By mind we are translating Nous. It's not mind in the sense that we think of it.

We think
of it broadly and when Aristotle talks about news he's thinking specifically of
contemplative intellect and the faculty by which we understand the world which means
to grasp the essences of things.

He's going to argue against the idea of previous writers that thinking is just a form of
perception. Yeah and he's going to make a distinction between perception, thinking,
supposing, reflecting and imagination and the biggest difference seems to be that you
can be wrong in thinking that if you perceive something you know that it's just your
perceptual organ is filled with the form of the thing that you're perceiving. how could
that be wrong? It's only when you identify it and say hey that the dog that you're doing
more than just perceiving. Youre making some sort of judgement you're comparing it to
the class of dogs or something like that.

but what you just said

seems to directly contradict what we're talking about before as perceiving the whole of
something

and we gave the example you always see the whole dog you don't accumulate all those
things

together. So were we wrong about what we said before or is it that you see the whole
dog or the

whole thing but the act of understanding it as a dog is of the same thing. He had a line in
the

previous I think it's in book three actually and. Part of what you read sensation is of
particulars and

thinking is all universals So if we want to think of the objects of law versus the objects of
sensation

it's a particular versus universal versus It's dog this. Yes we can perceive the dog we
can't perceive

the dog miss don't even try. So tell us something about chapter three that you like or
that we should

talk about before it gets all complicated with a mark is a patient. What he says right at
the beginning

this is for twenty seven B. as he says we know that perceiving and understanding are not
the same

thing and the reason why is if you think of perception in the Aristotelian sense as being
this

association of organs and special senses like sight and so forth. He says you cannot be
mistaken

sensation is always true not sensation like we think about it but sensation in the sense of
sight
cannot be mistaken about color hearing cannot be mistaken about Sound Touch cannot
be mistaken

about feel whatever the appropriate words are but you can be mistaken about shape size
number

that the things that are not special to the individual senses. And the reason this is
important. It's that

example that comes up I think three or four times in the text about whether somebody is
the son of

CLE on or something like that. Do you guys know what I'm talking about identifying
somebody from

a distance. I think is a point. At basically that's the idea. You can't be mistaken that what
you're

seeing is this white figure but you might be mistaken that it's so and so son. So if it's
possible that

you can be mistaken about something which is certainly true about your judgement.
There must be

some distinction between understanding and perception understanding is not the same
type. Thing

is perception where it got confusing for me in this chapter which I think is a function of
my

translation is that it bring up the term imagination thinking perceiving belief. And I had a
hard time

separating out what all those things might be because he says for example. Imagination
is different

from thinking and perceiving so he made a distinction between a minute assume that
understanding

and thinking are co-equal in this translation. So we know that perceiving and thinking are
different

or perceiving and understanding are different but then there's something like
imagination which is

different from those two as well but and magination requires perception but is somehow
not

accompanied by belief. Or is not equal to believe this is where I kind of got lost. So I
thought like

there was this typical Aristotelian I'm going to start separating and distinguishing and
seeing how

things are the same or how they're different but I got a little bit lost about how he
catapult from
understanding or thinking is not the same thing perception to getting into talking about
the intellect

more generally. So he's actually going to conclude the imagination cannot be either
opinion in

construction with sensation or opinion based on sensation or a blend of opinion and

sensation for

both the reasons given. And because the opinion relates to nothing else in the object of
sensation.

What is the difference between imagination and understanding here. He gives the
example of

De Anima What is Mind 2

dreams I think so. He gives kind of a definition. But for twenty eight the process by which
we say

that an image is presented to us. I guess is there's a lack of clarity because it seems like
a

perception we think of perceptions as being images as well and I'm not sure what the
relationship

between imagination and perception is. Here but it's pretty clear he gives dreams and
sadness.

Anytime we call up an image of something that's not actually there but we're not
actually perceiving

says I'm sorry you're wondering why there are different perception imagination. Now I
get that

they're different. What's confusing me is that in my translation. We have the term

imagination. We

also have thinking and understanding and we have beliefs or I guess what Wes calls
opinion and

then this is right at the end of four twenty seven the beginning for twenty a day. Thinking
then is

something other than perceiving and its two kinds are held to be imagination and
supposition

understanding whatever it is is not the same as perception and here's why. Perception
can admit of

error. You can't be mistaken about any of the special objects of sensation but you can be
mistaken
about common sense the polls which I take to be pointing to the idea that understanding
or thinking

is somehow this conjunction of all the senses working together which is where the
possibility or as

we discussed earlier the common sense both can come up. So he's saying that others
have said that

thought is held to be imagination and judgment. And then he says with best to discuss
after having

completed our analysis of imagination. I think he's going to reject that's confusing
because he's not

going to come out on the side of thinking being comprised of imagination and judgment
that's fine

but can you help me with the Greek What is the word or what is meant by imagination
imagination

as from the C.E.O. I think it's just very common sense agree with the having of images
but are not

perceptual images that we might have in dreams or we might have them we imagine
something

that's not directly in front of us so memory is a form of this but he talks about memory
and other

treatise So you tell this section right here for twenty seven B. and for twenty eight is
somehow

important because he's making all these distinctions between imagination and thinking
and in my

translation what he calls supposition and that somehow what you say. Opinion. Yeah so
he's got

