De Anima (On the Soul)
141. Summa I, Q.84 a.8 and Q.85 a.1: Judgment, Sleep and the Binding of the Senses; Understanding by Abstraction from Images
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/141-summa-i-q-84-a-8-and-q-85-a-1-judgment-sleep-and-the-binding/

[0:01] Right. So that will be next time will be. The last one in this thing, and then the first one in the next. Yeah. Yeah.

[0:13] And we'll see you next week, right? Yeah. Yeah. Back in school next week, actually. Okay. Yeah. Done. The Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images. and arouse us to consider more correctly, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, Great, great, friend. and help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit.

[0:42] Amen. It's up to question eighty-four, Article Eight today, right? Yes. Okay, and this kind of ties in with Article Seven, so to say of the coin. To the eighth one proceeds thus: It seems that the judgment of the understanding is not impeded by the binding up of the senses, for the higher does not depend upon the lower, but the judgment of the understanding is above the sense.

[1:15] Therefore, the judgment of the understanding is not impeded by the tying up of the senses. Moreover, to syllogize is an act of the understanding. Syllogism is a what? Argument in which some statements lay down and other follows necessarily because of those laid down. Okay. But in sleep, when the senses are bound up, as is said in the book about sleep and being awake, one of Aristotle's books, huh?

[1:54] It happens sometimes that someone sleeping syllogizes. Therefore, the judgment of the understanding is not impeded by the senses being bound up. But against this, it is that in sleeping, those things which happen against lawful morals are not imputed to sin, as Augustine says in the twelfth book upon Genesis, the letter. But this would not be if man in sleeping had the free use of reason, understanding. Therefore, the use of reason is impeded by the binding up of the senses.

[2:46] Okay. I answer that ought to be said that has been said above, that the that the nature of a sensible thing, right, is the object, right, proportioned to our understanding, huh?

[3:12] But a judgment, a perfect judgment about some things, or about a thing, is not able to be given unless all those things which pertain to that thing are known, and especially if. Be ignored, that which is the term or limit, and the end of the judgment. Now,

[3:40] let me point that out. a little bit. The definition of judgment, at least in looking reason, what's the definition of judgment? Well, it's the separation

[4:02] of the true from the false. But you could add to this definition by some beginning, okay? Or you could say. Limit in our knowledge. Of course, the very beginning of our knowledge is our what? Senses, huh? And so, is Berquist standing, or is Berquist not standing now? Standing. We know by your senses. Yeah, we're going to separate the true Berquist is standing from the false Berquist is not standing.

[5:01] In this case, right by your senses, huh? Okay. And that's especially done in what? Natural science, right? Mm. And he gives this famous text of Aristotle in the third book of the universe about the universe. For the philosopher says in the third book about the universe that just as the end of a making science is the work, huh? Now, what's the proverb? The proof of the pudding is in the work.

[5:41] Is in the eating. In the eating. Yeah. Self-eating pudding. Wow. And the great poet there said that one should never judge a work of art in its absence. So you have to go back to the work, right? Mm.

[5:59] So likewise, the end of natural science is what is seen chiefly according to the senses. So Aristotle will say sometimes that, and Thomas following him, that natural science, natural philosophy, begins in the senses, right? And it also ends in the senses, huh? That all our knowledge of the natural world comes originally through our senses, and what we say about the natural world is judged again by going back to the senses.

[6:34] And Albert Einstein said the same thing in the twentieth century that natural science begins and ends in the senses, huh? Okay. There's a certain likeness between that and the way we judge

[6:52] a recipe or something of that sort, right? Huh? Because you get a recipe and sounds interesting, and you make something according to the recipe, and if it tastes good, then you maybe decide to keep the recipe, right? But if it doesn't taste good, you forget about the recipe, right? And someone says, "I know how to make something that'll fly." So that's interesting. And so you make something according to my plan, and if it what?

[7:21] Gets off the ground and stays off the ground, then you acknowledge the goodness of my idea. But if it doesn't, then as we say, it's black. Back to the what? Joy boy. Yeah. And the the engineer in my father's company there, you know, he'd say we have some interesting ideas, and we're going to see if they're any good, right? Because they, you would make something according the engineer's blueprint, and they go out to the experimental farm, and they would test it and see how it works, right?

