De Anima (On the Soul)
148. Q.85 a.8 Replies and Q.86 a.1: Why the Mind Knows Causes Last, and How It Knows Singular Things
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[0:00] Now, the first objection here, Aristotle is speaking about understanding things from a knowledge of their principles or causes and elements. To the first, therefore, it should be said that in getting science or reasoned-out knowledge, not always are the beginnings and the elements before, because sometimes from sensible effects we arrive at a knowledge of the beginnings and of the understandable causes. But in the completion of a science, always the knowledge of the effects depends upon a knowledge of the what, beginnings and elements, because, as is said there by the philosophers, then we think we know scientifically when we can what.

[0:54] Resolve things to their causes, huh? So we know for the most part. We know the effect before the cause, but then when we come to know the cause, we can turn around and see the reason why the effect was the way it was. Okay.

[1:13] So the husband knows the wife is upset with him before he knows why she's upset. Okay. And so he knows that she's upset before he knows the cause of her being upset, but once he comes to know the cause of her being upset, then he understands better why she was upset. Right. But simply speaking, he could say that she is upset was more known to him than the cause.

[1:36] of her. And which is more known to us, day and night, or the cause of day and night? Day and night. Yeah. And we disagree with the ancients, who thought the cause of day and night was the sun going around the earth. Right. We think the earth is turning on its axis, and so on. But notice if we disagree about the cause, and agree that there is day and night, right?

[2:06] Well, then that there is day and night is more known to us than the cause of it, huh? Right. Men disagree about more about the less known. So historians will agree there was a French Revolution, let's say, but they might disagree as to the causes of it, right?

[2:26] And you know, and you have an election or something like that, and somebody wins and somebody loses, right? Everybody agrees that so and so won, and not always, but usually. But they often disagree as to why so and so lost the election, or why so and so won, right? What he did right, or what the other guy did wrong, or something of that sort, right? So people will get into disagreement about that, and so the effect is more known usually than the what cause.

[2:56] The exception to this is what the mathematical sciences, but there you're dealing with something that is very limited there, and very imaginable, right? Well, just take a simple example here. What I gave you before here, but I was doing fifteen here. Look, what do you have? Right. What do you have there? Intersecting straight lines, right? Now you can go from the fact that the lines intersecting are straight to demonstrate that those two angles will be equal.

[3:35] Now, as a previous theorem, it says when a straight line meets a straight line, it either makes two right angles, right, or angles equal to right angles. Okay.

[3:50] So if these are straight lines, then a plus x must be equal to two right angles, right? Right. And if this is a straight line, and this is a straight line meeting it, the same must be true about b plus x, right? So if equal to the same, they must be equal to each other. Yeah.

[4:16] And equal subtracted from equals results must be equal. But notice, huh? You're going from the cause. The cause of the angles is the intersection of the lines, right? But the cause of the equality of the angles is the straightness of the lines. If one line had been curved or bent, right, then they would not have been equal those angles, huh? So you're going from the cause to the effect, huh?

[4:44] But notice, you got here what we could call common sensibles, right? Yeah. See. But but in natural philosophy, what you sense is actually what? Not the main thing, is it? You sense the color of the cat or the shape of the cat, and so on. What he does, but why he does this, right? You sense that the trees get bigger as years go by, right? You plant a tree, but why the tree grows is kind of hidden from us, huh?

[5:17] So the effect is to our senses more known than the cause. And of course, every time we ask the question "why," that's a sign that we know the effect before the cause. Because we ask the question "why" when there's an eclipse of the sun or some other effect. And want to know the cause, so the effect is known, but the cause is what unknown. So that's why, like Sherlock Holmes says, we have to reason backwards, as far as reality is concerned.

[5:49] When uses that phrase and Watson says, "What do you mean? We reason backwards from the effect to the cause, right? " As far as reality is concerned, so that's why God is

[6:04] the last thing known in philosophy, because God is the first cause. So you go from the effect to the cause, and from the cause to the cause of the cause, and so the last thing, in a sense, you come to is the what first cause, and that's why Thomas says in the beginning, of the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, that the order of theology, meaning revealed theology, huh, where you begin with God, right?

