De Anima (On the Soul)
136. Summa I, q.84 a.2–3: Does the Soul Know Through Its Own Essence or Through Innate Forms? Empedocles, Plato's Meno, and the Blank Tablet
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/136-summa-i-q-84-a-2-3-does-the-soul-know-through-its-own-essence/

[0:00] Okay. Whether the soul understands what bodily things to its own what essence to its own nature, right? To the second, thus one proceeds. It seems that the soul understands bodily things through its own essence, to its own nature.

[0:27] For Augustine says in the tenth book of the Trinity that the soul revolves what within itself the images of bodies, huh? And snatches them right, made in itself of itself, giving to them,

[0:50] informing them something of its own what substance, huh? But through the likenesses of bodies, we understand bodies. Therefore, through its own essence, which it gives,

[1:11] informing such similitudes, and about which it and from which it knows them, it knows bodily things. Now, if we translate that all together, correct.

[1:26] But the idea, I think, is clear, right? That Augustine seems to be saying that it's what of its very nature is forming its likenesses, huh? Okay.

[1:40] Moreover, the philosopher says in the third book about the soul that the soul is in some way all things. You saw that, right? Since, therefore, like is known by like, it seems that the soul, through itself, knows what bodily things, huh?

[2:00] Moreover, the soul is superior above corporeal creatures. But the lower things are in the higher things in a more eminent way than in themselves, as Dionysius says. Therefore, all bodily creatures exist in a more noble way. In the very substance of the soul, than in themselves. Therefore, it knows through its own substance, or it's able to know through its own substance, bodily what creatures, huh?

[2:36] But against this is what Augustine says in the ninth book of the Trinity. That the mind gathers knowledge of bodily things through the senses of the what body. There he sounds very Aristotelian, Augustine, huh? But the soul is not knowable through the senses of the body. Therefore, it does not know bodily things through its own substance, huh?

[3:08] I answer: It should be said that the ancient philosophers, right, laid down that the soul knew bodies through its own nature, through its own essence, huh?

[3:29] For this was innate, you, might say, or indicated commonly in the souls of all of them, that like is known by what? Like, huh? And they estimated that the form of the thing known was in the knower in the same way that is in the thing known. They're like Platonists, right? They're answering yes to the central question, right? Right.

[3:59] So everybody before Aristotle is apparently answering what? Yes to the central question, right? Yeah. Of course, there is this fragment of we have of Empedocles, huh? By earth we know earth, by water water, by air air, by fire fire, by love love, and by hate hate, as if the soul was composed of these things, and therefore would know them, right?

[4:31] Okay. For they estimated that the form of the thing known is in the knower in the same way that is in the thing known. A contrario, nevertheless, huh? The Platonists posited, huh? Now here they see some difference between them. For Plato, because he saw that the understanding soul was immaterial, and it knew immaterially, right? He posited that the forms of things known subsisted in an immaterial way.

[5:13] But the earlier naturalists, because they considered things known to be bodily and material. They posited as necessary that the things known also exist materially in the soul knowing them, and therefore that they might attribute to the soul the knowledge of all things, they laid down that it had a nature common with all things, and because the nature of things that are from a principle is constituted from the principles, they attributed to the soul the nature of a principle.

[5:59] That's brought out very clearly in the first book of the Physics. I mean, excuse me, the De Anima, that whatever they thought was the principle, of, things they attributed to the nature of the soul.

[6:12] Thus, those who said that the principle of all things was fire, they laid down the soul to be of the nature of fire, and similarly, those who said it was what air, right, like an Anaximenes and water, like. Thales, Empedocles, however, who laid down that there were four material elements and two of love and hate, from these also said that the soul was what constituted, huh? And thus, since things are materially, they posited things to be in the soul materially.

[6:53] They posited all knowledge of the soul to be material, not discerning between the understanding and what sense, like Plato and Aristotle were. But this opinion is disproven, huh?

