The Divine Lamp

For some reason I cannot post video on this site, so I’ve made them available in several different posts on my other blog, which is also called THE DIVINE LAMP.  Please update your bookmark and blog links, as this new blog is now my primary site.  Everything on this blog, plus much more, can be found there.  Thanks!  If you link to my blog please notify me in the combox so I can link to your blog.

The first video series is Anthony Kenny On Aquinas And Medieval Philosophy, in five parts totaling about 45 minutes.

The second video series is from one of the foremost historians of philosophy, Frederick Copleston On Schopenhauer.  This too is in five parts totaling about 45 minutes.

The third video series is from Ralph McIrnerry On Aquinas, Metaphysics, And Morality.  It will be posted before 6 AM tomorrow, June 16 on my OTHER BLOG.

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9.  The Immortality of the Soul.  Existence of God.

Such is our solution of the question of the origin of ideas. For all ideas, whether specific or generic, are nothing but the idea of being or existence, as determined in various ways by the sensations and operations of the human spirit. And since this one primitive idea can not be the product of these operations, since it is itself and indispensible condition of them all, we must admit that it is given to men by nature; so that we know what being is without having any need of learning it, and we learn all other things by means of this primitive cognition.

We can not with reason ask for a definition of being, because it is known in and by itself, and enters into the definition of all other things. We can indeed describe it, and analyze its characteristics, but we can do nothing more.

We have seen that this idea contains the pure essence of the thing. The idea of being, therefore, contains and enables us to know the essence of being.

The essence has nothing to do with space; ideal being, therefore, is incorporeal. But this ideal being is the form of the intelligent soul, and by the simple intuition of this idea the intelligent soul subsists. Therefore the intelligent soul is incorporeal, and therefore spiritual, therefore again both incorruptible and immortal.

The essence of being has also nothing to do with time, because being in its essence is always being, and can never cease to be, since it would be a contradiction in terms for being to cease to be being. Therefore it is eternal. But it was united to the soul in time. Therefore it was before the soul existed and is independent of it. But being is the light of intelligence, and the light of intelligence is conditioned on the existence of that which it is the light. Therefore there exists and intelligence anterior to human intelligence, an eternal mind. But this eternal mind is God’s, therefore God exists.

The existence of God and the immortality of the soul are the two foundations of morals. For God is the end to which the immortal soul ought to tend, and this duty comprehends the whole summary of man’s moral obligations, so that the abstract investigation of the origin of ideas becomes of the gravest import to the destinies of man.

8.  Origin of the One Indeterminate Idea-The idea of Being or Existence.

It remains still to explain whence comes the idea of being, the sole indeterminate idea. If we once admit that this idea is given to the human spirit, there is no difficulty as to the origin of the other ideas, because, as we have seen, these are nothing else but the same idea of being invested with determinations by the human spirit, on occasion of the sensations, and of whatever feelings man experiences.

Now in order to solve the problem s to the origin in our mind of the idea of being we must first of all consider certain corallories which follow from what we have explained above.

1^st. The idea of being in general precedes all other ideas. In fact, all other ideas are only the idea of being determined in one way or another, and to determine a thing supposes that we already possess the thing to be determined.

2^nd. This idea cannot come from our sensation or from our feelings, not only because the sensations are real, particular and contingent (whereas this idea furnishes the mind with the knowledge of possible being, universal and necessary in its possibility), but also because the sensations and the feelings do not furnish to the spirit any thing except determinations of the idea of being y which it is limited and restricted.

3^rd. It cannot come from the operations of the human spirit, such as universalization and abstraction; because these operations do no more than either add determinations to this same idea of being, or take them away when they have been added, and this on occasion of the sensations or feelings experienced.

4^th. The operations of the human intelligence are only possible, if we presuppose the idea of being, which is the means, the instrument, employed by it to perform them, nay, the very condition of its existence.

5^th. It follows that without the idea of being the human spirit could not only make no rational operation, but would be altogether destitute of the faculty of thought and understanding, in other words it would not be intelligence.

6yh. If the human spirit were deprived of the idea of being it would be deprived also of intelligence; it follows that it is this idea which constitutes it intelligent. We may therefore say that it is this same idea which constitutes the light of reason, and we thus discover what that light of reason is which has been admitted by all men, but defined by on one.

7^th. And since philosophers give the name of form to that which constitutes a thing what it is, the idea of being in general may be rightly termed the form of the human reason or intelligence.

8^th. For the same reason this idea may justly be called the first or parent idea, the idea in se and the light of the intelligence.