[6:37] Is just is contrary to the order of philosophy, where you end with God, okay, and kind of strange in Gilson's metaphysics, where he's trying to proceed philosophically, he tries to begin with God, and that's what

[7:07] Jill Gilson does in his Introduction to Philosophy, right? He follows the the order of the Summa Contra Gentiles but Thomas says explicitly that this is what the order theology, God before creatures, huh?

[7:24] But you see what you're doing, as Thomas would point out, in revealed theology, you are sharing in God's own knowledge, and God knows everything else by knowing himself, and so in theology we imitate God's way of knowing, so we know God first, and everything else in comparison to God,

[7:50] but philosophy is not partaking in God's own knowledge. Philosophy is coming to know God only through his effects, and so the effects are more known than the cause, and the cause is more known than the cause of the cause, and so God, therefore, in philosophy, is really considered as such in the last part of the last part of philosophy. Aristotle does in the twelfth book of Wisdom.

[8:19] Okay. What got Descartes and Spinoza even more so off was they're so impressed with the clarity of mathematics, right? They want them to proceed everywhere like you do in math. Well, in math, you can know the cause. See, I know those lines are straight before I I figure out that those angles must be equal. So I'm going from the cause, the straightness of the line, to the effect of their straightness, which is the what, equality of those angles, huh?

[8:59] Okay. Okay. Just like in the earlier theorem, you know about the triangle. We have two sides equal, then the angles will be equal, right? Okay. Going from the cause to effect, but then they try to generalize that for the whole of our knowledge. And so, especially Spinoza goes even further than Descartes. So Spinoza says explicitly that the order in our thoughts and the order in what things is the same.

[9:28] So what is before in things is before in our. own. We have a thought of before, whereas God would say, no, they're contrary. Basically, we know the effect before the cause, and the cause before the cause of the cause, and last of all, the first cause.

[9:49] Heisenberg now the great physicist, says when we begin our study, we never start at the beginning, and that's true, right? See, water is known before hydrogen, even though hydrogen might generate water, and hydrogen is known before proton. Proton might be first of those three. That's why it's called from the very first. But proton is not first in our knowledge, right? So it's just the reverse order, huh?

[10:20] So it's a terrible mistake that Spinoza made, huh? And then Hegel comes along, right? And since our mind knows things in a confused way first, right? And the general comes before the particular in the mind. He takes the most confused and general idea, the first thought of our mind, being, and he identifies that most confused thought with the one who said, "I am who am." Terrible mistake, right?

[10:52] I mentioned how Thomas, you know, has a chapter just refuting that in the Summa Contra Gentiles huh? After he shows, you know, the truth of the statement that "I am who am," right? But Spinoza is influencing what? What's his name, Hegel, right? Okay. You know, the historians of thought—they they classify those guys who are tied up with geometry and proceeding geometrically, like Descartes and Spinoza and Leibniz, and even Hegel to some extent—they call them rationalists, right?

[11:27] As opposed to the English empiricists, right? Okay. So two extremes, different different problems that they have. Okay. So Thomas is saying, usually we we know the effect before the cause, but when we finally come to know the cause, then we know why the effect was the way it was. Weizsäcker there, the student of Heisenberg, has a book there where he he he, you know, first Aristotle's this is about the order there, and then you're going, you know, from the extended body all the way down to elementary particles, and then you kind of turn around, right, and try to see in terms of the causes you found the reason why of the things you knew before, huh?

[12:29] So they went from from the periodic table of elements. To quantum theory, which Niels Bohr applied to the atom, then they began to see the reasons for the periodic table, why you know certain things repeated themselves, right, at certain intervals and so on. So they were seeing the reason why things they knew to be so, but they came to know the reason why afterwards, huh? Okay.

[13:04] So, big mistakes there for Descartes and Spinoza and Hegel. In some ways, they're very gross, right? Yeah, but large. But Aristotle talks about, you know, when we do wisdom these days, Aristotle talks about

[13:27] how one should determine the way of proceeding in any science, huh? He talks about those who want to proceed mathematically everywhere, and of course, he's thinking of the Pythagoreans and people like that, huh? Guys who you know say the soul is a self-moving number and everything's mathematical, but I mean this same tendency dominates the what moderns, right? And it's because mathematics is some you know clarity and certitude for us, and we wish to have that kind of clarity and certitude everywhere, but you can't.