[7:12] First, because in the material principle about which they spoke, the principled things do not exist except in potency. Just like if you knew what the letters of the alphabet, would you know all words?

[7:32] Only potential. Yeah, because because all letters are other words only in what potency, right? Yeah. But something is not known as it is in potency or ability, but only as it is in act. This is clear in the ninth book of wisdom, ninth book of the metaphysics. Hence, neither is potency itself known except through act.

[8:05] Thus, therefore, it is not sufficient to attribute to the soul the nature principles in order that it might know all things, unless there were within it the natures and the forms of each of the effects, for example, of bone and of flesh, huh? And others of this sort, as Aristotle argues against Empedocles in the first book of the soul.

[8:33] Aristotle is saying that yeah, if the soul is composed of earth, air, fire, and water, maybe it knows earth, air, fire, and water, but it wouldn't know flesh and blood and bones because they're composed of earth, fire, and water in certain ratios, and you have to know these ratios in which they're combined and so on to be able to know all things, huh? So Empedocles can't really explain how the soul knows flesh and blood and bones, huh?

[9:00] Okay. Secondly, because and this is even more trying, I mean, more powerful in some ways, if it was necessary for the thing known to exist materially in the one knowing, there'd be no reason wherefore a thing which subsists materially outside the soul would what

[9:23] lack knowledge, right? For example, if the soul by fire knows fire, then the fire which is also outside the soul would know fire. Okay.

[9:36] Now, sometimes when you take up the position of Empedocles there we say, "Empedocles has the idea that the thing known must be in the knower in order to be known. And is this true?

[9:54] In other words, if I recognize you, people, must I not have your shape and color in my head in some way? Yeah. Okay. But the difficulty is, is it in there in a material way? Is there a piece of flesh or blood or bone which is adapted to those statues of each one of you, right?

[10:17] But if that's so, why wouldn't the statue over there know the person that it has the what shape of, right? So, if it's not in us, but in us in some way, but it's not in us in a material way, then it must be in us in a what immaterial way.

[10:40] So it means, therefore, it is necessary that material things known exist in the knower, but not materially, right? But rather in an immaterial way.

[11:00] And that's why they say sometimes that in matter, matter receives the form of another as its own, right? So if if Michelangelo is here and is going to make a statue of you, right, the marble would receive your shape as its own shape now. But the knower receives your shape not as its own shape, but as your shape, while keeping the shape it had. By the matter, this piece of marble that has an irregular shape will go to lose that irregular shape, right, and take on your shape.

[11:45] So it's a different way that matter receives and the what knower receives, huh? And the reason for this, huh? We'll read the sentence again before the end. It means, therefore, it is necessary that material things known exist in the knower, not materially, but more immaterially. And the reason for this is because the act of knowing extends itself to those things which are outside the one knowing. For we know even those things which are outside of us.

[12:32] But through matter, a form of a thing is determined to something one. Hence, it is manifest that the ratio or the definition of knowing, in opposite way, has itself to the ratio of what materiality.

[12:52] Never through matter, receives a form as its own, right? By knowing, if I know something outside of me, I have to receive the form of another as other and not my own. So there's an opposition between the way matter receives and the way the what, knower receives, yeah.

[13:14] And therefore, those things which do not receive forms except in material way, in no way are knowing, as plants, as is said in the second book about the soul. But the more immaterially something has the form of the thing known, the more perfectly it what, knows, huh? Whence also the understanding, which abstracts or separates the form, not only from matter but also from the individuating material conditions, more perfectly knows in the sense, which receives the form of the thing known without matter, but with material conditions and therefore a singular, right?

[14:04] And among the senses, sight is more knowing, because it is less what, material. And among intellects, each one is more perfect as it is more what, immaterial.

[14:26] From these, therefore, it is clear that if there is some understanding, which through its very nature knows all things, it will be necessary that its very nature have in itself immaterially all things. Just as the ancients posited the essence of the soul, enact to be composed in the principles of all material things, it might know all things. But this, he says, is proper to God, whose nature, whose essence is immaterially and immaterial way, comprehensive of all things, huh?

