De Anima (On the Soul)
154. Part 2: Truth and good, wits and dimwits, self-rule of the mind, and whether we can know immaterial substances (ST I q.87 a.4 – q.88 a.1)
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/154-part-2-truth-and-good-wits-and-dimwits-self-rule-of-the-mind/

[0:00] Okay. The second, second objection is based upon what the object of the reason being different from the object of the will. Okay. To the second, it should be said that good and true,

[0:23] which are objects of the will and the understanding, they differ in their definition, right? But nevertheless, truly one of them is contained under the other. For truth, or to be true, is a particular what good, right? It's something good, truth, right? But there are other things that are good besides truth, huh? Okay. And the good is a certain what true thing, right? So there's truth about the good as truth about dogs, right?

[1:01] Okay. So it's interesting, huh? That the object of reason, truth, when compared to the object of the will, is a particular good, right? It's not every good. And the truth about good is a particular truth, and not every truth, right? Isn't it Interesting, huh? That the object of the understanding is a particular good, and the object of the will is a particular truth, or the truth about that, right?

[1:42] Isn't it odd? Mm-hmm. You see, That each is a part of the other, according to its what? Its object. Okay. Very, very amazing thing. And therefore, reason can know the truth about the good and about the will, and the will can will the good of the reason as well as a good of other parts of our makeup. Huh? Amazing. Absolutely amazing, huh? That's why they're both principles of each other.

[2:16] Yeah, yeah, but they can, you know, have some causality respect to each other, right? That's why you know the the one of the last courses I had from Dion, you know, he was talking about the

[2:35] the the role of the will in the use of your reason, right? And he took the Confessions of Saint Augustine, huh? And followed the movements of Augustine's will in the Confessions, huh? To illustrate, you know, what he was saying, huh? And I remember one one incident there in the Confessions there where Monica, who's very concerned, obviously about her son, this is before the conversion, right? And she wants the bishop to talk to Augustine, right?

[3:16] And the bishop says, not yet. See, as because Augustine at this point is not what disposed, not docere, the docility of the will. So I mean, there's the use of your reason, right? That I apply my reason to think about this rather than about that. How my will determines that or can determine that, huh? Or that I apply myself, you know, when Thomas is talking, for example, in the commentary of Saint Paul, there about pride, you know, now pride is in the will, see?

[4:00] And in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he calls pride there the mater erroris, the mother of error, the mother of mistakes, right? But in the commentary in Saint on Saint Paul, he points out how in two ways the will, I mean, how pride is a cause of error. The proud man will apply his mind to judging something that is beyond his powers to judge, right? In other words, he will think himself to be what better than he is, right?

[4:37] And therefore, he is capable of judging something that he's not capable of judging, or that he's capable of judging it before he's really capable of judging it, right? And that way, he easily makes a mistake, huh? But the other way that pride makes one is that you don't listen to those who are wiser than you. And I think of how many times I've been pulled back from mistakes by Kasurik or by Dion, right?

[5:10] And or by Thomas or by Aristotle, right? You know. Well, if you have pride, though, you're kind of your own what master you think you are anyway, right? And so you don't listen to those who are wiser than you, and therefore you what? Make all kinds of mistakes, and are not called back from all kinds of mistakes that you make. So the will, in the form of pride, there has a tremendous influence upon a bad influence upon the mind.

[5:51] But there is a docility also that's in the will, right? Thomas talks about, or by the secunde, secunde, there where, you know, where the mind is is willing to apply itself carefully, frequently, he says, and with reverence to the words of those wiser than oneself, or greater than oneself. But it's kind of an interesting phrase, huh?

[6:21] There is the will to to to to hear or to read, right? wherever the access you have to the person's words. Words, the will to

[6:34] hear or read carefully, frequently, and with reverence. There's a few words using the words of those greater than us. Of course, again, this is partly to a need to know yourself. And this famous, famous passage of Hesiod, that Aristotle quotes in Nicomachean Ethics. Best of all is the man who can discover these things himself. Next best, he says, is the man who can learn it from the man who discovered them.

[7:16] But then the third are those who can neither what discover it themselves nor learn it from those. Aristotle, you know, quotes this with approval, and Thomas approves it in his commentary, right?

[7:30] And you see this in Basil's. I think it's in his exhortation, you know, about reading the Greeks. There, where Basil talks, makes that same division, right? Even Machiavelli makes that division, right? Okay. Now, in a kind of playful way, I divide these three minds that you distinguish into the wits, the dim wits, and the nitwits. You've probably heard this before, right? Okay. Now the wits are those who can discover something important by themselves.

[8:00] The dim wits are those who cannot, but who can learn it from the wits, right? But the nitwits are those who can neither discover it themselves nor learn it. So part of knowing yourself is to know whether you're a wit or a dimwit and a nitwit, right? And it's a real problem if a dim wit thinks he's a wit, because then he's going to be his own man, so to speak, right?

[8:31] He's not going to learn from the true wits, and that's a real impediment to the life of the mind. Now I go a step further, huh? And subdivide the middle group there, the dim wits, right? I classify myself as a dim wit, but I divide the dim wits into two groups. The dim wits

[9:03] who know who the wits are, and the dim wits who don't know who the wits are. And I call those dim wits who know who the wits are the upper dim wits, and those dim wits who don't know who the wits are the lower dim wits. And I classify myself as an upper dim wit.