[14:04] Aristotle would give the reasons why you can't. Anyway. Now the second objection was trying to maintain that the point was placed in the definition of line, right? And actually, Euclid doesn't really say it that quite that way, but he does go on to say the points are the limits of a line, right? Okay. To a second, it should be said that point is not placed in the definition of line taken in general, right?

[14:39] For it is manifest that in an infinite line, right, and also in a circular line, right, there is not a point except in what ability, huh? But Euclid defines a what finite straight line, right? And therefore, he lays down point in the definition of line as the limit in the definition of the limited. Okay.

[15:10] I don't remember Euclid doing exactly that, huh? You know? You know, that's what Thomas' text is there? I mean, what he does, Euclid, he defines point, and then he defines line. I think as length without breadth, right? And then you'll see that the limits of a line are point, you know, so there'd be less problem that way, huh? In the way the objection is saying, right?

[15:37] The unit, however, is the measure of number, right? Okay, that's the interesting thing, right? The unit measures number, but the what point doesn't measure a line. So I can see how many ones there are in three, or four, or five, or six, but I can't see how many points there are in this line as opposed to that line, right? Okay, because there's an infinity of points in ability in every line, right?

[16:06] There's no such thing as a three point long line and a five point long line, right? Okay, and therefore it is placed in the definition of number measured, huh? You define the n number as a multitude, right? Measured by what? But is not placed in the definition of the divisible, but more the what? Reverse.

[16:41] Now, of course, through the modern mathematicians, it gets all fouled up, you know, because they talk about dividing the one into two halves there, you know, and so I tell you, students out that way of thinking a bit. I'll say, well, what's if I say what's half of three? They'll say one and a half, right? So I'll say, what's half of three points? Well, the thing is

[17:11] one and a half points, right? And then I try get them to see that the one is even simpler than the what point. So if you can't divide the point, then you can't divide the what

[17:26] the one, right? I'm trying to show them that it's what indivisible, and so it's not prior to divisible in definition, huh? But posterior because you're going to try to explain it as something indivisible. They all get that idea that you can divide the one, right? Yeah.

[17:47] And the Greeks are very sure, you know. As I say, the Platonists sometimes would define the point as a one having position, right? And they saw that the point involved more than the one, huh? But if the one were divisible, then the one having position would be a fortiori divisible, right? So I mean, they're quite clear that the one is indivisible. So I say all the problems you get into because they they're kind of you know comparing the numbers to the continuous, right?

[18:22] And they'll you know draw graphs and there's minus ones and plus ones and so on, and then you can divide like you divide the line, huh? But you're really talking about the continuous, and you talk about half of the one, talking about one line or one. No, for whatever it is, but the one itself, the abstract one, that's that's simpler than the point. It can't be divided.

[18:47] Just so accustomed, you know, to this this way of of proceeding, you know, that you can't do much with them. Now, the third objection was based upon the idea that like is known by like, but the indivisible is more like the understanding.

[19:17] To third, it should be said that the likeness by which we understand is the form of the known in the knower, and therefore it is not by the likeness of nature to the knowing power. That something is known before, but by what? Fitting in with the object.

[19:44] Otherwise, sight would know what? Sound more than what? Color. Color. Yeah. Because sight doesn't have any color, right? But it does have a sound, huh? You know.

[20:06] You know. Okay. But doesn't have any color. At least the center part. If it did, everything would look the same. Is that color? Okay. But but notice in regard to the subjection, you see. Some might say, you know, our reason, as we argued before, is something immaterial, right? Now, which is more like the immaterial, material, or the immaterial? Immaterial. Yeah. Therefore, man should know the immaterial things before material things.

[20:42] See. Well, you don't know things by what? Their likeness to your knowing power, right? But by your knowing power having a likeness of the thing known in it. Okay. And the likeness of the thing known, in the case of our reason, is taken from the what? Images, huh? And therefore, so likeness is something material. So we know material things by this immaterial power known as reason, right?

[21:19] Long before we even know they're immaterial things, huh? And in Aristotle, when he's taking a place there in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, he says it's a common opinion among the philosophers that whatever exists is somewhere. If it isn't somewhere, it, doesn't exist. I ask my students, "Would you agree with that? " Oh yeah. Whatever is somewhere. If it isn't somewhere it doesn't exist. Of course, to be somewhere is to be contained in some place, and this is a property of bodies.

[21:57] So what they're thinking really is that everything is a body, and that's all it is, and that's the way the human mind begins. You could say our mind is what left to itself, right? It's kind of almost naturally materialistic. It thinks that only bodies and what is in bodies exists.

[22:19] I remember, you know, conversation between my cousin Donald, who was trained in philosophy, with his mother, who is a pious Catholic. You know, he's trying to explain to her that God has no body, and she just couldn't buy this, right? See, and of course, you know, you think about your own soul, right? You know, where will my soul be after I die? Where, see? Well, if you're taking "where" in the strict sense, it won't be any place.

[22:51] Won't be in place anymore. And and I'm so used to living in some place. You know, all my life I've been someplace, right? I study at someplace. My books are somewhere. My tea is somewhere. My bed is somewhere. My car is somewhere. I'm somewhere always, right?

[23:14] Well, my soul won't be anywhere. You know, of course, we never think about images. Of course, that's why we we're kind of deceived by imagination to think, you know, that whatever it is must be somewhere. It isn't somewhere It doesn't exist?

[23:33] Very hard for us to rise above that, huh? But notice you could give the same objection then here to this, huh? And say, would you wish?

[23:47] If our understanding is immaterial as it is, immaterial things are more like it. Therefore, we should know them first, right? Yeah, but because our understanding, right, is a power of our soul, right? And our soul is the first act of a natural body composed of tools, right?

[24:12] Our reason's own object is what it is, is something what material, okay? And then when we try to know something that is immaterial, like the word "immaterial" indicates, right? We tend to, if we know it at all, to know it what negatively, right? So we say God is immaterial. He's incorporeal, right? He's not a body, huh? Okay. So we think about a body, but we negated a God, huh?

[24:46] And that's the way our mind knows God in this life, huh? It knows what He is not. See, when Saint John talks there in the First Epistle, I think it's

[25:04] chapter three, verse two, something like that. And where he's talking about the beatific vision, we shall see Him as He is, right? Okay, rather than this via what negativa, which we use so much in theology. So when you show God is simple, you're showing really that He's not what composed in any way, that He has no parts and so on.

[25:33] That's why Thomas is, you know. Always very clear about you know when you talk about the distinction between the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. You can speak of a distinction there, but you should not speak of a division, right? The division would imply that this was a whole, God's a whole, and these are the parts of this whole, right? You see, because division in the strict sense of the word now is a distinction of the parts of some whole.

[26:01] But the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit don't aren't parts of God. They're distinct in a much different way, huh? Okay, take a little break here before we do maybe do another first article in this next question. Okay, what our understanding knows in material things. It's going to be followed by the one about what it knows what in itself, right? Which would be eighty-seven, and eighty-eight will be what it knows those things about and above it, huh?

[26:36] So the first question is whether our understanding knows singulars. And the great Boethius says, "A thing is singular when sensed, and universal when what understood, huh? " So when I see a chair there,

[26:55] it's an individual chair, a singular chair, isn't it? But now, when I understand what that is over there, it's a chair. It's now become something universal, because what a chair is is something common to all chairs, right? I see you, right? I'm seeing an individual, singular man, right? What is this? It's an animal with reason. It's a man. That's something universal: animal with reason, a man, right?

[27:24] So when I sense you, you're singular, right? When I understand what you are, an animal with reason, I'm understanding universal. So what the reason knows directly is universal. What it is, something sensed or imagined, huh? But does it, in some way,

[27:47] able to come back to the senses, right, and know the singular? Well, as one of the objections will be pointing out, we we form statements about the singular. We say Socrates is a man, right? George Bush is a man, right? Okay. And you have to know both things to put them together, right? So if reason forms the statement, not only that man is an animal, but that George Bush is a man, let's say, he must somehow know that the singular, too, right?