[15:06] Insofar as effects exist in the power of their cause. God alone, therefore, through his own essence understands all things. Not, however, the human soul, nor even the what angel understands everything and understands through its own what, nature, right? Because its nature is not comprehensive of all things.

[15:39] Now, what's this objection from Augustine? To the first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine there speaks of imaginary vision, which comes about through the images of bodies,

[15:56] to which images forming, the soul gives something of its substance, just as a subject is given that might be informed through some form, and thus of itself it makes these what images, not that the soul or something of the soul is changed into these, right? That it be this or that image, but just as of the body something is said to be what colored. insofar as it is informed by color, and that means there is that it's what it's it's receiving partly in itself, right?

[16:40] The forms of these things, right? What's received is received according to the receiver. So in that sense, it contributes something of itself, right? Okay.

[16:52] And this sense appears in those things which follow, for he says that it reserves something to it not formed by such an image, that it might freely judge of the form of such images, and this he says to be the mind of intellect.

[17:18] But the part which is informed by these images, namely imagination, he says to be common to the beasts and to what us? So Thomas really has to stretch there, right? Get Augustine in line,

[17:40] because Augustine is not as careful, right? Or writer as as Thomas is, huh? And people can misunderstand Augustine, right? Okay. But you know, in a sense, contrary, Augustine clearly is speaking like Aristotle there, right?

[18:01] Now the second objection was that Aristotle says that the soul is in some way all things, right? Aristotle said the soul is in some way all things in what? In ability, right? Not an act. To the second, it should be said that Aristotle did not posit the soul to be an act composed of all things, as the ancient naturalists had said, right? But he said in some way the soul is all things, in so far as it is in what?

[18:33] Potency to all things, huh? To the sense to all sensible things, to the understanding to understandable things, huh? Okay. So he says it's like a what blank tablet on which nothing is written. That's where our mind is in the beginning, huh? So obviously, through itself, it doesn't know all things, huh? But to itself, it's able to receive the natures of of things, huh? And you can see that when you get to know the definitions of different things, right?

[19:06] Then you have the natures of these things, right? In your mind, the definition is expresses, right? Contains the nature of the thing. Now the third objection is that the soul in some way is a superior thing, and therefore it should contain the lower in it. And Thomas says to the third, it should be said that each creature has a limited and determined being. Whence the essence of a superior creature, although it has some likeness of the lower creature, in so far as they communicate in some genus, it does not, however, completely have the likeness of that thing, because it itself is determined to some species.

[20:00] Outside of which is the species of the lower creature. But the essence of God is a perfect likeness of all things, as regards all things which are found in things, as being God, being the universal but beginning or source of all things.

[20:22] But you know the pantheists they don't imagine God to be composed of everything, right? And they can't understand the way in which God, in a simple way, would contain all things.

[20:38] We're not to worry about God right now. But just see that the creature is limited, right, and determined in kind, and outside of the kind of thing he is, is the kind of thing something else is. So he doesn't, in knowing himself, have an adequate knowledge of other kinds of things, and therefore he needs something to complete his knowledge. We're going to see what that is in the third article, huh?

[21:10] Okay. You want to do a third article or what is that? Well, I haven't read it. but Go ahead. What? Sure. Do you want to go to the third article? Don't. If you had a chance to read it or not, you want to know. I. You read it. Wow. I didn't read it, but for when we see how it goes. Would you think? I mean, I don't.

[21:50] Go ahead, doctor. What? Go ahead. Okay. Behold, there. Okay. Whether the soul understands all things through forms naturally found within it, huh? To the third, thus it proceeds. One proceeds thus. It seems that the soul understands all things through species naturally what and found within it, right? For Gregorius, huh, Gregory the Great, in the homily of the Ascension, right, says that man has in common with the angels to what?

