De Anima (On the Soul)
145. Aquinas, Summa I q.85 a.4-5: Knowing Many Things at Once, Discrete vs. Continuous Time, and Why We Must Compose and Divide
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[0:00] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I never tell my wife what to wear, but she's always telling me what to wear, to put on. Yeah. It goes through our life.

[0:16] This doesn't go with that. Doesn't. Don't rest with that. 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. Amen. Help us to understand all that you've written. The Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:59] I was reading a little account there, you know, incident in the life of Saint Dominic when he was competing with the heretics, and sometimes they'd have like a public debate, and of course the town people listened to it, but they couldn't decide, you know, between the heretics and Dominic, so they decided to have a trial by fire. So they threw both Dominic's book, his notes in the fire, and the heretics.

[1:23] The heretics of course, burned up right away, and Dominic's book of course, was not injured at all. Oh, really? Yeah, I never heard that. I guess in the church there they still have something, you know, some of the wood that was singed or something there, you know, when this test was being performed. So, kind of interesting little story, yeah. Yes. There's something with the donkey here. I don't know if that's Dominic or not, but the donkey left the door.

[1:52] See, Chris. I've heard that story, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. it's the end. Okay. So, in Article Four here now, to the fourth, thus one proceeds. It seems that we are able to understand many things together, or at the same time, Simo. For understanding is above time, just as it's above the body, but before and after belong to time. Time is defined as the number of the what?

[2:23] Before and after in motion, huh? So when you talk about three hours, you're talking about the before and after in the motion of the sun around the earth, huh? So you're numbering the before and after, then.

[2:36] But before and after belong to time. Therefore, the understanding does not understand diverse things by before and after, or before and after one after another, but together. Moreover, nothing prevents diverse forms that are not opposed to be together and act in the same thing, just as in the apple is the odor or smell and the what color, right, at the same time. But the understandable forms are not opposed.

[3:11] Therefore, nothing prevents one understanding together to come and act according to what diverse understandable forms. I'm trying to say that right exactly right, and therefore nothing prevents one understanding right together to come to be an act. According to diverse what forms, he's saying these forms are not opposed, just like the smell of the apple and the color of the apple are not opposed, so they can be found together, right, at the same time in the apple.

[3:47] So if the different understandable forms in our mind can be together, right? Moreover, the understanding, at the same time, understands some whole, as a man or a what house, right? But in any whole are contained many parts. Therefore, the understanding understands many things what together.

[4:20] Moreover, one is not able to know the difference of one thing to another unless both are what grasped together, as is said in the book about the soul, and the same reason is about any other comparison. But our understanding does know the difference and the comparison of one thing to another. Therefore, it must know many things together. If I'm taller than you or shorter than you, how can I know that without knowing you and me at the same time?

[4:53] Or if I know that a square has got more sides than a triangle, I must think of square and triangle what together, right? But against this is what is said in the book about the Topics huh? That's Aristotle's book on dialectic that one understands one thing only, but Sherry, meaning kind of habitual knowledge, right? He can know many things.

[5:26] I answer, and Thomas is going to make a distinction now. I answer that the understanding is able to understand many things, ah, by way of being what one those many things, huh? Per modum unius, huh? But it cannot understand many by way of being what many, huh?

[5:50] I know what I was saying, huh? You know, if I what understand the difference between a dog and a cat, I'm thinking of dog and cat together at the same time, huh? But there I'm thinking of them in one what comparison, right? But if I think simply about what a dog is, and I think simply about what a cat is, right? Then as many as what many, right?

[6:16] And then I can't think at the exact same moment what a dog is and think about what a cat is, right? I have to make them one in some way, huh? But when I say, for example, a dog is not a what cat. Then I'm thinking of dog and cat together, aren't I? But if I just think about what a dog is and just think about what a cat is, I'm not comparing them or putting them together in a negative statement.

[6:42] Then I can't think of the two at the same time. I say by way of one or many through one or many what understandable forms.

[7:01] For the way of any action follows the form which is the what source of the action, huh? So whatever things the understanding is able to understand under one form, it can understand together. And hence it is that God understands who sees all things at once or together, because he sees all things by one thing, which is his own essence or substance or nature.

