De Anima (On the Soul)
151. Know Thyself: How the Understanding Soul Knows Itself Through Its Act (Summa I, Q.87, a.1), with Descartes, and Why the Indistinct Is More Certain
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/151-know-thyself-how-the-understanding-soul-knows-itself-through/

[0:00] the things which are in it, right? We get to that, we'll know how it knows the things above it. We'll talk about its knowing God. And then the knowledge of the separated soul, right? You always know what your soul's gonna You like knowing then. huh. In the. Name of the Father and the Son and 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.

[0:49] Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you've written. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So now we're up to the question on how the soul knows not what is below it, but knows itself, right? And the things that are in it. The next question will be knowing the things above it. Then he says it ought to be considered in what way the soul, the understanding soul, knows itself, right?

[1:22] And those things which are in it, and about this four things are asked. First, whether it knows itself through its own what essence, right? And that incidentally is the way the angels know themselves, and the way God knows Himself.

[1:43] And so, a lot of times, you know, I take the seven wise men of Greece. Supposed to have met at the Oracle of Delphi, and they put up two exhortations that people would see who come from over Greece to consult the Oracle. One of the exhortations was "know thyself, right? Know thyself. Okay, so I say, to whom is that addressed? Know thyself.

[2:09] Well, it's addressed to someone who can know himself, but doesn't know himself. Right. So it's not addressed to the angels and to God because they know themselves. It's not addressed to the beasts because they can't really know themselves. It's addressed to man, right? The one who can know himself but doesn't know himself. But then you could say, in a special way, it's addressed to our soul, because the soul can know what a soul is, but the body doesn't know what a body is.

[2:53] And finally, it's addressed in a very special way to your reason, because your reason is the only part of your soul that can know itself.

[3:04] Okay. You're taking less liberties than Plato does than the, Parmenides, does, right? Because he applies it even to what in knowledge of knowledge, right? There's every one knowing himself, right? Okay.

[3:25] Secondly, in what way it knows habits existing in it? Huh. Third, in what way the understanding knows its own act? I understand what a triangle is, and I know that I understand what a triangle is, and I know that I know that I know that, and so on. And fourth, in what way it knows the act of the what will? I know I love candy, or I love food, or I know I love wisdom.

[3:58] Come and say you can't know that you love God. You can conjecture that you love God. They always quote that texture. A man doesn't know whether to be worthy of love or hate, right? Okay, there's some probability that he loves God, right? But he can't be altogether certain. Okay,

[4:25] that's a particular question he takes up sometimes. Okay, to the first one proceeds thus: it seems that the understanding soul knows itself through its own essence, through its own nature, right?

[4:41] For Augustine says in the ninth book about the Trinity that the mind, which is again meaning the soul in a sense, knows itself through itself because it is what bodyless, right?

[5:02] Moreover, the angel and the human soul come together in the genus of an understanding substance, but the angel understands itself through its own nature. Therefore, also the human soul does.

[5:20] Moreover, in those things which are without matter, the same is the understanding or the intellect, and what is understood, as has been said in the third book about the soul. So Aristotle knew that about the angels and God, right? They know themselves through themselves.

[5:40] But he didn't think that our soul knew itself through itself. You have to investigate the soul through its powers, right? And the powers of the soul through the acts, and the acts through their objects, right? So we come to know our soul not through itself but through other things.

[6:04] But against this is what is said in the third book about the soul that the understanding understands itself just as it understands other things. The other things it does not understand through their essences or natures, but through their likenesses. Therefore, neither does it understand itself through its own essence or nature.

[6:33] I answer that each thing is knowable according as it is an act. And not according as it is an ability, as is said in the ninth book of the metaphysics. The ninth book of the metaphysics is about what act and potency, or act and ability, right? Okay. But you know, if you stop and think, do you know any ability? See, how do you know that I have the ability to talk?

[7:06] I have the ability to walk. Yeah, but if I'm not walking or talking, for all you know, I might be mute or I might be crippled or something, right? And not have the ability to walk or talk. So you know the ability only through the act for which it is an ability. Okay. So something is knowable as it is an act and not as it's in what ability, and that's why as Heisenberg says and Aristotle says, we know matter which is ability for form only through its forms it takes on.

[7:46] We never know ability by itself, huh? Okay. For thus something is being and true that it comes under knowledge in so far as it is an act.

[8:06] And this manifestly appears in sensible things, for the sight does not perceive the coloured inability, but only what is coloured in what act, right?