[22:33] Understand right, but the angels understand all things through forms naturally found in them, right? Whence, in the book de causis, it is said that every intelligence is full of what forms. Therefore, the soul has species of things naturally found in it, by which it understands bodily things. And there you can see you are talking about likeness being cause of deception, right? Well, you are seeing the likeness there of of man to the angels, but not the what difference, right?

[23:14] The likeness consists in the fact that we can understand just as the angels understand, right? But the difference is that the angel understands through forms that are innate that he's created with, huh? Where we have to what acquire the forms through our senses by which we understand them. So things are like in this way. You are saying are like in what? They're not right. Okay. You

[23:50] say you know it is likeness that causes deception, right? We can say seeing the likeness of things without seeing their difference, right? Is a what? Of course, yeah, yeah. It's interesting in dialectic when Aristotle gives the tools of dialectic. And the first, you know, tool is a selection of probable premises on which dialectic reasons. The second tool is the tool of distinguishing the senses of a word.

[24:20] The third tool is a tool of finding differences. And the fourth tool is a tool of consideration of likeness. And I remember years ago I suggested said to Monsignor Dionne I said but it gives a tool of difference before the tool of likeness right yeah because to see the likeness without the difference would be a source of what error he sort of you know agrees as much as Dia would agree with you on what he a bunch of dialectic you know but I mean it's kind of interesting right because you know when you use the third and fourth tools say for a definition right yes usually you begin a definition by the what they call the genus huh and then you see the likeness between

[25:07] this and other things right and then you add differences to complete the thing right yeah so you'd expect the tool of likeness in that sense to come before the tool of difference sure but Aristotle gives the tool of difference before the tool of likeness huh as if he wants to remind you that to see the likeness of things without seeing their difference is apatan right.

[25:38] Well, in English, it's called the topics, but it's in the first book where he talks about the four tools. What were the first three tools? The first tools. This is the tools, the dialectician, right? So the first tool is the selection of probable opinions. Okay. It's more to than that, but I mean, it's the basic idea.

[26:06] Okay. The second tool is a tool of distinguishing the senses of a word, huh? Hmm. The third tool is the tool of finding differences. And the fourth tool is the consideration of differences. I mean, of likeness. It's interesting. He uses the word, I think, a hueined for for differences, right? But then it gets to likeness. it doesn't say speak. Final likeness, the consideration, the skepticism it's The word skeptic the skepticism of likeness because you've got to see, especially in the primary thing in that tool, where you see a likeness that's analogous, right?

[26:42] You've got to see in what way the things are alike, right? And you know, you try to understand a proportion. You've got to see in what way A is to B like X is to Y.

[26:56] So the choice of his word is interesting there. skeptics. It's the idea, you know, of kind of a digestive consideration of the thing, huh? By difference there's a difference, right? And once you see a difference between two things, you can reason right away from that that they're not the same, right? Any difference would enable you to say two things are not the same, right?

[27:28] But if you see a likeness between two things, you've got to be careful. The way you proceed from that. Okay. Second objection, Morver, and the understanding soul is more noble than the first matter, first matter of bodies, huh? first corporeal matter. But first matter is created by God under forms to which it is in potency, huh? Therefore, much more should the animal, the understanding soul, be created by God under what

[28:07] intelligible forms, huh? And thus the soul understands bodily things through forms naturally, what? Yeah. yeah. Again, there in a way, it's a question of likeness too, because even Thomas, you know, is famous for comparing our intellect to prime matter, and our intellect is in the order of understandable things, right? What prime matter is in the order of being, huh? That prime matter, the order of being, is being only in potency, and our understanding is like what In the order of the understandable is the understandable only in potency.

[28:57] But here you're kind of, you know, assimilating these two in ways that they are not alike, huh? Because the understanding is a power of the soul, which is a substance, right? But the first matter is substance and ability, and therefore it couldn't be at all unless it had a form.

[29:24] Why the understanding is what not a substance but a power of. The soul, which is in the genus of substance, so it doesn't have to have a form to begin with. We'll see how he answers it, but it occurs to me right away.