cream which is something in our judgment. He's got no and which is thinking and then
we have

perceiving which is ice. Then a sigh and then imagination which is fantasy or. I just like
the voice on

behalf of the audience that actually adding the Greek does not make it easier. Yes it does
because

we have a bunch of different translations and then Doc says opinion so the faculty of
judgement the

screening of The supposition is the way we make opinions. So the judge just to make an
opinion and

that's different than imagination because our opinions are predicative you know we say
X. is why
and we can be wrong about that he later on a twenty a A twenty one that area. He thinks
it up with

having conviction. So if you have opinions you have conviction about whether it's true.
And that's

different than having imagination and he links it up with conviction is that present and
animals base

but imagination. Surely is right. So imagination is somehow a component I'm trying to

use the word

faculty but imagination is something that animals and human beings do. That's somehow
considered

thinking it's not consider nous but I guess they're like ten different words for thinking and
here.

That's kind of what I'm trying to get to is I'm trying to understand what are the
distinctions he's

drawing so that I can get a better sense because it sounds like this goes back to what we
talked

about in the last episode about nutritive what he really said here is look I'm going to
leave off talking

about whether thinking is comprised of imagination judgment and I'm just going to have
nationalized

imagination first and that's what he does he's described a little bit about what it is the
saying that is

different from perception reflection and then he but for twenty a sort recapitulates what
imagination

is imagination is that through which some image comes about for us if one is to say
something non

metaphorical about it so imagination is just like what Wes said having an image of
something. For

you. And then he asked the question is it one of the potencies or states according to
which we

discriminate. Or are in a state of truth or falsity such as our perception opinion

intellectual

knowledge. So he lumps those four things together as the way in which we assess truth
and false.

He's going to say that we don't use imagination that way. The next paragraphs go
through each of

those characteristics perception opinion intellect and knowledge saying that well they're
not like
imagination. I gave the reason why for opinion because it involves conviction and
perception is

De Anima What is Mind 2

always correct. Because it is reporting on something that is present not bringing in

abstractions

imagination likewise cannot be bring in abstractions thinking is connected here because

thinking as

well he's going to say is going to use images but it doesn't do it in the same way as
either perception

and imagination when we get to talking about motivation. They play immediately into
this talk in the

last episode of how animals at least the higher animals may not be using grubs but other
things you

know perceiving and imagining and desire all go together. You see there is no food there
and wanted

there to be food there and imagine the food and go do something about it right this all
makes sense

to me. Can you can text Eliza's for me and explain how this is getting him closer to a
notion of what

understanding is by bringing in the question of does a perception involve a positive

assertion or not

does it involve belief or merely having an image in front of you and that's going to be
important and

how this plays out into practical reason is going to be important. I think imagination just
is that way

of isolating one of the pieces in the puzzle that does not involve directly an assertion. Yet
it is as I

just said tied into the motivational part. Yeah I'm not sure really sets I mean he gives that
long to his

back to thinking and. The ways in which it's not like a perception. I mean I'm happy to
kind of let this

ride and maybe we'll get some more clarity further on. But there seems to be this
structure where

there's been important distinctions for example can admit of error or not is it
accompanied by belief
from him or not I feel like what he's doing is he's kind of carving away as if he's trying to
guide us to

the destination which will be. Oh this is this sort of thing that does admit of error but is
an associate

it connects and that's going to somehow supposed to be the light switch or the light bulb
for us and I

feel like maybe there's a background there that I just don't get or maybe he's working
inside of a

context where I could see where he was headed. If I understood what that was so maybe
if we get

into some of chapter four a little bit. We can come back to that OK yes I'm in the same
place as you

said I don't know how it's related exactly. So here we get this idea that in sinking
something

thinkable. We are receptive to the form of the object and so must be potentially the
same as the

object of a and not identical. This is the way in which he saying is thinking is knowledge
of

perceiving. Then we are receptive the form and potentially can become the same as the
object but

not identical with it in the sense of just taking on the form as a sense of as the sensible
so must mind

be to the sink a ball and then he goes into this really interesting claim that the mind
must be

uncontaminated in order to know that it may be in control. That is that it may know for
the intrusion

of anything foreign hinders an obstruction and so the mind too can have no
characteristic except its

capacity to receive that part of the soul that which we call mind by mind I mean a part
which the

soul thinks some forms judgments. He's using a different word there are so I'm not sure if
that's the

opinion making faculty or not but anyway by the part which thinks informs judgments
has no actual

existence until it sinks your potential you know. This is a really incredible that and I say
this in the.

