De Anima (On the Soul)
137. Summa Theologiae I, Q.84, Article 4: Against Avicenna, Understanding Requires the Senses
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[0:03] So. Better stop there. It's a nice, nice long chair. Just wait a minute. Oh yeah, give a. That's right. Yeah. Prayer. Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightener, guardian angels, bring from the lights of our minds, ordain, illuminate our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Amen. Help us to understand all the truth of it.

[0:43] Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Did you celebrate Saint John Damascene today, or the calendar is different? I guess so. We had Saint Barbara. Yeah, Saint Barbara. Oh, she's a military. He has, right? Yeah, because I know his son that would celebrate that. Yeah, artillery, I guess.

[1:03] Yeah. I was looking in this account of Shakespeare's play there, the Merchant of Venice, huh? They're talking about the predecessors, you know, the three caskets, and you have to choose one of the caskets in order to get the lady. You choose wrongly, you have to be a bachelor the rest of your life.

[1:31] And but they trace it back, went back to John Damascene. Damascus, huh? I think it must be Saint John Damascene. So it's kind of interesting that he had that, huh? You have to make a choice, and you have there is a gold and a silver and a lead casket, and each of them has got a writing on it. You've got to choose the right one, huh? Of course, in the play, you know, somebody chooses the gold, and and then someone chooses the silver, and then finally the right man, Bassanio, chooses the the lead.

[2:00] But the reasoning they go into when they decide to choose this rather than that, huh? Comes from. Yeah, it's interesting, you know. All that glisters is not gold. You've heard it said, "All that glisters is not gold." People choosing for the outside of things rather than the inside.

[2:18] Okay, we're up to article four here, I guess, huh? And this is dealing with the opinion of the great Arab philosopher Avicenna, right? And just as Plato was saying, right, that our soul knows material things by looking at these forms, huh? Well, Avicenna gives up that idea, but he has the idea of a superior mind, right, that flows into our mind, right? Understandable forms. They don't stay in our mind though, just while we're thinking about them.

[3:01] Okay. So this is dealing with that opinion. That's why it comes up in these things. To the fourth, one proceeds thus: It seems that intelligible forms flow into the soul from some separated forms, from some separated substances, right?

[3:21] And this is a very famous statement here. Everything that is such by partaking is caused by that which is such essentially, just as what is ignited or fired. Is reduced as in a cause to what fire?

[3:53] Just like in the case of human virtue, right? The moral virtues partake of what reason, right? And therefore, they depend upon what is essentially what rational. Okay. So the irascible appetite, right, which has anger and things of this sort, and the concupiscible appetite, which has hunger and thirst and sexual desire and so on, these things are moderated and ordered by reason. Not that they are essentially reason, but they have reason, but they can what partake of reason.

[4:30] Okay. So if something partakes, it presupposes something. That is so, what as such and essentially so, he gives a simple example there from the ancient science, right?

[4:47] But the understanding soul, as it is understanding an act, partakes of the understandables. For the understanding an act is in some way the understood an act. We've talked about that before when we talked about the senses and reason long ago. That sensing and understanding are receiving in a way the form right of another, the nature of another. Therefore, those things which by themselves and in their very nature are understood an act are causes for the understanding soul that understands an act.

[5:30] But the things that are understood an act through their own nature are forms that exist without matter. Therefore, the understandable forms by which the soul understands are caused by some separated forms. Huh? We saw that in our first study of the understanding, right? That things have to be separated from matter before they can be understood. So it's the things that are in their very nature immaterial that are actually what understandable, and so we seem to be just getting a what partaking of the understandable.

[6:05] Okay. And therefore, are we getting it from something that is essentially understandable? It's a very subtle argument there. But in this, is he already arguing for the that agent intellect, or is he just talking about the ideas themselves? Well, he's going to bring in the agent intellect eventually, yeah. But I mean, but for for what's his name Avicenna, yeah. The agent intellect is a separated what substance like an angel, right?

[6:36] That is acting upon our mind and sending in forms to our mind. But is he talking about that already in this? In this objection, yeah, yeah. The objection is saying that there must be something that is essentially understandable, right? That is the source of what we have understandable, which is only by partaking of the understandable. Okay.