[29:44] Now, the third one has taken from the famous dialogue called *the Meno where Plato tries to show that the slave boy, who's never studied geometry in this life, right,

[29:56] has already within himself geometry. He says, "No one moreover, no one is able to answer the truth except about that which he knows. But someone, even an idiot, right? Not an idiot, man. not maybe their full sense. Not having any acquired science, responds the truth about individual things. If only he is orderly. What? Question, right? As is narrated in the dialogue *the Mino* of Plato about someone, about the slave boy of Mino, right?

[30:37] Therefore, before someone acquires knowledge, he has knowledge of things, which would not be unless the soul had species naturally innate. The soul understands, therefore, bodily things through species naturally innate. But against all this is what the philosopher says in the third book of the soul, speaking about the understanding that is like a tablet in which nothing is written. Begin with right.

[31:17] Okay, so Thomas says, "I answer. It should be said that since form is the principle of action, is necessary in that way that some, is necessary that in the way in which something has itself to form, which is the principle of action.

[31:41] In that same way, it has itself to that what action? Huh? He gives the example from the older physics, just as if to be moved upwards is from lightness. Huh?

[31:57] Is necessary that something in potency only is born upward. Is necessary that something that is there is only in potency born upwards is light only in potency. Huh? But what is an act born upwards is what light and act. Huh? Just like in chemistry, when you have precipitation, right? So they acquire some weight, huh? Then it goes down, right? Okay. Once it actually has that form.

[32:37] Now he says we see, however, that man is at some time knowing only in potency, both according to sense as according to understanding, and that from such a potency is reduced an act that it senses through the actions of sensible things in the sense, and that understands through what? Either learning from another disciplinam, or what? Discovery, right? Inventio. There's two ways of coming to know, right? One is to discover it yourself, right?

[33:17] Others to learn it from a teacher. Whence it is necessary to say that the knowing soul is in potency, both to the likenesses which are the beginnings of sensing, as well as to the likenesses which are the what? Beginnings of understanding, huh? And on account of this, Aristotle laid down that the understanding by which the soul understands does not have any species naturally innate or inherent, but it is in the beginning in potency to all forms of this sort, huh?

[34:03] Me saying in the beginning that our senses what? Know only and ability, right? And when they're acted upon, right? then they know and act, huh? And likewise, our understanding in the beginning knows only an ability, right? And through sensation and memory and experience, it comes to

[34:26] understand what something is, right? Okay. But now an objection. But because that which has an active form sometimes is not able to act according to that form on account of some impediment, right? Just as the light, if it's impeded from going upwards, on account of this, Plato laid down that the understanding of man naturally is filled with all what? Understandable forms, right? But through the union of the body, it's impeded.

[35:09] lest it, what? go and act, right? Quite a shock. you're stuck in the body, right? Huh? Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah. Plato saying, you know, that our soul existed before it was in the body, right? Right. And the soul was filled with these forms, right? Okay. But when the soul is put in the body, it's such a shock, right? That it's temporarily impeded, right? Yeah. From using the forms it already has.

[35:39] Okay. But through an effort of recalling, right? Right. It can call back these forms eventually, and then it knows them, right? Okay. It's a little bit like you know when you know you're at a party or something, and someone says, "Who's that?" And well, I know this person's name, but I can't come up with it. Yeah, and I work at it, and then eventually I recall it, right?

[36:06] So I did know the name, but I was impeded from what using it or bringing it out, right? Right. And so it's not like I'm learning it for the first time, right? I already had the name in there. So Aristotle Thomas says,

[36:27] "This does not seem, though, to be."Suitably said, right? First, because if the soul had a natural knowledge of all things, it does not seem possible that so great a what oblivion or forgetfulness of this natural knowledge it would what have, right? So that it would not know itself to have science.

[36:59] For he says, no man forgets those things which he naturally knows, just like he naturally knows that every whole is greater than its part, and others of this sort.

[37:13] And especially does this seem inconvenient if we lay down that the soul is naturally joined to the body, right? As has been said above, for it is inconvenient that the natural operation of something be totally impeded through that which is

[37:37] natural to it, huh? Yeah. Okay. Secondly, manifestly the falsity of this position appears from this: that when one sense is failing, there also fails to be a knowledge of those things which are apprehended according to that sense, just as a blind man is in no way is able to have a knowledge of what colors, as such, huh? Which would not be if the reasons of definitions of all things understandable were naturally in the soul,

[38:15] and therefore not to be said that the soul does not know bodily things through species naturally what innate, huh? Is it objection to what Plato is saying, huh?

[38:33] Angels can't forget. No, they don't. But you know, with an angel, I was reading today just about the fall of the angels. You know, in Thomas, there in the question one ten, there in the Summa Contra Gentiles and

[38:55] what the sin of the angels was—the original sin of the angels was pride, right? And not referring their own what excellence back to God's glory, huh?

[39:07] So, when you ask for your own beatitude, right, huh? Your own supreme perfection, right? You should ask for it. I think it seems to me

[39:28] with the also request that may my beatitude. Give glory to you, right? May my beatitude glorify you, God. He wants your beatitude, huh? It's natural to want you beatitude, huh? but may my beatitude glorify you, god?

[39:58] you know so when burkowitz is enjoying this vision of god as he is in himself, right? he's in God face to face. Wow, see, you know. But that God should, you know, be so generous as to give me this vision of Him face to face, huh? That is what something that should, you know, be glorifying Him. Huh? It's a kind of interesting vision there, where Saint Teresa of Avila appeared to one of her her sisters in her in her order, right?

[40:26] Uh huh. And she we're not so different, she says. You know, you're praising God there, God behind the veil, right? We're praising God up here face to face, but you know, it's kind of interesting.

[40:47] So, in a sense, huh? Um. That's kind of a subtle thing, huh? The sin of the angels, huh? They they couldn't, but but want their own beatitude, their own excellence, right? But it's not natural to refer this back to God, right, huh? As it is natural to what desire your own beatitude, your own excellence, huh? Hmm.

[41:18] So it has to be chosen. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And then he then he says, from that proceeded then hatred of God, as opposing their will, right? And envy of man, right? Yeah. He says in says the book of wisdom, you know, for the envy, of the devil sin. I mean, death came into this world, right? So,

[41:50] envy and hatred of God are not original sins, but they proceed from God resisting the. Because Thomas takes as being probable, we don't know that the devil was the highest of all the angels, unless he was very excellent, he would not have what been tempted. You might say to what rest in his own excellence. Hmm.

[42:20] So your supreme perfection is to see God as He is face to face, huh? But you have to. I think the Latin word is retulit, bring back right to God that. Perfection that you have in seeing him face to face, huh? which you do naturally when you see him face to face? But I mean, in this life, you gotta do that, you know.

[42:49] You could ask for that beatitude, but you've got to ask for that beatitude would glorify him, right? In other words, I want to mean purposes being supremely happy to glorify God.

[43:30] Okay. Now, the first objection is. Yeah, right up to the first objection, right? That's the one that compared us with the angels, right? And Thomas is going to point out the difference, right, between us and the angels. To the first, therefore, it should be said that man indeed comes together with the angels in understanding, right? But nevertheless, he falls short of the what eminence of their understanding, right?

[44:04] Just as inferior bodies, which only exist according to Gregory, falls short from the existence of the superior bodies. Now this is an analogy here that we probably not accept, you know. Okay, but the likeness there is perfectly good. For the matter of inferior bodies is not completely what completed totally through form, but it is in potency to the forms which it does not have.

[44:42] The matter of celestial bodies that they thought was what incorruptible bodies, right, is totally completed by form. Thus, that is not in potency to another form. Therefore, it is not corruptible, right? But that's the likeness there that is something that we don't think is the case. And similarly, the intellect of the angel is perfect to intelligible species according to its nature. The intellect, the human intellect, is in potency to these what species, huh?