Line of pre-Socratics but everything is water no everything is fire. Everything is whatever

the hell
her life was saying and exactly say you know everything is mine. Everything is new so in
for an

exodus mine is a cosmic principle and so Aristotle is connecting a little bit of you know
he's been

talking all along about of course it's the mind of individual human beings or other kinds
of creatures

but the human beings are the only ones that have news. Then he wants to you know this
is again a

place where the Christians just jumped on Aristotle say that there's something universal
about this is

room to talk about the mind of God there's room to talk about mind in general you know
mind is a

principle as any Severus is has in order that it may rule in order that it may know. Well
he has he

has an argument for us in the next part of this which is unlike sensation. It's not you
have these

extremes. You know you would be damaged by taking the extremes. So for instance he
says that

when the mind thinks the highly intelligible is not less able to think of the slider things
but even

more able as opposed to sensation which if you know you're subjected to an extreme
stimulus your

say blinded by light and that is only an argument here for why the mind must be nothing
until things

are pure potentiality No he says that if thinking is like perception then it would be
affected by an

object fraught object and this brings into play this whole notion be acted upon the acting
the

potential versus the actual In other words because you can think about anything. Then if
you were

something that could have potentiality and actuality in the same way that the sense
organs do you

De Anima What is Mind 2

would have to potentially have everything in you because you could have any object that
could
conceivably impress upon it and so it's not possible for whatever the intellect is to be
something that

has the potential to be socially being you'd be restricted in what you can think I didn't
see it so much

as something that would be restricted. I think you are saying the whole dynamic
potentiality and

actuality makes sense. When the organs are in accord with their objects but when you're
talking

about mind you're not talking about an organ and so the idea that there's that same
structure of

potential actual in place doesn't make sense. It's not that it doesn't make sense and it
gets to its limit

right. It's exactly like we were talking about sounds in here. Except in the case of
thinking it's all

potential because all of the world all of nature is the other side of it and so in order for it
to be able

to take in everything. It has to be all possibility. Yeah I'm just wondering why me money
might not

think that it can take in everything he's saying that it can take in everything. So he says.
So it is

unreasonable to suppose it is mixed with a body for in that case it would become
somehow

qualitative for example hot or cold or would have even have some organ as a sense of
faculty. But in

fact as not. There is no particular sensory organs first thought that's I think for him
telling which is

why to bring back his earlier point the common sense this is the place that all the senses
come

together by which we coordinate them they have to still all be taking place within the
realm of sense

right. Yes that's a mind is not what does interesting way for Aristotle can we give the
answer of what

the news is it's the form of forms. That's four thirty two A we can explain what that
means and how

we get there the way again when it leaves interpret it was just like the hand is a tool of
tools. This is

where our cell says in the same section the soul is as the hand is for the have the tool
tools and the
news is a form of forms the hand of the tool tools because it can hold any tool fairly
elaborate this in

some other text. That's not that the hand is just as good as a spear because you can
have a spear in

your hand and so like was the noose does not itself become the form it does not take on
the forms of

the things that it thinks about in the way. That that I somehow takes on the form of the
things that it

sees in the special sense but it is a creator of forms somehow. So the way I read this is at
least the

way again in terms of that that you know the hand is what creates the tools. So the mind
is what

creates the forms. Now that does sound weird because it's not like that my can just make
up

whatever forms it wants it finds the forms in things the forms are things in nature
objective. So my

translation it's not just form of forms. Although that is kind of that in the Greek. I don't.
But it's the

form which employs forms. We already know from the picture of the soul that the mind is
a form and

then it's an interesting kind of form that is related to other forms. So unlike the sensory
organ which

is receptive so forms through this kind of we can get this physiological account of it the
way in which

it's affected and so on with the mind. We're already dealing with something that's purely
formal so I

didn't see it as creating forms that I thought as receptive to them. It's almost a
grammatical

distinction right because when you say form of forms. It could mean what I think Mark
was taking it

to me which is it is the quintessential example before. Or it could be something that is

made by or

contains forms and that's the way I think you were taking that Wes Well in a way you
might think of

it as an extractor of form so this is kind of what we get right after mind is a form which
employs the

forms of sensible objects but since apparently nothing is a separate existence except
sensible
magnitudes the objects of the so-called abstractions of mathematics and all states in the
sections of

sensible things reside in the sensible forms and so this reason is no one could ever learn
A or

understand anything without the exercise of perception so even when we think

speculative really we.

You must have some mental picture of which to think for mental images are similar to
objects

perceived except there without matter. There's as important sense in which when the
mind grasps

essences abstractly we are piggybacking on. Our awareness of the forms in the sensible
objects. So I

think this is very concretely when we talk about the mind and what it's doing we're
talking about

understanding the world. We're talking about saying what something is and we're talking
about

being a scientist and saying what is this life form and grasping the essence of some
particular

phenomenon or other in the natural world. And so we give an account of it and that
account is

abstract in its own way and we might think of it as this grasping of an essence you know
as

understanding but of course it relies on our perception in the rest of them. We just read a
paragraph

De Anima What is Mind 2

from the get linear about entering that passage so there's not a fashions a new concept
of tools from

the proposition the understood forms are too new. This is the made tools are to the hand.
We say so

we must guard against reading this is if news. Were itself one more form or a kind which
news

makes the hands does not make itself the news does not make itself. Aristotle thinks it
comes into

the soul from the outer cosmos. This is from generation of animals another text just as
the daylight
comes from their off form of forms is not a universal Rather it makes universals
universals do not

exist except as concepts in the soul of course you have a universal concept of hand does
not make

tools and new this is not even defined by a universal concept because as he said earlier
the essence

of news is not the concept but its activity of concept making the activity of interacting
universals is

not universal. So even calling it a form. I mean you were committed from the very
beginning of this

treatise that the soul. As a whole is a form is the form of the human body but there's
something

about news at its highest. The level of abstraction that makes it so that he still is able to
say that

now that actually the soul doesn't need a human body. It could be eternal it can
contemplate eternal