[9:27] So I want to know geometry. I go to Euclid, right? When know logic, I go to Aristotle. When I know theology, I go to Thomas Aquinas, right? And Saint Augustine, so on, right?

[9:42] So it's important to know who the the wits are. But out of pride, you see, a dim wit may think he's a wit, huh? And then he's got greedy problems, right? And he'll try to to judge these things on his own, and he easily can fail because he doesn't have the ability to to them himself.

[10:12] Okay. So my own experience of philosophers in academic world, huh? And in general, the the thing in academic world is everybody's trying to think for himself.

[10:54] And this is kind of a platitude here on graduation day, you know, you know, when the student giving the valedictorian, whatever it is, you know, praising the faculty for teaching us, you know, how to think for ourselves.

[11:14] Well, you know, and I do that great fragment of Anaxagoras there. I talked to you before. I think about the apparent contradiction in the great fragment.

[11:32] Anaxagoras: the second thing he says about the mind is that it's self-ruling, huh? And I say, now, a sign of the truth of the mind being self-ruling is the existence of that part of philosophy called logic. Because logic is the art whereby reason what directs not the hand or the foot, but directs itself, right? So logic is a sign of the truth of the statement that the mind is self-ruling, right?

[12:04] Okay. But then Anaxagoras goes on in the next phrase, and he's talking about the greater mind and how it's not mixed with matter, huh?

[12:18] And the reason it's not mixed with matter is that it couldn't rule over it if it was mixed with it. So he enunciates the principle that the ruler must be separated from the ruled. And so I say, now this makes sense too. The first thing we demand of a judge, right, who's going to decide between you two in your disagreement, is that he be impartial, right? That he not be, say, a friend of one of you, or kind of financial interest in your company or something, right?

[12:53] But impartial means literally what? Not a part of, right? So you have to make a separation there between the man who judges or rules and those who are ruled over, right? In the army, you know, you salute first, right? Your superior officer, right? So the army very much makes a separation there between those who command and those who what? Obey, right? So it makes sense to say that the ruler must be separated from the ruled, huh?

[13:27] But how do you fit that together with the mind is self-ruling? Because the mind is not separate from itself. You see the apparent contradiction? Yet there's good reason, huh, to say that the ruler must be separated from the ruled, and there's good reason to say the mind is self-ruling. Yet the two seem to contradict each other. These two truths.

[13:52] What's the solution to that, huh? Well, I take the the clue to the solution from Socrates, huh? And what Socrates does beginning in the Republic there, where he's talking about the soul, and he argues a certain way, and first book there, and beginning of the second book, you know, someone says to Socrates, you want to appear to have convinced us, or do you really want to convince us?

[14:31] And Socrates says, I really want to convince you, huh? Well, the thing is kind of hard to see that Socrates is showing the first book. Socrates is going to blow it up big so they can all see it. And then you get this famous comparison in the Republic between the parts of the soul and the parts of the city, and you can see more easily the distinction of the parts of the city than the parts of the soul, okay?

[15:00] So I imitate Socrates there and I say, when a country is a colony, does it enjoy self-rule? No. But if the country revolts or gains independence in some other way, it begins to enjoy self-rule. But does self-rule mean that the whole country is ruling the whole country? No. It means that one part, one group of men called the government, are ruling the other parts of the city, okay?

[15:30] So there's still a distinction there between the ruler and the ruled, although we might use the phrase self-rule, right? But doesn't mean that the ruler and the ruled are the same, does it? Then I take something harder to see. Sometimes we speak of a man as having self-control, right? When a man loses temper or something, maybe we say he's lost his self-control, right? But does the self-control, mean, which is a kind of self-rule, does that mean that the ruler and the ruled are the same?

[16:07] No, but it's one part of man, namely his reason, controlling the other part of the man, his emotions. So there's still a distinction between the ruler and the ruled. But if your reason is mixed up with your emotions, your reason can't what rule your emotions on. And very often our reason gets mixed up. With our emotions, right? Now that's much harder to see than the different parts of the city, right?

[16:38] And sometimes Plato compares reason and the emotions to a man and a horse, right? The man is trying to tame the horse, and the horse is trying to throw the man off, right? And so, reason is the emotions a bit like the man to the horse, right? But if the man continues to get on top of the horse, he can eventually what? Tame the horse, and the horse will obey him.

[16:59] In the same way that Washington Irving describes this in *The Tour of the West*, right? It's amazing how these wild horses are so quickly tamed. You know, by man knows how to do it. Okay, but now when you come to the reason, reason doesn't have two parts. And of course, as the great Anaxagoras says, reason is the thinnest of all things. So if it had some parts it would be something thin than reason.

[17:24] But I say there is nevertheless a separation in the reason when it rules itself, and what is that? Well, they've all had introduction to philosophy and read *The Life of Socrates* and *The Apology*, about what Socrates famous for? What separation was he trying to get men to make in their own mind, in which almost everybody talked to had not made. The same stuff. No, they had mixed up what they didn't know with what they did know.