[45:22] Well, Thomas makes this comparison in other places. Mix comparison as you were mentioning before between being and the understandable, right? And being, you have God pure act, and then the first matter that's pure what ability and the passive sense, and then

[46:13] everything in between is what a mixture of act and ability, right? okay, okay okay put that mixture of act and ability. Like you and I, right? We're actually something. We're actually a man, and we're actually a geometer and a few other things. But we're also many things in what ability, right? Okay.

[46:46] Even the things we know, we're not actually thinking about them all the time, right? But God is pure act, okay? Well, then, in the order of the what understandable, right?

[47:01] God is what pure act, right? The angels are here, and our mind is what the lowest. So our mind, our understanding, is like what the first matter in a certain way, right? It's pure

[47:29] ability in the order of the what understandable. God is pure act in the understandable. The angels are what in between, right? Some more act than others.

[47:45] So that's another comparison that he makes. Here's a more simple comparison. Now the second objection is making use of this comparison between matter and our understanding, but

[48:06] matter is never found without some form that it has, okay? And so the objection is saying, well, then our understanding should also always have some form and innate, right? He says to the second, it should be said that the first matter has substantial being through form, right? And therefore, it's necessary that it should be created under some form; otherwise, it wouldn't actually be, okay? But under one form existing, it is in potency to others, huh?

[48:48] But our understanding does not have substantial being through a what intelligible form, huh? And therefore, it is not similar, right? The understandable form is joined to our understanding in order that we might understand something, right? Not that our what understanding might be, but that it might actually what understand, huh? So he's pointing out the difference here between the two, right?

[49:18] But at other times, like like I put on the board here, he he makes use of the likeness between the two, right? Okay, but you have to see at the same time the difference, huh?

[49:32] So that's in a sense the universal cause of deception, isn't it? Seeing the likeness of things without seeing their difference, huh? Sometimes the good resembles the bad, right? And sometimes the bad resembles the good, right? So we can think that fair is foul when foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air. But the fog there, right? The confused knowledge there, where you don't have a distinct knowledge.

[50:08] A lot of times Thomas will say, you know, that some deception comes from not seeing some distinction. But that amounts to the same thing, doesn't it? Yeah, because distinction is the broadest word, right? Distinction is even broader in a sense of indifference, right? Although we sometimes use them as being the change, being the same. Yeah, but not seeing any distinction at all, right? The one is not the other in some way, right?

[50:33] Yeah. Is going to be a cause of deception, right? Not seeing this distinction between us and angels, right? Okay, or between us and what prime matter in this analogy we make here.

[50:53] Okay. Now, to the third, it should be said, and this is the one for the Meno, that an ordered interrogation proceeds from the common principles per se known to the what proper, right? Okay. Now, take an example of that. Just something example I've given you before. You take in geometry, say one example of a of a of the exactly what

[51:36] he uses there. Common principles per se known, right? Huh? Now, sometimes he says that these are the principles known to themselves by all men, right? Okay. Sometimes he says are the principles known through themselves that are common sources of every science, right? And in geometry we give them a name which is axioms, right? Okay. Now take the standard example of an axiom: a whole is more than a part.

[52:19] And get down to the proper principles, huh? The private principles, the principles that are private to geometry. So this is common to every science. Let's say all right angles are equal, right? Okay. Now those are known to themselves by what men who have a little bit of learning, right? Everybody who knows what a right angle is, maybe would see that all right angles are equal, right? But,

[53:01] but in a way, do you see that all right angles are equal? In the way that the whole is more than a part. Well, the definition of right angle is that when a straight line meets a what straight line and makes equal angles, we call those what right angles, right? Now, how do you know that when another straight line meets another straight line and makes equal angles, that not only are these two angles equal, but this one and this one are equal, and this one, this one, and this one and this one are equal?

[53:43] How do you know that? Well, you probably imagine one of these as laid on the other, right? Okay. Now you lay this straight line upon this straight line, and at that point, right? Now if these two lines coincide, well then it's obvious that they're equal, right?