things it can exist apart from a body because even though he wants to root it in a body
by just like

you were saying was that thinking has images it abstract from images that somehow we
get forms is

we abstract from real things that are perceived in the world but yet the news itself that is
doing this

is not itself a form you can't just say it's the thing the body does or something. It is even
higher than

that it is not a universal Rather it makes universal it is pure activity when other way of
thinking

about this is going back to the this whole idea that mind is nothing unless it's thinking or
forget how

it puts it. But it's almost as if the mind just is the objects of soch because it's nothing
before that the

mind can have no characteristic except its capacity to receive where where you're just
going back to

for twenty nine twenty and has no actual existence and till it sinks the mind has no
actual existence

until things. I mean the way that Mark and also you know the way you were talking about
this

reminded me of like a second order serious consciousness right where you get the
functional activity
of consciousness at one level and then this reflective I don't think this is right but then
the second

tier on top of that where consciousness comes about as the activity focused on the
activity that

might not clarify things but well you're pointing out one of the things that we skipped a
little earlier

in here is earlier Dylan was saying that he did. Aristotle didn't have a sense of
consciousness. That's

not well a concept that he deals with but what he has instead is that all sensation
involves sensing of

its sensing that it senses which if you listen to our first episode that means non
positional

consciousness terms. That would help. No one except for me memo east of rules that we
read before

we started. But he also say that about thinking about right. The sinking of the slot
objects is the

mind sinking itself right. So again when this is described like why would you think that
about site

well how can you tell if you can see or not there's no like separate sense that you like to
check you

just see something. And you can't check whether you can see or not without actually
seeing some

particular thing the ordinary operation perception being active is the same thing with
thinking then

that you know the thinking is different so I was thinking is a whole different. OK it's even
more

extreme but I mean with the perception it's just we are aware that we are aware. Yet our
awareness

that we are perceiving is part of perceiving so. It's important in Aristotle's discussion to
be talking

about the ways in which the intellect is similar to thinking is like perceiving in the ways in
which it's

different. So when you start talking about perception of perception you know the second
order in

that sense I think you start to stray a little bit from the spirit of the text where thinking
about

hierarchically may not be a terrible way to go which I thought was where Wes was going
a minute
ago but then it didn't quite come to fruition right so I want to read a section from my
translation and

you guys can feel free to read your versions of it although I have to say I thought yours
would be

after your description of it I thought it would be clear but I found it a little more difficult.
This is for

twenty nine a going towards four twenty nine B. but not actually getting there. If then
thinking is

like perceiving it will either be some kind of affection by the thought object. In other
words it will be

like us. Sense where it was it's something of a potential thing that gets acted upon. And
then

actualizes through a form from an object or some such thing. It must then be something
unaffected

which yet receives its form and is potentially of the same kind as its object but not the
same

De Anima What is Mind 2

particular and the intellect must stand in that relation to objects of thought in which the
perceptive

faculty stands to those of perception. The part of the soul then that is called intellect is
before it

sinks in actuality none of the things that exist. This makes it unreasonable that it be
mixed with the

body because it would have a quality of law. This is the part that I was harping on before
about the

mind being nothing as having no actual existence and so think something being nothing
but pure

potentiality presidential Yeah consideration of the sense organs and of sensation makes
it clear that

the unaffected miss the perceptive and of the Noetic faculties are not alike. So this is
where he's

saying perception and thinking are not the same first sense loses the power to perceive
after the

excessiveness you know after something excessively perceptible whereas the intellect
has thought
some things from thinkable it thinks lesser objects not the less. If the intellect is
somehow built on

the back of perception. We still don't understand what that means that you've got the
senses

working individually and in conjunction to be able to take common objects in other words
almost get

into this ratio as things which can be affected by objects and the intellect is somehow a
second order

supervening thing on that. Whether it's self reflective in the way that you are talking
about being

aware of its own you know the being aware of your own awareness or whether it's simply
something

that emerges or sits on top of it. The point is that the. Object if you can talk about it in
that way. The

intellect would be not an object that exists in the world in a way that it does for the
senses individual

in combined. But would be an object that somehow comes out. Or is somehow in those
senses

already. And since the senses only take on a form of the objects then if you want to talk
about there

being an object of thought it is already going to be a form because it's going to be made
up of

something out of these combined senses which themselves are already on the receiving
forms but

because it crosses across all of those senses and all those second order objects. Then its
object

would be a form or would be forms but we can't think of a way in which the intellect or at
least the

intellect is not going to be structured in such a way that it's somehow the potential for all
of these

sensible forms. Now before we go any further with that let's stop for a second and talk
about our

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checkout you get five dollars off your calendar order. OK I think it's good to me to make a
distinction

between the sensible forms and the forms that are the objects of thought which are
essences So

those are different. So when we grasp the essence of that it's one thing to have the
perceptible form

of the tree to have that effect us. It's another thing to know what a tree is and to be able
to say what

it is to give an account of it a scientific account. That's when we grab the essence and
that's what we

do with saw and it's reliant on our perceptions of course but it's not simply us taking our
perceptions

and making them the objects of thought I guess we have to give a whole kind of what it
is to
investigate things and to come to understand them but I would say it's more complicated
than

writing these and I'm saying. So I think you are taking my second order theory in kind of
going with

it and then I'm saying it's not. Yeah no I don't disagree with that Wes I think what I'm
trying to say is

if there's a second order relation here. It's more on the order of a hierarchy that's built
out of object