[18:00] You see, so they thought they knew things they didn't know, right? So they had mixed up what they didn't know with what they did know. And Socrates was mainly trying to get men to separate what they do know from what they don't know. Now, how does the mind rule itself? Well, the mind is ruled in what it doesn't know by what it does know. If I know, for example, the length and the width of that blackboard, right?

[18:31] I'm going to be ruled in what I say about the area by my knowledge of the length, and by my knowledge of the width, and by my knowledge of I'll multiply, right? You see that? So reason is ruled in what it doesn't know by what it does know. But that presupposes you separated what you know from what you don't know. But Socrates' life is a witness to the fact in his conversations with men that most men have not separated the two.

[19:02] In which case, their mind can't think for itself yet. Their mind can't rule itself, right? Yeah. And most men have a very hard time separating these, huh? And Aristotle went further to try to separate what the more known from the less known, right? And eventually to separate what is most known from everything else, huh? Most men have not. Make the separations, and therefore they can't think for themselves.

[19:38] But out of pride, they will try to think for themselves. But then they obviously make all kinds of mistakes. Charles De Koninck said, "you know, you do the history of modern philosophy as the denial of the more known by the less known, and that's really what happens in the modern philosophers."

[20:00] Okay. Now we're going to go back to the reply to the second objection, right? It's saying that the true and the good are the objects of the will and the intellect, and they differ, right? They differ in definition, Thomas says. But nevertheless, one of them is contained under the what? Other, right? Now notice, notice that, huh? That's very interesting. See, because if you take the eye and the ear, see, you say, well, these are two different powers with different objects, right?

[20:49] And the object of the eye is color, and the object of the ear is sound, right? Well, notice, sound is not a particular color, is it?

[21:02] And color is not a particular sound. So the eye cannot really know what the ear knows, right? And consequently, can't know what hearing is, right? Because it can't know what sound is, right? And the ear can't know what seeing is or what color is, right? Okay. But now it's like that with the understanding and the will, where the object is the one, the good, and the other, the true.

[21:34] Well, the understanding knows what is true about the good. For example, the first thing we say about the good in ethics is the good is what all want. Okay. So we, the reason, can know the truth about the good. But vice versa, the will can will what? Not only the good of the body, but the good of the reason, right? And truth is the particular good, right?

[22:04] So, just as the truth about good is one particular truth, right? So likewise, truth is also one particular good. Very important good, obviously, but it's a particular good, right? Not the only good, right? Okay.

[22:26] So my will can extend not only to truth but to food and to music of Mozart and so on, right? See, and my reason can know not only the truth about good, but know the truth about food, know the truth about Mozart.

[22:50] Nevertheless, one of them is contained under the other. Isn't that amazing? For the true is a certain good, huh? Truth is a certain good, and the good is a certain what? Truth. And therefore, those things which are of the will fall under the understanding, and those things which are the understanding are able to come under the what? Will. Yeah. So I can understand that I will, right?

[23:20] And I can will that I understand. I can will to apply my understanding, right? That's important. I'm sure my students will to apply their understanding to the the matter at hand, right? You see, but the use of your understanding in that sense depends upon your will. Vice versa.

[23:53] Now the third objection, huh? This strange words of Augustine, right? What does he mean by notions, huh? Okay. To the third, it should be said that the affections of the soul are not in the understanding, neither by likeness only as bodies are, nor by presence as in a subject as the art, huh? Art is right reason about making right, so art is in reason itself, right? So reason knows arts because they're in itself, right?

[24:37] Okay. And it knows bodies not because there's bodies in the reason, but because the likenesses of bodies, representation of them is in it. But as a thing that has a beginning is in its beginning, right?

[24:56] In which it has the notion of something that has a beginning, because the good is understood as the object of the will, right? It's the beginning of that, huh? And therefore Augustine says that the affections of the soul are in the memory through certain what notions, huh? Well, that's kind of Augustine's strange speak way of speaking there. thomas is explaining

[25:30] so we should start to look at the next one here. I don't have a good time to look at the article. So we have a long article. It's up to you. This is question eighty-eight now. In what way the human soul knows those things which are above it? Huh?

[25:58] Then it should be considered in what way the human soul knows those things which are above it, to wit, the what? Immaterial substances. Huh?

[26:11] So he's talked about the way the soul knows things below it, right? And things, what? Itself, right? And then things above it. Huh? Reminds me of the excitation to use reason by Shakespeare, right? Because here we touched upon five Reasons why we should what use our reason, use it more. And one of them was in comparison to what is below man. Two of them with respect to what is above man, and two of them with respect to man himself.

[26:49] Remember that. What is the man? It says, "If his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed, a beast no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused. Well, notice in comparison to what is below man. He's saying what if you don't use your reason, you're going to fall to the level of a beast.

[27:20] That's a good reason to use your reason, right? You're going to be less than yourself, right? And be a beast if you don't use your reason. Okay. But then he has two reasons with respect to what is above man. He calls reason godlike. He's saying that by using your reason or by using your reason well, you become in some way like God. You become wise, so far as possible for human being, right?

[27:45] Become like God, who made all things in wisdom and so on. And then when he said, "Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, right? Gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused. " Another reference to God, right? And there he's saying that in using your reason, you are what following God's plan for you, okay? And giving you reason. So he didn't give it to you not to be used, huh?

[28:15] So there's two reasons in comparison to what is above man, huh? And then he touches upon the fact that man's chief good is more than the good of the beast, and it could have to involve reason, which is what man has more than the beast. So you can't achieve your chief good without using your reason, huh? And then a connection between it and what a man is.

[28:38] And as you bring in the words of Polonius to that point, this above all to thine own self be true. So you can't be true to yourself unless you use your reason, right? So it's kind of interesting, huh? Just like Thomas here, right? Gives five reasons or touches upon five reasons, each one of which is sufficient, more than sufficient, for using your reason and using it more than you do, right?

[29:03] Well, one is with respect to what is below man, two are with respect to what is above man, and two are with respect to man himself, right? Man can't achieve his chief good. He can't be true to himself without using reason. If he doesn't use reason, he'll fall to the level of a beast. Uses it well, he becomes like God and obeys God in His plan for us.

[29:25] Well, Thomas is doing the same thing here. He's talking about how man knows things, the soul knows things below itself. And then we just saw how it knows what's in itself, right? And now you are looking at just like Shakespeare, right? Shakespeare just like him, I guess. Huh? I mean, nobody knows where Shakespeare's wisdom comes from. You know, there is some lacunas in our knowledge, obviously, of his life.

[29:51] huh? He's a man, huh? He's the wisest of the poets, huh? And he's wiser than any of the modern philosophers, far away. And yet he says, on in *Midsummer Night's Dream*, that the lover, the madman, and the poet are all compact of imagination.

[30:16] And of course, imagination is the source of deception and error, right? So, Shakespeare is saying, "Poet is that's what a poet is. " So, how can this poet be so wise?

[30:34] That's why I say Plato and Shakespeare, you know, are most unusual because Shakespeare is a poet but with philosophical gifts, right? And Plato was a philosopher but with some poetic gifts, as you see in the in the dialogues.

[30:53] You know, usually these things are at odds, right? Either man's following his imagination or he's following his reason. How can you follow both? Homer, I guess, is kind of wise too. huh? Shakespeare's even wiser. Or, Did Shakespeare get his wisdom from some contact with the philosophers or contact with the Bible? You know, or was he a wit?

[31:34] Very, very. Sorry, I can't turn him out, But, anyway. And about this, we ask three things. First, whether the human soul, according to the status of the present life, is able to understand the immaterial substances. Which we call angels, huh? To themselves, right? huh? I think? I mentioned that before. That angel is not the name we use in philosophy for these immaterial substances. We call them usually the immaterial substances or the separated substances, right?

[32:18] But separated means immaterial, really. Okay, but we call them angels because of our familiarity with them in the Bible, right? An angel means what? Messenger, right? Okay, and so we become aware of the angels when you know a messenger is sent to to Tobias or to to the Blessed Virgin or somebody, right? Or to Joseph in a dream or something, right? Okay, so, but that's not the way the philosopher would tend to name them.

[32:49] Okay, and if the answer to that is somewhat negative, the second question is whether one can arrive at a knowledge of them through a knowledge of what material things, huh?

[33:08] And the third, the strange position that you find in some Christian thinkers that God is what is first known by us. Okay, interesting thing. Okay, we may not be able to finish this article, but let's begin anyway.

[33:27] To the first, thus one proceeds. It seems that the human soul, according to the status of the present life, is able to understand the immaterial substances through themselves.

[33:43] For Augustine says in the ninth book about the Trinity that the mind itself, huh, just as it gathers what through the senses of the body knowledge of bodily things, so through itself it gains a knowledge of the bodiless things, right? The incorporeal things, huh?

[34:13] But substances of this kind, bodiless ones, are the immaterial substances. Therefore, our mind understands the immaterial substances. Notice what Augustine is saying there, right? That a knowledge of the mind, or we could say, a knowledge of the soul, right, and a knowledge in particular of the understanding soul, our own soul, is what a gateway for us to the immaterial world, huh?

[34:46] If we didn't know our own understanding soul and the connection between what understanding and immateriality, we wouldn't know anything about the immaterial substances being understanding. That the angels understand, and therefore it's the only, God understands, huh? Okay, we have to see first in our own understanding the connection between immateriality and being understandable. And of course, the immateriality of our soul, separability from matter, we get kind of a clue that there could be what immaterial substances whose very nature was to be separated from matter.

[35:34] They're not the form of a body like our soul is, huh? So the study of the soul is a stepping stone to the study of the immaterial world, huh? And in a sense, the study of the soul is at the horizon between the material world and the immaterial world, especially the study of the understanding soul, the human soul.

[36:09] There's some place in scripture where God is said to have a soul, and that's of course almost said metaphorically, right? Was kind of striking to see that, huh? You know.

[36:24] Moreover, like is known by like, huh? But the human mind, being the human soul, is more like immaterial things than material things, since the mind itself is immaterial, as is clear from the things said before. Since therefore our mind understands or our soul understands material things, much more does it understand immaterial things. If our soul is more like the angels, right? And like material things, knowing is by likeness, right?