[54:13] But if they don't coincide, one is going to fall to the right or the left of the other. Okay. Now let's give a name here, A B, whatever names you may be. We'll call this C and we'll call this what D, okay? So you've got A, B, and you've got C and D, right? Why couldn't that happen?

[54:45] Well, if C, right, is making A C, I got to use my thingy X, A X C equal, right? The C X B, right? You're given that, right?

[55:06] Then C X B is going to be more than B X B, because the whole is more than the part, right? Right? Okay. Right? So the C X B is greater than B X B, right? Then a xd will be much greater than DXB, right? But since d divided into equals, they have to be equal. So you got a contradiction there, right? So notice, in a way, you see the truth of this through contradiction, and in this case, also through the whole being more than a what?

[56:03] A part, right? Okay. So he says an ordered interrogation, an orderly questioning, proceeds from common principles known to themselves to private ones, huh? To proper, private,

[56:28] and through such a process. through such a going forward, such a proceeding, reason out knowledge is caused in the soul of the one learning. Whence, since,

[56:43] when he responds the truth about those things about which he was secondly interrogated, this is not because he knew them before, but because then what? De novo, newly, he learns them, right?

[57:09] And in no way differs, he says, whether the one who teaches by proposing or by questioning, right? In either case, he proceeds from common principles, right, to conclusions. And in both cases, the soul of the one hearing is made certain about the what things that come afterwards through the things that are prior that come before, right? Okay. So, when Socrates asks the questions in the proper order, the slave boy what comes to see for the first time, right?

[57:46] See, you know, if you know the dialogue, Socrates asks the slave boy, if you have a square and you want to find the side of the square twice as big, what would that be? The slave boy says, "We double the side." And of course, when you figure that out, you find out that it's what four times as big, and not that, right? Okay. So now the slave boy knows he doesn't know, right?

[58:18] And then Socrates says, "Well, suppose this is the original square, and suppose you draw another one exactly like that right next to it, and then below that one another one just like the original one, right? And you fill up the square here with the fourth one. Now you get a bigger square that's how much bigger than the original one? Four times. Yeah, he can answer it to exactly his questions, and then he takes the diagonals, right?

[58:50] And this diagonal gives you what? Twice. Four halves of four. So this square in here is going to be half of four, and what's half of four? Twice. So the square and the diagonal square, twice as big. But but he can answer each step along there because he's not too big a step, right? Sure. Is it?

[59:20] So it's not really the way double square is not coming out of what he knows already, in the sense that he already actually had that. Among his knowledge, right? Right. But he was able to know it from what went before, right? No. Just like you know, if we say that if we know the the length of this table and we know the width of this table, but we've never multiplied the length by the width, do we know the area?

[59:56] Inability. Inability, yeah, but that's not the same thing as to actually know, isn't it? No. But if you know the length and you know the width, then you know how to multiply, then you know the area. Inability, right? But it's not until you actually multiply the length by the width that you'd actually know the area. And so the slave boy, huh? He knows the statements, which when put together enable him to see that the diagonal is the way to double the square, right?

[1:00:28] But he's never put them together until this time. And when he puts them together, then he sees what follows, and then he knows for the first time. And therefore, he's not recalling something he knew already, but he's seeing it for the first time. But notice how how Plato there is making the mistake of, or Socrates is, or Meno is, a mistake of thinking that if you get something out of something, it's got to be actually in there.

[1:01:00] And he doesn't realize that it may be actually in there, or it may be in there only in ability, huh? And but Socrates, you know, claims that the slave boy what already knew it because it came out of what he knew. Say. And I say to the students, they say, you know, if we are short of chairs in this room, we can get some out of the next room, right?

[1:01:29] But you'd also get them out of the trees out there in the campus. Though it takes a little bit longer to get them out of the trees, huh? Sure. But there is something in the tree that's able to be a chair.

[1:01:41] So Socrates is not really seeing what it is to be in something in what ability, huh?