[28:22] But Aristotle says by kind of what coming back upon its origin rather than directly. Directly it knows what it is, huh? And that's something universal. What it is of the triangle imagined or the man imagined, right? To the first, thus one proceeds. It seems that our understanding knows singulars. For whoever knows some composition, something put together, knows the extremes put together. But our understanding knows this putting together.

[29:03] Socrates is a man, right? For it belongs to it, or it's of it, to form this proposition or statement. Therefore, our understanding knows the singular, which is what Socrates, right?

[29:23] Moreover, the practical understanding, right, directs us in doing something. But actions are always. About the what singulars, huh? So the dentist is fixing up my mouth, my individual mouth, right?

[29:40] Therefore, he knows singulars, huh? Moreover, our understanding understands itself, but it is something singular. Otherwise, it would not have some act. For actions belong to singulars. Therefore, understanding knows the singular.

[30:10] Moreover, what a lower power can do, so a higher power can do. But the sense knows the singular. Therefore, much more does the understanding know the singular. But against this is what the philosopher says in the first book of Natural Hearing, Physics, that the universal by reason is known, the singular by sense.

[30:41] Okay. Thomas says, "I answer. It should be said that the singular in material things now—that's important. He's saying in material things, our understanding directly and first is not able to know. Okay. That's why he's saying that. It's important those two words are adverbs, directe and what primo, right? What our mind knows directly is the what it is—that something sensed or imagined, right? And that's something universal. That's what it knows directly and first, right?

[31:27] Now the reason for this is because the beginning or cause of singularity in material things is individual matter, huh? And we talked about that a little bit before, right? Huh? Why can you have many individuals of the same kind in the material world?

[31:51] Yeah, it's because you have enough glass here that you can have all these little panes the same exactly, right? Okay, and why can you have many chairs here all the same? Because you have enough metal, right? Or if it was wood, wooden chairs, because you have enough wood, right? So it's some kind of matter—wood or metal or glass—as subject to quantity, right? Enables you to divide it into many individuals of the same kind.

[32:23] That's why can you have many individuals of the same kind in in geometry too, huh? Because you have quantity there, huh? Okay. But our understanding, as has been said above, understands by separating or abstracting the understandable form from this kind of matter.

[32:50] But what is separated from individual matter is universal. Whence understanding directly does not know except the what universals, huh? But indirectly, and through a certain what reflection, meaning like coming back, right? Okay. Directly, it knows only universal, but it can come back to the what origin of its own act, and by kind of reflection, it comes back to the singular. Indirectly, and by a certain reflection, those Aristotle's words is able to know the singular.

[33:30] Because, as has been said above, even after it abstracts the understandable forms, is not able to understand and act by them except by what turning itself towards images. In which it understands the what understandable forms, as is said in the third book about the soul. So even after you understand what a triangle is, when you actually want to understand what a triangle is right now, I will imagine a triangle, right?

[34:04] And I'll be understanding what it is of that triangle imagined, right? So I'm coming back to the origin, right? To the images which are the origin of my thought.

[34:21] Thus, therefore, the universal itself it understands directly through the understandable form. But indirectly, the singulars of which they are what of which there are images, right? And in this way, it forms this statement that Socrates is a what man. Whence is clear the solution to the first.

[34:53] Incidentally, the word proposition originally it meant the premise of a syllogism. That's where where the etymology of it is. Propositio, right? It's placed for something, right? And then, due to custom, it became customary to call any statement a what proposition, right? But I don't like that. But anyway, that's what happened. Okay. I

[35:26] like to call it a statement. So that's going to answer the first objection, he says. Because in some way our understanding has to know the singular. You may recall the argument you know for the common sense. Remember that we sense the difference between white and sweet, and the eye can't do that because it knows only white, and the sense of taste can't what do it because it knows only sweet, and even the two together can't do it.

[36:08] But it's got to be one thing that knows both, right? So if we form the statement that Socrates is a man, or you are a man, right? Or this is a chair, right? This is a table. This is a glass, and we do form such statements, obviously, right? Then the one that forms a statement, which is reason, that forms statements, must know the two things that are being put together in that statement, and since one of them is a singular, right?