[7:08] Moreover, understandable things have themselves to the understanding as sensible things to the sense. But the sensible things which are in act outside the soul are the causes of the sensible forms which are in the sense, by which we sense, huh? So we're acted upon by the sensible things, right? And the sensible form is a result of our being acted upon by things outside of ourselves. And so this is arguing by analogy here.

[7:39] Therefore, the understandable forms by which understanding understands are caused by some things that are understandable and act existing outside the soul, and these things are not except what forms that exist in separation from matter. Therefore, the understandable forms of our understanding flow from some separated substances. So that's what he's doing there, right? He's making an analogy. He's saying that just as sensible things outside here

[8:17] act upon our senses, causing them to what understand and act, right? So there must be some understandable things out here, right? Things that are actually understandable that act upon the understanding or reason,

[8:40] and therefore we're getting our thoughts from these like immaterial things that are actually understandable. Okay. Thomas will say, well, again, you got to be careful with analogy. There's a likeness there between the two, right? Yeah. But they're overextending the likeness. huh? Yeah, it's a, difference. Because what is really understandable for us primarily is not something understandable and act. What's primarily understandable for us is that what it is of something sensed or imagined, and that what it is of something sensed or imagined has to be by our intellect separated from the singularity of the senses and the imagination in order to be actually understood.

[9:32] So this is seeing them to be alike, where they are not alike. There is an analogy there, right? But the analogy and the likeness is not as great as the argument is assuming.

[9:57] Okay. The argument is assuming that because there are things that are actually sensible, which move the senses, right? Then likewise, our understanding or our reason must be moved by things that are actually understandable.

[10:13] In a sense, they must be right, but they're not things that are actually understandable by their very nature. They're what it is is something sensed or imagined, and that has to be separated from the sensible images, huh? Before it is actually understandable.

[10:33] Now the third objection is again based upon this famous thing that we'll study a lot when we get to wisdom. Everything that is in what potency or inability, meaning passive ability, is reduced to act by that which is an act.

[10:54] Just like when your mother makes what Christmas cookies, right? The dough is able to be a Christmas tree or able to be a bell or something else, right? And she uses the what? Well, the actual form. Yeah, the thing actually has that form to give what? The dough form. The form that it has inability to make it what actual in there, right? Okay. Or the water is able to be warm, right?

[11:24] In the grill or wherever it is, right? Which is actually hot. Oh yeah. Reduces it from ability to what to act. Okay. Now we saw before in our first study, and all the way back in Aristotle, that the understanding is first in ability. It's like a tablet upon which nothing has been written, huh? And then afterwards it understands an act. If it goes from ability to act, it is necessary that this be caused by some understanding which is always an act.

[11:59] And then he jumps and says, "Well, that is going to be some separated understanding, some separated intellectual substance. Therefore, from some separated substances, separated from matter, are caused the understandable forms by which we understand in in act. " Okay. It's a very interesting position then of Avicenna. So those three are his ideas. These are objections. Yeah, these are arguments in favor of what Avicenna is saying, right?

[12:32] Thomas always argues against the truth first. Yeah. And then he gives a sed contra, right? But against this is that according to this we would not need the senses for understanding. Yeah. Which is clearly false. From this, especially that the one who lacks one sense in no way is able to have a knowledge of the sensibles of that what sense, huh? So a man born blind would have no knowledge really of what of colors as such, huh?

[13:06] Great. Okay. Now in the body of the article here, Thomas is going to explain a bit the position of Avicenna and contrast it with the position of Plato that we talked a bit about last time, right? And then he's going to reason against that position, huh?

[13:31] So Thomas says, "I answer it ought to be said. " That some lay down that the understandable forms—that is, the forms of which we understand—the understandable forms of our ability to understand, our intellect—proceed from some forms or separated substances. huh He calls them aliquibus formis because they would be completely immaterial, right, and have no matter in them, right? Or substances that are separated from matter. And this in two ways.

[14:09] And he's going to speak now of Plato and then the position of Avicenna. For Plato, as has been said, laid down that the forms of sensible things exist or subsist by themselves without matter,

[14:33] just as the form of man. Man, huh? The nature of man, right? It's the way Saint Paul speaks, huh, when. He says that he what didn't what Think equality, you know, something to be grasped at, huh? He's in the form of God. He took on the form of a slave, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. But I think the Greek word is morphe there. I think in that particular text there, Saint Paul.