[37:04] Wouldn't our soul know the angels more? Yeah. But notice, son, even for Catholics, who might have some faith and so on, the angels are kind of fuzzy in their what thinking, huh? I remember years ago I told you that story. I was in class one time, and I something I said something about the angels, something like that. And I had a student who was actually, I think, studying, you know, with the Assumptionist, right?

[37:33] I mean, like a like a seminary. And he's kind of he's kind of puzzled, and he says says to me, "Do angels really exist?" And I said to him, "They're more real than you are."

[37:52] What could he say? But they are more real than we are. I mean, it shows you. I mean, how fuzzy our thinking is, right? You know, my one of my cousins there who was a philosopher, you know, and but his wife thought it was so silly to talk about the angels, right? You know, that was fairy tale or something, huh? You see, see, you have people who are very mixed up about the angels, huh?

[38:21] And a lot of them, I mean, if you talk to people, you know, they're now now there's kind of a fashion about angels, you know, some kind of pretty thing, but I mean, yeah, yeah. So you got to be kind of careful about that, but you know, the people are always falling back in that position of thinking that the what whatever it is must be a body, right?

[38:44] As you all seen, out of sight, out of mind. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Now in my bedroom at home, there, he shared me for the mark. He always had the little picture, you know, the boy and girl going across the bridge there, you know, the angel kind of guiding them, right? Always sticks in my mind, you know, kind of the first representation.

[39:10] When my brother Richard came back from Italy, there, he brought back you know four of these Fra Angelico angels, huh? Had them framed, you know, put them in the children's room. So, of course, those are really. I mean, insofar as you're going to do a drawing of the angels, the fra Angelico is the one to go to, huh? And I mean, still have one of those things.

[39:31] I picked up when I was over there, you know, and kind of these wall like this, and all these pictures of the angels, you know, done by Fra Angelico. But they really look like impressive creatures, you know, even though they're obviously, you know, a drawing, right? These don't don't have a body, but I mean, can represent them, you know, body wise. This is the way to do it, huh?

[39:50] They don't have wings, huh? Oh yeah, they have wings. Yeah, they're very impressive, though, you know. Not, not okay. But incidentally, you know, talking about the church again, too. You know, there's kind of a conspiracy, you know, to eliminate the word "soul" from the translations of the Bible, and

[40:24] you know, even like the Magnificat and so on. Now, if you go through it, you know, some of these translations eliminate the word "soul," so you don't even hear the word "soul," right? It's like it's a. They try to do that in the translation of the Catechism. They try to do that in the translation of the Catechism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The word "soul," yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

[40:46] I can see the word "soul" except in soul music, whatever that is. Yeah. So. Moreover, those things which, in themselves, are most what sensible, right? Are not most sensed by us, on account of this, that the excellences or the excelling qualities of the sensibles corrupt the sense, huh? So if the light is too bright, it what? Blinds. Yeah, yeah. Okay. If you come out of a dark theater in the sunny afternoon, you kind of blinded, right?

[41:40] Huh? Okay. Come out of a dark room into the bright room. Okay. But the excellences of understandable things do not corrupt the understanding, huh?

[41:57] Now that's that's a a sign that Aristotle gives in the De Anima there, of the immateriality of the understanding, huh? When I think about God, I'm not less able to think about lesser things, right? But more able to do so, huh? You know. You know, if you go through the treatise on the Trinity, there, right? Really, a workout for your mind, right? You see. And you're dealing with something that's, you know, the highest thing above your mind, right?

[42:28] But now when I turn back to say Euclid and talk about the triangle and these geometrical theorems, I'm not, you know, blinded by the fact that I've been thinking about the Trinity. I can understand the triangle better now, right? See. But the case of the senses, because they're a bodily thing, you look at something very bright, and you look at other things, you can't see them at all.

[42:51] Or you taste something, you know, that's very potent, you know, some of these hot stuff that they have in the Chinese restaurant or something like that. I mean, really hot stuff, and got rings and such, you can't taste anything. You see. Even as a kid, you know, eat all these, you know, lemon drops and like that, and you can't taste your dinner or something, you know. See.

[43:17] Therefore, he's saying those things which are most understandable are also most understandable. What? For us. That's a little jump there, right? From what Aristotle is pointed out, huh?

[43:33] Aristotle's point out that when you think about something very understandable, that doesn't prevent you from turning to something less understandable. You can make more sense out of it, right? Okay. I've noticed that a lot, you know, going from philosophy sometimes to listening to music, right? Which is more understandable, philosophy or music? Philosophy. Yeah, because music is representing the emotions, which are reasonable by partaking of reason in some way.

[44:07] They can be right. You know, the reason why the music of the 18th century is better than the Romantic music and 18th century than stuff we have, is it represents the emotions in a state in what? It's reasonable, right? But nevertheless, is reasonable by partaking of reason, huh? And so they're less understandable than philosophy. But I can appreciate good music better when I come from these things.

[44:39] Okay. Um. That's what Aristotle's saying, right? But is he saying that the more understandable something is, the more we understand it? Not saying that, is he? In fact, he says the reverse, right? He says that our soul is to the things that are most understandable, meaning God and the angels, like the eyes of the bat are to the light of day. Apparently, he thought that the bat flew at night time because the light of the day was too what?