It is the first idea because anterior to all other ideas; the parent idea because it generates all others, by associating itself with the sensations and feelings by means of the operations of the human spirit. We call it the idea in se, because the feelings and sensations are not ideas, and our spirit is obliged to add them as so many determinations to that first idea, in order to obtain the determinate ideas.

Lastly, we call it the light of the intelligence, because it is cognizable by itself; whereas the sensations and feelings are cognizable by means of it, by becoming determinations, and, as such, being rendered cognizable to the human spirit.

If these facts are attentively considered, the great problem of the origin of ideas and of all human cognitions become easy of solution.

But in fact this problem has been solved long ago by the common sense of mankind. For the existence in the human spirit of a light of reason or intelligence is admitted by the common sense of men, which declares this light of reason to be so natural and proper to man that it constitutes the difference between him and the brutes.

Now since we have shown that this light of reason is nothing else but the idea of being in general, it follows according to the testimony of the same common sense that this idea is natural to man or proper to his nature, and therefore it is not an idea which is formed or acquired but innate, or inserted in man by nature, and presented to the spirit by the Creator Himself, by Whom man was formed.

In fact, being must be known of itself, or otherwise there is nothing else which could make it known; but on the contrary every other thing is known only by means of it, for since every thing else is some mode or determination of being, if we know not what being itself is, we can know nothing.

7.  Formation of Determinate Ideas.

As regards the determination of the ideas of being (Which is itself the indeterminate ide), we shall easily discover their origin by the following considerations.

Let us suppose that man is possessed of the idea of being, that is to say, that he knows what being or existence is, we see at once how the idea may be exchanged for the sensation. Because when we experience sensations we may say to ourselves, this is a being limited and determined by the sensation.

Because when we experience sensations we may say to ourselves, this is a being limited and determined by sensation. For example, when I see a star I may say mentally, this is a luminous being, and the like.

The senasations, therefore, furnish me with the first determinations of being, so that when I think of a luminous being acting upon my organ of sight, I no longer think of indeterminate being only, but of a being with the determination of luminosity of a certain degree of luminous intensity, of a determinate shape and size, ect. All these qualities make the idea determinate, and are all furnished by the senses. But it does not follow that these determinations of the idea are sensations themselves. This we shall see if we distinguish the different operations which take place in the formation of these perceptions.

In fact, when on beholding a star we say to ourselves, this is a luminous being, we pronounce an affirmation or judgment. We have already shown the distinction between cognitions by affirmation and simple ideas. But we have said also that the first of these depend on the latter, so that we can not affirm the subsistence of an object, unless we first have the idea of it. Therefore, in the judgment by which we affirm the star as present before our eyes, and which we term perception of the star, the idea of it is already contained. We have then to perform another mental operation by isolating the idea from all the other elements of the perception. This operation is termed universalization, and it is thus performed:

When I perceive the star, my thought is bound up with a particular and sensible object. But I can free it from this by abstracting entirely from the thought of the actual subsistence of the star, retaining the image of it in my mind, and considering it as a possible star, as type and exemplar of all such stars, indefinite as to their number, which might be realized by creative power. Now the possible star is a pure determinate idea.

This determinate is no longer the sensation; for this is real not possible, yet it is true that the sensation was the occasion of my discovering it. It was discovered by my intelligence, by considering as possible that which my sensation gave me as real. And this my intelligence was well able to do, if we suppose it to know what possible being is. But the possible star is universal, that is to say it may be realized an indefinite number of times, and this operation of our intelligence is, therefore, termed universalization.

By universalization, therefore, we form the ideas which are completely determined; by abstraction we form those which are determined only to a certain extent, but are otherwise undetermined. Thus, supposing that, besides abstracting from the subsistence of the star, I abstract also from its isze and form, its degree of luminosity, and other accidents, which remain before my mind? I have still the idea of star, but this idea is abstract or generic, equally applicable to a star of the first, second, or third magnitude. This idea, then, is partly determinate, because the idea of the star could not be confounded with the idea of anything else; but it is also in part indeterminate, because it does not apply more to one star than to another.

If then the human mind is possessed of the idea of possible being, there is no difficulty in finding how it gets the determinations which, as it were, clothe, limit, and transform it into all the other ideas. These determinations are occasioned and materially furnished by the sensations, and afterwards formed into ideas by means of the twofold operations above described-namely, universalization and abstraction.

See previous post here.