[15:06] Yeah, yeah. So form sometimes means what species, the particular kind of thing it is, huh? Okay. Um. So Plato thought that what a man is existed by itself, right? And likewise, the form. Notice Thomas's words here in the Latin, huh? Et formam vel ideam, right? Some people, you know, they transliterate as opposed to translate. See, idea comes in the Greek word eidos, which is a Greek word for form.

[15:46] It's like the word species. And some people translate the transliterate. They take the letters over. They translate idea, which is a bad way, right? Idea, no, no. It should be translated form. And Thomas has got it right, here, right? Formum, which is the Latin word, vel ideam, which is the transliterated, you know, Greek word, huh? But not translated into idea. Okay. Which he named the per se horse, and so on, right?

[16:19] Okay. Now we don't go right into the whole position of Plato there, but Plato had hit upon a very important part of the truth, and that was that Socrates and what Socrates is are not identical altogether. Oh. Because what is Socrates? He's a man, right? Man, yeah. Now,

[16:50] is he a man because he's Socrates? No. See? No, no. See? And is he a man through being Socrates? No. See? If one was a man through being Socrates, one would have to be Socrates before he could be a man. Man, huh? Okay. So it seems that Socrates and what a man is are not identical. And if Socrates and what a man is were identical, Socrates would be the only man.

[17:28] Yeah. Okay. And this is true, incidentally, of what God, God, and the angels, right? All angels. Oh. Raphael. And what Raphael is identical, Gabriel and what Gabriel is identical. Each angel is a different kind of thing.

[17:51] There is no two angels of exactly the same kind. As my old teacher Kassirchus, to say, God hates equality. And each angel is either lower or higher than every other angel, and as Dionysius says, you know, you have the three hierarchies: one which is higher, and one that's lower, and one is lowest. And each one you have three orders, and one order is highest, and each order you have beginning, middle, and end.

[18:18] They're all distinct. Thomas has a very interesting discussion in one place, you know, where would the angels love each other more if they were equal? It's very interesting to say. Reason he gives why they love each other more because they're unequal. Oh. And it's because by being unequal, there is a what an order there, right? And this is the what good of the whole universe, this order that God has put into things, huh?

[18:46] And he says the more intellectual one is, the more one appreciates the common good. And so the angels, seeing that their inequality contributes to the order of the universe, they rejoice in that, huh? They rejoice in their being unequal. It's an amazing thing to see these, huh? But in material things and mathematical things, you can have many individuals of the same what kind, right? But the other side, of the coin of that is then that those individuals and what they are are not identical.

[19:22] Now someone might say that if Socrates is not a man through being Socrates, then Socrates is not a man to himself, because he is Socrates, right? And if you are not something through yourself, you must be something through what another. And if that's something through another and not through itself, there's got to be something before it, right? Okay, so eventually you are going to depend here upon something that is so through itself.

[20:02] Of course, I talk about, if. I give very simple examples. I'll say, you know, is coffee sweet through itself? No. So it depends upon the sugar, which is sweet through being sugar, right? In order to be sweet, huh? Is a dishcloth wet through itself? Through being a dishcloth, no. But the water is wet through being water, right? So the dishcloth is wet through water, which is wet through itself.

[20:31] Well, in a somewhat similar way, Socrates is saying that Socrates, or Plato is saying that Socrates is not a man through being Socrates. It's not through being Socrates the one who's a man, is it? Otherwise, I wouldn't be a man, would I? Because you're not Socrates Okay. But Socrates is Socrates, right? Yeah. So Socrates is not a man to himself, just like coffee is not sweet to itself.

[20:57] Therefore, Socrates must be a man to something else that is man to itself, and that's the form or the idea of man, right? And the same would be said about the horse and the cat and the dog and so on, right? That there is in a world by itself, right? Man himself to himself, as Plato would say, and dog itself to itself, right? And all the individual men down here are men because we partake of that man that is man to himself, and all the dogs down here are dogs because they partake of that dog that is dog to itself, okay?

[21:44] Now, there's something wrong with what Plato's saying here, but there's an element of truth, right? And it is kind of strange that you and I are not identical with what we are, because after all, you are what you are, aren't you? Right? And it's kind of strange that you are are not exactly or identically not entirely the same as what you are. Kind of strange creature you are, and Plato, in a sense, discovered that.

[22:20] That was an amazing discovery, right? But the problem was, anytime you have what a man is in flesh and blood and bones, you're going to have an individual man who's not identical with what a man is. And so, this man himself to himself ends up being nothing but a form, and the so-called ideas, what the Greek would meant forms, huh? And then Aristotle pointed out, but just a minute now, does it pertain to what a man is to have flesh and blood and bones?

[22:53] Does it pertain to what a dog is, you know? And if you're going to define man in general, you've got to bring in not this flesh of Duane Berquist, but you've got to bring in flesh in general. You've got to bring in bone in general, right? To say anything about a man is, in the same way for a dog or a cat or a horse, right? So these forms up there don't really have the nature of man because they don't include matter, which is in the very nature of man, huh?

[23:22] Okay. So this is part of the reason why Plato got into this position, huh? Yeah. But then he said, also, this is the way our mind knows through definitions, huh? Yeah. And it was the great Socrates, huh, who started. The really got us going, you might say, in the importance of definition. If you read the great dialogues of Plato, the Socratic conversations, as they're called sometimes, because Socrates is appearing in almost all of them.

[23:55] In almost every dialogue, there's a conversation about defining something. Okay, and what are these definitions of? What are these definitions of? See. Well, Plato was, in a sense, or Socrates, in a sense, was showing that through definitions we can really get certain truth. You can see that in very simple examples. You know, I put up on the board for the students the other day. I said, "No odd number is even,"

[24:35] and no. No man is green. I said, "Are you sure about both these statements? No odd number is even. No man is green. Well, interesting. even my students recognized that they were sure that no odd number is even, right? It's highly probable that no man is green, right? But if someone up to Mars or some other planet and said, "Hey, there are green men up on that planet," I'd be surprised, right?

[25:10] Brave new world to have such colored people in it. But I wouldn't say that's impossible that there be a green person, right? Or a pink person, or a purple person. For you know, I don't see. You know, I don't understand enough about green and and what a man is to see any opposition between the two, right? But I do know enough about what an odd number is by definition and what an even number is by definition to see that it's impossible that one be the other.

[25:44] So Plato was convinced that the great Socrates was showing us the way to certain knowledge of the truth through definitions, huh? But now, what are the definitions a definition of?

[26:01] Is a definition of man a definition of you, or of me, or of Socrates? Is it? No. So there must be a world of things out there, right?

[26:16] That you are defining, and those again are the what the forms, right? Okay. So just as the individual men and individual dogs and individual cats are men or a dog or cats by partaking of the man himself through himself, and the dog himself through himself, and the cat himself through himself. So likewise, we in our mind partake of those same forms when we define what a man is, define what a dog is, define what a cat is, and so on.

[26:52] You see. Now, that's what he goes on to say after we just broke off. Has ergo formas right separatas? He laid down that these separated forms are partaken of both by our soul, right, and by bodily matter.

[27:26] They are partaken of by our soul for knowing, right, and they are partaken of by bodily matter for being. This man, or this dog, or this horse, or so on, right? That just as bodily matter, through this that it partakes of the form of stone, it becomes this stone, right?

[27:53] So our understanding, through this that it partakes of the form of stone, becomes understanding what a stone is, huh? Okay. Now he says the partaking of the form comes about through some likeness of the form in the one partaking it, in the way in which an exemplar is partaken of by the thing that is exemplified from it, huh? Okay.

[28:32] Sometimes when they speak of sanctifying grace, how do they define sanctifying grace? Sometimes, kind of off the text of Saint Peter, because it is. conformed to the image of Christ. Yeah, but they also say sometimes that sanctifying grace is a partaking of the nature of God, right? Okay, it's not the nature of God, but it's a partaking of it, right? And it has a likeness, huh? To that, huh?

[29:05] I was looking at a chapter there in the Summa Contra Gentiles this morning, and Thomas was talking about how an effect of grace, sanctifying grace, that is to say, is the love of God, right? Huh? Okay. And he gives you know five six reasons, but one of the reasons he gives is that sanctifying grace makes us what like God, and then likeness is a cause of what of love.

[29:35] Therefore, kind of amazing thing, huh? Okay. Just therefore, as he laid down that sensible forms which are in bodily matter flow from the forms as certain likenesses of them, right? So likewise, he laid down that the understandable forms of our understanding, our ability to understand, are certain likenesses, right, of the forms flowing out from them, right? And an account of this, as has been said above, he referred sciences and the definitions underlie them to the what forms, huh?

[30:23] Okay. Now, start to get some of the objections to what Plato says, huh? But that's not his main intention here. He's going to go on to contrast position of Averroes with that of Plato, right? But let's look at what he says here. But against the notion of. Of sensible things, um, it's against the notion, but it's against but because it's against the the definition of the notion of sensible things that their forms subsist without matter, right?

[30:58] Okay, Aristotle proves in many ways. Therefore, Avicenna, removing this position being removed, posited that what all the sensible, uh, that the species, the understandable species, or the understandable forms, species is another word for forma, right? Species has the idea of of what a form that is seen originally, right? That's where you get the word, you know, spectacles and speculum and speculative and so on. And it's very it's etymologically just like the Greek word idea, which has related to the Greek word to see, idein, right?

[31:38] Form that is seen, okay. Ah, like in English, sometimes we use we speak of someone's looks, you know, and the looks is is is is is your form, right? But looks obviously refers back to the fact that that form can be what seen, right? So that's why there's a species impressa and a species expressa when they're talking about it, you know. Well, yeah, yeah, but as I say, species can mean in general a form, but it's got a little connotation there—a form that can be seen, right?

[32:11] Yeah, but doesn't necessarily have to have that connotation, but that's in the etymology of the word. So, therefore, Avicenna, this position of Plato being removed, laid down that the what sensible, excuse me, the understandable forms of all sensible things did not subsist by themselves without matter, right? But they preexisted in immaterial way in separated substances, huh? And notice this is something like what Augustine will be saying about God, right?

[32:47] See, and we speak of the use in Latin the word ideas, huh? The ideas of God, the the forms by which he creates and so on, right? And you know, you have the De Veritate of Saint Thomas, a whole question, you know, with several articles dealing with them, right? And you have ones here in the Summa here dealing with the divine ideas, huh? But Avicenna is not talking about the divine mind here, but more like what we call angelic mind.

[33:17] From the first of whom are derived these forms in the what next separated substance, right? And thus all the way down to the last separated substance, the lowest one, huh? Which would be analogous to our what guardian angel, right? Okay, which he names the what agent intellect, huh? So notice the word agent intellect here is being used in equivocal sense from the sense in which Aristotle uses that.

[33:44] Because Aristotle is using the Agent intellect, the acting upon understanding, right? To name one of the powers of our soul, right? And the ability to what make actually understandable that what it is is something you're sensing or imagining, huh? But he's using it for a separated substance, like for an angel, right? Huh? That is going to be acting upon our mind directly, right? And from this agent intellect, this separated substance, this lowest of the angels, right?

[34:17] From whom, as he himself said, understandable forms flow into our soul. Oh. And this may happen something like that when our soul is separated from our body, right? But as long as our soul is in the body, it's turned towards... The what? The images, huh? Did Avicenna just have one of these agent intellects, or was each? He speaks. I think I just have one here. I think. Yeah.

[34:44] For everyone. Yeah. Yeah. So it's lowest angel, or yeah. What do we call an angel? But yeah. It's a separate substance. Yeah. It was the same. His idea was monopsychism that it's one for everybody, so we're all sharing the same agent intellect. Yeah. Yeah.

[35:02] From which, not only flow understandable forms into our souls, but also he thought sensible forms flowed into material matter, right? So he has a position like Plato, right? Oh. But instead of having what a man is and what a horse is existing by themselves, they exist in the form of a what thought, right? In this angel, and they flow from the angel into our mind, and they flow into the what bodily matter, right?

[35:30] Okay. It's a very interesting position he has. This it's just so amazing because I mean I was just reading in a book on theology that I mean under the under the heading of you know the truth of God that God gives to everything with its being its understandability. So I mean it's sort of like what. Yes, very close to what we believe. But you see, material things are understandable only in ability, see.

[35:57] And they're made actually understandable. They're prepared through the senses and the imagination, but they finally reach actual understandability through the action of this power of our soul called the agent intellect, huh? Okay. Now and thus in this Avicenna agrees with Plato, right? That the understandable forms of our understanding flow from some separate forms. But then there's this difference, right? That Plato said that these subsisted by themselves, right?

[36:31] And Avicenna posited them in this agent intellect, this lowest of the angels, right? Lowest of separate substances. Now, there's another difference. They differed also in this way that Avicenna laid down that the understandable forms do not remain in our understanding after it ceases to understand and act. But it needs again that turn itself towards receiving them newly each time, right? Whence, he did not lay down that the knowledge of the soul was naturally innate in it, as Plato did, who laid down that the partakings of the forms remain in immobile way in the soul.

[37:18] Aristotle won't have them being innate, but once they're received in the soul in the understanding, they have a certain permanence, huh? Okay, they exist there in a form of a of a habit, right? Yeah. Okay, but not in full act except when you turn to them.

[37:37] Okay, now he's going to start. What attacking the position of of Avicenna? Up to this point, he's been what contrasting with the position of Plato, and this is very useful to see what these guys have in common and where they differ, right? It's often useful to compare two things like that. But according to this position of our friend Avicenna, a sufficient reason cannot be assigned wherefore our soul is joined to a body.

[38:09] Right? Because it cannot be said that the understanding soul is united to the body for the sake of the body, because the body is lower than the soul. Because neither is a form an account of matter, but its reverse; matter for the sake of form, its ability for the sake of act. Nor is the mover an account of the mobile, but more the reverse. Now, most of all, does the body seem to be necessary to the understanding soul for its own what operation, which is to understand?

[38:46] But but what nevertheless, right? Because according to its being, it does not depend upon the body, right? So it doesn't depend upon the body for its being. We argued that before, right? We talked about the immortality of the soul. So it must depend upon it for its what operation, right? Yeah.

[39:09] If it didn't get the understandable in some way through the senses, why would it be joined to the body, right? Okay. If however he says the soul was apt by nature to receive understandable forms through the influence of some separated principles only, causes only, and did not take them from the senses, right? It would not need a body for understanding, and therefore, in vain, it would be united to a body, huh?

[39:47] Right. See, Thomas says it's common sense, right? Yeah. Now they try to give some kind of an answer to this, right? Because they're reading a difficulty, huh? Yeah. If however it be said that the soul needs the senses to understanding, ah, because by them in some way it's what aroused, right? Yeah. To considering those things of which the understandable forms it has received from the separate senses, this does not seem to be sufficient or enough, because this kind of what arousing does not seem to be necessary to the soul except in so far as it is consopita, right?

[40:37] Kind of what put to sleep, right? By the fact that it's stuck into the body, right? Okay. So Plato thought of the soul as existing apart from the body, and then it got shoved into the body, and this is such a shock that it kind of gets kind of confused, right? And then when it sees something out there that reminds it of the form it has, then it starts to recall that form within.

[41:06] And Plato has a nice argument for that in in the in the well, you know, but but more a better one in the Phaedo the Phaedo right? And he tries to argue that

[41:21] from the idea of body, I mean of equality, right? That the bodies around us aren't really equal, but when you see two chairs, say that seem more or less equal, then that reminds you of the idea of equality, and then you recall the idea of equality, right? But when you recall the idea of equality and you examine these chairs more carefully, you see they're not really equal because equality is a very strict idea, and you know these have got little dents in them and little nicks and so on, so they're not really equal, right?

[41:59] And and Plato or Socrates says, well, how do you make the judgment that these things around us in the world some of them approach equality much more than other things do, but yet they fall short of it? Must you not have a knowledge of equality not derived from them? And he gives a beautiful comparison to bring this out. He says, if you're bringing a you know statue or a painting of somebody, right?

[42:31] And you have no knowledge of that person of whom it is a painting or a statue, you're not going to say, you know, well, this is a likeness of Berquist, but it's not exactly the way Berquist is, huh? You see, but if you make that judgment and say, hey, who's this a picture of? So what's a painting of Berquist, right? But you know, Berquist's nose is a little shorter than that, or you know, Berquist is a little fatter than that, or he's a little grayer than that, or something, you know.

[43:00] You must have a knowledge of Berquist not derived from that painting, and so he's saying if you get bodies in the world around us that approach closely and much more closely than other bodies to equality, and yet you make the judgment that they're not quite equal, where'd you get this idea of perfect equality?

[43:30] And you can do with other things like that. Say, you know, what about a flat surface, right? Well, we'd say. This is not a flat surface here. This cord, right? But the tabletop is a flat surface, right? Right? Okay. But then you look more carefully and say, "Well, look at that little dent there. You see, little distress in this, and so on. This is not really flat.

[43:52] " Now, where did I get this idea of flatness? To say that this approaches flatness, but falls short. Could I get an exact idea of how you look from a painting that resembles you but isn't quite you? No. And could I make the judgment that this is, you know, painting of you, but not quite? It falls short of you. If I didn't have a knowledge of you independent of the painting, so I must have a knowledge of equality and flatness not derived from the material world around us.

[44:28] Very interesting argument he has, huh? And he has very interesting one where he hints the same thing about happiness. So he says, huh some people are more miserable than others, right? Some seem to be more happy than others, right? But no matter what happiness we experience in this life, we always say there is something what missing, right? And so I kind of quote the end of Vanity Fair.

[44:58] There, you know Thackeray's most famous novel. You know the the end there, the kind of the motto at the end. It says, "Who in this life ever gets what he wants?" He says, or he says, having gotten it is satisfied. Huh? So you are pursuing, you know, these characters in Vanity Fair. They're pursuing, you know, wealth and other things. They think are bringing happiness, right? And either they don't get it, or if they do get it, they realize it's not happiness.

[45:31] Well, how do you realize that these things approach more than other things, happiness, but fall short of true happiness? Where'd you get this idea of true happiness? Huh? An interesting argument he has, huh? As if our mind, our soul, at some point, you know, was in contact with true happiness, and then it gets stuck down the body, right? And it goes pursuing these false happiness, but one of which maybe is closer to true happiness than others, right?

[46:04] And when you get something that resembles happiness, then you recall true happiness, and then you make the the judgment that this falls short of true happiness or perfect happiness, huh?

[46:21] So he says, this excitement does not seem to be necessary to the soul, except insofar as it is consopita, huh? Kind of what stupefied, right? Put to sleep, so to speak, right? According to Plato, huh? It reminds me of the great teacher of Plato, huh? The other guy who was what? Heraclitus, really, huh? But through Cratylus, huh? But Heraclitus said we should not act and speak like those asleep.

[46:58] Wake up, you know. Wake up. You are consopita huh? Which, according to Plato, and is called quodammodo oblivious, huh? Oblivious or forgetful, right? On account of the union to the what body, right? And that's quite a shock for the soul to get stuck in the body, huh? And thus the senses do not

[47:23] help the understanding soul except to taking away an impediment, Plato thought, right? That happened to the soul from its union to the body. But it remains, therefore, to ask. What is the cause of the union of the soul to the body? Huh? Now, in a sense, you know, the pagans kind of spoke as if what

[47:46] the body is like a prison for the soul, right? Huh? And they spoke as if the soul was maybe being punished in a sense, huh? Okay. So Plato kind of emphasizes that the body is something bad, right? Huh? You know, Aristotle realizes that the body is part of human nature, right? So you get kind of a paradox there, right? Huh? But it's kind of where they say that Plato and Aristotle are kind of setting the preparation for understanding original sin, right?

[48:23] The body is part of us, but something has happened to destroy exactly the way it should be, you know? Huh? Something has happened whereby the the body is harming the soul in some way, right? Or leading it astray, or have to do so, right?

[48:42] Now, if it be said, according to Avicenna, that the senses are necessary to the soul because through the senses it is aroused to turn itself towards this separated understanding, right, From which we seize forms, this, he says, doesn't seem to be enough, because if it is in the nature of the soul that it understands through forms flowing from this agent, this agent understanding, it would follow that sometimes the soul would be able to convert itself to the agent intellect from the inclination of its own nature, or being excited through one sense, it could convert itself to understanding to the understanding intellect to receiving the what species of sensible things of which it has no sense, huh?

[49:35] And thus one born blind could have a knowledge of colors, which is manifestly false. It occurs to us too, you know, that you know, when you read about the the saints and the mystics, right? And they go through the so-called dark night of the soul, right? Huh? It's by in a sense turning away from the senses and the imagination, right, and kind of depriving it so far that you open up the soul to receive something from what above, right?

[50:04] Huh? Now, when Saint Paul was carried up to third heaven, right, didn't know he was in his body anymore, right? See, they get the drawn from the senses, right? So it seems that if one is receiving from a separated substance, there, right, it wouldn't be through the senses that one would be excited to it, but by turning away from the senses, one would go towards the what higher substance that's going to flow in some kind of forms, right?

[50:36] Whence it should be said that the understandable forms, by which our so understands, do not flow from what separated forms. Is the argument there against Avicenna then? Yeah, okay.

[50:54] Now, as you apply to the first objection, he doesn't deny that in some way this comes from something that is understandable, right? In act and so on, but notice what he says: there are intermediaries. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the understandable forms which our understanding partakes of are reduced, as in a first cause, in some beginning that is understandable by its very nature, namely in God.

[51:24] But from that beginning, from that cause, there goes forward by means of forms of material things and sensible things, from which are what knowledge is collected, as Dionysius says saying here, right? He's saying that you have God here, right? And from God there proceeds forms in sensible things,

[51:54] and then these sensible things, in some way, act upon our senses, right? Okay. And then from there upon our imagination, right? And then they're raised finally to the understandable status by the power of our soul to separate what it is, right, of a sensible thing or imaginable thing from the singular, right? Okay. Notice now when I picture or I imagine a triangle, it's a singular, individual triangle, right?

[52:31] But when I understand what that is, a triangle, I'm understanding something universal that's separated from whatever is singular about it. But this is a stepping stone, right? So yeah, it goes back to God, but right? From God there proceeds forms in sensible things, and then those sensible things, through a number of intermediaries, eventually act upon our mind.

[53:02] That's why we have to reason back to God from sensible things, right? To God. We're not receiving from God immediately these forms, huh? But through the sensible things, huh?

[53:24] Now the second one is just pointing out the difference that we mentioned before, not as fully as it could maybe. To the second, it should be said that material things. According to the being that they have outside the soul, are able to be sensible and act, but they can't be understandable and act in their materiality. Huh?

[53:51] Whence they is not similar for them in the senses. Huh? It's not similar for the senses in the understanding. Okay, we mentioned that before, right? And this proportionally, right? Sensible things act upon the senses. Understandable things understand, act upon the understanding. But the sensible things that act upon the senses are in their very nature actually actually sensible. But the material things that act upon understanding are not in themselves or by themselves actually understandable.

[54:30] They're understandable only in what ability, right? And they're made. Actually understandable through a number of steps, right? Starting with their being in the senses, then their being in the internal senses, right? And experience and so on, and then the final step to actually being understandable is as a result of the the power of our soul separating out what they have in common. Okay. So when I've seen many what dogs, right?

[55:05] Then I had the ability to compare those many dogs, and when I begin to separate out what they have in common, that's the beginning of the what something understandable and act for my mind. His primary object. The primary object of my mind is to what it is of something sensed or imagined. And so when he tried to understand something that's not sensible or imaginable, we have to do so by negation of what is sensible, right?

[55:38] Or by the relation it has to what is sensible, right? So we say God is the unmoved mover, right? So we're referring them back it's a negation; they're unmoved, right? But mover relation back to the things that are in motion, right? So we can't understand God in this life directly. We don't see him face to face. Okay. For face to face anything, it's the what it is of something sensed or imagined.

[56:06] Okay. Okay. And the third objection now about the what is an ability of being reduced to act, and Thomas agrees that our understanding, right, our possible understanding, that's the one that's acted upon, right, the one that understands. It is reduced from potency to act, from ability to act, to some being in act. That is through the agent intellect now in Aristotle's sense, right? Which is a certain power of our soul, as has been said before.

[56:51] Not, however, through some what separated understanding, as through a what proximate cause, right? Immediate cause. But perhaps through a what remote cause, right? Okay. So in our little prayer that we say before, we say strengthen the light of my mind, right? Okay. So it's the light of my mind that separates the what it is of something sensed or imagined, so that it be actually understandable, right? But maybe the light of my mind is what derived from