[8:20] And likewise the understanding is manifest in so far as it is what knowing material things does not know these things except according as they are an act. And hence it is that one does not know first matter which is pure ability for substance except by its what relation to what form? It is said in the first book of Aristotle's Physics. Aristotle says the first matter is to man and dog as clay is to sphere and cube.

[9:03] He knows it by proportion, right? Okay, and the likeness consists that just as the clay is able to be a sphere or able to be a cube, but not at the same time, right? But when it's actually a sphere, it retains the ability to become a cube, right? But if it did become a cube, it would cease to be a sphere, huh? So the first matter, right, is able to be a man or a dog, huh?

[9:31] But not at the same time. But when it's a man, it retains the ability to be a dog, right? And when it's a dog, the reverse, right? And of course, when we eat things or eat in ourselves, right? You find out how true this is. So something in me that's able to be a dog, got an enemy within me. Something within me able to be a lion.

[9:55] Something in me able to be worms, right? Okay. Something in me able to be dust, right? Yeah. But that ability is only known by its relation to act. Okay.

[10:13] That's why God, who's pure act, is what most knowable, most understandable. Because Aristotle points out at the beginning of the Physics, what's most knowable is least knowable to us because of the weakness of our mind. And when he comes back to that in the second book of Wisdom, he says. that the chief difficulty in knowing is the weakness of our mind? Although some things are difficult to know because they're hardly actual.

[10:50] Whence also in the immaterial substances, according as each of them has itself to this that it be an act to its own essence, so it has itself to this that through its own essence it be understandable. Now the essence of God, the nature of God, the substance of God, who is what pure act, right? In perfect act, is simply without qualification and perfectly completely in himself understandable.

[11:24] Whence God, through his own essence, not only understands himself but also all other things. In understanding himself perfectly, he understands everything that's an effect of him. Everything is an effect of him. So by knowing the cause perfectly, he knows the effect. So God doesn't get his knowledge from things. He gets all his knowledge, or has all his knowledge, in knowing himself.

[11:54] He doesn't have to reason from himself to things like we do, one thing to another. Yeah. You explain that. Right. God doesn't get his knowledge from things. All things get their existence from God's knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. The universe, plants, and the stars and things. Yeah. Thomas has an interesting three-fold distinction, huh? You know, knowing takes place by reason of some kind of likeness between the knower and the known.

[12:27] And he says now two things are alike. If something is like something else, it can be because it's a cause of that other thing, right? Or because it's an effect of that other thing, right? Or because a third thing is a cause of both of them.

[12:48] And God's knowing is characterized by what? His being the cause of everything else. Our knowledge is characterized more by the reverse. It's an effect of things. Things act upon our senses and act upon our mind. The angel is what in between, huh? Ah, God in what? Understanding how to make things makes things, and then he infuses in the angels thoughts, whereby they know all those things. So the the thoughts, the likeness between things and the thoughts of the angels is because they're both an effect of what?

[13:25] Of God. It's kind of interesting how that Plato with his theory of the forms, right? Had an idea something like that, because material things partake of the forms, and then we, through our understanding, partake of the forms, and therefore we know material things. That's really the way, not the way we are. I guess I understood that. That's the way the angels are.

[13:51] So their thoughts about things are not derived from things, but when things become like their ideas, they know them. But their ideas are derived from God, and when the angel is created, his mind is filled. All his natural ability to understand is completely formed. My little son Marcus well, he's not little anymore, but. When he was little, he says, "Why can't we be born knowing everything? " You know, maybe getting a little tired of going to school and having to learn something.

[14:21] I said, "You ought to be an angel. " I said, "Because that's the way the angel was created, right? His mind is completely formed. Nice, nice way to be, huh? Yeah.

[14:42] Now the angel's essence, huh, is in the genus of understandable things as act, but nevertheless not as pure act, right? Because in the angel, his substance and his existence are not the same thing as they are in God, who is I am, who am.

[15:02] Whence his understanding is not completed, huh, by his nature, huh? Although through his essence or nature the angel understands himself, right? But in understanding himself, he doesn't understand everything else he can understand. Okay, that's way God understands everything else, right? By understanding himself, the angel, by understanding himself through himself, doesn't know other things entirely, huh? And therefore he has to have certain what added forms, right? And these are in his very creation.

[15:39] He has these forms in his mind. Okay, but he has to have other forms besides his own essence or nature. Okay, because his own essence and nature is not infinite. It doesn't, it's not a likeness of everything, like the divine nature is. Okay,

[16:00] so interesting to study the angels someday, huh? Remember saying to Kassirkin, I want to study the angels. " He says, "Any time. " He says, "Okay, but you got to understand your own soul first, your own understanding, before you can know the angels. "

[16:23] Whence his understanding is not completed by his nature, although through his nature or essence the angel understands himself. But nevertheless, he's not able to know all things through. His nature, substance, essence, but he knows other things through their what likenesses, huh? But the human understanding now we're way way down to bottom, right? We're like prime matter in the order of understandables. But the human understanding. understanding has itself in the genus of understandable things as a being in ability only.

[17:02] Just as and this is a beautiful proportion, as matter as the first matter has itself in the genus of sensible things, whence it's called what the possible, right? The potential understanding. In Latin, use the term what intellectus possibilis, huh? And then intellectus agens, huh?

[17:26] Thus, therefore, considered in its very essence or nature, it has itself as understanding only in ability. Whence, from itself, it has power that it might understand, but not, however, that it might be understood, except according as it comes to be an act.

[17:51] Thus, also the Platonists laid down an order of understandable beings above the order of understandings, because the understanding does not understand except by partaking of the understandable, but the one partaking is below what he partakes of, according to them.

[18:13] If, therefore, the human understanding came to be an act through partaking of separated understandable forms, as a Platonist laid down, through partaking of these bodyless things, our understanding would understand itself. But because it's connatural to our understanding, according to the status of the present life, that it turns towards what material and sensible things, as has been said above, that's why we say the proper object of our reason is what it is as something you can sense or imagine.

[18:50] Okay, and so we try to understand something you can't sense or imagine. We have to understand it by likeness of what we can sense or imagine, or by negation, right? Of what we can, so we say God is incorporeal, right? We say the angels are separated substances, separated being from what matter, right?

[19:15] But because it is connatural to our understanding, according to the status of the present life, that it regard or be turned towards material and sensible things, as has been said above, it follows that it understands itself, our understanding, according as it comes to be an act through forms. Abstracted from sensible things, and abstracted from sensible things by the light of the agent understanding, the acting upon understanding, which is the act of those understandables, and by means of those the possible understanding.

[19:54] Therefore, it does not understand through its own nature, but through its own act. Our understanding knows itself. I am the ability to understand. It says right, so it's knowing what itself is the ability to understand through that act of understanding. Or Shakespeare says, "I am the ability for large discourse, looking before and after." Shakespeare's definition of reason as reason.

[20:30] Now, and it does this in two ways. or this takes. Place in two ways. In one way, in particular, according as say an individual like Socrates or Plato perceives himself to have an understanding soul, from this that he perceives himself to understand. So I know I have an understanding soul, and not just a sensing soul, like the cats and the rest of the animals have, and not just a living soul, like the plants have, right?

[21:03] I'm not only alive, I'm not only sense, but I understand at least what a triangle is, nothing else. But in another way, right? It understands in universal, according as we consider the nature of the human mind from the act of what, the understanding, okay?

[21:34] But it is true that the judgment and the efficacy of this knowledge, through which the nature of our soul we know, belongs to us, according as the derivation of our what light, the light of our understanding, the agent intellect, comes from the what divine truth, in which the reasons of all things are contained, as has been said above.

[22:03] Hence Augustine says in the ninth book about the Trinity, we what look upon an unchangeable or inviolable truth, from which perfectly, as far as we able, we define, not of what sort is the mind of each man, but how it ought to be according to these eternal reasons. A lot of times Augustine speaks, you know, he'll say we see the truth in the eternal reasons, right? But it's really he's seeing the truth in what our natural understanding, which is a what likeness of the eternal truths, huh?

[22:39] We're not seeing it in God, right? Well, Augustine's words sometimes, you know, give you that impression, huh? Okay. So he's distinguishing two knowing. It's one thing for me to know that I'm understanding, and that I'm got an intellectual soul and so on. It's another thing for me to know what is the nature of that soul, what is the nature of that understanding, right? And the man in the street might know that he understands.

[23:14] We might think his brain is his reason, huh? And doesn't know that his his reason doesn't have a bodily organ, huh? Maybe many natural scientists think that too, or psychologists think that the brain is the organ of thought, huh?

[23:34] You know, I was telling you, you know, how people conclude, you know, that because a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, or drug, alcohol, or something going to the brain, or drugs going to the brain, interfere with thinking, that therefore the brain must be the organ of thought, right? And it does show a connection between the two, right? But it doesn't show whether the brain is to the universal understanding as organ, right?

[24:09] Or whether it's in some way as object. See? Because the object of universal reason is that what it is is something sensed or imagined. And as we saw in a previous article, even after you understand what these things are, when you want to actually understand them again, you form an image of them, right? Okay, so you understand the what it is of that thing imagined. So when I want to understand what a triangle is, I imagine a triangle, right?

[24:42] But that's a singular, individual triangle that I imagine. But I understand the what it is of that, right? And by analogy, it's like you know I'm seeing right now the color of your clothes, right? Okay. Now, can I see the color of your robes without your robes being there? No, no,

[25:06] I see the blackness of you. I see the blackness of your robes, right? Now, can I see the blackness of your robes with my eyes without your robe being there? Okay. Now, if you left the room, that would interfere with my seeing the blackness of your robe, right? But would it be interfering with the organ of sight? No, in this case, it'd be interfering with the object, right?

[25:31] Because the object of sight is the color of something out there, or the sound of something out there, the telephone or whatever it is, right? Okay. Or the smell of something out there, the smell of the wine in the glass, right? Okay. Um. So to say that a blow on the brain or alcohol going to the brain or drugs going to the brain interferes with thinking does indeed show a connection between thinking and the brain, right?

[26:01] But it doesn't tell you that whether it's on the side of the object, like the example I gave, right? Or whether it's because it's the organ of understanding, right? But by a separate argument, we show that the universal reason cannot be a body. That a likeness that's received in this universal way as it is in the understanding can't be in the continuous, because any triangle in the continuous would be here or there and therefore be singular.

[26:34] So we can show by a separate argument. That the understanding is immaterial, and therefore, this interference with thinking by injury to the brain must be on the side of the object. And when we study the universal understanding, we find out that its own object is the what it is, or something sense to imagine. Then, then we see the connection between the two. So we know why interfering with the brain interferes with thinking.

[27:04] But it's because you know what the object, the understanding, is. But because we know that object enough to know that it can't be received in a material organ, universally, huh? In is received in quantity, right? And according to additional quantities, individualize. That very reason that it's here or there.

[27:26] Then we know it's on the side of the object, the interference. Okay. So there's two ways then that we're aware of it. One is that that we are thinking, right? I think, therefore, I am, is Descartes' thought, right? You're very sure about that, but that doesn't mean you're very sure about what actually is the nature of thinking, right? Is it something material or immaterial, right? And Descartes made the mistake again, you know, because he, you're very sure that you're thinking, and he thinks you must have a clear and distinct knowledge of thinking because they go together, right?

[28:12] But we see back in the beginning of the physics where Aristotle shows that the confused is more known to us than the distinct, and so I'm more sure of the confused than the distinct. So the fact that I'm very sure that I'm thinking is in no way a sign that I know really distinctly what thinking is. And that was a very tremendous mistake in Descartes' part, huh?

[28:39] How did he make that mistake Well, I think what happened was he's very much influenced by mathematics, right? And because mathematics is more certain than the other sciences for us, right? And because these mathematical things are more clear and distinct, he concluded, well, they go together, then, don't they? Certitude and clarity and distinction.

[29:06] And actually, logically speaking, if you analyze it, Descartes said we don't need logic, right? You know. But Descartes' argument, insofar as he has an argument, is what we classify in logic as a third figure enthymeme.

[29:29] And the example Aristotle gives of a third figure enthymeme is Socrates is just. Socrates is a philosopher. Therefore, philosophers are just a very strong argument, is it? That's using rhetoric, right? Yeah, it's a kind, but it's kind of argument, see? Okay. But is that a very strong argument? No. No. So, I'm saying, you know, Berquist is Swedish, half Swedish, you know. Berquist is a philosopher. Therefore, philosophers are Swedish, right?

[30:06] So, a very weak argument, right? In a sense, what he's saying here is mathematics is what more precise and distinct than the others, right? It's more certain, right? Therefore, the more certain is the more precise, huh?

[30:25] Aristotle's syllogism is that the what confused is more known to us than the distinct, right? And what is more known To us, we're more s we're more certain of. So Aristotle's argument is a syllogism, because it follows necessarily if the confused is more known to us, right? And what is more known to us is more certain for us, right? Then it follows necessarily that the confused is more what?

[30:55] Certain for us, confused now in the sense of indistinct, not confused in the sense of mistaken. Okay. Descartes may have been influenced too by the equivocation of the word confused, right?

[31:11] You know, if I think, you know, two senses are confused, right? If I think that a dog is a cat, then I'm confused, right? I'm mixed up. Now, confused in that sense means what? Mistaken, right? Now, if I say a dog is an animal,

[31:42] does animal distinguish between dog and cat? No. But am I mistaken when I say a dog is an animal? No. See. So here you can see my knowledge is what indistinct to the dog, right? But it's not the same thing as being mistaken it's not up here, right? Okay. So I think usually when we speak of the word confused or mixed up, if it's the early English, we're usually thinking of this thing up here, right?

[32:13] Okay. When Aristotle says the confused is more known to us, he means simply the what indistinct, right? Okay. And you can see that, right? Um.

[32:31] Anywhere, you know. Finding a glass of dry red wine to drink, right? Say, what is this? Well, you're more sure that it's a dry red wine than that it's Cabernet Sauvignon. It's more known to you, right? And if you know it's Cabernet Sauvignon, is it from California or Australia or France or where? Right. The more particular, the more distinct you try to get, the less sure you'll be, right?

[32:59] Okay. Always asking me to do this. How old am I? You see. But the more precise you try to give my age, right? The less what? Yeah. See, you say, well, Mr. Perkins, you're between fifty and a hundred. You might be kind of sure about that, right? See. Usually, again, I say, do you think I'm over twenty? Oh, yeah, yeah, you're over twenty. Over thirty, yeah. Over forty, yeah.

[33:29] Over fifty, yeah. See. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm over sixty, I know I am. But you see, the more precise you try to get, the less sure you are. And I asked him, how much do I weigh? You know, he kind of hesitates. You know, I say, you know, the more precise you try to get, the less sure you are. Okay. What did I weigh this morning?

[33:51] One seventy six. No. One what? In the wrong decade now. One ninety. One seventy six. What? One sixty six point eight. See. This point. So the more precise you try to get about my weight, the less sure you are, right? Yeah. Now sometimes people say, well, we can be scientific. We can get out and we can get purposes birth certificate, right? Okay. And now we know exactly how old he is, right?

[34:31] But a birth certificate's always correct. No. I know my my father died. There was records that indicated he was born in eighteen ninety one. Another records he was born eighteen ninety two. It has something to do with the insurance of it, you know, what his actual age was. But the point was, you're more sure that he was born between what in the eighteen nineties, let's say, right?

[34:56] Then he was born eighteen ninety one. You know the records said he was born eighteen ninety one. You see that? Yeah. All right. A lot of times I'll take this example in class. You know, we have one wall that's obviously longer than the other, right? I say now, which of these walls is longer? And they'll say, well, this wall here is longer than this one here, right?

[35:16] Okay. Now see, that'd be the more precise. How much longer is that wall? And of course they're just going to be guessing at that point, right? Sure. So they're more sure that it's longer than that it's seven feet three inches longer. All right. But even if that scientific, you know, and you measure that wall and you measure this wall and you came to conclusion that that wall is seven feet three inches longer, right?

[35:45] Maybe somebody else measuring that wall would get seven feet two two inches, right? Or maybe it's actually seven feet three inches and one tenth of an inch, but your ruler doesn't give you that accurate measurement, right? So it's actually not seven feet three inches longer, is it? It's seven feet three inches and one tenth of an inch. So you're actually mistaken going to be you know strict about, right?

[36:07] But you're not mistaken in saying even at that point that it's longer, right? So you can never be more sure that it's seven feet three inches longer than that it's longer, could you? All right. No. And same with a weight machine. You might weigh me in some other machine and and get a little different weight, right? Maybe I'm not really six hundred sixty-six. Let's say point eight is point eight one.

[36:33] You know, maybe it is, right? Okay, see what I mean. And the machine can't read my weight with the accuracy. Now, in college, it used to be kind of one of these weight machines in the gym there, or one of the rooms near that. We used to go through there when we go to the dances, you know. So the guys would put their girl on the weighing machine, and I got to stand around and you know pull some lower back there so her weight would be way off enough.

[37:03] I try to embarrass the girls by making them weigh more than they really did that. But as you know, these weight machines are not very accurate.

[37:13] A lot of things go wrong. So we're astounded by a perfectly good syllogism, right? The confused is more known to us. What is more known to us is more certain. Reasons that the confused is what more certain, right? That's a syllogism, huh? In the first figure, huh? But Descartes got nothing but a what Third figure enthusiast to back him up, huh? But once he made that mistake, huh?

[37:39] Then he gets two mistakes for that. Because sometimes when he's very sure about something, he thinks he must know it clearly and distinctly. I think, therefore, I am. Well, he's very sure he's thinking. Can't doubt that, right? And therefore, he thinks he must know clearly and distinctly what thought is. Doesn't follow at all, does it? See, and notice the distinction Thomas is making here between knowing that you're thinking, right, that you have intellectual soul, and knowing the very nature of these things, right?

[38:11] Okay. And in both cases, you know it through your act, right? But you have to go through a long investigation, as we did through the act, to come to know the nature of the understanding, huh? Say materiality and so on.

[38:28] The other mistake you get if something is very clear and distinct, you think it must be true because it's so clear. And of course, Louis de Broglie, there, the French physicist, there, father of wave mechanics, said, "You have no desire to be paradoxical, but contrary to Descartes, nothing is more misleading than a clear and distinct idea. " Because he's talking there partly upon the fact that they get this clarity and distinction in science by what is called idealization.

[38:59] Okay. Idealization involves going into your imagination and rounding things off, because the numbers they get in the lab don't fit the equations, but there's an acceptable margin of error. So you kind of round it off, right? And you get that clarity and distinction, right? See. But idealization is is is going out of reality. It's going into the imagination, but all the great scientists of the 20th century have talked about the fact that they were doing this idealization.

[39:33] Einstein gives us the first example of idealization: the law of inertia, which talks about a body in the absence of external forces. And Einstein says, "There's not one example such a body in our experience." So we're going into the imagination, right? And imagining what would it do under these circumstances? But then, that's how the clarity and distinction you get then in science. But there's a lack of certitude there, because you've lost, as Heisenberg says, the great physicist, the immediate connection with reality.

[40:07] Okay. Kind of amazing, huh? Heisenberg even, you know, um Commenting on Aristotle's critique of the Pythagoreans who are trying to force the experience to fit their theories, right? Rather than adapting their theories to experience. But Heisenberg says, "But you've got to force the facts." That's all science. Otherwise, science is impossible by forcing the facts. Kind

[40:37] of funny how to see the scientists saying that, huh? But then they realized there's a lack of certitude because of that. Heisenberg says that. He says, you know, in his Gifford lectures, the concepts of natural language, the non-mathematical language, vaguely defined, so the word for confused, right, have a greater stability and expansion of knowledge than the precise terms of science. He comes back to Aristotle's position now that the vague or confused is more certain than the precise and distinct.

[41:11] But Descartes had an awful lot of followers for a long time, huh? Okay. Now, there's a difference between these two knowledges, huh? For for the first knowledge about for having the first knowledge about the mind, it suffices the very presence of the mind, which is the source of the act in which the mind perceives itself, and therefore is said to know itself through its own what presence, right?

[41:55] But for the second knowledge, having the second knowledge about the mind, it does not suffice its what presence, but there is required a diligent and subtle inquisition or investigation. Of course, most men have failed to understand that about the the human reason, right? Whence many are ignorant of the nature of the soul, and many also have are mistaken or have erred about the nature of the soul, right?

[42:27] Okay. You can see the same thing they've erred about the nature of the their own understanding. They think it's the brain, huh? Kind of funny after Einstein died, they preserved his brain, right? Hoping they're going to find something out about.

[42:47] An account of which Augustine says in the tenth book about the Trinity about such an investigation of the mind. Not as it were something absent does the mind seek itself, right? But to discern what is present, it seeks, huh? That is to know its difference from other things, which is to know what it is and its nature, right? So the exhortation of the seven wise men of Greece, huh?

[43:16] Will include Thales and Solon and Pittacus and Periander of Priene, you know Bias of Priene I should say. Bias of Priene is famous for saying most men are bad.

[43:30] Heraclitus, you know, praises him as being a wise man, huh? Yeah. It's true though, most men are bad. So. But they said, "Know thyself," right? So, as I say, that can be applied to man, or to the soul in particular, or to reason itself, right? Know thyself, right? As if you know, this is addressed to someone that can know himself, but doesn't know himself, right? And there's required quite an investigation, right, For a reason to come to know itself, and for the soul to know itself, right?

[44:08] Even for man to know himself. Okay. Now, the first objection was taken from the text of Augustine, right? Thomas is going to explain that now, so it won't be contradictory here.

[44:28] To the first, therefore, it should be said that the mind knows itself through itself, because finally it arrives at a knowledge of itself, although through its what act, right? It's not knowing itself through itself as if it itself was the form by which it understands itself, right? Rather, it comes to know itself through its act.

[44:58] It itself is what what what it knows because it loves itself is is there subjoined. That's in the context of what talking about the Trinity and the what image of the Trinity in us, right? And part of that is is what if our reason comes to understand itself, there proceeds from our reason a what a thought of itself, right? And when reason knows itself, then it begins to what love itself, right?

[45:28] It's simply wonderful. Okay, and that's an image of the Trinity, right? The Son proceeding, you know, as the Word of the Father, and then the Holy Spirit proceeding as love from them.

[45:45] For something is able to be said to be known to itself in two ways. In one way, because through nothing other does it come to a knowledge of itself, as the first principles are said to be known to themselves, or because they are not knowable per accidens, just as color is per se visible and substance per accidens.

[46:13] So it goes back to that what distinction of two kinds of per se there, right? As opposed to per accidens. I was reading in the treatise in the Trinity the other day where Augustine got into some way of speaking that's not reading too good, you know. And Thomas says, "Well, he's trying to emphasize this point, but he went a little bit too far in his way of speech.

[46:46] So, one should piously expound it and not, you know, extend that way of speaking, right? You know what you can say in in in God, right? That

[47:03] God from God, light from light, true God from true God, right? But can you say divine nature from divine nature? That's I guess he gets into one point. Say, of course, God and His nature are the same thing. That's why Augustine emphasizes that. But that way of speaking would kind of indicate that the divine nature itself, right? That there was a distinction in the divine nature. Okay, and the divine nature can signify or stand for the person,

[47:34] although they are the same. But the way of signifying is not the same. It's a very subtle thing. But Augustine is such an authority, even for Thomas, right? That he has to always take into account what Augustine has said.

[48:04] But Augustine, you know, it's amazing how far Augustine got. Huh? He didn't really have that good philosophical education. Huh? He was trained in rhetorical schools. Yeah. But he must have just a tremendous natural ability, right? Tremendous mind.

[48:30] I was thinking of who are the major influences upon Thomas? You know, you know, among the authors he's read. You know, Aristotle is only one of them, and Augustine, I think, those two kind of stand out for me. Dionysius is very important too, but but Augustine seems to be the one. You know, when you go to the sense of the Lombard, you know, teaching there is based going back to church fathers, but it's it's almost always Augustine, right?

[48:59] You know, and even look at the catechism of the Catholic Church, right? Augustine. I mean, just a number of references to Augustine. It's amazing, right? There's quite a few to Thomas too, but even more to Augustine. Augustine is quite an authority, you know.

[49:15] It seems like he may not present himself logically as well. He's a more difficult read to understand. And is that because you think of it? We can be misunderstood more easily than Thomas, you know, because Augustine's way of speaking is a little bit lends itself to, misunderstanding, you know. Less ordered, maybe. Yeah, just not as precise a way of speaking. That's partly because of his. Background, right?

[49:39] You know, but but it's a more rhetorical style too. I mean, I mean if you read Augustine in Latin, these are very beautifully said. You know,

[49:54] you know, say this: the soul is more ubi amat quam ubi animat. You couldn't really translate that very well, right? The soul is more where it loves than where it it animates, right? Where where it it

[50:11] is giving life. So much in Augustine. It's amazing. Father Boulet used to use sometimes a little bit of Augustine. They're kind of interesting things. I saw one letter he was using. one. time where the um correspondent asked him, you know, is there a a opposition between faith and reason? And Augustine's answer was, there can't be because we're capable of faith because we have reason. And you know, Augustine you know, begins.

[50:57] You see Augustine's, you know, homilies in St. John, right? If you read Thomas's commentary on St. John, you know, which is very important, huh? And Pius XII they remember saying, no one can really be a follower of Thomas without knowing the commentary on John. But on almost every passage, you're using what Chrysostom and Augustine, those two, what they're saying, right? Okay.

[51:26] Of course, that anecdote of Thomas, you know, talking about Chrysostom, you know, where they came upon the city of Paris and looked down from the hills on the city of Paris, and wonderful city laid out there, and someone said to Thomas, would you like to be master of the city or something, you know? And he said, I'd rather have a copy of Chrysostom's homilies I don't know, on Matthew or John.

[51:45] One of the things he had a hard time getting a hold of at one time or something. So I'd rather have this book of Chrysostom. But Augustine he had a beautiful understanding there that was it the eighth chapter of John. He has a beautiful understanding that in the in the Confessions too, huh? The idea that knowledge is a common good, huh? And that the man who who's attached to a truth because he discovered it or he thought of it, right?

[52:21] You know, that this is a perverse attitude, right? You know. And you can see in yourself sometimes you you discover something by yourself, you know, and you're kind of attached to it, you know, because okay, but it may be a very piddling truth compared to what truth you can learn from Thomas or from Aristotle or somebody else, right? Huh? As long as I discover a little geometrical theorem that's not explicit there in in

[52:56] Euclid, you know, but it's nothing compared to Euclid, right? And the things he discovered, right, or the things that these geometers discovered, you know, I never in a million years discovered some of those things by myself, you know.

[53:11] So, but see, if I'm attached to this truth because I found it, right, or I thought it up by myself, you know, even if it's true, I'm attached to it because it's mine, not because it's true, and therefore not really loving truth the way you should love truth, huh? And Augustine says you're driven from that then to err. you're attached to it because it's yours. Well, if you're attached to it because it's true, it doesn't make any difference whether I discovered it or you discovered it.

[53:40] We love it because it's true. Okay, to the second, then those things which are without matter the same as the understanding and what is understood. But the human mind is without matter.

[54:03] He says to the second, it should be said that the essence of the angel is as act in the genus of things understandable, and therefore it has itself both as the understanding and as he understood. Whence the angel understands his own nature to himself, but not the human understanding, which is entirely in ability in respect to understandable things, as the as the possible understanding is.

[54:37] Or it is the act of understandables which are abstracted from the images as each intellect. Now, because you're going to apply that, you know, it's a little different there about the soul, Because so long as the soul is in the body, right, it's not separated from matter entirely, right? So the soul would be what that which understands itself. But once your soul is separated from your body, then a little bit like the angels, huh?

[55:04] then the soul will be what actually understandable and then understand itself itself. I think so, but we have to wait to see what Thomas says.

[55:18] Okay, but he's just applying it to the to the power itself, right? Which is like prime matter and ununderstandables. So that's why you know that our understanding is the lowest possible understanding, just like prime matter is the least actual. I mean, the least has the least being of anything, huh? That's when Thomas describes or takes up the opinion of David of Dinant, who taught that God is first matter, right?

[55:46] And Thomas says, who most stupidly taught? He's not just you know being gratuitous insult there there, but you could you couldn't take anything further away from God, who's pure act, than matter, which considered by itself, the first matter is pure ability, pure potency, right? If you had said God is a stone, that would have been closer to the truth. See, most stupidly taught that. It sounds so good in Latin.

[56:20] Yeah, yeah, but you know, you could paraphrase Thomas there and say that Alfarabi most stupidly taught that the human mind was the divine mind, right? Because the divine mind is as pure act in the order of understandables, understanding, and our minds begin with like pure ability, right? So I mean, if you had said the divine mind is is an angelic mind, then, that would have been closer to the truth, right?

[56:48] What to say the human mind. Was the divine mind was yeah most stupidly taught by Alfarabi Okay, I misread the objection. There was two. The angel and the human soul come together in the genus of intellectual substance, but the angel understands himself whose own essence therefore the human soul, and he answers that in the second objection. Okay, the third one is about those things which are without matter.

[57:31] To the third, it should be said that that word of the philosopher is universally true in every understanding, for just as the sense in act is a sensible on account of the likeness of the sensible, which is the form of the sense in act, so the understanding in act is the understood in act on account of the likeness of the thing understood, which is the form of the understanding in act.

[57:58] Now, notice when I define right what a triangle is right, that definition is in my mind right, but the definition of triangle in a way contains the nature of triangle right, so in a way I become a triangle when I understand what a triangle is, because I have the nature of triangle right, okay, but not really in the sense that I am a triangle, because I have the nature of triangle in a different way than the triangle has its own nature right, okay,

[58:37] and therefore the human understanding which comes to be an act through the form of the thing understood, through the same form is understood as through its own form. For it's the same thing to say that in those things which are without matter the same as the understanding of what is understood, as if to say that in those things which understood an act the same as the understanding of what is understood.

[59:03] That's another way of solving the difficulty. To this that some things understood in act that is without matter, but in this there is a difference because the essences of some things are without matter, as we say that the angels are what separated substances. Of course, it's the philosophers who call the angels separated substances, right? And we Christians call them angels because they become known to us from the Bible, right?

[59:36] Where they're sent as messengers, huh? That's where you get the name angels, huh? But. You don't find the name angel in Aristotle, right? But they do talk about separated substances, huh? Philosophers, separated meaning from matter.

[59:55] As the separated substances, which we call the angels, huh? of which each is both what understood and understanding. But some things there are whose essences are not without matter, like the material things we know. But only their likenesses are extracted from matter.

[1:00:17] Whence the commentator says in the third book about the soul that the induced statement does not have truth except in separated substances, for it is verified in some way in them that is not verified in us, as has been said,Okay,In other words, in the angels, because the angelic substance is entirely separated from matter, it's actually understandable, right? And so the angel, because his mind is joined to his substance, he understands his substance through itself, right?

[1:00:52] Our soul doesn't understand itself through itself because our soul is what the first act of a natural body, huh? It's the substantial form of a natural body, and so long as it's in the body, then it's not really what fully understandable, right? It has to be understood through other things.

[1:01:15] But when the soul is separate from the body, we'll find out about that later on. That's one of the articles coming up later on. Maybe they'll know in a way something like the angels know themselves, huh? Little break now.