1. Logic is the science of the laws which the intellect must obey in order to acquire readily and surely the knowledge of truth. The human mind in its search after truth is subject to laws imposed on it by its very nature. The ascertainment of these laws constitutes Logic. Logic is a science rather than an art, because it considers the laws of the mind in their intrinsic principles and general applications, and is not confined to an enumeration of practical truths (see note 1).

2. Logic is of great utility for advancing in the cognition of truth, for guarding against error, and acquiring proficiency in any science whatever. As Logic habituates the intellect to classify and co-ordinate knowledge, it gives us great facility for progressing still further in the acquisition of truth; moreover, by familiarizing the mind with the nature and structure, as also the artifices, or reasoning, it enables us easily to discern the vices of a sophism and the false appearances by which error seeks to seduce the mind. Finally, it is evident that, as the sciences can advance only by means of reasoning, nothing is more conducive to their progress and easy acquisition than Logic, which is, in fact, the science of reasoning itself.

3. Logic is divided into three principle parts: the first investigates the nature and laws of reasoning; the second expounds the general conditions of science; the third determines the general rules of method. The object of logic is reasoning; but in reasoning three things may be considered: the nature of reasoning, the end of reasoning, which is science, and, lastly, the process or method followed to reach this end more easily. Logic, therefore, is divided into three parts, corresponding to the three aspects under which reasoning may be considered.

Notes:

1. Considered as “an enumeration of practical rules” for the detection and refutation of error, logic is an art. Hence, while logic is chiefly and primarily a science, it is dependently and secondarily an art. Aristotle defines art as “science employed in production.”Brother Louis of Poissy.

The first two posts in this series were introductory in nature.  The next post will begin to examine the first of the three principle parts of Logic mentioned in #3 above, namely, the nature of reasoning.  Due to the length of the subject matter this part will be divided into several posts.

Preliminary:  Definition of Philosophy.  Its Excellence and Utility.  Its division.

1. Philosophy is the science of things through their highest or ultimate causes, so far as it may be attained by the light of reason. Whatever exists may be known in two ways: the first is by a spontaneous, common knowledge of things, such as every man may acquire; the second is by a reflex knowledge, peculiar to minds desiring to account for things and to know them in their principles and ultimate causes: this latter is philosophic knowledge.  But the principles of things are partly confined to special sciences, and partly underlie all human knowledge; the former constitute the philosophy of this or that science; the latter alone are the object of philosophy properly so called.  These principles or ultimate causes are investigated by the light of reason; and so philosophy is divided off from Sacred Theology, which rests on divinely revealed principles.

2. The excellence and utility of philosophy are manifest, whether it be considered in itself, or in its relations with the other sciences. Since philosophy treats of things in their highest causes, it is in itself the noblest object that can engage the mind of man; it teaches him the knowledge of truth and enables him to attain his greatest natural perfection.  Relatively to the other sciences, it is evident that since philosophy lays down their first principles, it is their foundation, and exercises the most direct influence over their development, as experience besides has shown.

3. Philosophy may be divided into real, rational, and moral philosophy. Every science may be divided into as many parts as there are different aspects under which the object of which it treats may be viewed.  But the object of philosophy in general is being, which may be considered under three aspects: as real and possessing attributes independent of our cognition; as ideal and having attributes which result from our mental action; or as moral when regarded as the term (see note 1) of voluntary action.  Philosophy, then, may treat of the ultimate principles of things either in the order of reality, or of cognition, or of morality; its divisions are, therefore, called physical, logical, and ethical; or, if we use the Latin equivalents, natural, or real, rational, and moral.  The ontological order, or order of existence would require us to begin with real philosophy or metaphysics; we must, however, first study rational philosophy, because it points out the laws of the human mind in acquiring knowledge, and trains it to discern the true from the false, thus furnishing the means to study real being more easily and securely.

Rational Philosophy.  Its Divisions.

Rational philosophy is divided into Logic, Ideology, and Criteriology. As rational philosophy considers entities in respect to the knowledge which we have of them, it ought (1) to investigate the laws which govern the intellect, the instrument by which we know; (2) to treat of ideas, the means by which we know; (3) to determine the value of the knowledge acquired by the intellect.  Hence rational philosophy is divided into three principle parts: 1. Logic, or the science of the laws of thought; 2. ideology, or the science of the laws of thought; 3. Criteriology, or the science of the criteria of certitude.-Brother Louis of Poissy

Next post on this topic: Logic: its definition, Utility, and Division.

Chapter 15
That God Is Eternal.

I. From the foregoing it is also clear that God is eternal.

II. For whatever begins or ceases to be, suffers this through movement or change. Now it has been shown (in ch. 13) that God is altogether unchangeable. Therefore He is eternal, having neither beginning or end.