De Anima What is Mind 2

through sense form. Goes from potentiality actually actuality like the form matter
distinction and

then you have a second level where you have all these forms that are being actualized in
the

sentence senses which in turn become the objects of thought or the basis of how the
objects are

thought versus the notion of sight. Knowing that it's in. Hearing knowing that it's hearing
this self

reflective which I felt wasn't as prevalent in the text versus trying to build something
higher. That's

what I was trying to get well and the self reflective thing brings up a problem which is
part of what

that quote that I read was trying to address that he says a sense can sense itself. You
sense that site

is going on but can you think a sense can and itself. It can it does the senses aware that
it is sent.

But does not sensing OK just because he has a whole section about a no no that's your
right that's

more precise. You can't see yourself but you can be aware that you're saying well the I
doesn't sense

the the I. And if it did would be interim. So I guess I was going to contrast that with you
know with

the sense can sense it in that the seeing contains the sensation. That's how it is going on
in that

sense it is sensing itself in contrast that with the fact that the organ of thought is not
something that
can become an object of thought. No it is because we've already said the organ of
thought. But the

organ of thought is pure potential it is nothing and then it is also when it is acting. It is
pure activity.

Well he has a whole section on this for twenty nine B.. Let's get into that start our second
problem is

whether the mind itself can be an object of thought and we go. So he's worried here
because for

either mind will be present in all other objects. If that is mind is an object of thought in
itself and not

in virtue of something else and what is thought is always Adonikam form or else it will
contain some

common element which makes it an object of thought. MIKE other things in the end I
think he's

going to say mind can think itself. We have that reflective capacity but if we do have a
Rick reflective

capacity then how do we explain that the mind also thinks objects of thought is that that
they are

also mind like are they other minds that were you know it's this type of worry because
he's thinking

that there's going to be this sort of commonality. Between whatever it is that the mind is
directing

its attention to or there is the explanation which we have given before of the phrase
being acted

upon in virtue of some common element that mind is potentially identical with the
objects of

thought. But is actually nothing until it sinks what the mind thinks must be in it the same
sense as

letters are on a tablet which bears no actual writing this is just what happens in the case
of the mind

it is also itself thinkable just like the other other objects of thought for in the case of
things without

matter that which things and that which are thought is thought are the same. This is this
really

interesting assertion that when the mind thinks of an object of thought it is also thinking
itself that

which thinks and that which I thought are the same the mind is nothing so this is where I
was saying
you know how the mind is nothing until it is actually thinking and then the mind simply is
we objects

of thought. It's this really interesting idea. Which it would have to be if the mind as pure
potential is

nothing. Right right. Then what is it what else is going to come. It's nothing in actuality
Yeah well he

says nothing in till it sinks and then it is the objects of thought. Right which makes it
interesting like

then well how do we distinguish between the thinking of the number two when you think
you are the

number two. Well you don't not as far as thinking so insofar as this thinking it is the
universal nous

it's not me and you know once you get to that point there is no he gets into that in
chapter five in the

noose poets econo whatever it's called and there's a lot of literature on this but it's what
he calls the

the active mind which they take to be God then you seem to get this very Berkeley on
account of the

nobility of things being grounded in this universal act of mind which it's very cryptic. But
yeah I

think of the expense of the mind in gauged and object of thought. There is no distinction
between me

thinking some object of thought and you thinking of it it just is the essence of the thing
and at the

point you understand. There isn't just marks particular take on the S.. And so if some
biological form

and Wes's take on it once we have grasped that once we have understood that it is just a
fraud

object itself that is the thinking and it's not Mark or west that those with thinking there is
just as the

thinking and I think I threw out the example of a number which actually I think on second
thought is

not right because there are degrees of abstractions so it comes down to what the
difference between

the thing and in this ness is. Its essence. So we're talking about a dog individual thing
which even

animals can perceive other dogs and the dog ness the essence of dog and those are
distinct in the
7

De Anima What is Mind 2

case of a perceptual object like that as you go up the ladder of abstraction and are
talking about the

number two even There's a difference between the number two is an individual and the
concept of

two in Tunis that really the number two is something that we see in individual object it's
Imperial

and moreover it has as I was saying earlier in giving what is after matter is it actually has
matter to

it that when you see number two it's not just it presupposes it's matter which is the
whole series of

numbers and presupposes this empirical realm in which counting occurs. So you have to
go even

higher up the level if directions talk about I guess metaphysical objects I don't you know
the forms of

logic I am not sure exactly what these things are and in that case the thing and its
essence are one

in the same and also the thing and the thing thinking the thing or one of the same you
saying the

particular and the essence of the same. Yes that's thing to me a corollary of the thing
that we're just

saying is that the thought and the thinking of the thought are the same. Well look at
what he says

and following the passage I just read in the things which have matter. Each of the objects
of thought

is only potentially present. He's trying to address is this idea know well does that mean
the world is

made of ideas or my. And objects right and it's what I've just said is true the mind can
think itself

and the mind thinks of objects of thought. Does that mean that everything in the world
but when we

grasp the essence of something where grasping mind the entity. You know is asking the
Barclay