[7:36] But whatever things the understanding understands through diverse forms, through other forms, it cannot what understand together. And now he gives the reason for this, huh? And the reason for this is because it is impossible that the same subject be perfected at the same time by many forms of one what kind, huh? And of diverse what species, huh? Just as it is impossible that the same body in the same part be at the same time colored by what diverse colors, right?

[8:24] Or that it be shaped by diverse what figures or shapes, huh? So a piece of clay can't be a sphere and a cube at the same time, right? It can be a cube and be brown at the same time, right? But it can't be a sphere and a cube at the same time, and it can't be brown and yellow at the same part anyway, right? At the same time, right?

[8:47] So you can't have two forms of the same kind, right? At the same time, huh? So likewise, then the the reason or the understanding can't have what in perfect act two forms, right?

[9:06] Understandable forms, huh? Okay, it's got to make something one out of them if it's going to understand anything what together, right? Okay. It's a little bit like saying that the that the understandable form is to the mind a little bit like like the shape is to the clay or the shape is to the wax, huh? Okay.

[9:32] And it can't be shaped by different shapes at the same time. Is that a lot to do then with the sense of truth that the mind is identical is equal to the reality? Is that the reason for this? Well, the reason for it is the one he gave. It's not possible to have many forms of the same kind at the same time.

[9:59] The objection about the apple there, right? Well, one was a color, the other was a what? An odor, right? Okay. So it can have the smell and the color at the same time, but it can't have what? Two colors at the same time, at least in the same part of the body, right? Okay. And so he's saying the the mind cannot be fully informed by two different forms of the same kind at the same time, right?

[10:32] Okay. Any. more than the clay can be at the same time a sphere and a what cube, huh? And all these understandable forms are basically of the same what kind of thing, right? Okay.

[10:49] Okay. Um. As he goes on to say, for all the understandable forms are of one what kind, huh? One genus, because they are perfections of the one power of understanding. Although the things of which they are what forms, right, are of diverse genera, okay.

[11:18] Is impossible, therefore, that the same understanding, at the same time, be perfected by diverse understandable forms, so that it could understand diverse things in what in act, huh? Now you see as you go down from God, huh? God understands all things by understanding one thing himself. The angels understand themselves, but by understanding themselves, they don't understand all things, huh? So they need some thoughts in addition now to their understanding of themselves.

[11:51] And as you go down from the higher angels to lower angels, you require more thoughts. And at the very bottom, the furthest away from God in terms of the of understanding, huh? We require like a separate what thought for everything we want to know, what distinctly almost, right? We're always trying to be a little bit more like the angels and God and and knowing many things at the same time, huh?

[12:17] And to some extent, we can. I do this a bit, huh? Okay. Used to talk about the kind of used to talk about in the calculus there where you um. Let's say you put a um, inscribe a square, like say, in a circle, right? Then you bisect the chords, right? That cut off, and then you draw lines from the center of that, and you get a figure that's still a rectilineal figure, but it's closer to the area of a circle, right?

[12:49] You keep on bisecting, right? Mm-hmm. And so you see the circle as the limit, yeah. That you never reach really, yeah. Right. But you approach more and more. So in knowing the circle as a limit of polygons, you're knowing circle and polygon somehow at the same time, right? And so it's the human mind striving to be more like its guardian angel, right? To know distinctly, huh? Two things at the same time.

[13:17] In a way, you know the distinction between the polygon and the circle, that no matter how many times you bisect that, and how close you get to the area, you never get a polygon that is really equal to a what. Circle, huh? Okay, so you see the distinction of them at the same time. You seem to know them together, right?

[13:40] Okay. Now, the first objection was saying that the understanding is above time, and of course, sometimes we speak of a certain time in the angels, but not the time that you and I know, which is a continuous time tied up with the locomotion of the sun and so on. So Thomas is going to point that out. The understanding, to the first, therefore, it should be said, the understanding is above time, namely, the time that is a number of the motion of bodily things.

[14:20] As we said before, when you study time there in the fourth book of Aristotle's Physics, you find out that time is a number of the before and after in motion. And you know, the question "What is time?" is different from the question "What is time?" Right? Excuse me. What time is it? Rather, you know, guessing what time is it? I'd say, well, it's two twenty-three, right? But that's no time.