III. Again. Only things which are moved are measured by time: because time is the measure of movement, as stated in Physics 4., 11 [219b, 1] Now God is absolutely without movement, as we have already proved (in ch. 11). Therefore we cannot mark before and after in Him. Therefore in Him there is not being after non-being, nor can He have non-being after being, nor is it possible to find any succession in His being, because these things cannot be understood apart from time. Therefore He is without beginning and end, and has all His being simultaneously: and in this consists the notion of eternity (see ST I., Q 10).

IV. Moreover. If any time He was not and afterwards was, He was brought by someone out of non-being into being. Not by Himself; because what is not cannot do anything. And if by another, this other is prior to Him. Now it has been shown (ch. 13) that God is the first cause. Therefore He did not begin to be. Therefore neither will He cease to be: because that which always was, has the power to be always. Therefore He is eternal.

V. Furthermore. We observe that in the world there are certain things which can be and not be, namely those that are subject to generation and corruption. Now whatsoever is possible to be has a cause, because, as in itself it is equally related to two things, namely being and not being, it follows that if it acquires being this is the result of some cause. But as proved above ((ch. 13) by Aristotle’s argument, we cannot go on to infinity in causes. Therefore we must suppose some thing, which is necessary to be. Now every necessary thing either has a cause of its necessity from without, or has no such cause, but is necessary of itself. But we cannot go on to infinity in necessary things that have causes of their necessity from without. Therefore we must suppose some first necessary thing which is necessary of itself: and this is God, since He is the first cause, as proved above (Ch. 13). Therefore God is eternal, since whatever is necessary of itself is eternal.

VI. Again. Aristotle (Physics 8, 1 [251b 12]) proves the everlastingness of movement from the everlastingness of time: and thence he goes on to prove the everlastingness of the substance that is the cause of movement Physics 8, 6 [258b 13]. Now the first moving substance is God. Therefore He is everlasting. And supposing the everlastingness of time and movement to be denied, there still remains the argument in proof of the everlastingness of substance. For if the movement had a beginning, it must have had its beginning from some agent. And thus either we shall go on to infinity, or we shall come to something without a beginning.

VII. Divine authority bears witness to this truth: wherefore the Psalm reads: But Thou, O Lord, endurest for ever Ps 101: 13), and again: But Thou art always the self-same, and Thy years shall not fail (Ps 101: 28).

The following contains the text of Book 1, Chapter 1 of Aristotle’s METAPHYSICS. The translation is that of W.D. Ross and is in the public domain. The source I used for the text is copyrighted under the GNU Free Documentation License. Ross’ text is in plain black script. Section headings in bold type are from McMahon’s METAPHYSICS OF ARITOTLE.  Notes from other non-copyrighted works are in red. My own notes, if any, are in blue.  A brief analysis from McMahon can be found HERE.

The Metaphysics of Aristotle(1).

(1) Metaphysics is sometimes taken as meaning “beyond,” or “above” physics because, according to Aristotle himself, this science is superior to all others. It should be noted, however, that Aristotle did not give this name to his work. According to MacMahon, the designation of it as “Metaphysics” comes from Andronicus of Rhodes “who, out of the materials employed in compiling the Physics, set down after them, and designated as meta physika whatever he found unsuited for insertion here.” Apparently Andronicus, finding that the subject matter of this body of writing was different from The Physics, separated them from that work in his compilation of Aristotle’s texts. Thus the word originally designated their place with in the Organon (body of work) of Aristotle: they were put after (meta) the physics. Other scholars maintain that the term is derived from the fact that it was considered appropriate to study this particular subject only after (meta) having studied The Physics.

1. Man’s natural thirst for knowledge, and a proof thereof.

“ALL men by nature desire to know (2). An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses(3); for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else(4). The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things.

2. “all men desire to know.” This, probably, is what Cicero means when he says, in the De Officiis, I, 4,- “In primisque hominis est, propria veri inquisitio atque investigatio.” The assertion, however, that all men desire knowledge, has been objected to, on the ground that in some this desire is wholly absent; but this absence merely mounts to a suppression of the natural desire from various causes; e.g., want of leisure for intellectual pursuits, constitutional laziness, voluptuous habits. This natural craving for knowledge leads to a concentration of individual abilities on particular studies, and thus to a subdivision of intellectual labor. Aristotle omits to notice here the connection between this desire and our social capacities, which ensures the mutual communication between mankind of their mental and scientific discoveries.

