De Anima (On the Soul)
146. Aquinas, Summa I q.85 a.5-6: The Mind's Statements and Identity, and Whether the Understanding Can Be False
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[0:00] And let's look at the replies now to the objections here. The first objection was saying, "Aren't you understanding many things when you make a statement?" Thomas says, "Yes, but it's one, right?" To the first, it should be said. That the putting together and dividing of the understanding, an affirmative or negative statement, that means, comes about by a certain what? Comparison or difference, huh? Whence, the understanding thus knows many things by putting together, dividing them, just as it knows what?

[0:42] The difference of things, or the comparison of things, huh? They've been made one in some way, right? Okay. Now the second objection. It should be said that the understanding both abstracts some images, and nevertheless it does not understand an act except by turning itself to the images, as has been said above. And from that side, or on the side of the fact that it turns to the images, the understanding joins time to what?

[1:26] Composition and division, because the images are what? Continuous and with time, right? Therefore, we have a hard time speaking about God, right? You know, before Abraham was, I am, right? And seems almost ungrammatical, right? See

[2:01] here, we say God knew before I did it, right? You know, but strictly speaking, you can't apply time to what? God's knowledge, which is eternal. So he says, Christ says, then, before Abraham was, meaning in his divine nature, I am. Didn't say before Abraham was, I was. Before Abraham was, I am. Touching upon his eternity there, huh?

[2:32] Of course, we'll partake of eternity when we see God as He is, huh? There'll be no before and after in the vision of God, right? It'll be all at once.

[2:50] Okay. Now the third, right here, here's the objection. How is this assimilating the mind to things, right? To the third, it should be said that the likeness of the thing is received in the understanding in the way of the understanding itself, and not. In the way of the what thing, right?

[3:19] You see that even the first act there, when the thing that is sensed is singular, but when understood, it's what universal. Whence to the composition and division of the understanding, there responds or corresponds something on the side of the thing. Nevertheless, it does not have itself in the same way in the thing as in the understanding. For the human understanding's own object

[3:54] is the what it is of a material thing, which falls under the sense and the imagination, right? Okay, you heard me say that before, right? That our reason's own object is the what it is of a thing sensed or imagined, okay?

[4:17] Now he says there is found a twofold composition in the material thing. First, a form to matter, right? And to this corresponds the composition of the understanding, by which the universal whole is said of its own part. For the genus is taken from the what common matter, and the difference that is completing the species is taken more from what the form, right? The particular, meaning individual, from the individual matter, huh?

[5:03] The second composition is of accident to subject, and to this real composition corresponds the composition of the understanding, by which it predicates the accident of the subject, as when it says, "Man is what white."

[5:24] Nevertheless, the putting together the understanding differs from the what putting together of the thing. For those things which are put together in the thing are diverse, huh? But the putting together the understanding is a sign of the identity or the sameness of those things which are what put together. So he's saying the man is white, huh? Right. He's saying one is the other, right? Okay.

[6:00] I am healthy. Even though me and my health are not the same thing, right? But the way it's expressed in the form of a statement is a kind of identity. I am. Healthy, right?

[6:17] Now, me and healthy are not as much the same as I am. I, okay. But if I say Socrates is Socrates, Socrates appears twice, doesn't he? But only in the what? Mind.

[6:40] Quite different, huh? Because there aren't two things in reality. You are talking about there, right? See, Socrates is Socrates. Boethius says nothing is more true than you say that Socrates is Socrates. A rose is a rose. You know, a thing is itself, right? But nevertheless, when you when you think that, you form a statement where that thing appears what? Twice. But that's in the mind, right? There is only one Socrates out there.

[7:17] A dollar is a dollar. I get two dollars, right? A dollar is a dollar is a dollar is a dollar, right? I get four dollars. I am getting rich. It's only in my mind that I multiply the dollars, right? Right.

[7:34] See how different it is, huh? So he says this is the the difference, huh? Nevertheless, the composition of putting together the understanding differs from the putting together in the thing, right? For those things which are put together in the thing are really diverse, right? But the putting together the understanding is a sign of the what? Identity of those things which are put together, huh?

[8:04] Okay. For the understanding does not thus put together that it says that man is whiteness, because they're not the same thing, right? But it says that man is what?

[8:19] White, huh? Meaning he has whiteness, right? Okay. That is having whiteness, huh? The same way you don't say Berquist is health. You say Berquist is what? Healthy. That is to say, he is having health, right?

[8:44] For is the same in subject what is a man and what is having whiteness, huh? Okay. And likewise, it is about the composition of form and matter. For animal signifies that which has a nature such that it senses, right? Rational that it has a what? Nature that understands. But man has both, right?

[9:15] And Socrates has all of these things, along with his individual what matter, right? And according to this notion of identity, our understanding composes one thing with another by saying it of the other, right?

[9:36] That's kind of unusual thing that our mind does, there, right? There's my body out there, and there's what health in my body, right? But instead of saying health, I say what healthy, right? And then I can say that my body is healthy, right?

[10:14] That's the thing that's quite difficult to talk about, God, right? Because whatever God has, He is really. But we have these two ways of speaking, right? We can say God is good, or we can say God is goodness itself, right?

[10:36] That goes back to our way of understanding, huh? Taken from material things in a way. Can we take a little break before we do the sixth article? We can do one more article of these today. The sixth article is still fairly short. We were talking in the beginning about purgatory. To the sixth one proceeds thus. It seems that the understanding is able to be false. For the philosopher, meaning Aristotle, of course,

[11:12] in the sixth book of the Metaphysics, says that true and false are in the what mind. And but the mind and the understanding are the same, as has been said above. Therefore, there is falsity in the what understanding, right?

[11:37] Morver, opinion and reasoning belong to the understanding, but in both of these is found what falsity, right? Therefore, there can be falsity in the understanding, huh?

[11:51] Kind of strange that Thomas should be arguing the way he does on that side, right? Um. He's a student of Aristotle, the most humble student of Aristotle, and teaches the same thing, huh? Moreover peccatum, and peccatum we translate as sin, but in in Latin and in in Greek, it's used not only for moral sin but for you know mistake of the mind. And if a baby is born without an arm or a leg, that's called a peccatum naturae, sin of nature huh Sin of nature.

[12:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say, are we using the word sin in a more narrow way, right? Just for you know, moral effect. What does Aristotle use sin as? For all those, yeah. See any kind of yeah defect in your operation, yeah. So, like if this chair, were missing a leg. That would be a sin according to Aristotle. Well, no, I mean, if the if the artist overcooked the meat, that would be a sin.

[12:59] Okay, if you added up the numbers wrong. Yeah. Okay. Has a sense of defect, huh? But for us, the word sin is much more narrow. But peccatum is the word, you know, in Latin, huh?

[13:20] Moreover, there is peccatum in the understanding part, but sin is with falsity, for they are mistaken who do evil, as is said in the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, huh? Because no, since someone does what is bad, his reason has to be saying it's good in some way, right? So his reason is what mistaken, okay?

[13:51] Therefore, there can be falsity in the understanding, right? People obviously do sin, but against all this is what Augustine says in the book of the eighty-three questions that everyone who what fails or is mistaken in that which he fails does not what understand, right? And the philosopher says in the book about the soul that understanding is always right. Now it's obviously referring to the natural understanding of the mind, right?

[14:29] But not to the other. I answer it should be said, huh? And that the philosopher in the third book about the souls compares as regards this matter the understanding to the what senses, right? For the sense is not deceived about its own what object, huh? Unless the organ is diseased, right? As sight is not deceived about the color of a thing, except perhaps by accident from the impediment happening about the organ, as when the tongue of someone sick, right, judges sweet things to be what bitter, huh?

[15:13] You know, it's just often eat something very salty or something and things don't taste right, huh? On account of this, that the tongue is filled with what bad humors, huh? My mother always told me the the orange before the candy, right? Eat the candy first, the orange tastes what bitter, huh?

[15:36] But about the common sensibles, the sense is deceived, right? As in judging about the what size or the shape of an object, right? As when it judges the sun to be foot length, right? When the sun nevertheless is greater than the what Earth, right? Now, if you want to you know understand that, just think of what we call optical illusions, right? Huh? And remember one time an assumption there the psychology department put on a a little thing in the class.

[16:17] Cages there, you know. These various forms of, you know, diluting the eye. You see, ways of making lines seem longer than they are, or shorter than they are, or making a straight line seem bent and so on, right? No. And a lot of these are kind of clever, but I always remember the simplest example. You know, you take two lines that are making the same length, right?

[16:43] And to your eye, they look to the same length than they are, right? And then you do like this, right? It's just one way.

[16:58] Now, this here, from here to here, looks shorter than from here to here. It does. But notice, you're being deceived by about a common sensible, right? See, you're not being deceived as to the color of these lines, are you? Right. So this is what Aristotle's point. Huh? The eye is not deceived about its private object, which is color, but it's easily deceived by what? The common object, right?

[17:28] Into thinking that something has greater, you know, magnitude than it does, or that it has a different shape and so on. Um. And is also even more deceived about the what sensible per accidens huh? As when it judges, uh, what is it bile, I guess, huh, to be honey, on account of the likeness of the what color, right? So if someone puts sugar, I mean salt in the sugar bowl, or vice versa, right?

[18:10] Then one is easily deceived because of what? He doesn't sense the sweetness as such or the saltiness as such, but one just sees the what color, right? Okay.

[18:24] And the reason for this, huh? This is a matter of experience, right? But the reason for this is evident, because each power per se as such, right, is ordered to its private object, huh? Like the eye to color and the ear to sound, huh?

[18:45] As such, it's ordered to that, right? And things which are of this sort always have themselves in the same what? Way, huh? Whence the power remaining, its judgment does not fail about its own what object, right?

[19:04] Okay. Now he's going to carry this over by analogy to the what understanding, right? The understanding's own object is the what it is of a thing, right? Whence about the what it is of a thing. As such, speaking as such, the understanding is not what deceived, right?

[19:30] But concerning those things which stand around the nature of a thing or what it is, right? The understanding can be what deceived, huh? When it orders one to another, either putting together or dividing, or also by what reasoning, huh?

[19:59] And in account to this, it's like it's like the senses are knowing one thing through another, right? That's when you can get into what mistakes, right?

[20:12] And this one is ordered to another. This example. When a sense, I know shape. By what? How far the color extends, right? So I know one, in a sense, to the other. It seems, it's like that a little bit, huh? Not strictly speaking, you know, that you're reasoning from one to the other, right? It's at the same time, but, um, or, or I know, you know, the shape here because of how the the hardness gives off, you know.

[20:42] Okay, my hand, huh? Okay. Um. And an account of this also about those statements it cannot err, which are known at once when their what terms are known, as happens with the first what

[21:10] principles. These are the statements known to themselves by all men, like that the whole is more than a part, right? Okay. Everybody understands what the whole is, right? And you understand what a part is, and if you understand both of those, you see right away that the whole is more than one of its parts, right? Okay.

[21:31] And to some extent, that's true even in the the private principles of the science. If you understand what an odd number is and what an even number is, by the way, you see that an odd number, no odd number is an even number, right? Or if you know what an obtuse angle is and what an acute angle is, it's not hard to see that they're different, and then obtuse angle is more than an acute angle, huh?

[21:54] The definition of obtuse angle is an angle greater than a right angle, an acute angle, an angle what? Less, right? But all right angles are equal, huh? So if an obtuse angle is an angle greater than a right angle, an acute one less, obviously an obtuse angle is greater than a acute angle, right? So those are obvious, right? Okay. Through understanding what an obtuse angle is and what an acute angle is, and from this he says happens the infallibility of what?

[22:28] Truth, huh? The unfailingness of truth, according to the certitude of science about conclusions, right? So if you syllogize from things like the whole is more than a part, or all right angles are equal, and in syllogism the conclusion follows necessarily, then you're sure about the conclusion because it follows necessarily from statements that you were what? Sure about, huh? And sure about knowing what it is.

[22:58] But by accident, he says, per accidens, it can happen that the understanding is deceived about the what it is in composed things, not on the side of the organ, because the understanding is not a power of what? Using an organ, but on the part of the composition intervening about the definition. When either the definition of one thing is false about another, right? Has a definition of circle about the triangle, right?

[23:31] Or when some definition in itself is false, implying a composition of impossible things, as if one should take this as a definition of something that's a rational animal with what?

[23:48] Winged, okay. Once in simple things, in whose definition no composition can intervene, we cannot be deceived. But we fail either in wholly not attaining at all, as is said in the ninth book of the metaphysics.

[24:12] Okay, so he's admitting in some way there can be what even a mistake in understanding what a thing is, right? Insofar as you have to put together things, right, and you might put them together wrongly. Okay? So, interestingly, Thomas has arranged this, isn't it?

[24:39] But in simple apprehension, there's no. error in the sinning. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, to the first, it should be said, and the one, with the objection to Aristotle, that the philosopher says there's falsity in the mind according to its what? Putting together or its dividing, huh? Okay. And likewise, it should be said to the second about the opinion and reasoning, and to the third about the error of those sinning, which consists in the application of something to the desirable.

[25:15] But in the absolute consideration of the what it is of a thing, and of those things which are known through it, the understanding is never deceived, and thus speak the authorities induced in the contrary, huh? Okay. Give a little sophistical argument here. See what you do with it. Okay.

[25:39] I'm going to maintain that the mind is never mistaken, huh? Okay. Now, if the mind is mistaken, huh? And we just kind of something like this. If it says A is B, right,

[26:02] and A is not B, right, okay. If it's mistaken in saying that A is B, it's because A is not B, right? You agree? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, obviously, therefore, the mind says that A is B. It doesn't see the difference between A and B, right?

[26:33] Okay. It's mistaken because they're really different. but it doesn't see that they're different, Right. Okay. But notice, huh? Before I can form the statement A is B, I have to understand what A is and I have to understand what B is. Otherwise, I couldn't say A is B, right? Right. Okay.

[26:59] Okay. So I'm going to make the mistake of saying that a man is a stone. I think we'll get that's a mistake, right? Before I can form the statement saying that man is a stone, I have to understand what a man is. I have to understand what a stone is, right? Okay. Now, in understanding what a man is and understanding what a stone is, do I understand the differences between man and stone?

[27:35] Let me take a little different example. Might be a little clearer. Suppose I make the mistake of saying that a dog is a cat. Yeah, dogs and cats are animals. One of the brothers says a dog is a cat. Okay. Now, if he's mistaken about this, right?

[27:57] He's formed the statement here, which he thinks is so. He must have understood what a dog is and what a cat is before he made the statement, right?

[28:09] Now, are you understanding what a dog is and what a cat is if all you understand what they have in common, like both are an animal, or both are a four-footed animal.

[28:25] If all you understand about a dog is four-footed animal, right? And all you understand by cat is a four-footed animal, right? Then you say a dog is a cat. You're saying a four-footed animal is a four-footed animal, which is true, right? Okay. But if you're apprehending

[28:50] some difference in addition to four-footed animal, like a dog is a four-footed animal that barks, and a cat is a four-footed animal that yowls,

[29:03] if you're really understanding dog and cat and not just animal, right? Then you must be seeing their difference, right? If you didn't see any difference between dog and cat, what are you understanding? Dog and cat, or are you understanding? what they have in common, A four-footed animal. They have what they have in common. Yeah. But if what you're understanding when you say a dog is a cat is that a four-footed animal is a four-footed animal.

[29:30] That's true. Right. Yeah. So then, in the mind, the speaker is true, but as it is expressed, it's false. Right. Yeah. It's in the words, though. You see, some would say, can a man really think that a dog is a cat? Right. Well, you say, well, if he thinks a dog is a cat, he doesn't see any difference between a dog and a cat, right? Now, if you understand no difference between a dog and a cat, you're not understanding dog and cat at all.

[30:17] in Which case you can't. You know, make the false statement, or else what you're understanding is what dog and cat have in common, without their differences, right? In that case, you're not really understanding dog and cat as such, except in general, you're understanding quadruped, four-footed animal, right? And so you'd say then that a four-footed animal is a four-footed animal, which is true. That makes me think of certain propositions of theologians that the church over the centuries has had to condemn.

[30:52] Sometimes, you know, they will use that statement. This proposition is false, at least at least in the way it's expressed. Yeah. Yeah. He may have some correct understanding in his mind, but really expresses false. Yeah. Correct his tongue. Yeah.

[31:10] So okay, so that's a that's an explanation that there there is no fault in the intellect. I mean, is an objection, yeah, to to say that the mind can be false, right?

[31:23] Has a lot to do with likeness being a cause there, isn't it? Because in this one, it's likeness. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you know, I hear people sometimes you know weren't very experienced at the wine, right? Well, they all taste the same. Okay. Well, the man's got a good sense of taste and smell, right? An experience in wine would say, no, they don't taste the same. No, I can't taste any difference.

[31:57] One is the other, right? Okay. So, the Cabernet Sauvignon he drank yesterday, he's saying, is the same as the Pinot Noir he's drinking today. So he's mistaken, right? Well,

[32:18] someone might say, well, all he tastes is a dry red wine. He doesn't taste Cabernet Sauvignon really. See, his knowledge is not that distinct.

[32:31] So he's saying a dry red wine is a dry red wine. He's not mistaken, right? You see, by this story they say by these old professors sitting around drinking beer, right? And one of them was talking about what a great beer Heineken is, right? And he's drinking Heinekens. And then he had to go to the bathroom, like happens, you know. And he's in the bathroom. Someone took an empty bottle of Heinekens, kind of swished it out, washed it out, and put in some cheaper beer, right?

[33:04] So you want it, yeah? So you want another Heineken so he's gone raving about what a great beer Heinekens is. So this is kind of funny, right? So he's mistaken, right? He's thinking that the Millers, or whatever it is, is Heineken right? He's not a beer connoisseur, then. Oh, it depends on how many he's had. Exactly. Yeah, that's a good point. You save the best beer for last.

[33:44] I was told Yeah, yeah. But also, what's interesting about this objection too, you know, you say just in terms of understanding, right? If you don't understand the difference between a dog and a cat, then are you really understanding dog and cat? No. Aren't you understanding what they have in common about dog and cat, right? What's that? What's that system that says that you can't, like, for example, dog and cat?

[34:25] You can't know what a dog or a cat is. You can only know the term that you sort of arbitrarily apply to them. In other words, that's a dog because I say it's a dog, and someone else could use, you know, perhaps a different term. No, what In other words you can only understand the term you use. You can't understand the thing in itself. Well, the point is, the thing in itself, I might not know its essential nature, right?

[34:51] But I can say, if you ask me what the difference to a dog and a cat is, I'd probably say a dog is a four-footed animal that barks, and a cat is a four-footed animal that meows. And Socrates might say, "Well, is it a cat because it meows, or does it meow because it is a cat? " See, is meowing what makes a cat to be a cat, or is meowing something that results in the fact that you are a cat?

[35:20] I think meowing is something that results in the fact that you are a cat. So I'm really defining it by a property rather than by a species-making difference. Yes. Okay. And we tend to do that because the property is more sensible, and the species-making difference is hidden from us. And so we use for an imperfect definition, which is more we call it encircling than a definition of full sense.

[35:55] We use the property in place of the species-making difference, but sometimes we can investigate the species-making difference from the property. So Aristotel, Nicomachean Ethics, when he first takes up virtue, he'll speak of virtue as a praiseworthy quality, right? But that's giving a property of it, right? But then he starts to investigate who is praised, right? See, and if you take say money for example, right? You know, is the man who spends less than he should is a stingy man praised for being stingy?

[36:40] No, but is the man who's extravagant and you know I got someone gave me for my birthday this biography of John Adams from my colleague. I don't know if you've seen it. I actually I read before. I gave him a copy of it to my son Paul, and you know I read it before I gave it to him. I got a copy of myself, but Jefferson is kind of that way, huh?

[37:06] Jefferson comes up a lot in there because of the association with Adams. But Jefferson was always buying things, you know, and always going into debt, and so he ended up in debt and had to sell things, and you know, it's really kind of a terrible mess he was in, right? It's just something about Jefferson, right? See, but but people are spending beyond their means, right? Adams would never do that.

[37:27] See, you know, Adams would go without rather than you know. But Jefferson, you know, was like a woman. He had to have these things, right? He kept on buying and building up these these terrible debts that he could never get his way out of. it. So Aristotle investigates son, from virtue being appraised with equality. Who is praised, right? What's the man who's who's in the mean, right?

[37:58] Between the two extremes, he doesn't spend less money than the occasion demands, right? This is my 25th wedding anniversary. We're going to McDonald's, you know. Well, if that's all I could afford, that's okay, right? But if I could afford more than that, we would go to you know nicer place than McDonald's, right? But then you know that you can you know I could buy hundred dollar bottles of wine.

[38:20] It's very easy to find them, but that would be you know wrecking the family budget and wrecking you know I'm spending more than is suitable for me to spend on these sort of things. So what's praiseworthy is to spend the amount that's right for you and right for the circumstances, huh? And to spend less or to spend more than that Now you try to see what's more essential to virtue, right?

[38:50] That it observes the golden mean, right? Okay, getting more inside the thing, huh? So it's like when he asks what wisdom is, you know. So wisdom names the the best knowledge, the best knowledge, right? That doesn't even tell you what's the knowledge of, right? And you say, well, now what is the best knowledge?

[39:18] What makes one knowledge better than another, right? And you might figure that knowledge of a better thing is better knowledge, right? So if wisdom is the best knowledge, it must be a knowledge of what? The best thing. Not the best thing is what? The universe, because the whole is better than the part, right? Then a knowledge of the universe must be wisdom, right? But if the universe had a maker, he's even better, right?

[39:50] Okay, so you're kind of reasoning your way to the fact that the best knowledge is a knowledge of God, right? So you're starting out with kind of best almost means what better than all the rest, right? But therefore you're kind of comparing it to the rest of the knowledge, and you're starting to get a more intrinsic idea of what wisdom is. It's the what? It's a knowledge of the first cause, knowledge of God.

[40:13] But you can reason from one to the other, right? Okay. But when I say Wisdom is the best knowledge I'm saying something about the knowledge itself. When I say a dog is an animal that barks, I'm saying something about the dog itself, right? But I'm using more the genus and what a property rather than the genus and the what difference. Okay, that's the difference between the difference and the property, right?

[40:44] The property is is a name of something that's following upon the nature, right? Okay, just like to be half of four is something following upon

[41:00] two, right? It's not what makes two to be two, any more than a half of four, a third of six, a fourth of eight, and fifth of ten, and so on, right? But it's something that follows upon being two that you have this relation to four, six, or eight.

[41:21] Okay, but notice what Thomas is saying here. Even this objection I'm giving here, right? You know, something wrong with it, right? But you can see there's a failure in a way to understand dog and cat when you say a dog is a cat, right?

[41:41] And if you didn't understand what a dog is or what a cat is, you wouldn't think that a dog is a cat, right? An example I always give in class is I'll say, no odd number is an even number, right? And even my students think they know that, right? But they know it because they understand enough about what an odd number is and what an even number is to see that one cannot be the other, right?

[42:10] Or if I say no triangle is a circle, they know that, right? But it's easier to know that no triangle is a circle than to know that no dog is a cat, right?

[42:29] Because you don't understand what a dog is or what a cat is as well as you understand what a triangle is and what a circle is, huh?

[42:41] Okay. In Fortior, if you say no angel is God say no angel is