[7:53] And of course, Detroit or the automobile producers, they make a new car, and after it's been on the road for a while, they discover something that is what faulty. Yeah, and then you get a better than mail or something, you know, you know to replace some part of the the automobile, huh? That's causing problems, huh? So the proof of it is in the work there, right? And this is why you could have in modern experimental science too, to some extent, a union of natural science and the mechanical arts, union of natural science and technical science, as they call it sometimes, because you judge both of them in a way in the same what way, right?

[8:39] By going back to the senses. Okay, for the father there, the workman there does not seek a knowledge of the knife except in account of its work, right? And he makes a certain particular knife. And similarly, the naturalist does not seek to know the nature of the stone or the horse, except he might know the reasons of those things which are seen according to the sense. Now it is manifest that there cannot be a perfect judgment of the artist about the knife if he ignores his work.

[9:22] In similar, there cannot be a perfect judgment of natural science about natural things if sensible things are ignored. But all the things which we know in the present state are known by us in comparison to sensible things, comparison to natural sensible things. When it is impossible that there be in us a perfect judgment of the understanding, with the senses being bound up, to which we know sensible things.

[9:51] Of course, this happens in a dream, right? Huh? You don't have the use of your senses, and you're often deceived in a dream, right? And one way you deceive, of course, is by taking images for what real things, huh? And then suddenly you wake up, and you're either relieved or you're disappointed, whatever it is, right? Depending what you're dreaming about, huh?

[10:18] I can say that's talking about how ultimately it all goes back to senses, right? Well, you go into other sciences, like say the mathematical sciences, that goes back immediately to what the imagination, and. remember that Mark pointed out there about the fifth postulate? You know, sometimes the fifth postulate of Euclid, they'll call a postulate about parallel lines, right? Well, it's never really about parallel lines, because can you really imagine parallel lines?

[10:54] Not lines at least. You can't imagine at least. You know. Yeah. The definition of parallel lines is lines which extended forever never meet. Well, you can't imagine something going on forever. Right. The actual fifth postulate says that if a straight line falls upon two lines and make angles less than two right angles on one side, those lines, they're straight lines. Those lines of extended will in fact what meet, right?

[11:20] We can imagine two lines meeting like that. But you go back to imagination. And but in a science like say logic, we're dealing with the universal. The first thing as Albert the Great says to be considered in logic, universal is something you can't sense or imagine. And therefore, the judgment goes back in a sense to reason itself. Okay.

[11:48] But you could say if you look at our knowledge as a whole, it all starts in the senses, and therefore, ultimately, our judgment goes back to the senses.

[11:58] The first objection was saying the higher shouldn't depend upon the lower. To the first, therefore, it should be said that although the understanding is above the senses, nevertheless it takes or receives in some way from the sense, right? And its primary and principal objects are founded in something sensible. So I usually state the reason's own object is the what it is as something you can sense or imagine.

[12:32] And therefore, it's necessary that the judgment of reason or the understanding be impeded from the tying up of the senses. The second objection is the one taken from the dreams.

[12:52] To the second, it should be said that the senses are bound up in those sleeping, on account of certain evaporations right? And fumositates resolutas resolutas, certain fumes rising up, right, resolving, as is said in the book on sleep and being awake. And therefore, according to the disposition of these evaporation, s there happens to be a binding up of the sense more or less. When there are many motions of the what vapors, not only is the sense bound, but also the imagination is bound, right?

[13:32] So that there appear no phantasms. Just as especially happens when someone begins to sleep after much food and drink. But if the motion of the vapors is in some way remiss or not as strong, there appear phantasms, right? But distorted and what? Disordered, right? Just as happens in those who have what fevers, right? If, however, the motion is more sedate, there appears phantasms in an ordered way, just as most of all happens in the end of sleep.

[14:13] I guess that's what they say now, and they study dreams. Yeah, it's in the end of sleep just before you wake up. I guess it's most of these dreams that you think you've been doing all night, you know. And in sober men, right? And. in. Those having a strong imagination.

[14:33] If, however, the motion of the vapors was moderate, not only does the imagination remain free, but also the common sense, right, is partly untied. Thus, that a man judges sometimes in sleeping those things which seem to be what, which he sees to be dreams, as it were, judging between things and the what likenesses of things.

[15:06] But nevertheless, in some partial way, the common sense remains bound, and therefore, although it discerns some likenesses from things, nevertheless, always in some it is what deceived, right? And that's a common thing, right? We all know we're deceived in the dreams, huh?

[15:29] Thus, therefore, in the way in which sense is untied in imagination and sleeping, to that extent the judgment of the understanding is liberated. Now, however, ex total, right? Whence those who in sleeping are syllogized, when they are what aroused or awakened, they always recognize themselves to have failed in something, right?

[16:00] It's interesting, you know, people they go to bed thinking about a problem, and sometimes wake up the morning they got the solution to it, right? So they haven't been entirely what bound up their imagination and their common sense on doing their dreams, right? Okay, and especially those problems that depend upon, you know, certain use of the imagination, huh? I suppose partly because you're removed from the distractions of the day too, huh?

[16:32] But you have to add somehow the use of your imagination at least, right? Yeah. About this, the stuff of the vapors and stuff. Do you say, oh, that's just old medieval medicine, or is there something to it, or something to that? Yeah. Yeah. But

[16:51] that's a question for the particular part, right, of natural philosophy. When you go to study it on the side of the body, right? See, in the three books about the soul, and also the De Anima here, I mean, in the summa here, you're considering the soul in a kind of separation from the body, sure. Okay. And then, as Aristotle goes forward from that, he goes more and more into the body, huh?

[17:15] Uh huh. Okay. Yeah. That's the way natural science proceeds from the general to particular, and it goes towards matter, right? Uh huh. So this book on sleep and being awake is one of the what general books, huh? We're already involving an application to the what. Body, I'm sure, belongs to what today we call experimental science.

[17:41] Okay. It's just been my experience. I remember when I was going, like in high school, that if I would study for something, I wouldn't have it clear at night. Now to wake up in the morning, it was clear. Yeah. But now, as I'm older, I don't note that. Has there ever been anything that that process is not as sharp as you get older or something? No, I don't know.

[18:12] Has it been any any study I mean, in terms of youth as opposed to old age? Yeah. I know little little children probably have more, but we kept screaming or something that we do.

[18:28] Maybe we have more. I think we'd have more control in some sense, you know. I mean, of course, a child does more by imagination than we do.

[18:42] Most of us, anyway. Okay, now we're up to eighty-five, huh? On the way and order of understanding, huh? And about this, are asked eight things.

[19:04] First, whether our understanding understands by separating species or forms from the what images, huh? Secondly, whether the understandable forms, abstracted from the images, are to the understanding as what is understood, right? Or as that by which it understands, huh? Of course, Thomas is going to say it's that by which we understand, right?

[19:40] But the understanding, you might say, formed by such a thing, right, begins to think, and in thinking, then it forms what thoughts of what it's thinking about, right? So you have to distinguish between the thought formed by your thinking and the form by which you think, right? And the form by which you think

[20:05] was separated from the images by the act. understanding, which is like a light, huh? Okay. Then he starts to talk about something about the order of understanding. And third, whether our understanding naturally understands the more universal, that's what Aristotle talked. About did we do the physics there? The first reading in the physics. Eight books of natural hearing. Yeah, that's the point that Aristotle. Aristotle's whole most of that first chapter of the physics, book one is about that.

[20:48] The fourth thing, whether understanding is able at the same time to understand many things, meaning in second act, right? Not just habitually, but whether it's what can understand what a dog is and what a cat is at the same time.

[21:07] What do you think? We'll find out. Then whether our understanding understands by putting together and dividing, and he's using these here to refer to the putting together and the dividing in the affirmative and in the negative what statement, right? Okay.

[21:39] And the sixth article, whether the understanding is able to make a mistake, to to wander, to err. Err is human; to forgive is divine, right?

[21:55] And the seventh article, whether one is able to understand the very same thing better than another. Excuse me. Both understand the same thing, but one of us understands it better.

[22:16] And the eighth article, whether our understanding before knows the indivisible than the what divisible, huh? That's something Aristotle also talks about there in the third book about the soul when he talks about the understanding, huh? If you think back upon the definition of what point, huh? Point is that which has no parts. You could say. He seems to be defining the point by the negation of what has parts, right?

[22:51] As if what has parts is known before what has no parts. That's very important. You come to know God because God Himself is altogether simple, right? Well, if we know the simple through the composed, we have to negate the composition of the composed. And so, in the article on simplicity of God, Thomas goes through six articles where he negates six different kinds of composition or putting together in the creature, and then finding the seventh article in universality, he says there is no composition in God, and gives reasons for that, huh?

[23:31] Then the eighth article, is that God has not composed Himself with anything else. So let's go back now to Article One here. To the first, thus one proceeds. It seems that our understanding does not understand bodily things and material things. I know that's what he's in right now. That section of how you understand material things, right? He's going to talk about how the soul understands itself, and then how it understands things that are above it, right?

[24:06] And these subsequent questions. So he says, "It seems that our understanding does not understand bodily and material things through separation from images. First, for whoever, whatever understanding understands a thing other than it." is. would be false,

[24:31] but the forms of material things are not abstracted from particular things, of which the images are likenesses. If, therefore, we understand material things by abstraction of forms from images, there will be falsity in our what understanding, huh? Of course, you know how Plato, in order to keep truth there, said that there is a world of what these universal forms—man himself, and dog himself, and cat himself, right?

[25:09] But for Aristotle, outside the mind is only what this man, this man, this man, this dog, you know, that dog, And other individual dogs, right? So, is our mind false in understanding dog rather than is that dog's name Rosie? Rosie, yeah, yeah. See, because what's out there is Rosie. There is no dog in general out there. I always say to students, you know, when I read the the list, you know, John, Thomas, Mary, man, woman, no, and they never appear on my my list after all these years of teaching.

[25:52] I mean, that's man, yeah, yeah, man has never replied to my reading of the role. Moreover, material things are natural things, in the definition of whom of which falls matter, right? Now, this Aristotle's argument against Plato, right, huh? That he had this these immaterial forms corresponding

[26:28] to definitions of man, dog, cat, and horse. There'd be no matter in the definition of man, dog, cat, and horse, and that's obviously contrary to the very nature of a man or a dog or a horse. Okay, so he says, "Ah, material things are natural things in whose definition falls matter, but nothing is able to be understood without that which falls in its definition. Therefore, material things are not able to be understood without matter,

[27:05] but matter is the source of individuation, huh? And that's why we say, you know, how can you have many window panes exactly the same?

[27:19] How is that possible? The simplest answer is you have enough glass, right? So he's saying glass, some kind of matter, right? As quantified, right, is the source of individuation. Huh? You can divide it. Huh? And you can have many chairs of exactly the same kind. These chairs here, because you have enough metal, right? Okay. So it's matter as subject to quantity that enables you to have many individuals.

[27:52] Huh? What would um, what another source of individuation be? The the form, though, the fact that you have the the way to cut the, let's say it was a stamp or something. Yeah. How would that work? But if you had just, why can you have many? Ask the same question about those in a sense. Why can you have many

[28:17] cubes, let's say, right? Okay. Well, it's because this this cube is in this ice, and that cube is in that ice, right? Because you have enough ice, right? Yeah. So it goes back. you do the same thing.

[28:33] But that's the reason why Thomas will say that there's no two angels of the same kind. Huh? Yeah. Because the angels can have only formal differences. They have no matter. Hmm. You can't speak of one angel different than another angel because one angel is here and one is there, but because what he is is different. Yeah. Yeah. What Gabriel is and what Raphael is and what Michael is is all different.

[29:00] Hmm. Couldn't be two identical angels, huh? Thomas will bring that up too when he's talking about you know the Trinity. You know, there can't be what two sons in the Trinity. Hmm. You know, the Holy Spirit can't be the son a son too, right? Yeah. Because these immaterial things, it can't be two of the same what kind, huh?

[29:38] So, material things cannot be understood without matter, but matter is the what source of individuation. Therefore, material things cannot be understood by the abstraction universal and particular, which is to abstract understandable forms from what images, huh?