[45:17] Bright for it, huh? Okay. And so the the bat sees things better at night. He didn't know anything about radio and that sort of thing, right? But notice what he means by that lightness huh?

[45:33] Which is is more understandable, the cause or the effect? Which is more makes us understand more the cause or the effect? The cause. Yeah, it's the cause that enlightens the effect, right? But which do we know more, the cause or the effect? Yeah, yeah. We know the effect more than the cause, and we know the cause more than the cause of the cause. And the first cause is most difficult for us to know, right?

[46:07] So what is most enlightening? Is kind of what hidden from us, right? God is said in the scripture to dwell in light inaccessible Okay.

[46:26] But Thomas, will point that out I'm sure and apply the objection, right? In the very beginning, the physics Aristotle points out, the confused is more known to us than the distinct, but the distinct is more what understandable, but not to us.

[46:48] But since material things are not understandable except because we make them understandable and act by separating them from matter, is manifest that these substances, which in their very nature are material, are what in themselves more understandable. Therefore, much more do we understand such things than what material things, right?

[47:19] The argument is saying that we understand something because it's understandable, right? That seems to make sense, doesn't it? Therefore, the more understandable it is,

[47:32] the more we what? Understandable. Yeah, yeah. Now, as Aristotle, who and Plato, maybe to some extent too, you know, Plato's saying we're like those born in the cave, right? And there's that much light in the cave, but when they escape from the cave, they're kind of blinded because things are too bright for them, right? Okay.

[48:00] So Aristotle, in the beginning of the physics, there he says, "What is more knowable to us is less knowable, and what is less knowable to us is more knowable,

[48:16] and what is more understood by us is less understandable, and what is less understood by us is more understandable. " See, it's very strange, right? You say that, huh? But the reason for this is that our mind is going from what ability to act, right?

[48:40] And so, naturally, for us, an imperfect knowledge of things comes before a perfect knowledge, right? And corresponding to imperfect knowledge is something what imperfectly known, huh? And to more perfect knowledge, something perfectly known, just to reverse. That's that's very hard to see when you first hear that, you know. You write a whole doctoral thesis on that. that, one page of Aristotle, right? But you can see it in other kinds of what of education besides education of the mind, because in any kind of education you're developing something, right?

[49:23] And I take you know, start off with the. You know, the education of the body. There, and I take the 5BX plan or any of these plans. When I was in Canada, used to get the Royal Canadian Air Force, right? These are graduated what exercises, right? You do so many push-ups, you do so many this, so many that, right? And you have to find where your level is, right?

[49:44] Okay, how many push-ups can you do right now? See, well, if you can get down the ground and do five push-ups, but the sixth one you fall, right? We better do five push-ups for, you know, a week or two or something, right? And then we'll go up to seven push-ups, and you can do that for a week or so. We'll go up to ten, and you know, okay.

[50:03] Now, I ask the students, which is more productive of strength, doing five push-ups or doing twenty? Well, I'm doing twenty. Yeah, you could say doing twenty push-ups is more productive of strength than doing five. But for you, right? Doing twenty, you might even hurt your body, right? So five is more productive of strength for you, even though twenty is more productive of strength, right?

[50:40] See, lifting a hundred pounds and lifting, you know, five hundred pounds, which is more productive of strength, or lifting five hundred pounds and a hundred pounds. But if you can only lift a hundred pounds to begin with, right? You might actually hurt yourself physically trying to five hundred pounds, right? So lifting one hundred pounds is more productive of strength for you, even though lifting five hundred pounds is more productive of strength.

[51:08] Okay. Now the same thing takes place in the education of the will. At least in the beginning, what is more lovable to us in the beginning is less lovable. Now you might think, you know, gee whiz, you love something because it's lovable, right? That makes sense, doesn't it? Therefore, you might say the more lovable something is, the more you love it, then, right? But we tend to love the sensible good, right, before the understandable good, right?

[51:43] So we love. I love candy, let's say, right. As a child, candy was more lovable to me than wisdom was. You see, and people often find things other than God, right?

[52:01] And they find this in the beginning more lovable than God, right? Even though God is infinitely more lovable than there, you see. Or we tend to love the private good before we love the what? Common good, yeah. But the common good being the good of the whole, and the private good being the good of the part, and the whole being greater than the part, the common good is more lovable.

[52:28] It's a much greater good. What's less lovable to us, at least in the beginning, huh? So we have to be led by what is less lovable, but more lovable to us, towards what is what more lovable, but less lovable to us, at least in the beginning. That way, at least in the beginning.

[52:52] The same way in the education of taste, huh? I thought my father was a very foolish man. He didn't fill the refrigerator with soda pop, as we call them Midwest. Orange soda, grape soda, root beer. With his money, he could have filled the refrigerator and had orange and soda, you know, pop, root beer all day long. Been a happy man, right? Okay. But now I'd much rather have wine.

[53:24] You see, but which is more tasty, the soda pop or the wine? Oh, and you drink soda pop, you do, right? I don't even taste it, huh? Drink wine, you.

[53:46] You know, there's much more to taste there, huh? Much more interesting. And you know how a red wine shouldn't be should be cellar temperature, but not you know refrigerated temperature, you know. So you can taste it, right? But if you let Coke or something like that come down to that same level, you say, "Ooh, how much taste of that thing, right? " And the child would prefer a hot dog before he likes, you know, marchand de vin sauce or something, right?