question and he says well no the object of thought is only potentially present in the
saying and why
material objects will not have mind in them for it is apart from their matter that mind is
potentially

identical with a mind will still have the capacity of being sought. So confusing. Material
objects will

not have mind in them. I don't know how to make sense of this idea that a particular
object is its

essence its essence makes it a particular I agree with that what I'm saying as you go up
the level

abstractions we're not talking about particulars anymore. OK. I mean which the number
two is one

that we normally think of as a case of it is just a concept but actually that's kind of an
intermediate

case for air but dog. This wouldn't be right. No that is very close to the level of a straight

abstraction. Yeah. I think that you know when Aristotle's thinking about the essence of a
dog. He's

thinking about everything we can understand about it as scientists. So a full account so

dogmas I'm

not sure does justice to me was just an use darkness then. No I'm not. Yeah I'm not
trying to correct

this out of them just to say sounds very platonic and yeah I may be wrong about this but
that's my

impression of when Aristotle's talking about essence is something more practical but the
important

thing here just thinking about the way the distinction of thinking is another dog would
perceive the

retriever would perceive the Labrador. But it would not be in Aristotle's understanding it
might have

it would also have an imagination about it would have memory about that dog. Stuff like
that but it

would not be thinking about thinking about dogs. Yeah it could never ask the question
what is a dog

and I could never begin to answer that question by yes describing species or describing.
Dog

Behavior doing this wouldn't. So that's not my aim I wonder where it's friend was my
come back to

the backyard and be imagining that the dog was there on the art and wondering where it
is stuff like
that but it would always be about a particular Dar Yeah it has the sensible form down but
it can't as

a sinking. It was that we still haven't made the connection to so for thirty two to get to
the form of

forms can we just try to work through those intervening four thirty one chapter seven. I
don't know

is there anything in it that we want to read. I was looking at B. but back up. I glossed
Chapter seven.

So forty four thirty one to knowledge when actively operate as is identical with its object
and then

the rest of it is just fine but potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual but not
prior even

in time in general for all things that are come to be are derived from that which is so
actually

somebody have a better translation then what he's saying here is that even though in
time you know

I may not know anything about dogs and then I learn about them. So the potential
knowledge has

priority in time in that sense it's first I have the potential now and I know but it's not prior
in the

sense he's going to say even in time because the saying already is what it is. And so the
thing that

we're going to think is an object of thought is prior It makes the saying what it is and it
before we

ever come to the fore we ever come to understand it. So everything comes out of what
actually is so

everything we under snow and understand is just based on those essences that are that
are already

there. Borth thirty one a for it is clear that the object of perception makes that which can
perceive

De Anima What is Mind 2

actively So instead of potentially so for it is not affected or altered. Hence this is a

different form for

movement for movement is an activity of the incomplete while activity proper is different
the activity
of the complete is translated them the mind is something that is complete. It is not like
the senses

being altered so he's famous for. Distinguishing two types of motion. One can he said
this is this

motion that moves. So if you're building a house. You're not done with it until you've built
a house

there are other types of activity which are complete in and of themselves. So their
activities in the

truest sense an orgasm the truest sense. So thinking is an example but I was trying to
listen another

will give you something more concrete. Yeah well so. So for instance. You've learned
something you

know it and now you're exercising that knowledge that activity. It's not like there's a
beginning and

middle and end to it. You don't have to have finished something in order. It's complete in
every and

every moment. It's not like one of these processes where you know the activity isn't
done until you've

completed the house until you've gotten to the end of it. So the end is inherent in the
activity and

we're trying to understand things our desire to understand that and which is part of our
nature is

satisfied in the activity of understanding. I find that difficult because this seems like you
have some

knowledge. You know I learned how to be a doctor and then I exert that knowledge. Well
presumably

I'm doing something in particular and that actually does have a beginning and it has
something that

I can fail to do just like building a house. It's not just I just I mean meeting my doctor
knowledge it

is. Involves a concrete activity. I think we're talking about contemplative knowledge or so
that

doesn't seem like the reason that you're having trouble coming up with another example
of a

complete itself because there are not it's just really know there are I promise. There are I
just don't

think about thinking from a secondary but this is explained very well Christopher shields
book.
Aristotle. So go read it but anyway I don't want to have a slog through that because this
is a really

difficult section Yeah. I didn't spend enough time wouldn't understand. Is there anything
later in

Chapter seven that we want to pull out those things which are spoken of as an
abstraction one thinks

just as if one thought actually. The snow. Not quite as now but separately qua hollow
when we think

of it apart from the flesh in which the hollow exists. One thinks of mathematical entities
which are

not separate and separate when one thinks of them. This is a four thirty one. B twelve.
That's very

unhelpful in itself but this is getting at that there are more and less abstract things you
can think

about so the snow is his example that he standardly gives of something that's tied.
There's nothing

that's not except a nose nose or snub and so when you say snow. You're not
contemplating the snow

in the abstract you're thinking about noses that are snub. But then if you move to hollow
Well it's not

just noses that are hollow It's there are many things that are hollow and so that's more
abstract and

then a mathematical concept is even more abstract than that because it applies to more
things and

it's not necessary to think of the matter so much when you think of these more abstract
things and

somehow Again that's supposed to build toward the very next verse in general the
intellect in