[36:38] This chair, or Socrates, or Duane is a man, or something. It must, in some way, know the singular, right? But it doesn't know it directly, right? Through its form, it's it's received, but by turning back, right, to its origin, which is the what imagination, huh? So it doesn't know it. It's like knowing it like this, right? This is the origin of it, right? And then what knows directly is universal, and then by reflex motion it comes back upon its origin, and that's the way it knows the singular, right?

[37:16] Indirectly, huh? Okay, and that's why you say, you know, if someone says to you, you know, if you ask me, what is Monsignor Dionne like? Well, I can say a lot of things about him, but everything I say about him is something universal, huh? And any individual you want to describe, right? You ask me, what is your mother like? Well, the only thing I would say about my mother would be something what universal, right?

[37:46] Do you see that? I mean, unless, I just pointed her. There she is, you know. You see, but then I'm you know back to my senses, huh?

[38:06] What can I say? Huh? What do you say about me? He's a man, okay. He's white. He's lost some weight, you know. But none of these things are what peculiar to me, are they? Huh?

[38:26] He's a philosopher. Thinks a lot. He drinks a lot. Wouldn't your, you know, your name be very similar? I know, I know, but you say, but but the name, yeah, but but but tell me who this Duane is, right? Well he's a man? He thinks he's white.

[38:56] Hair is getting gray. Hair is gray. It's getting gray, right? But these are all universals, aren't they? True. Can you say? No, there's something unique about each human being, but can you really express that?

[39:24] You're going to be using universals to express it. That's what you know directly. Okay, now the second objection was saying that the practical intellect directs us to acting, but actions are about the singulars. To the second, should be said that the choice of a particular thing to be done is as the conclusion of a syllogism of the practical what understanding, right?

[40:07] So the human body should be fed, huh? This is a human body, therefore it should be fed. Okay, that's the kind of syllogism we have, right? But from a universal proposition directly, one cannot, one is not able to conclude the singular, except

[40:29] by medium of, right? Some singular proposition that is taken up on, whence the universal reason of the under practical understanding does not move except through a particular apprehension of the sensitive part, as is said in the third book about the soul, right? Okay.

[40:58] So the doctor has universal, right? Gives the headache man an aspirin, right? This man has a headache, but he knows this man and his fever or whatever it is by his senses, right? So there's,

[41:18] he can't act without going back to his senses, huh? On you, right? Apply a cold washcloth to the the feverish head. Ah, this is feverish, right? So we'll apply cold thing. I have to go back to my senses, right, to complete this curing of you, huh? And that's the reason why, you know, our passions or emotions are so strong, huh? Because they're closer to our senses, huh?

[41:55] And so we may not apply the universals that we should, right? Adultery should be avoided, right? Or, you know, this is adultery, right? Huh? See, but you may not apply the universal to this particular case, right? Or you may apply this is pleasant rather than this is adultery, right? And so when a man chooses to do something like that, he's making a mistake, right? He's not applying what he should to the situation, huh?

[42:23] Yeah, but because the situation and what he does is singular, the senses have a great what role to play, right? Because they are the direct knowledge of the singular, reason is not a direct knowledge of the singular. Reason is a direct knowledge of the universal.

[42:42] So the senses can can dominate sometimes, right? But we do, and because of emotion, and, so on, the right understanding of the universal may not be applied to this case in front of us.

[43:04] Now the fourth one was saying that what the lower can do, the higher can do better. Well, to the fourth, it should be said that the higher power

[43:15] is able to do what the lower power does, but in more eminent way. Whence what the senses know in a material way and concrete way, which is to know the singular directly, right? And also getting that word directe, right? This the understanding knows in an immaterial way and abstractly, which is to know the universal. That could be a little more expanded, obviously. The senses as such don't know what even their objects are, right?

[43:43] Does the eye know what color is? No. Does the ear know what sound is? But reason is able to know what sound is or what color is to some extent, right? And so, in knowing what something is, you're knowing the thing better in a way than the senses know it, huh? But as far as the singular as such is concerned, the senses are knowing that directly, huh?

[44:11] And reason isn't, right? So when you drink the wine, reason knows more than the tongue or the sense of smell what wine is, right? What smell is that matter, right?

[44:29] But the sense of taste and the sense of smell know more the singular smell and flavor of this wine than the reason does, right? Reason knows only the universal.