[54:15] See, because his sense of taste is undeveloped, huh? It's interesting when people start drinking wine. They like white wine before red wine, huh? But anybody who's experienced drinking wine, they all much prefer red wine, huh? Almost to the point, almost drinking red wine when it doesn't go that well with the meal, right? Because it's a much more interesting wine, much more to taste there, huh? See. So

[54:43] the white wine is more tasty to us in the beginning than the red wine, but the red wine is really more tasty. In the same way with with painting and and music and so on, huh? As a child, I was always trying to find a march on the radio, but now I'd much rather hear Mozart than the march.

[55:08] Much more to be heard in Mozart than the march, huh? But it was less heard by me, huh? So in in you examine every kind of education, goes from what is more so for us to what is more so in itself, more perfect, huh? And that's because in every education you're developing something, and so it's going from the imperfect to the perfect. It's going in that direction, right?

[55:35] If you're truly educating reason or truly educating the will, right? You know that little treatise on the love of God by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. He says, in the beginning, we don't love God at all.

[55:51] We love other things, right? And then we have difficulty getting these things, or misfortunes in our life, and then we turn to God for help. And now we're loving God for the sake of what? Something else.

[56:08] That's the second stage of love, right? And then he says, as you turn to God in need, you start to get a little bit familiar with God, and you begin to love God apart from what He does for you. You begin to realize what a great thing He is, great guy, yes, huh? Okay. Now you begin to love God for His own sake, right? And eventually, after that comes the last stage: where you don't love yourself except for the sake of God.

[56:34] Which he says is hardly realized in this life, right? You know. Notice that love, right? Huh? You're loving this is, you know, the little treatise on the love of God the love of God. by Bernard. So you're loving God for your sake, you know, for your needs. Um, before you're loving God for His own sake, right? And before before you're loving yourself for the sake of God, huh?

[56:59] You see? Yeah, but who's more lovable, you or God? Huh? You see? Well, you are more lovable than God. You are more lovable to yourself than God is in the beginning. But God is infinitely more lovable. God is goodness itself, right?

[57:29] He's a good, a very good as Augustine shows and Thomas shows, huh? See? But I'm more lovable to me in the beginning than God. He said to me. So what's more lovable to me? Is less lovable, right? Infinitely less lovable. And what is less lovable to me in the beginning is infinitely more lovable. Is it?

[58:01] What's like this is knowing, huh? What's more knowable to me is really less knowable. And what is less lovable to me is much more lovable. It's kind of interesting, you know, in the proof of existence of God, we go all the way from

[58:22] motion, which hardly exists, to God, right? Something is knowable insofar as it's what an act. And motion hardly actual. When I walk across the room, when does my motion exist? Well, part of it is always gone, and part of it is always not yet. And how much of it is is ever there?

[58:54] Is is any part of my motion ever there? Or is part of my motion always in the past, and part of it always in the future?

[59:09] Motion hardly exists. And yet it seems more real to us. Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, as the poet Shakespeare says, huh? You know. So what's most known to us, motion? What most of all gets our attention is the least knowable of all. And we go all the way from motion to God, who's pure act, and therefore most knowable.

[59:41] Notice the child's imagination is going to be more struck by Little Red Riding Hood, what's going to happen to Little Red Riding Hood when she gets to her grandmother's house, than the child's imagination is going to be struck by what King Lear, Shakespeare, or Hamlet, right?

[59:58] But as you grow older and continue to read Little Red Riding Hood, at least to your children, but maybe to your children, right? You see, you've exhausted your imagination's exhausted at Little Red Riding Hood, huh? But people, you know, write books on Hamlet and still say they haven't exhausted the play. They keep coming back, right? So Hamlet is more imaginable. There's more for the imagination in Hamlet than there is in Little Red Riding Hood.

[1:00:32] But the child's imagination is going to appreciate Little Red Riding Hood before it appreciates what Hamlet, huh? The same with painting. The child may be attached to the little drawing in his child book, right? More than to the great painting, you know, that hangs, huh?

[1:00:55] You go into you ever been into the Uffizi there in Florence? You go in there, you know. There's a whole room, you know, these famous paintings of Botticelli, right? Kind of fill in the room. Ones you see in the books, you know, all your life, you know. And you went, you know, that's my wife. I said, Rosie, let's stop here. I go further, you know. It's just incredible to see these paintings, huh?

[1:01:19] You see, um, but you can look at these paintings, you know, and you keep on seeing more in them. But a little child's drawing, you kind of what exhausted, right?

[1:01:37] I know as a child, my mother would put the Christmas cards up over the fireplace in the mantle, huh? And some days you kind of look up there, you know. You look up when you're reading, you know, and you kind of. I notice how your eyes, without thinking, would go down to the painting that had a reproduction of some famous nativity scene, right? Rather than all these modern ones that have a very simple drawing, right?

[1:01:57] But you exhaust them right away. There's nothing more to be seen. So, um, it's it's the same principle in all of these things, huh? What is more tasted by us is less tasty.