[14:50] But three minutes, or three days, or three years is a what amount of time, right? And what is that number? Three days or three hours? Huh? See, we're actually numbering the before and after of the most continuous and regular motion that you know, which is that of the sun around the earth, and the clock is simply imitating, in a way, the motion of the sun around the earth.

[15:15] Then, if you use the clock, the imitation here, you're looking at the before and after of that hand there, where it's on the six before it's on the seven, and then seven before it's on the eight, right? So you're numbering the before and after in a motion that is continuous. Well, as you know, the mind is not continuous, right? And the thinking of the mind, therefore, is not continuous.

[15:40] But there can be a before and after in our thinking. You can think of one thing and then think of another thing, right? And when Shakespeare defines reason as the ability for large discourse, right? Looking before and after, well, discourse refers to what knowing one thing after another, right? And maybe eventually knowing one thing to another, right? But our reason can know one thing after another, and that's true to some extent of the angels, right?

[16:11] And therefore, we can speak of a kind of what different kind of time up there, discrete time, they call it sometimes. Okay. So he says the understanding is above the time that is a number of the motion of bodily things, but the plurality of understandable forms. Causes certain variation of under of operations of the understanding, by which one operation is before another, and this change Augustine calls time when he says in the eighth book upon Genesis to letter that God moves the spiritual creature.

[16:52] That means even the angels, right? Through time, right? Huh? But the word time there is equivocal from what we call time here on this earth, huh? Yeah.

[17:07] Because the time that we're referring to down here is a number of a continuous motion, huh? Of a locomotion, right? And that has nothing to do with the angels, huh?

[17:22] They're not contained under the sun or anything like that. Okay, Thomas is saying that there is another kind of before and after in the understanding. Okay.

[17:45] That's why it's kind of hard, you know, to understand when the soul is separated from the body, right? Huh? We speak of the soul as being in purgatory, say, for a long time, right? It's not really in this time, right? Huh? You know, but it must be very painful, right? Huh? To be delayed to see God, right? Huh? Because your body is not not there to distract you from God or anything like that, right?

[18:14] And you realize your whole happiness depends upon seeing him, right? And it's a fitting purgation, right? Huh? That you be delayed, huh? In seeing God,

[18:29] huh? Um. For the fact that you put him off, and even in this life, right? Huh? Due to your own fault and so on, huh? You dilly dally, huh? On the way.

[18:45] That's what venial sin is: is not getting off the road to God, but dilly dallying on the on the way, right? And so you built up some impediments there to your immediate glorification. Okay.

[19:08] So notice what the objection is saying. Ah, it was saying that there's no before and after in the soul because that would mean time, and the soul is above time, right? And Thomas distinguishes between the time that Augustine is speaking of in that thing and the time that is what continuous, right? And it's bodily on top of the bodily motion. So there is another kind of before and after, huh?

[19:36] Yeah, I've given you the text on before and after from Aristotle, haven't I? I know. But so in that first meaning of before, that is the before in time. That's the bodily time, right? Then you have other senses of before and after, including that in the discourse of reason. This is the third meaning of before. huh? I gave you that from the categories, right, The chapter and before and after.

[20:02] Is that the angels and the third one? Well, it'd be like that, yeah, yeah, rather than the first one, right? But there is a before and after in the discourse of reason.

[20:19] I understand what a square is. I understand what a cube is, right? But it's more like a discrete thing, huh? Okay. You see, you notice the difference between the continuous and the discrete. A continuous thing between, say, this point here and any later point. How many points could I stop at on the way from one to the other? Infinite. Yeah. And can two points touch? No. So between two points is always a line, and therefore there's as many points as you want to make in between, or you can you could stop at.

[21:03] Now, is that true in reasoning? Just a very simple example here of a syllogism. No, say every every mother is a woman, okay, and no man is a woman, okay. Now, what's the next statement after those two? Every mother is a woman, and no man is a woman. No man is a mother. Yeah. No man is a mother, right?

[21:55] So there is a next statement, isn't there? But if you take any point on a line, is there a next point? No. There's no next point. Isn't that strange? I mean, potentially that there is, but not necessarily. Potentially, next point, huh? You know, the the reason we give, we give usually either argument. We say that two points cannot touch.

[22:32] If two points were to touch, they would coincide. Because the points have no what parts, right? So they can't overlap, you know. And is there any difference between a point and and does a point and have an edge an interior that's different? No. So the only way for two points to touch would be to coincide, right? In which case you only one point, right? So if you have two points in a line, there's always a line between them, right?

[23:04] And therefore you can always divide the line, right? And get as many points as you want to in between, huh? So there's no next point. Kind of amazing thing to think, right? In the same way, you know, with any continuous quantity, you take a surface, right? I can have many lines parallel to this line here, right? But is there a next line that is parallel or could be parallel?

[23:37] Because again. Two lines could not what touch without what starting to coincide again. So between any two lines that are parallel, there's always a little what area there, surface. So there's no such thing as a next line, but there is such a thing as a next thought, isn't there?

[23:58] So this thought, no man is a mother, comes next after these two thoughts. That shows that in the syllogism there that it's not a continuous thing.

[24:14] The same way, if you want to go from in defining, you want to go from quadrilateral to what square, right? You have to add two things, right? You add the quadrilateral, equilateral, right, and right-angled, and now you're at what square, right? There's just two things until you get there, right? But between any two points, is it just two points? Can you narrow it down? Just two. So

[24:57] when you add these two to quadrilateral, right away you're at square, aren't you? So defining and syllogizing, reasoning and so on is not a continuous thing, huh? It's like numbers, right? That's why they call it discrete, huh? Because in numbers, you see, six, take any number you want to, there's a next number, right? Which is seven, right? Next bigger number, and a next smaller number, right? See, but with a continuous thing, is there a next longer line?

[25:33] See, can be many longer lines, but there's always going to be can already bisect that and make one that's not quite as much longer. And is there a next shorter line? No, no. But there is a next number, right?

[25:52] If you look at Aristotle's ordering there, the senses of before, the first sense of before is in time. The time is something continuous, and to that first sense is reduced the before in anything continuous. The second sense he gives of before in being, he gives example of one before two, and then he goes to the third sense of before, which is a before in the discourse of reason.

[26:17] Okay. Those are discrete. What? Two and three are discrete. Yeah. Yeah. And when he talks about a proemium you know, a prologue, well between the proemium and the tractatus, the drawing out of the work, there's nothing.

[26:40] But to take the most rigorous thing out, the syllogism, right? Speech in which some statements lay down, just to another one follows necessarily because of those laid down. See, well, there is the next thought, right?

[26:56] There is no thought that comes between these two, between the syllogism and the conclusion. There is no thought in between. So thinking is not continuous, and that's a sign that the what understanding, the reason, is not a body. That its so-called motion, right, thinking and reasoning, the discourse is not continuous. And so Aristotle, in the first book about the soul, he says that thoughts are like what numbers, right?

[27:37] So, though we do speak of a line of thought, right? Because the continuous is more what manifest to our senses than the number. Number is a little more abstract, isn't it?

[27:54] That's why Euclid begins with geometry, right? Those arithmetic. But thoughts are more like what numbers. So it's this continuous time that the soul is above, right? Okay, it's touched in a way by time insofar as the images are in time, right? You know, your images are in time and they're part of the continuous, huh? But the thinking itself is not in a body, not therefore subject to this continuous time, huh?

[28:36] But there is this before and after the discrete, like there is a before and after in numbers, huh? And this was called time also by Augustine because it has some likeness to. There is a before and after, but it's not the same sense. And in fact, the word "before and after" as Aristotle shows in the categories there is a word equivocal by reason, right? What's the certain likeness?

[29:03] Of them. When Thomas, you know, shows the truth in the Athanasian Creed, there is no before and after in God. He eliminates all those senses of before that Aristotle distinguished. So that God the Father is not before God the Son in time, even in this other time, right? And He's not before Him in in sense of being better, right? He's not before Him in in knowledge, anyway.

[29:33] He eliminates all the senses before. There is no before and after in God. You can say the son is from the father, right? Takes from the father, but he's not after the father. Okay, I'll leave that to the study of Trinity someday.

[29:57] Now the second objection says nothing prevents diverse forms that are not opposed from being within the same thing. And Thomas says to the second, it should be said that not only are opposite forms not able to be together in the same subject, but neither whatever forms are of the same what kind, right? Even though they are not opposed, right?

[30:24] As is clear through the example induced about colors and what shapes, huh? Okay, so. It's not that sphere and cube are opposites like black and white or something of that sort, huh? But because they're both what forms of the same kind, right? Shape that the clay cannot at the same time be a sphere and a cube, but you can mold it into a sphere and then mold it into a cube, right?

[30:52] The same way our mind, right, cannot be informed fully, enact anyway by what two understandable forms, huh? That would be like the clay being a sphere and a cube at the same time. Okay. Now the third objection is talking about how one can know the parts of a whole at the same time. So you're knowing many things together. Thomas says to the third, it should be said that parts are able to be understood in two ways.

[31:29] In one way, under a certain confusion, somewhat confused, but right, insofar as they are in the whole, and thus they are known through the one form of the what whole, right? And thus they are known what together, right? In another way, by distinct knowledge, according to which each part is known through its own what form, right? And thus they are not at the same time what understood, right?

[32:02] It's like the difference when you look at a painting and you're kind of seeing the whole painting in a kind of not altogether distinct way to the parts, right? You focus now. Look at this. Look at the way he's done this, you know. And now it's a different seeing, right? Then you're not seeing the whole painting, huh? But then you stand back and you kind of take in the whole painting at once, huh?

[32:24] It's like the understanding, right, huh? It can consider a whole in a somewhat indistinct way, in which case by one form it knows the whole and each of its parts, right? Or it can concentrate and know distinctly, very distinctly, one of the parts, and then concentrate and know very distinctly another of the parts, right? Like the anatomist, right? You know, you may see a human being and you take in the arms and the legs and so on.

[32:53] Now, now we're going to study the anatomy of the arm, and then later on another day we're going to study the anatomy of the foot or something, right? So then it's a separate what knowledge, right, of the foot and of the arm. But you'd stand back and kind of know the human being as a whole, and then it's because in some way it's one, right? But you don't know the parts as distinctly as if you would focus upon them by a unique knowledge for each part.

[33:22] Now Thomas says as regards, so he's not in a sense denying altogether what the third objection is saying, right? He's making a distinction again, right? If you want to know. Altogether distinctly one of the parts. Then you can't know all at once at the same time, distinct another part, right? Okay. But if you know them in a somewhat indistinct way as parts of the same whole, then you are knowing one thing, right?

[33:51] And you have one thought about what the whole. Okay. In the same way, it would be in in in understanding a statement, but maybe I'll talk about that in the next article. So, the fourth objection, he says, let's talk about what about the difference between things. Well, to the fourth, it should be said that when the understanding understands the difference between things or the comparison of one to the other, it knows both of the differences or the things compared under a what a thought of the comparison of the difference, right?

[34:36] Just as has been said that it knows the parts under the notion of the what whole, right? So it's knowing them insofar as they are one in some way, right? Okay.

[34:55] No, this is what what the the big thing is. And if you go back to the more universal too, I can know dog and cat and horse in a confused way by knowing what an animal is, right? But if I want to know the dog distinctly, then a separate thought, right? And then the cat, another thought, and the horse, another thought, and the elephant, another thought, right?

[35:19] So this is kind of a what shows the lowliness of our mind, right? I can't know many particular kinds of things altogether distinctly at the same time, right? It's got to go from one to the other. Large discourse, as Shakespeare says, huh? Okay.

[35:42] It's like my listening to my Mozart there, you know. I can't listen to the whole collection at once, right? There is six hundred pieces or so, right? Huh? And I can't listen to the first movement at the same time, I listen to the second movement, right?

[35:57] So I get kind of panicky sometimes when I get to the collection again, right? Or I haven't heard this piece for some time. I mean, that's been a great piece of music. I have to hear it again tonight, you know. But then I have another one. I can't hear that. I can't hear them both at the same time. So I have to go kind of a rotation, right, through the whole thing, huh?

[36:16] It's got to listening to all the symphonies. Now I am going to listen to all the violin concertos, and then I have to go back to the sonatas, and you know, just can't hear them all at once. It's like with the mind, huh?

[36:35] Let's look now at Article Five here. To the fifth, one proceeds thus: It seems that our understanding does not understand by putting together and dividing.

[36:51] I think he's thinking of the putting together and the dividing that's in the second act of reason, when you form an affirmative statement by putting together, let's say, man and animal, and saying man is an animal, or you divide by putting separating things, a negative statement, like saying man is not a stone, right? You see that in the proemium there that Thomas wrote to logic, the way he speaks.

[37:17] Now the first objection says, composition and division, or putting together and dividing, is not except of many things. You don't put something together with itself or divide it from itself, right? But you put together and divide it from something else. But we said in the previous article, right, that the understanding is not able at once to understand many things; therefore, is not able to understand by putting together and what, dividing, right?

[37:51] So to know that a man is not a stone, I'd have to know man and stone at the same time, but you can't know two things at the same time. But Thomas will probably say that in some way they've been made what, one, right, form one statement.

[38:08] Moreover, to every composition or division is added either the present time or the past or the future, as reflected in our verbs, right? But the understanding abstracts from time. Even the definition of time is timeless, we say sometimes, just as from other particular conditions. So when I understand what a man is, is man what a man, past, present, or future?

[38:45] Yeah, yeah. See, so this guy is saying, well, then, but in a statement you have some time, right? Either past, present, or future. So it's saying they can't understand in that way.

[39:01] Moreover, the understanding understands by being made like things, but putting together and separating is nothing in things, for nothing is found in things except the thing which is signified by the predicate and by the subject, which is one and the same if the composition is true. For man is truly that which. An animal is. Therefore, the understanding does not put together and divide, huh?

[39:41] But against all this, huh? Vocal sounds signify the concepts or the thoughts of the understanding, as the philosopher says in the first book of the Peri Hermeneias. It's interesting that we use the word conceptio there, right? Yeah. And that's important when you realize that the thought of God is also said to be what, born, right, or generated, right? This in likeness even to our thought, to conception, huh?

[40:13] But in vocal sounds, there is composition and division, as is clear in affirmative and negative propositions. Therefore, the understanding composes and what divides, huh? Okay. I answer. It should be said that the human understanding necessarily has to understand by putting together and dividing.

[40:46] Incidentally, when you study God's mind, He doesn't understand by putting together and dividing. He doesn't have to. Although He understands everything we put together and divide. Huh?

[40:58] For since the human understanding goes forth from potency or ability to act, it has a certain likeness, huh, with things that are what generated, right? Which do not at once have their what perfection, huh? But they acquire it what. By degree. Bit by bit, successively, right? And likewise, the human understanding does not at once, in its first grasping of something, right, get a perfect what knowledge of the thing.

[41:41] When I first grasp something about the thing, I don't see at once everything that belongs to that thing, do I? That's one of the reasons why I have to what compose and divide to see what belongs to it or what doesn't belong to what I have first grasped. Okay.

[42:03] Ah. But first, the mind grasps something about the thing. For example, the what it is, huh? That's a terrible word they make up in Latin, quiddity, right? But it comes from the Latin word for what, right? So it means the whatness of a thing, huh? The what it is of a thing, right? And that's the first act of reason that we talk about in logic, right? And the first act that Aristotle talks about in the third book about the soul, understanding what a thing is, right?

[42:33] I mean, some people call it simple grasping, grasping what something is. And Now he points out there that the what it is of a thing is the first and the understanding's own object, right? Okay. Now, the De Anima, we kind of see this even more precisely that our reason's own object is the what it is of something sensed or imagined, huh? Like what a man or what a dog is, or what a triangle is, or what a square is, right?

[43:10] Okay. So that's what we understand first, huh? The what it is of something, huh? And then we understand the properties of the thing, huh?

[43:24] So when you first understand what two is in some way, do you see right away from understanding what two is in some way that? Two is half of four, and a third is six, and a fourth of eight, and so on. No, you've got to put these things together with two.

[43:41] For the properties and the things that happen to it, and the way it has itself, the surrounding things, surrounding the things, the nature of the thing, and according to this is necessary for one thing grasped by it to be put together, or what? Divided right from another thing that's apprehended, and then later on from one putting together or division, one proceeds to another, which is to reason, like in the syllogism here, right?

[44:14] Okay. Of course, what you find out when you study the syllogism and logic is that you have to put together two statements, right? To get a third statement, and it's a little bit like adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing. You need at least two numbers to add,

[44:38] and to subtract, you need two numbers, right? Okay, so calculating and syllogizing are similar in that two gets you a third, right? Okay, it's a little bit like sexual reproduction, right? Where two, man and the woman, or the male and the female, gets you a third of the same kind, right? Okay, but again, there's another likeness there too. You know, two dogs gets you a a a dog and not a cat, and two cats gets you another cat and not a dog, and two numbers in calculating gets you another number, not a statement, and two statements gets you another what?

[45:25] Statement and not a number, okay. So there you have the three acts of reason, huh? That we have in the proemium there to logic, huh? Logic directs those three acts.

[45:48] Now, the angelic understanding, right? And the divine one. He can talk about those because he's in theology here, and he's already talked about them, right? In the De Anima, of course Aristotle has not yet talked about the angels or God, right?

[46:08] But the angelic understanding, my guardian angel, now right, he's talking about, and the divine understanding, right, have themselves as incorruptible things, as opposed to those generable things, huh? Which at once in the beginning have their whole what? Perfection. That's why the angels could fall immediately, right? They have no chance of recovering because they have their whole perfection at once, and so it's a mature choice they made, right?

[46:44] Even if it was a bad choice. The choices we make as a child and young person are not fully what our choice, right? In fact, the child hardly chooses at all. Has no deliberation. That's why Shakespeare can have Horatio or Hamlet say, "Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice and could have been distinguished, right? It takes a while before your soul is mistress of her choice and can have been distinguished, right?

[47:19] Whence the angelic understanding and the divine understanding at once, huh? Perfectly have a knowledge, the whole knowledge of the thing. Whence, in knowing the what it is of a thing, they know about the thing at the same time. Whatever we are able to know by putting together and dividing, and by what reasoning, huh? They can see that in geometry, right? After we know what a triangle is, we have to reason out that the interior angles of a triangle are equal to right angles.

[47:57] You remember how that proof goes, and number thirty-two in Book One of Euclid, huh? Okay. We can't just understand what a triangle is and see that these three angles at the same. By the way, are going to be equal to two right angles, can they? No, but we reason, you know, from the theorems about parallel lines. We draw a straight line to a vertex. That's one way of doing it.

[48:26] It's parallel to the what base, right? And then we know that the alternate angles are what equal. Okay, and therefore these three add up to what two right angles, huh? But even that alternate angles equal had to be proven, right? I wish that was proven in twenty-seven, huh? Why not? But that had that marvelous theorem before to know that any triangle, if you extend a side, the exterior angle will be greater than either one of these.

[49:04] He had to prove that, right? Now, Euclid's magnificent proof that he has number sixteen. But the angelic understanding or the divine understanding, when it understands what a triangle is, it sees right away that those angles equal to right angles, huh? Because Kasurik my old teacher, used to you know describe you know your angel observing you trying to make a decision. You know, it's like you watching an anchor worm find its way around.

[49:34] It's so slow, right? So you know. So in understanding what a thing is, the angel understands whatever we could understand, right? By putting together what we grasp with something else, and by reasoning from those things, it's like that. Okay. Because Surya used to say, when you encounter your guardian angel after death, he'll say, "This is God." What a marvelous thing God is! And the angel will say, "No, I'm not God.

[50:13] He's even more marvelous than I am." But I'll take your admiration anyway. But don't admire me as if I was God, right? Okay. Now the second objection, huh, is taken a little bit. From the idea that what there is element of time there in the statement, right, past, present, or future, but doesn't the understanding abstract from time?

[50:45] Well, to the second, it should be said that the understanding what abstracts from the images. Oh, that's true. But nevertheless, it does not understand an act except by turning back again towards images. So even after you understand what a triangle is, right, and it's by seeing triangles and imagining triangles, they separate out what they have in common, which is what a triangle is. But when I think even now about what a triangle is, I imagine a triangle, right?

[51:20] Because what a triangle is is the what it is of that triangle I imagine, and the images are in what time, right? Okay, so when you go back to things, you add time,

[51:37] and from the that side, huh, by which it turns towards images, right? The understanding adds time to the composition, or what the putting together, or the dividing that it does. It's like it's like it's returning back to things, huh? But the things that it knows first of all, right? The things that are sensible or imaginable, right? And therein, what time, right? So it adds past, present, or what future, right?

[52:13] So is it a big difference in the first act of reason? You are more separated from time than in the what second act, huh? Because when I understand what a man is, what a man is is neither past, present, or future. I can't say that, right? When I say Socrates walks, or Socrates walked, or Socrates will walk, right? Then I have either the past or the present future.

[52:46] Of course, in the in the Peri Hermeneias the book Aristotle wrote about the statement. You start out by defining noun and verb, right? And the verb always signifies what with time, right? Okay. Incidentally, just in Latin, huh, and in Greek, huh,

[53:10] you have the same word for name and for what Noun, right? Huh. So in Latin, you have nomen, right? Okay. And nomen in Latin, in the broad sense. Is a vocal sound, right? It has no parts signified by themselves. So a noun or a verb can both be a what nomen, right? Okay. But then when they distinguish between the the noun and the verb, the noun keeps the name nomen, and the verb gets a new name, right?

[54:01] Okay. Nomen and verb. They have the same thing in Greek, right? In Greek, you have onoma, kind of emphasize it here, onoma, which means same as nomen, and that is kept for the noun, right? And then you have maybe rhema rhema, for the verb, right? Okay. And so the word onoma becomes what equivocal, right? Because in one sense the rhema, the verb, is a onoma; in other sense, it's not, right?

[54:40] Okay. Now in English we sometimes use the word name here for nomen or onoma, and then we have what a separate word for the noun, right? And a separate word for the verb, okay? But if you read, say, you know, the great commentary of Ammonius the teacher of Boethius, teacher of Thomas in a sense, in a in Alexandria, when he's commenting on the Peri Hermeneias of Aristotle, he's always pointing out in what sense he's using the word onoma in this sentence, right?

[55:17] Okay. And now why is it that the verb gets a new name and the noun keeps the the name? Something. Yeah, yeah. The verb adds time, right? Okay. And so it adds something beyond the common meaning of of name, right? Okay. And so that's a very common thing as I mentioned before, right? You know, just my standard example. How many fingers do I have? Five fingers, right?

[56:01] And then sometimes we say I have what four fingers and a thumb, right? So this gets a new name, and these keep the the old name finger, right? Why does this get the new name? See, well, it's something about it that makes it stand out, and you hold a glass or something, right? Thumb stands out. So.

[56:28] I sometimes go back to this, you know, when people talk about man, woman, they get all upset about it, you know. But you have another thing like that, man. Can be said of man and what woman, right? But now you see, Latin, I guess, in Greek, they have a different name for the man and for the man who's a human being, right? And for the male man, see.

[56:54] So, but we don't have that, right? See, so they're trying to change English language. But you gotta realize realize that man is equivocal by reason, huh? Okay. In the same way that nomen is equivocal by reason here, in Latin,

[57:18] why is one get the new name? Say, what's the explanation of that? Tried that explanation on campus. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I did sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't seem to fight it. No, no, that's crazy. Not the female professors would, but I think. Interesting. And you see, I actually think the word "woman" the word "woman" was derived from the word "man" some way, right? They say "woe to man," right?

[57:47] But contrary to that, but they say it's actually involved the idea of fluttering, and in fact, the women wore a veil, right? So they have something in addition. They had not only a face but a veil covering the face, right? Wow. So they have something in addition to a face, and therefore they get a new name. That's a nice way of explaining it. Suggest to the other professors that they should start wearing veils.

[58:11] Yeah, yes, yes, yes. You'll be marked. Yeah, that's the explanation. It isn't logical. I don't know. It's kind of strange. i suppose mahometans would like the explanation anyway. um.

[58:37] And therefore, the human understanding knows by putting together and dividing, just as it knows by what reasoning, right? Now, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, when you take up the understanding of God, and maybe in the Summa Theologiae too, you have an article, you know, or chapter showing that God doesn't understand ratio sinando by reasoning, right? There is no reasoning in God. He understands reasoning; doesn't have to reason out anything.

[59:03] And there is no what putting together, right, and dividing in statements by God, although He understands all statements. The divine understanding and the angelic understanding—they know, to be sure, composition and division and reasoning, but not by putting together. And dividing, and by reasoning, but by an understanding of a simple what it is. So what a mind they have, right? See it all at once.

[59:44] Okay. And now you can see that, as I say, in the simplest science of all, like geometry, right? That when you understand what a triangle is, you don't see if those angles are equal to right angles at the same time. By the way, do you? No, but you got to put together a lot of things, and then reason from them, and then oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

[1:00:11] Okay.