activity is its object. So this is why I'm equating these increasing level of abstraction with
the

equation of the thinking activity with the object of thought in my translation who says Is
the things it

thinks you know it's the Greek is talk rock my own mark but it's very old in the way of it's
the things

being known things are. I from the Greek stuff when I was going through the game and I
think it was

very helpful because OK this is in this section. Whatever the term is for assertion and
now uses over
and over again in the different terms for knowledge like that was useful just throwing
them out in a

way that people are going to remember them. I think you know a podcast like this you
know if we

leave them knowing logos and nous probably that's as far as we can successfully get but
I'm happy

to hear. Chapter eight. I think is about the end of what we need to consider Chapter nine
gets a little

more into the tie between knowledge and action but Chapter eight. Summing up but
they get to the

soul is in a way all existing things for existing things are either objects of perception or
objects of

thought and knowledge is in a way the objects of knowledge and perception the other
acts of

perception how this is so we must inquire knowledge and perception are divided to
correspond to

their objects their potential to the potential the actual to the actual in the soul that which
can

perceive and that which can know are potentially these things. The one the object of
knowledge the

other the object of perception. This is not adding anything. These are sort of working
through these.

De Anima What is Mind 2

They must either be the things themselves or the forms. Surely they are not the things
themselves

the stone is not in the soul but rather the form shirt and then this is where he gets to the
soul is just

like the hand for the hand is the tool of tools in the intellect is a form of forms. There you
go. All

right. We finally come full circle back to this point or gotten up to this point right there in

prematurely earlier to give us a sense of where we were going since there is no actual
thing which

has separate existence apart from as it seems magnitudes which are objects of
perception the

objects of thought are included among the forms which are objects of perception both
those that are
spoken of as an abstraction and those which are dispositions and affections of objects of
perception

and for this reason less one perceives things one would not learn or understand anything
and when

one contemplates one must simultaneously contemplate an image for images are like
sense

perceptions except there without matter but imagination is different from assertion and
now for

truth and falsity involve a combination of thoughts. But what distinguishes the first
thoughts from

the images surely neither these nor any other thoughts will be images but they will not
exist without

images him. So thinking is not perception or imagination but it relies on them. Yes All
right. In nine

and ten were getting more into bringing back this thing about motivation. So we had said
that built

right into perception is a notion of some things being pleasing or not. Right. Does it have
the right

ratio and when you think about perception in animals and imagination in animals. And
last time we

talked about desire. These are all hooked together so that I don't want to say he's giving
a pragmatic

theory but the way he lies this in Chapters nine and ten is it's that a perception really
only sort of

comes to fruition. When it results in the animal reacting to the perception to go toward it
or away

from it. Perception is not just about seeing that something is there it's about survival and
likewise

reason this gets us right into the ethics is really about contemplation of the good that
when you get a

hold of something that is properly abstracted up the ladder from the perceptual objects
then. Well

first you think it can't be wrong. Just let me know why news cannot be wrong. Yeah I
mean because

the wrongness involves predication and the news is more like perception in the sense
that it's not

predicative So you're contemplating a concept. You're contemplating dog ness and asons
So it's a
direct intuition. That's sort of an intellectual intuition. It's not a judgment but you're
making it's not

a predicate judgment where you say X. is lie. So it really is like us. It's our minds. You
know except

it's kind of a universal rise kind of thing a form. Yeah an essence the material for it is not
the

currents of things that are material for our sense of the material for our forms and so one
of the

forms it can and this is not really spelled out in here but just as the going toward or away
from the

object the aesthetic reaction the survival reaction is in a sense the culmination of
perception at least

when it comes to practical reason then seeing the essence of the good and being able to
you know

overrule your gut instinct that is telling you to move forward in a way that we add in
what is a

benefit not just at the moment but over time and then we sort of get higher and higher
to different

levels of traction incomparably the form of the good and that ultimately tells us where
you're writing

or. Oh here. OK so for thirty three D. think the former is the practical good. I don't know
that the

term form of the good shows up in here or anywhere but this is how I was reading it.
Obviously if the

news gets out forms. And adding reason is what enables us to resist temptation and
pursue the good

then we're kind of lean for the good right. I think he thinks that desire something that
sort of crosses

across all the psychosis. Yup And so I think we can just have a basic desire for the good.
Sure but I'm

speaking speculatively here because well no I mean this is this is in reaction to Plato
remember back

in the Republic that we've got the three parts of the soul are the intellect and the spirit
and the

desire and he wants to say no no in fact he's got a whole thing in here that says intellect
by itself

would not motivate you to do anything. There has to be some desire in so like you just
said you know
that their desires. All three of these levels and the desire that is motivated by intellect is
going to be

necessarily correct. You know way that one's motivated just by perception imagination
are not going

to be so for instance he says things like for the object of appetite the object of desire
produces

movement and therefore thought produces movement because the object of desire is its
beginning.