[1:02:24] What is more imagined by us in the beginning, there's less to be imagined. You see. What's more, heard by me, the march. That's to be heard there than the Mozart.

[1:02:45] That's true about the reason itself. Now we're down to the fourth objection. More of the commentator. Who's the commentator? Who's called the commentator of the Middle Ages? Averroes. Yeah. He commented on almost all the books of Aristotle. but Thomas should really be called the commentator by antonomasia Aristotle means not what Averroes says he means always, but Thomas says he means he means. Thomas is the commentator, but anyway, Thomas uses it huh He milled it to you Morve the commentator says in the second book of the Metaphysics.

[1:03:27] That if the abstract substances, that is one separate from matter, are not able to be understood by us, then nature would have what done something idly, right? For it makes that which is naturally in itself understandable, not understood by another, right? Of course, Thomas will say, "Well, gee whiz, but the angels understand each other, right? " That's what it meant for us to be understood by them.

[1:03:57] But, nothing is idle or vain in nature. Therefore, the immaterial substances can be understood by us. So, but like you know, when they talk about some of these subtle differences in wines, huh, and so on, I'm not sure that I taste those. They say, "Well, you know, my father-in-law, you know, because he had even worse taste since the taste than I have, right? " He says, they're all the same, he says, because he drank some pretty lousy wine.

[1:04:31] Well, I can tell, you know, the good wine, the bad wine, you know, but some of these very fancy ones, I'm not too sure of my judgment, you know, you know, when we're trying to be comparing wines and you know which is the better, you know, and not too sure of my judgment, but there's some people who can really judge these things, huh? You see, and when my students come to class, you know, I usually give them a tea you know, halfway through, you know, just to perk them up a bit, you know?

[1:04:54] It's kind of a joke because I have these these teas I get from this guy. another guy, but he's a very good tea man. And I say do you want you know Jing Hong Ning Hao and tonight you want Hye Kamoon or something, and I was kind of joking about last time. I said I don't think I could tell them apart if you you know blind tasted these things, right?

[1:05:15] Other they do you know, but I'm sure the guy you know who who sells these he could tell them apart, you know, if you served them blind, you know, you grab them a mug of one of these things, you say, yeah, you know what it was, you know. So I mean, these differences are known and appreciated by people who've got a better sense of taste or smell, right?

[1:05:36] Than some of us might have, right? Okay, and it's like my brother Mark describing those painters he ran into in Detroit. There, you know, where you know, oh, what interesting shade of green! Like they'd never seen that particular shade, but they they have much more. I think women generally have many more names for particular shades. You know, aqua. You know, I'm always getting corrected by my wife.

[1:06:01] You know, for the wrong name for it, which is blue. You know, well, that's aqua. That's not blue. Maybe they have more distinct knowledge of these things, and the painter especially has a real sense of what the difference between different colors. Very subtle, you know. So these things are not lost. Many of us, most of us, they may be lost, but not. huh? Although Mozart has some very interesting remarks there, you know, on some of the letters we have.

[1:06:27] He's talking about in some of his music. there And how there are things in the music that only a connoisseur could really appreciate, right? But he says they're written in such a way that everybody will like them. Kind of marvelous the way, you know. You can't do that with philosophy, right? I mean, I think philosophy only, you know, a very good mind can understand, you know. But they can't be written the way that everybody understands them.

[1:06:50] But but music can be done that, way. the same way Shakespeare, right? I wrote to this guy in the package store who had not picked up a book since high school. You know, his his reading consisted of the daily newspaper, right? So I got a conversation with him about Shakespeare, you know. But he recalls something about the seven ages of man and some Shakespeare play that he ran across in high school, and he was still impressed with that, huh?

[1:07:15] You know, so something struck him about that, huh? See, and that's an as you like it, huh? Jaques's words about the seven ages of man. The time he's a little baby all up to the old man, you know, son's eyes, son's teeth, son's everything. That's that stuck, you know. And this guy was like in his seventies, you know, hadn't picked up a book since high school, but Shakespeare.

[1:07:37] I thought the subtleties of Shakespeare might be lost, but somehow he recognized that. Moreover, just as a sense, the fifth objection now. Moreover, as a sense has itself to sensible things, so the understanding to understandable things. But our sight is able to see all bodies, whether they are above and incorruptible, like the heavenly bodies are thought to be incorruptible by the ancients, or they are lower bodies, incorruptible bodies.

[1:08:12] Therefore, our understanding is able to understand all understandable substances, both the lower and the higher, right, including the superior ones and the immaterial ones.

[1:08:30] But against this is what is said in the Book of Wisdom, chapter nine: the things which are in the heavens, who can investigate them? But in the heavens there are said to be these substances, according to that of Matthew eighteen, the angels of them in the heavens. Therefore, we're not able to know through human investigation the immaterial substances.

[1:08:56] I maintain, you know, that Anaxagoras, this greater mind that Anaxagoras talks about, is an angelic mind and not the divine mind, because the greater mind he speaks of can act upon matter and move it by change of place, which is the way the angels move it. But it doesn't create matter, right? It's not responsible for the existence of matter, right? Its existence, the existence of matter, is independent of the greater mind.

[1:09:27] That's angelic mind, not the divine mind. It's interesting