Aquinas, in his commentary on the Metaphysics notes that Aristotle gives three reasons why men desire by nature to know: 1. a thing naturally desires its own perfections; 2. by nature things are inclined to perform operations proper to them, and understanding is proper to man’s nature; 3. each thing is inclined to be untied to its source. See Aquinas’ Commentary on the Metaphysics, Lesson 1, under the heading “commentary,” # 2-4.

3. Aristotle thus assigns two reasons for our love of the senses,-their utility, and their being sources of knowledge; or, as Thomas Aquinas expresses it, “in quantum sunt utiles ac gognoscitivi.”

4. “ we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else.” Aristotle’s reasoning amounts to this. Man loves knowledge, and loves the senses, therefore, for their own sakes; that is, so far forth as they are the inlets of knowledge, and, consequently, the sense of sight for the cause he assigns. The elevation of this sense above the others was in accordance with the notions of the old philosophers, and of the scholastics; and this superiority was grounded on the immediateness of the perceptions afforded by the organ of vision, compared with the others which came in through a medium. This notion is discarded by the moderns. All the sense, as such, are equally the source of knowledge, as is most satisfactorily proved by Brown, and with much originality too, in his Philosophy of the Human Mind. I’m not sure this is a fair assessment of all scholasticism which gave more than one reason for sights superiority.

2. Different degrees of knowledge in the brute creation, and their different order of development.

“By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced in some of them(5), though not in others. And therefore the former are more intelligent and apt at learning than those which cannot remember; those which are incapable of hearing sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught, e.g. the bee, and any other race of animals that may be like it; and those which besides memory have this sense of hearing can be taught.

5. “from sensation memory is produced in some of them (brute animals), though not in others.” That memory is a distinct faculty of man, much less in brutes, is denied by Brown; but that what we term memory in the human species is found in brutes, is shown by Locke in the instance of birds, after a few attempts, learning to warble particular airs of music.

3. Comparison between men and brutes.

“The animals other than man live by appearances (6) and memories, and have but little of connected experience; but the human race lives also by art and reasonings.

6. “Appearances.” It is not, however, quite so easy to determine the meaning of this word in the philosophic works of the ancients. In the present case, Aristotle seems to mean those ideas that are conveyed into the minds of animals by means of their representative power…Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary, defines (the word) thus: Quae est motus factus sensu secundus actum;” which reminds us of Hobbes’ definition of sensation itself.

4. The different degrees of human knowledge, and their order of development.

Now from memory experience is produced in men; for the several memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience. And experience seems pretty much like science and art.

5. The generation of art and science from experience.

but really science and art come to men through experience; for ‘experience made art’, as Polus says, ‘but inexperience luck.’ Now art arises when from many notions gained by experience one universal judgement about a class of objects is produced. For to have a judgement that when Callias was ill of this disease this did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and in many individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it has done good to all persons of a certain constitution, marked off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g. to phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fevers-this is a matter of art.

6. The comparison of art to experience, in regard to practice.

“With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience. (The reason is that experience is knowledge of individuals, art of universals, and actions and productions are all concerned with the individual; for the physician does not cure man, except in an incidental way, but Callias or Socrates or some other called by some such individual name, who happens to be a man. If, then, a man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured.)

7. The superiority of art over experience, in regard of knowledge.

But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience (which implies that Wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge); and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not.

8. Three proofs in support of the above proposition (#7)

The first proof. For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the ‘why’ and the cause. Hence we think also that the masterworkers in each craft are more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they know the causes of the things that are done (we think the manual workers are like certain lifeless things which act indeed, but act without knowing what they do, as fire burns,-but while the lifeless things perform each of their functions by a natural tendency, the labourers perform them through habit); thus we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being able to act, but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the causes.

The second proof. And in general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach, and therefore we think art more truly knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and men of mere experience cannot.

The third proof. “Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the ‘why’ of anything-e.g. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.

9. Speculative rather than active art is wisdom.

“At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure (7).

7. Aristotle here shows the paths through which men must travel into this “wisdom,” or first philosophy; and for this purpose adduced the example of the Egyptian priests, who were enabled to construct the speculative sciences of geometry and mathematics by having enjoyed the leisure from the laborious employments of life. They were thus allowed an opportunity of contemplating the heavenly phenomena, and, from such observations of experience, of deducing the abstract sciences. The student will do well to consult Alexander’s Commentary on the passage, and the more elaborate explanation of Asclepius, taken from Ammonius.

10. That wisdom is a science of causes, reaffirmed, and stated as the object of the present treatise.

“We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience, the masterworker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than the productive. Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes.