11] Reserved, right? You can take one out when you want to imagine it or something, right? But you don't have any such bodily organ for the mind. In the understanding, however, which lacks a bodily organ, nothing exists in it except in a what understandable way. Hence, he thought it was necessary, right, to be understood in act that whose likeness exists in the understanding.

[37:44] Thus, according to him, thus therefore according to him, as soon as someone what ceases in act to think about some things, there ceases to be the form or the species of that thing in the what understanding.

[38:04] Okay, but is necessary if again he wants to understand that thing that he turn himself towards the what active understanding, which for him is a separated what substance, right? Which he laid down to be a separate substance, so that from it might flow understandable forms into the possible understanding, the one that understands, and from the exercise in use. Practice of converting itself to the agent intellect. There is left, according to him, a certain what

[38:48] ability, a certain disposition, right, in the possible intellect to turn itself to the agent intellect, which he said was the habit of what science. While Aristotle, you know, and Thomas would say no, the habit of science is the understandable forms, right, preserved in the mind, right. You are not actually using them, right, and it's nothing other than a certain what ordering of these understandable forms in the mind.

[39:23] So he says, according therefore to disposition, nothing is preserved or conserved in the understanding part that is not actually what understood. Whence one could not posit memory in the understanding part in this way, huh? But this opinion, Thomas says, is clearly manifestly repugnant to the words of Aristotle, huh? For Aristotle says in the third book about the soul, and that's the way Thomas proceeds, right? He's first going to, in this paragraph, is going to say it's repugnant to the words of Aristotle, and then he's going to say in the next paragraph it's repugnant to what reason, right?

[40:08] Yeah. So notice, huh? What does Augustine always say? You must believe to understand, right? Yeah. But notice, Thomas says, what respect for the philosopher as he calls them, right? You know.

[40:27] It's like when I read Euclid, right? I am pretty sure he's going to demonstrate what he says, propose it, right? And I believe him, right? You know, but you know, the end is not to believe but to know, right? You know. But but belief comes before understanding, huh? For the most part, huh? You know, if you didn't have that belief in in modern science, modern science would completely break down.

[41:03] Yeah. You don't realize that, huh? You know, there is more belief in modern science than in you know modern philosophical circles, right? If you came into class and say, you know, everybody, you know, tell me what you think about this atom or this thing, you know, you'd have to be chaos. You know, as chaotic a world as you have in the world of philosophy. Um, you heard my famous division of of all thinkers, huh?

[41:35] Not my division. I shouldn't say it's first given by Hesiod. At least the first. Man, I've heard of giving it right. Oh yeah. And Aristotle quotes it in the what first book on the the Nicomachean Ethics, right? Huh? Aristotle says, you know, quoting Hesiod, right, the great poet. You know, best of all is a man who can understand these things by himself, right? Come to know these things all by himself, right, and discover them himself.

[42:01] Next, he says, is the man who can learn them from the man who discovered them, right? But he, who can neither discover himself nor learn them from another, is a useless white, is the old translation of the English, right? And Thomas, you know, with his charitable way of speaking, says, "Useless as far as the acquisition of knowledge is concerned," Thomas says. Okay. So you find that threefold division in the great Hesiod, the great poet, and then Aristotle takes it over, you know, and accepts it, huh?

[42:39] And Thomas, of course, as I say in his commentary, you know, takes it over from Aristotle, right? But you find it also in in some of the church fathers, like Basil. I see it in Basil, right? That same division, huh? And you even find it in Machiavelli, right? Huh? You see. So, but I've I've given names to the three, as you know, right? The wits, the dimwits and the what?

[43:08] Nitwits Nitwits. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, the first one, the first exhortations of the great seven wise men of Greece is know thyself, right? Are you a wit or a dimwit or a nitwit, huh? And if a uh dimwit thinks he's a wit, you've got serious problems, because he thinks that he's going to on his own discover great things or something, right? And

[43:43] so, you need a dimwit who to go forward, who has to know he is a dimwit, and secondly, to know also what whom to what believe, right? Okay. But now you have to, as I say, balance that with the text of Thomas in the commendation, partition of sacred scripture, where he he speaks of he quotes scripture, and scripture is is comparing the student in a way to what?

[44:18] The earth. I mentioned this text I think before. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. And Thomas, it's a metaphor, right? And Thomas says, "Well, what's the likeness here underlying this metaphor? In what sense is a good student like the earth? " And he brings out three things there. The earth is lowly. The good student is humble, right? He submits himself to the, you know, words of the master, and so on.

[44:45] But the earth is also what stable, right? And so you have some discretion as to whether you're going to believe everything the what teacher says, right? Because a teacher may be more competent in some things than in other things, right?

[45:04] So I may not believe Aristotle what he says about the moon or the sun, right? Yeah. Because I think some people since Aristotle have invented things like telescopes and seen things that Aristotle didn't see, right? So I have some discretion as to what things I'm going to believe Aristotle in, and what things I might not believe him in, huh? You see. And Aristotle himself, you know, when he talks about the sun, moon, the stars, he complains about the distance between him and the sun and the stars, right?

[45:35] And he contrasted with his ability to cut open the animals that he studied, right. Okay, and so Aristotle himself was somewhat aware of of his a distance from the sun, the moon, the stars, huh? Okay. So that's the second thing the good student needs, right? And the third thing is like the earth; he should be what fruitful, right? That he can take the thought or what he learned from the master and what see consequences of it, right?

[46:09] Apply it and so on, right? And so that's what's the three things required in a good what student, huh? You see that in Thomas, huh?

[46:23] Yeah. So notice Thomas's respect here, but this opinion is manifestly repugnant to the sayings or words of Aristotle, for he says in the third book about the soul that when the possible understanding has thus become each things as knowing, right? It is said according to act, and that this happens when it is able to operate by itself. It is therefore also then in potency in a way, right?

[47:02] But not in the same way as before. What learning from another as the dimwit does, right? Or finding like the wit does, right? Huh? Okay.

[47:15] Now you may recall Aristotle using it, in fact, to manifest what it meant to say that the what soul is a first act, right? Okay. He distinguished between what habitual knowledge and actually thinking about something, right? Huh? Okay.

[47:35] For he says the possible understanding is said to become each thing according as it receives the form of each thing, huh? And from this fact, from this therefore that it receives the the species or the forms of understandable things, it has that it is able to operate when it wants to, right? Okay. So I can begin right now, go to the board there, and start demonstrating some geometrical theorems.

[48:05] You want to, right? Okay. You see, because I've learned some geometry, right? But I'm still in a potency when I've learned it, and I'm not turning my mind to that consideration of those things, huh? Okay. But I'm in potency to thinking about geometrical things in some particular demonstration or some particular theorem in Euclid in a different way than I was before I picked up Euclid, huh? And had learned some some geometry.

[48:34] Do you see? Mm-hmm. And so Aristotle calls that that habitual knowledge first act, right? And then, when you use that habitual knowledge to actually think about these things again, then that's second what? Act, huh? Okay.

[48:56] So he says, "From this, that it has received the forms of understandable things, it has that it can what operate when it wants to, right? Not, however, that it's going to be always operating, that always be thinking about that theorem in geometry, huh? Because also then it is in some way in potency, right? Although other than before it what first understood, right? In that way in which one knowing in habit is in potency to considering in what act, right?

[49:38] Now he gives a reason here, huh? The foresaid position, as the one of Avicenna, right, is also repugnant to reason, huh? And again, the starting point: what is received in for what is received in something is received in it according to the what way of the receiver, huh? We talked about that before, right? Huh? And sometimes I apply that to teaching, huh? Right? And

[50:17] you know, you get the same lecture, and they all hear it, but what you get back from each of them is quite different, huh? And whose fault is it then that the material is not understood? Because one student understands it very well, right? Having heard the lecture, another student hardly at all. Thing. What is received is received according to the way of the receiver. I was hearing about the travails of some first-year philosophy professor, right?

[50:52] Huh. And you know, she was getting some complaints. You know that students should always complain they didn't understand what she was saying, right? Huh. So as a kind of demonstration that what she'd said was quite clear, she had one of the students, and you know, understood well what she'd said, right? Come in and explain the thing to the students, right? Right. But sure, you know that she really got the thing across.

[51:20] Huh? One of the students were complaining. You know, she's so mixed up. She had to bring a student in to lecture for her. How they could miss the point so many times. You know, you can't win. You know, that sort of a situation, right? In other words,

[51:40] here you have a student who can, you know, repeat the, you know, the lecture and give the lecture himself, or. You know, because he's he's fully understood what has been said, right? So it must have been said in some with some kind of clarity, right?

[51:55] The others can't even see the the point of this demonstration. When I was in college, I used to you know do perfect exams with Kasurik, you know, and so Kisurik came in, he passed back the exam, and he was like, you know, moaning and groaning about the exam, you know. Now here's a guy who says he got everything perfectly right, you know. He didn't tell us my favorite because I didn't really tell what the kids that they did, you know.

[52:21] I mean, that's something professors tend to do, right? I mean, you know, I mean, you say you're gonna say that my lectures are not clear or understandable because so and so didn't understand them. There's always a half dozen people who don't understand. them, you know, You're probably talking to the wall or something like that. You know,So I was hearing about this this new teacher, and it's kind of frustrating, you know.

[52:43] But but anyway, that's all to illustrate what whatever is received is received according to the mode of the what receiver, huh? Okay. Ah, but you know that I mean it can even be you know reading a book or seeing a movie or something like that or whatever it might be, huh? And some people react, you know, this way, and other people, you know, react that way, and some don't react at all, and you know how that goes, huh?

[53:11] Because it's received according to the mode of the what receiver, right, huh? Okay. Ah, you plant seeds, and and some are going to what? Sprout, sprout, and that you know, and some are not going to at all, right? When our Lord say, you know, some of the seeds fell among this, and some fell among that, some fell on stones, right? And some of them, you know, didn't generate at all.

[53:39] Some shut up, but then they they faded and so on, right? Others, you know, produce thirty, sixty, or something, a hundredfold, right? They received according to the what Receiver. In a sense, the earth or the ground is the receiver, right? But according to the you know the stoniness or the richness of that soil, right? They're going to be what quite different than what happens. You see, or you know, you apply fire to things, and some things will melt, and some things will not melt, and some things will get hard, and some will get soft, right, under fire, right?

[54:18] So what acts upon things, you know, the way they're received, huh? Received according to the mode or the way of the receiver, huh? Okay.

[54:31] So, but the understanding is of a more what stable nature and unchangeable nature than any what bodily matter, right? Because the understanding is not a body, right? It's naturally of a more stable nature and what something more immobile.

[54:59] In fact, that's why we use the word understanding, don't we? Something becomes understood or understandable, when it stands still, right? And that shows you something about the mind, huh?

[55:21] So the definition of time is timeless, right? If therefore the bodily matter, the forms that you see, if it does not only hold on to them. When it acts through them, but also after it acts through them, or it ceases to act through them, much more so will the understanding, immobility, right, in an unchangeable way, and in a what, way of not losing, what we see of the understandable forms.

[55:58] Whether they are ones what taken from the senses, or also ones what flown in from some superior understanding, huh? Now he says that partly because Avicenna. Was talking about that, right? But also maybe because he's thinking of the fact that we might be what acting upon by God or some superior understanding, huh? So notice the basic reason is that what is received is received according to the mode of the receiver, but the understanding is by its very nature, right, more stable and immobile, right, than any body could be, huh?

[56:34] And a sign of that is the fact that we understand what changing things in an unchanging what way, yeah. You see? While the body is by its very nature something changing, huh? So if what is received in the body is retained, huh?

[56:57] Even when the the the senses are not actually sensing these things, so even more so should what is received in the understanding be retained, huh? You followed the argument there?

[57:13] If therefore, he's going to make some more distinctions here. If thus therefore, if memory is taken only for a power, what conserving the species, right? It is necessary to say that memory is in the understanding part, huh? Okay. Okay. Okay. In that sense, he's admitting memory there in the understanding, huh? Yeah.

[57:39] If, however, of the definition of memory be that its object is what past, as past, right? Okay. Memory is not in the understanding part, huh? But the sensitive part only, which is apprehensive or particulars, because the past as past is something what particular singular, right, huh? Okay.

[58:13] I drove up here a short time ago, and I can remember that, right? Okay. Remember my class this morning or something, right? He was talking about eternity this morning. Into the class, okay. So I can remember that, right? But it's by my sense memory that I remember that, huh? Because that's something singular and individual, okay. Okay.

[58:41] And he gives reason here now. The past as past, since it signifies, essay or being, under some determined individual time, it pertains to the condition of the what particular, the singular. So the great Boethius says a thing is singular when sensed, but universal and understood. Huh. So the past as past is something singular. That's why history is a what knowledge of the what singular. Remember the famous saying of Aristotle in the book about the poetic art.

[59:20] You read that? He's talking about fiction there, right? Poetry, and he says poetry is more philosophic than history. And in what way, or for what reason, does he say that? Well, the reason he gives is that philosophy is about the universal. History is about the what singular, right? Well, fiction, great fiction, great poetry, is in between, huh? But it's more what universal than what singular, right? So when you see Romeo and Juliet, right?

[1:00:07] You don't say, "Oh, that's the way that pair of lovers that lived in 14th century Verona were," you know. You say, "Ah, that's the way young lovers are," right? You see, you see something what Yeah, universal. universal in that? There's the interpenetration of the universal and the singular there. Sometimes they speak of it as universal singularized or singular universalized, but it's more universal than

[1:00:37] what you have in history then, huh? It's approaching the universality of the what philosopher, and this is true especially about great literature like Shakespeare's plays, huh? You read through Shakespeare's plays, it's like you you've you've seen the whole of human life, right? In a kind of universal way, you see. While history is kind of an endless thing, right? You know. Um, I remember what's his name, the famous commentator on the Greek plays there, but he's talking about

[1:01:13] um, Oedipus, right? And of course, you know how the Greek Greek plays you have a chorus, and the chorus is almost like a commentary on what's taking place, huh? And when Oedipus falls, right? Huh? The chorus comes in after the fall of Oedipus, you know this terrible tragedy, right? But he notes, huh, that the chorus doesn't say, "Oh, Oedipus," you know, you know. He comes in and says, "Oh, you generations of men, you know, you see, you see something kind of universal, something about man in in the downfall of this man, you see, okay?

[1:01:54] So that's what he says. It's more philosophic, right? Because it's more approaching the what universal, okay? Why history is really a knowledge of the what singular, huh? Of course, you get the pure historians. They don't even like the use of history, you know, for say political philosophy or something like that, where you try to what generalize something, you know. I mean, this this very good historian we had at Assumption years ago, and Dave Fair used to say, you know, talking about historical comparisons, you know, purpose of history, you know, is to show the fallacy he says. Of all historical comparisons, because you know, they're so much into the singular, right?

[1:02:46] That when you say, "Well, this is like that," well, all they can see is the what differences in the situation, huh? You know, when MacArthur was going to, you know, go the Incheon landing, you've probably heard that famous time, and everybody else was opposed to it, right? Except MacArthur, huh? MacArthur says he's going to do what Wolfe did in Quebec, right? Of course, what Wolfe did was he didn't land where Montcalm and the French thought he would land, where the normal place to be to land.

[1:03:17] He went further down the river, where the banks were such that no one thought he could get up, huh? And he found a way up, huh? And he suddenly surprised the French because there he is on the Plains of Abraham, right? And this led to the capture eventually of what Quebec and and the defeat of the French in the French and Indian War, huh? And that's why Canada, you know, is part of the British Commonwealth today.

[1:03:39] And now, but how much alike was MacArthur? MacArthur is going to land at a place where the Koreans, the North Koreans, would not think that anybody would land. It was such a dangerous place to land. And I guess the tides there at Incheon, you know, you only have a few hours to work, and if you don't have things exactly, you know, MacArthur said, "You know, I've got more confidence in the Navy than you have."

[1:04:07] He said to the admiral, "Right, they can do it, right?" And of course, it's a tremendous victory, right? It was really, you know, really everybody had to eat their words, you know. Even Marshall had to, you know, send them congratulations, you know, and and the British military staff, you know, said it's written on history, you know, it's one of the greatest strategic moves, you know. But to what extent was was what Montcalm did, or what Wolfe did in Quebec, there, and what he did here the same, you know?

[1:04:37] You see, it was kind of funny. I had a little fun at school there. You know, I was reading over Machiavelli, so as at the history of Florence, right? And there is a similar thing in there, right, where someone does that, huh? Well, obviously, when you do what the other guys don't expect you to do, that's going to be very successful if it works, right?

[1:05:00] So, so I got the the politics people are there, you know, to get this comparison between Machiavelli and who you're interested in and uh... and MacArthur, you know, but it's kind of striking to see that, huh? But but notice there you're trying to abstract something universal. Aristotle before he wrote the Politics, huh? He's supposed to have studied 150 of the Greek city states, huh? And you know the history and the revolutions that took place and so on.

[1:05:27] So you have Book Five of Aristotle's Politics, which is the book about revolution and also conservation of governments, is based upon a long experience, right? You see, so history can be

[1:05:42] a yeah, it can be a source of experience, right? Experience necessary for political philosophy, yeah. When you get in in their ways into political philosophy, it also can serve for foresight too, because you can reason from previous event, you know. But even these two Gulf Wars we've had now, the second one has been much different from the first one, huh? And the circumstances were somewhat different, huh?

[1:06:20] We actually lost more men in the first one, you know. Yeah, but although all these dire predictions were going to happen here in the second one, right? But they didn't materialize, huh? So,

[1:06:36] but history, I mentioned history in this context here because history is very much about the what past, right? But it's a knowledge of the singular, right? And the knowledge of the singular belongs to the order of the senses, huh? By the act, the possible understanding it understands directly the what universal. That's why, in a sense, I can't understand any one of you guys. Huh? You can't understand me, right?

[1:07:03] You see, anything you might understand about me really is something that could be found in somebody besides me. Yeah. You see. Okay. I'm a philosopher who's a grandfather who's half Swedish, half Irish. You know, but that's still things that could be found in somebody else, right? Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you can't really get to my singularity, you know, very well unless you go back to your senses, right?

[1:07:37] Huh? I saw a breakfast eating too much, or I saw a breakfast doing this or that. But then you're going back to your senses, right? Huh? You know, you know, you're the man there. Okay, and I get you pinned down, you know, but then I'm going back to my senses, huh? You see, but if I say, you know, well, here's a man sitting, right? He had a beard.

[1:07:58] He was da da da da da. But all that could be found in somebody besides you. I suppose you're the only guy could be sitting there, right? At this point, right? Then I have to go back to my senses, huh? You see. Yeah.

[1:08:15] I suppose somewhere then later on St. Thomas does he discuss how God then can know each particular one of us and knows them? Yeah, we see in in God by and even the angels, huh? They don't know by abstraction, you see. Okay. And they know by, or God knows, because He makes all these things, right? Of course, He makes the singular, right? So His knowledge extends to the singular, okay?

[1:08:48] But by His understanding, He knows the singular as well as the universal in the same way as the angels. But for us, it's kind of division, huh? Okay. By the reason we know directly the universal, and by the senses we know the singular, and that's the reason why, you know, as I was mentioning before, there with Austin's nice remark there in the essay towards the evaluation of music, how the fine arts and so on in fiction they're more pleasingly proportioned to man because they involve something singular that attracts the senses and the imagination, so on, and something universal, right?

[1:09:28] That attracts the what reason, right? So it's easier to read, say, Shakespeare, because we have a little problem with the archaism of the language, right? But the language wasn't so archaic. It'd be very easy to read Shakespeare compared to reading this stuff, huh? Yeah. But you read Shakespeare, you see something universal, so your mind is is not bored by this, right? And your senses or your imagination, at least, is is taken up with Shakespeare's wonderful images, huh?

[1:09:57] Yeah. Okay.