So there's some sense in which thought inherits desire seems like he's saying we can be
motivated

by thoughts because desire isn't inherently implicated and thinking in the same way that
piggybacks

10

De Anima What is Mind 2

on perception sought to work a piggy back on perceptions sought inherits desire as well
from

perception that's the only way thought moves us right is by design or Unlike other
things. So in some

ways the most matter of thoughts so that way. Yeah well and can we connect this back to
teeny

ology and call it a day that somehow we've seen each goes back in chapter twelve and
start summing

up. Oh yeah everything that lives has a soul must have the. Nutritive soul from birth to
death and

then said well sense perceptions are not necessary in all living things but in source just
really going

through the types of animals again and who has what kind of soul. So each of these is
driven by a

final cause and it's only at the point of contemplation where we can actually make the
final cause

into one that we are consciously holding in mind and aiming at as opposed to something
that merely

drives the whole thing just by the nature of the form. Anyway that's how I saw this as
ending with a

nice bow on it that this is. Mining us this is a theory of why animals do the stuff they do
because of
their growing thriving thinking saw and thinking is not like each other. Might think that.
Oh and

access to thinking does detaches us from our animal instincts it's the culmination of the
Tilley ology

that was going on at all these levels and it just allows us to see more clearly the true
shape of the

world and reacted to it appropriately and live on after death. Well maybe both. As you
think you

know it was just at the end of thirteen where he says the reader losses the animal has
the other

senses as we use not for the sake of being but for the sake of well being for example. So
they can see

that the lives of air or water are generally in the transparent has to based on account of
the present

and painful. So that it may perceive this it is nutriment and desire it and move itself
while his

hearing something may be signified to a tongue so that it may signify something to

another industry

that the tongue here is not about to east but about speech. It seemed like a big letdown
after all

these very dense sections in chapters twelve and thirteen that he's just going back and
talking more

about the sponges and stuff. He didn't kind of trail off at the end I forgot no heart of
books. Yeah it's

a really hard book but to me. It's a hard book get away. Makes me want to keep reading
that there

are books I've read in books that we've read here that I'm like I just don't even book or
look on is

that were you know I OK or whatever it's not hard it is interesting way reading this again
I can

imagine. I want to actually read it again later I can understand why not just Thomas
Aquinas but

somebody would sit and write a line by line commentary about it because they wanted
to understand

the book better. I totally get it. Yeah this is not going to sound very profound but it's
profound. It's so

dance and it can be caricature to something as categorizing and you know and all the
other you
know ways it might caricature. Aristotle is dry and you know. Yeah you could take any
sentence any

paragraph and really do a lot of thinking about it. Now that's sad. In my laziness. I have
to admit I

enjoy reading about Aristotle. Reading Aristotle just you know if I were in the mode of
sitting down

and taking a paragraph and thinking about it would be another thing but so yeah I went
on a tear

just you know reading so many different. Did you read all the essays in the new Spawn I
did and

Franz Brentano I read the entire four hundred page book and I read some of these other
books but

of course it's not careful not to give me anything but this kind of general feel you know I
haven't

been systematically thought about or summarize as I like to do or any of that stuff but
you know it's

hard to regurgitate these things again when moves so slowly. Just because it's really
hashing

through each line and so then repetitious and that a lot of it does stick but I couldn't
reproduce large

portions of it here and again unfortunately I didn't get all the way through because I was
so into the

other stuff that I forgot how useful he is you know. So anyway so I regretted not being
able to get

through all of them. But yeah it really difficult book and I think it's nice to look at some of
the

secondary literature just to if you're skeptical about how much there is you will quickly
be disabused

of that by just looking at any commentary. Any of the secondary which are on a well I do
think that

the second half though was much more happened in the first half was far more
interesting more cool

stuff brought up even just slogging through all those chapters on perception in the first
place which

we summed up here in the first like two minutes of our discussion. Yes there's a little
more but not

enough to make it worth getting through it. Whereas all I think you know these first
bunch of
chapters on the mind are just so many different cool things that are brought up. It seems
more worth

it but they could just be a different way. Prepared this time than last time so I don't know
other

11

De Anima What is Mind 2

thoughts that's the way I just want to put a bow on it if this was the book that was the
topic for a

seminar that I was taking I probably would be much more into it than I was I get
frustrated

sometimes when we read the hard Greek guys in translation. Because then you're
making a call on

who you're reading and then you've got to go to the secondary literature and you're
trying to dive

back in without actually understanding and I can sense the feeling that Dylan expressed
but I don't

share it. I would not go and intentionally spend hours of my time going back through this
but I would

happily if I was in a position to take a class with some people and somebody who could
walk me

through it and we were kind of taken to it a little bit. So when we launch another Aristotle
only pod

cast which will focus on the metaphysics for the first six years of its existence then I get
back on it. I

think this was a good way of sliding into the metaphysics that had left me wanting to
know more

about substance and other stuff like that has fans if you made it this far. How about
somebody

sharing some resources on a really really good and clear explanation of the potential
actual thing

and how it functions and sensation. I think that would be a really foundational thing that
would be

helpful. So you're I'd turned red. When you see something right. Where is there also
understand of

course is that it yeah no it's obvious. It becomes shaped like a dog your eyes. Well
thanks everybody.
We're going to do some a little easier. Next time we're going to have until recently from
the rational

speaking cast Joining us to read several letters about stork virtue from the first century
A.D.

specifically on the terrors of death on old age on the shortness of life on pleasure and joy
on good

company on a happy life and facing hardship and on self control. That's going to be a
party. OK

control myself. If you just take out all the ones that sound happy. We're just going to be.
Shorn is a

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12