[30:05] Moreover, in the third book about the soul, this is a famous proportion now that we talked about before. It is said that images have themselves to the understanding soul as colors to what sight, but sight is not by abstraction of some forms some colors, but by this. That the colors are pressed upon the sight,

[30:35] yeah. Therefore, neither does to understand happen through this, that something is abstracted from the images, but through this that the images are pressed upon the what understanding, right?

[31:06] Moreover, as is said in the third book about the soul, in the understanding soul are two things, namely the possible understanding, that's one that what is able to understand, right? But has to be acted upon before it can understand. The undergoing understanding, you could say it, God, and the what agent understanding, huh? The active understanding, the one that acts upon it, right?

[31:38] But to abstract from the images understandable forms does not belong to the possible understanding, but to receive the forms already abstracted. But neither does it seem to pertain to the acting upon the agent understanding, which has itself to the images as light to colors, right? For Aristotle's comparison there, which does not abstract something from colors, but more flows into them something. Therefore, in no way do we understand by abstracting from images.

[32:22] Moreover, the philosopher in the third book about the soul says that the understanding understands the forms in the images, right? Not therefore by abstracting them, huh? Because we touched upon that before when we said you don't understand without turning to the imagination, right? Because reason's own object, through which it understands everything it understands, is the what it is is something sensed or imagined, right? And when you try to understand the what it is is something sensed or imagined, you have to either sense or imagine at least that thing, huh?

[32:59] Just like when I want to see to use the proportion there, the color of your clothes, right? I need your clothes there, right? Even though your clothes are not my eye or that in which the act of seeing takes place, huh? But what I'm seeing is the color of your clothes. So I can't see the color of your clothes without your clothes, and so I can't likewise understand the what it is of something sensed or imagined without at least but.

[33:34] Imagining it, huh? But against all this is what is said in the third book about the soul. That as things are separable from matter, so they concern the understanding, huh?

[33:58] And that's why when we distinguish the what looking philosophy into three parts, you know, natural philosophy, mathematical philosophy, wisdom, right? It's in terms of their separation from matter and motion, right?

[34:17] So natural philosophy is about things that both depend upon matter and motion for their existence, but also They depend upon matter and motion, at least in general, in order to be understood. While mathematics is about things that depend upon matter and motion for their existence, but they can be defined without matter and motion.

[34:48] But then, wisdom is about things that don't depend upon matter and motion for their existence, and therefore are not defined with matter or motion. But it can't be a fourth member about things that what don't depend upon matter and motion, but are defined with matter and motion. Doesn't Make any sense, right? But mathematics is kind of the odd example, right? Because you're studying things that are found in matter, like cube, for example, right?

[35:25] When I was a child, I had wooden cubes, and now I have ice cubes, and so on. But I can consider cube in separation from wood, and in separation from ice, and separation from the plastic cube, the plastic they have in the cube in my desk, right?

[35:45] Kind of interesting. I was reading about the Eucharist there this morning, there in Thomas, and he's talking about how the quantity of the bread is preserved in existence by God, right? And that's the subject of the color and the other accidents. But he refers to the fact that in mathematics, we separate the quantity from the substance, right? And God can do more than our mind can do, right?

[36:14] Kind of interesting that he touches upon that. Just kind of comes to my mind here when I'm thinking about this. Of course, you can also, you know, argue from the end of looking knowledge, which is to understand, right? And as the word understand indicates, stand. Something has to be in some way separated from what motion, right? And that's why,

[36:47] of course, motion and matter go together, right? So the separation from matter, separation from motion, is the basis for the distinction of the looking knowledge, huh? Where your whole end is is simply to understand, right? To get something into your reason, which is immaterial, and therefore to separate it some way from matter.

[37:12] That's why there's only three parts of looking philosophy. Thomas explains that most fully in the commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate, huh? Where Boethius is simply repeating the teaching of Aristotle, right? Which Thomas will explain in the context of the. Aristotle too, but he goes into even more right in the questions that he has about the De Trinitate there of Boethius. huh.

[37:46] Questions five and six. So again, this is what is said in the third book about the soul that as things are separable from matter, so they are pertaining to understanding. Therefore, it is necessary that material things be understood in so far as they are separated from matter and from like material likenesses which are images.

[38:24] I answer it ought to be said that has been said above. The object, the noble object, is proportioned to the what knowing power, right? But there is a threefold grade of knowing power.

[38:46] For there is one knowing power that is the act of a bodily organ, and that is what sense. And therefore, the object of every sensitive sense power is a form in so far as it exists in bodily matter. And because this matter is the source of individuation, therefore every power of a sensitive part is knowable only of what particulars. In particulars, there is taken the sense of what individuals or singulars.

[39:34] Now there is another knowing power which is neither the act of a bodily organ nor is it in any way joined to bodily matter, and this is the angelic understanding.

[39:51] And therefore, the object that's proportioned to this kind of a knowing power is a form subsisting without matter. And although they know material things, nevertheless they do not look upon them except in immaterial things, either in themselves or in God.

[40:20] But the human understanding has itself in a middle way between these two. For it is not the act of some bodily organ. But nevertheless, it is a power of the soul, which is the form of the body. This has been said above. The soul was defined as the first act, right, of a natural body composed of tools. It's a substantial form, right, of a body, natural body composed of tools,

[40:59] and therefore, what's proper to it or private to it is to know a form existing individually in bodily matter, but not, however, in so far as is in such matter.

[41:20] But to know that which is in individual matter, not in so far as is in such matter, is to abstract the form from individual matter, which the phantasms represent, and therefore it's necessary to say that our understanding understands material things by abstracting from the images,

[41:48] and through material things thus considered, we come to some knowledge of what immaterial things. Just as the contrary, right, a contra, angels through immaterial things know what Immaterial things. So in one way, our knowledge is just contrary, not only to what God's knowledge, right? You know, Thomas is always contrasting God's knowledge, whereby by knowing himself, right, he knows other things, right? While in philosophy, it's by knowing other things that we come to know God is their what God's cause.

[42:31] So in a sense, the road of philosophy and God's knowledge is just contrary, right? But in theology, we begin with God because we're sharing in God's knowledge, and so the order in theology is contrary to the order in what philosophy, right? That's why when I was in high school, you see, I picked up Chisholm's kind of introduction to philosophy or whatever it is, and he's proceeding in the order the Summa Contra Gentiles, which is the order of theology.

[43:04] So he's proceeding in the order contrary to the order of philosophy, huh? So, but here you can see a little contrariety between our way of knowing and the angelic way of knowing, huh? The angel's own object is something immaterial, and through knowing immaterial things, he comes to know material things, huh? But our our reason's own object is the what it is of something material, and through knowing material things we come to some very imperfect knowledge of what.

[43:43] immaterial things, right? Has their cause and is something above them and there's something that's not material, right? Negative and so on. But Plato, paying attention only to the immateriality of the human understanding,

[44:08] not, however, to this that it was in some way united to a body, because it's the power of a soul that is a form of body, right? He laid down that the object of our understanding was separated what forms, material forms, and that we understand not. By abstracting, but more by what? Partaking of these abstract things, as has been said above. Okay.

[44:40] So Plato saw part of the truth, right? He saw that our understanding was something immaterial, and Anaxagoras, in a way, had begun to think of this—the first great Greek philosopher to do that, huh? And Plato picked that up, right? But then he made the object of reason, his definitions, something in the immaterial world, right? Okay. By Aristotle, reason's own object is the what it is of something material, and only through knowing the what it is of material things can we eventually come to some imperfect knowledge of these things that are immaterial, right?

[45:24] Okay. And so, in the in the problems of of wisdom, one of the first problems of wisdom is: Are there immaterial things? Are only these material things, right? It's obvious that there are these material things. But with the the Greek philosophers, there's a kind of common opinion, as it is of the man in the street, that whatever is must be somewhere, right? If it's in somewhere, it doesn't exist.

[45:56] And you probably find people saying that, right? Sure. But to be somewhere, to be in some place, is a property really of what? Bodies, right? So they're really saying that everything is a body or in a body, right? Huh? Yes, sir. So they're kind of man is kind of naturally a materialist to begin with, right? Because that's all he knows about. Yeah. And the existence of immaterial things is something that he has to reason to, huh?

[46:24] Yeah. From the material things. What's interesting that that first hint at this that there's something material in the great fragment of Anaxagoras, huh? Okay.

[46:46] Should we do a little break? Yeah. Okay. Just a little break in.