How do we come to know things?

[Linusthe2nd]

We constantly form relationships in the mind, we combine and divide between ideas in the process of thinking and reaching new conclusions or understanding revising old ones. At the same time we observe relationships between substances and systems of substances outside the mind. But none of this happens without inititial observation by the senses and the following activity of the intellect. Nothing mysterious here.

Linus2nd

 

[lmelahn]

Imelahn, I can’t follow what you mean by this (in post #443 concerning ‘Unity and Plurality’). If you have time, could you please explain, perhaps by means of an example? Many thanks.

A thing cannot be both one and many in the exactly the same way.

For example, if I have (exactly) one apple, I can’t simultaneously have two apples, or three. (I realize that this is a trivial example, but it illustrates the principle.) One and many are contraries.

On the other hand, it is not a problem to have a single thing be united in one respect, and yet multiple in a different respect. A single apple may contain many seeds; it also has a number of distinct characteristics (color, physical size, mass, etc.).

If a thing were utterly one in every respect, it would have to be identical even with its characteristics and properties. Hence, the characteristics and properties could not be distinct from one another. In fact, in no creature is that the case. The all have different properties, according to different modes of being.

Does that help?

 

[lmelahn]

I hope you had a great lunch time, Imelahn!

If I was expecting something similar in rigor to a mathematical demonstration, it was because you said it. But now that your examples are there, can you present the structure of your argument. You must have studied propositional logic. Please, present your argument proposition after proposition until the conclusion is reached (by the way, I also was expecting to read about the “secondary matter”; what happened to it?).

I will attempt to formalize it, as you request, but it will take a bit of time.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Just to clarify: when JuanFlorencio first spoke to me about “relations,” I immediately thought of a characteristic that is inherent in substance, because that is the meaning that Aristotle and Aquinas give the term. (It is important to know that meaning, by the way, because it has important repercussions in Trinitarian theology.)

JuanFlorencio has given to “relation” a meaning that is epistemological. I haven’t quite been able to nail this down, but I believe that JuanFlorencio’s “relations” correspond to my “judgments” or “composition-and-division.” (This is a first attempt at a sort of Rosetta stone between our systems.)

(A true fusion of horizons is happening here, I might add. )

So, to illustrate my idea: between my left hand and my right hand there is a relationship that cannot be reduced entirely to something in my mind. My left hand is always my “left” hand, which is a condition that can only exist in reference to my “right” hand (or—if I had an amputated limb or something—at least in reference to the rest of my body). And also vice versa.

That “left-ness” or “right-ness” is a characteristic of my hands; it is inherent in each of them. Even if I were to die right now, the left hand of my corpse would still be “left” with respect to my right hand. That is what I meant whenever I said “relations are inherent” and that “relations are discovered, not established.” I will call this kind of relation (following Aquinas here) a real relation.

Of another order altogether is the judgment that my intellect makes whenever I see my left hand: “This is my left hand.” I think I am right in saying that JuanFlorencio would regard this as a kind of relation. (How shall I baptize this kind of relation: a “Florentian relation”? Perhaps “mental relation” will do.)

I think we still differ somewhat as to how this “mental relation” is established: I think it is imposed by my hand on my intellect, because it is a fruit of direct experience. JuanFlorencio will need speak for himself how we “construct” that knowledge (which I believe is how he would see it).

On one side, you have said that no accident is conceivable in God; on the other side, you have stated, following Aristotle, that relations are accidents. Therefore, no relation should be conceivable in God.

Aristotelian relations are a particular kind in the broader sense that I conceive.

What I say is that If there were no being in the world with the ability to establish relations, things would just be. If no being with that ability were there to compare objects and say, for example, this is bigger than that, those objects would not be big nor small. A comparison is needed for that, and things do not compare themselves. As Linus says: “There is nothing mysterious here”. Whenever *you imagine *such scenario, without any intelligent being in it, you are there already!

About the imposition of relations by reality on our intellect: even if it were so, it would not imply that relations belong to the “real order”; but it would imply that we would be infallible concerning relations; but we aren’t. Whenever we measure something, for example (let’s say, the distance between a cow in London and your pine tree in Rome) we don’t perceive the “distance” in any of those things. We have to understand the definition of “distance” and then follow certain procedures which every time we repeat it will normally give us a different result. But is there anything real here? Of course! The cow is in one place, and the pine tree in another, so that you cannot touch or see them simultaneously (for example). Is this a mystery, Linus?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Isn’t it strange that being our soul an immaterial simple being able to reflect, we need to ask someone else “do we become identical to the thing we know?”? But even more surprising is that the answer has to be an analogy, and the language one that we use to talk about material entities. If it is true that reality produces an impression on our mind, this is… very strange.

I think this is a very important point. Let me try to illustrate it with an analogy.

Suppose I take some object—it could be the wooden block in you example—and I place it in some clay.

Notice that the clay takes on the form (in this case, the three-dimensional, geometric “figure”) of the block. In a way, the clay takes on the very same form as the block.

The clay, which according to the aristotelian philosophy is a composite of prime matter and form, assumes the geometric form of the cube and looses its previous form. According to the Thomist philosophy a soul is a form. If the soul knows the geometric form of the cube, and it is true that it becomes identical to the thing it knows, then it acquires the geometric form of the cube. Then it is a form which becomes another form remaining, nevertheless, basically unchanged. This is no analogy.

Our intellect works something like the clay. Because we are spiritual, our souls are “malleable.” They can take on the “form” (in this case the metaphysical forms, not the geometric, physical forms) of the things they encounter. The operational capacity that actually does this “conforming” is the intellect.

But, don’t we know the geometric form of the cube? We certainly do! So, our soul must take geometric forms; but if takes geometric forms, then it is not immaterial. But it is immaterial, therefore it does not take geometric forms. But we know geometric forms, therefore, to know something is not to become identical to it.

God is spiritual. Does it imply that He is “malleable”?

Notice how the clay does not stop being clay when it takes on the form of the block. In the same way, we do not stop being ourselves when we (through our intellects) take on the forms of the things we experience.

But we should notice as well that the clay losses its previous geometric form. So, strictly speaking it is not the same clay. We have the same “secondary matter”, which we call “clay” too, but the term was not used in the same sense. So, when the clay assumes different shapes, the “secondary matter” remains unchanged. But if our soul is simple, assuming another form without changing would mean that part of it does not change, while another changes, which is absurd. There is no analogy.

There are, of course, a number of important differences between the clay and our souls, all of which stem from the most fundamental one: the fact the our souls are immaterial, whereas the clay, obviously, is material. Its is just an analogy to help us see. (For one thing, the clay doesn’t exactly take on the form of the block, but—if I can call it that—its “anti-form.” You get a hole where the block was. Our intellects don’t do that.)

If we pay attention, we see nothing clear really.

An important similarity, however, is that, in order for the clay to take on the form of the block, the block has to act upon the clay. Here, I don’t just mean the mechanical action of the block being pushed into the clay: I mean, the block has its cubic form (perhaps with some number or letter patterns of something). It is the block—not the clay—that determines the form that the clay will take on.

That is the basic idea behind the doctrine of intentional identity of the knower and the thing known: there is no “distance” between them.

Or look at it another way: a material substance is always composed of an indeterminate, passive principle (prime matter) and an active, determinate principle (substantial form). (Note that the substantial form is absolutely not the same as the geometric “figure” of an object. It is the principle that makes a thing what it is—what makes a man a man, a dog a dog, and so on. In a living creature, it is the same thing as its soul.)

When our intellect encounters a thing, it functions like the prime matter, and allows itself to take on the substantial form of that thing (as well as some of the accidental forms).

But it is always the very same form that informs both the prime matter of the thing and our intellects (which are “malleable” like the matter). It is precisely that form which is identical between knower and thing known—in that sense we “become” what we know.

Does that help to explain the idea?

If there is a group of persons around an object, would all of them be impressed by it in the same way? If that were true, we wouldn’t need to speak. If you want to convey a message to someone, just point with you finger towards the object of your intellection: he should be impressed by it in the same way. But obviously, it does not happen.

There is something really wrong in the belief that reality impresses itself on our minds…

 

[lmelahn]

Isn’t it strange that being our soul an immaterial simple being able to reflect, we need to ask someone else “do we become identical to the thing we know?”? But even more surprising is that the answer has to be an analogy, and the language one that we use to talk about material entities. If it is true that reality produces an impression on our mind, this is… very strange

Whether it is surprising or not, I will leave for you to decide .

However, it makes sense, when we reflect upon it. Our primary object of knowledge is the things in the world outside. The interior workings of our intellect are a mystery that is only penetrated with difficulty.

We have to use analogy, because our intellection is a spiritual reality. Our minds work directly with material realities. As you have pointed out many times—and I have agreed with you on this—we have to use analogy to understand anything that is beyond sensory experience.

The clay, which according to the aristotelian philosophy is a composite of prime matter and form, assumes the geometric form of the cube and looses its previous form.

Its geometric figure, yes. Its substantial form, no. The clay remains clay; it does not become wood (which is what would happen if it changed its substantial form).

According to the Thomist philosophy a soul is a form. If the soul knows the geometric form of the cube, and it is true that it becomes identical to the thing it knows, then it acquires the geometric form of the cube. Then it is a form which becomes another form remaining, nevertheless, basically unchanged. This is no analogy.

It is the prerogative of spiritual substances to have an operative faculty—the intellect—that is capable of taking on even the substantial form of other substances. That is their particular similarity with God: that they can conceive (make concepts of) things in their intellects (and also love them with their wills).

But, don’t we know the geometric form of the cube? We certainly do!

I never denied that…

So, our soul must take geometric forms; but if takes geometric forms, then it is not immaterial.

It can take on those geometric forms in an intellectual (intentional) way.

Don’t forget that the intellect works closely with the imagination when it knows geometric figures like this. The abstraction of the “figure” is the whole basis for geometry. (Notice that squares and circles do not exist in reality in exactly the same way that geometry textbooks define them. The objects of Euclidean geometry are abstract idealizations of reality.)

But it is immaterial, therefore it does not take geometric forms. But we know geometric forms, therefore, to know something is not to become identical to it.

God is spiritual. Does it imply that He is “malleable”?

He is not malleable, but He does not need to be, because He already knows all of His creatures in His very Essence. We have to pass from not-knowing to knowing, which is why our intellects are changeable. God already knows.

Sub-human creatures are non-malleable by defect. God is non-malleable by excess.

But we should notice as well that the clay losses its previous geometric form. So, strictly speaking it is not the same clay.

Sure it’s the same clay. Why would it be a different clay just because I moved it a little?

We have the same “secondary matter”, which we call “clay” too, but the term was not used in the same sense. So, when the clay assumes different shapes, the “secondary matter” remains unchanged. But if our soul is simple, assuming another form without changing would mean that part of it does not change, while another changes, which is absurd. There is no analogy.

The soul does not have physical parts (which is what makes it simple), but it does have accidents: namely, the intellect and the will (as well as various relations). Hence, we can talk about the soul as if it were a kind of secondary matter—where “matter” here is not physical matter, but simply means a receptive principle that is ready to receive other forms (namely, the intellect and the will).

Spiritual creatures are so noble, in comparison to sub-human creatures, that, not only can their soul receive forms (like the intellect and the will), but even one of its operative capacities (the intellect) can receive forms.

If we pay attention, we see nothing clear really.

If there is a group of persons around an object, would all of them be impressed by it in the same way?

In the same way in general, yes. We all apprehend enough about an object to be able to speak to each other about it and know what we are talking about.

In the same way in every specific detail, no. I think this is obvious. (I have stated many times that we know things from the outside in: from the more general to the more specific. People differ in their penetration of the mystery of an object; they may also follow different paths to more specific knowledge.)

If that were true, we wouldn’t need to speak.

But we also would be unable to speak about such an object unless we had a common understanding of it.

If you want to convey a message to someone, just point with you finger towards the object of your intellection: he should be impressed by it in the same way. But obviously, it does not happen.

There is something really wrong in the belief that reality impresses itself on our minds…

On the contrary, it is necessary for there to be communication at all. Otherwise, no one would understand what the other was speaking about. Also, even assuming we had perfect, comprehensive knowledge of an object (which we do not), language would serve to learn about things we cannot see directly.

 

[lmelahn]

On one side, you have said that no accident is conceivable in God; on the other side, you have stated, following Aristotle, that relations are accidents. Therefore, no relation should be conceivable in God.

This is getting into Trinitarian theology. You are correct in saying that God does not have relations ad extra to His creatures. (That doesn’t mean He doesn’t care about us; it is just that whatever would correspond to relations in Him would be perfectly identical with His Divine Essence.) He does, however, have subsistent relations ad intra: namely the Divine Persons. Aristotle, of course, had no way of knowing about the Holy Trinity.

Aristotelian relations are a particular kind in the broader sense that I conceive.

If that is the case, then we do differ on this point. I think that real relations are irreducible to either our minds or to interactions.

Also Aristotle and Aquinas would speak about pairs of mutual relations, not single relations. A father has a relation of fatherhood with respect to his son; a son has a relation of sonship with respect to his father. That forms a reciprocal pair of relations. Similarly with the left and and the right hand.

What I say is that If there were no being in the world with the ability to establish relations, things would just be. If no being with that ability were there to compare objects and say, for example, this is bigger than that, those objects would not be big nor small. A comparison is needed for that, and things do not compare themselves. As Linus says: “There is nothing mysterious here”. Whenever *you imagine *such scenario, without any intelligent being in it, you are there already!

There is nothing real about the relative placement (not to mention the “mirror image” quality) of a dog’s paws? Or between a mother baboon and her offspring? How come we all end up “establishing” the same relation?

About the imposition of relations by reality on our intellect: even if it were so, it would not imply that relations belong to the “real order”; but it would imply that we would be infallible concerning relations; but we aren’t. Whenever we measure something, for example (let’s say, the distance between a cow in London and your pine tree in Rome) we don’t perceive the “distance” in any of those things. We have to understand the definition of “distance” and then follow certain procedures which every time we repeat it will normally give us a different result. But is there anything real here? Of course! The cow is in one place, and the pine tree in another, so that you cannot touch or see them simultaneously (for example). Is this a mystery, Linus?

As far as being infallible in relations: when the relations are easy to understand and obvious (i.e., available to direct observation), I rather thing we do understand them infallibly. Like when we look at our two hands. Or even just the left for and the right fork in a road.

Obviously, the more complicated it gets to understand the relationship—the further removed it is from direct experience—the less likely we are to get it right. But I am still failing to see how such a relation can avoid having a foundation in reality.

The cow and the pine tree are a certain distance away from one another. Whether or not we measure that distance correctly (and how precisely we measure it) is another matter.

 

[utunumsint]

Just to clarify: when JuanFlorencio first spoke to me about “relations,” I immediately thought of a characteristic that is inherent in substance, because that is the meaning that Aristotle and Aquinas give the term. (It is important to know that meaning, by the way, because it has important repercussions in Trinitarian theology.)

JuanFlorencio has given to “relation” a meaning that is epistemological. I haven’t quite been able to nail this down, but I believe that JuanFlorencio’s “relations” correspond to my “judgments” or “composition-and-division.” (This is a first attempt at a sort of Rosetta stone between our systems.)

(A true fusion of horizons is happening here, I might add. )

So, to illustrate my idea: between my left hand and my right hand there is a relationship that cannot be reduced entirely to something in my mind. My left hand is always my “left” hand, which is a condition that can only exist in reference to my “right” hand (or—if I had an amputated limb or something—at least in reference to the rest of my body). And also vice versa.

That “left-ness” or “right-ness” is a characteristic of my hands; it is inherent in each of them. Even if I were to die right now, the left hand of my corpse would still be “left” with respect to my right hand. That is what I meant whenever I said “relations are inherent” and that “relations are discovered, not established.” I will call this kind of relation (following Aquinas here) a real relation.

Are we talking about final causality here when we talk about relations, and whether final causality is a real feature of things? So the right hand has a final cause of being in relation to a left hand? Something like that?

Of another order altogether is the judgment that my intellect makes whenever I see my left hand: “This is my left hand.” I think I am right in saying that JuanFlorencio would regard this as a kind of relation. (How shall I baptize this kind of relation: a “Florentian relation”? Perhaps “mental relation” will do.)

I think we still differ somewhat as to how this “mental relation” is established: I think it is imposed by my hand on my intellect, because it is a fruit of direct experience. JuanFlorencio will need speak for himself how we “construct” that knowledge (which I believe is how he would see it).

RIght, because being a right hand and being left hand is part of their nature. There is something inherent in what a human being is to have those two appendages. So all people in all different language have a concept of a right and a left hand, because all people discover this inherent relationship in their bodies, which we all share in common. This is a discovery of the final causality of natural things.

Am I on the right track?

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

Like you, Imelahn thinks that relations exist in the “real order” (an expression he proposed to distinguish it from the “mental order”). I asked him: “and where are they?” The answer I got was that they inhere in substances; but that they are the most difficult to know -the less intelligible- amongst all the accidents (they would also be the most strange!). Suppose you have objects “A” and “B”, and after comparing them you say “A is bigger than B”, or “A is big, and B is small”. So, the relation must inhere, for example, in A. Then you see object “C”, and comparing it with “A”, you say “A is smaller than C”, or “A is small, and C is big”. Therefore, “A” is big and small simultaneously. And when Aristotle realized that there was a problem here he simply concluded: “therefore, ‘small’ and ‘big’ must not be contraries”.

He could also have concluded that relations do not inhere in substances, but that we establish them. But he preferred to say: “therefore, ‘small’ and ‘big’ must not be contraries”.

When we define one thing as bigger or smaller than another thing, that is simply a fact about what we see in the external world. We discover things fact and assign it the meanings of bigger or smaller. Bigger and smaller are something true about the external world. In mathematics, however, we can move completely out of the real world into a world of numbers and arithmetic, where 2 plus 2 is 4, and yet we have never defined what the first group of 2 or the second group of 2 are. And yet, however divorced these equations get from the real world, they are still true. They are not simply constructs of the human mind. This may be a question of where universals ultimately reside. Are they in some third realm, divorced from matter, or do they inhere in matter.

When you are able to ask “what is knowledge?” -not like someone who repeats a question that he has read somewhere else, but because it has become problematic to you-, you already know a lot. So, this question is not the starting point of knowledge. Please, read again my comment and reflect on it.

God bless
JuanFlorencio

This is a very large topic indeed. I do my best to think about such things and hope that I am growing in wisdom and not chasing after vanities.

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

I think this is a very important point. Let me try to illustrate it with an analogy.

Suppose I take some object—it could be the wooden block in you example—and I place it in some clay.

Notice that the clay takes on the form (in this case, the three-dimensional, geometric “figure”) of the block. In a way, the clay takes on the very same form as the block.

Our intellect works something like the clay. Because we are spiritual, our souls are “malleable.” They can take on the “form” (in this case the metaphysical forms, not the geometric, physical forms) of the things they encounter. The operational capacity that actually does this “conforming” is the intellect.

Notice how the clay does not stop being clay when it takes on the form of the block. In the same way, we do not stop being ourselves when we (through our intellects) take on the forms of the things we experience.

There are, of course, a number of important differences between the clay and our souls, all of which stem from the most fundamental one: the fact the our souls are immaterial, whereas the clay, obviously, is material. Its is just an analogy to help us see. (For one thing, the clay doesn’t exactly take on the form of the block, but—if I can call it that—its “anti-form.” You get a hole where the block was. Our intellects don’t do that.)

An important similarity, however, is that, in order for the clay to take on the form of the block, the block has to act upon the clay. Here, I don’t just mean the mechanical action of the block being pushed into the clay: I mean, the block has its cubic form (perhaps with some number or letter patterns of something). It is the block—not the clay—that determines the form that the clay will take on.

That is the basic idea behind the doctrine of intentional identity of the knower and the thing known: there is no “distance” between them.

What are our minds conforming to in mathematics then? When the things known are not defined? Only the accident of quantity?

Or look at it another way: a material substance is always composed of an indeterminate, passive principle (prime matter) and an active, determinate principle (substantial form). (Note that the substantial form is absolutely not the same as the geometric “figure” of an object. It is the principle that makes a thing what it is—what makes a man a man, a dog a dog, and so on. In a living creature, it is the same thing as its soul.)

When our intellect encounters a thing, it functions like the prime matter, and allows itself to take on the substantial form of that thing (as well as some of the accidental forms).

But it is always the very same form that informs both the prime matter of the thing and our intellects (which are “malleable” like the matter). It is precisely that form which is identical between knower and thing known—in that sense we “become” what we know.

Does that help to explain the idea?

Yes, very much. Thank you!

What do we become when we move beyond physical objects into more abstract domains such as mathematics and concepts such as justice, goodness, truth, and so on? Where the analogy between informed physical things, and informed intellect breaks down a little?

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

Hi JuanFlorencio,

Are you a nominalist?

The doctrine that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality, and that only particular objects exist; properties, numbers, and sets are thought of as merely features of the way of considering the things that exist. Important in medieval scholastic thought, nominalism is associated particularly with William of Occam.

Or would this be another false imposition of my frame of reference onto your comments?

God bless,
Ut

 

[Linusthe2nd]

On one side, you have said that no accident is conceivable in God; on the other side, you have stated, following Aristotle, that relations are accidents. Therefore, no relation should be conceivable in God.

Aristotelian relations are a particular kind in the broader sense that I conceive.

What I say is that If there were no being in the world with the ability to establish relations, things would just be. If no being with that ability were there to compare objects and say, for example, this is bigger than that, those objects would not be big nor small. A comparison is needed for that, and things do not compare themselves. As Linus says: “There is nothing mysterious here”. Whenever *you imagine *such scenario, without any intelligent being in it, you are there already!

About the imposition of relations by reality on our intellect: even if it were so, it would not imply that relations belong to the “real order”; but it would imply that we would be infallible concerning relations; but we aren’t. Whenever we measure something, for example (let’s say, the distance between a cow in London and your pine tree in Rome) we don’t perceive the “distance” in any of those things. We have to understand the definition of “distance” and then follow certain procedures which every time we repeat it will normally give us a different result. But is there anything real here? Of course! The cow is in one place, and the pine tree in another, so that you cannot touch or see them simultaneously (for example). Is this a mystery, Linus?

Why not have the cow stand in the shade of the pine tree chewing the cud ? Then you can observe the distance. But as you move the cow further and furher away from the tree you eventually have get out your measuring rod and extimate the distance between the two. Either way we understand distsance by defining it. But the definition relates directly to reality, an actual difference of known or determinible quantity. So distance is not just a definition but a relation, something real as it relates to one or more objects. Without the objects, or some object to be related to, it has no meaning and is not conceivable. So the relation exists, as an accident, dependent on the existence of actually existing objects. Nothing mysterious here .

But I do have something that is truly mysterioius which may be coming soon. And it will be an even greater challange. I mean, how do separate substances know things? I will look forward to some interesting thoughts on that. So brush up everyone - we need a change of pace.-,.

Linus2nd

 

[lmelahn]

Are we talking about final causality here when we talk about relations, and whether final causality is a real feature of things? So the right hand has a final cause of being in relation to a left hand? Something like that?

Not exactly. Final cause means a goal that something “wants” to obtain. In the case of sub-human creatures that “desire” is simply mechanical or sensory. In human beings, there is (in addition to the mechanical and sensory tendencies) also explicit action to obtain a goal, enacted by the will.

“Final cause” is roughly synonymous with what is “good.”

For example, water is a final cause for a tree, because it needs water in order to grow. In a different sense, the adult tree is a final cause for a seed or sapling. A final cause can be something that contributes to fulfillment, or the fulfillment itself.

Likewise, for human beings, the Sacraments are a final cause, because they give us sanctifying grace. In a different sense, being in the state of grace itself is a type of final cause, because it is a kind of fulfillment. (Neither one is our ultimate final cause—which is God Himself. Actually, God is our Final Cause in both senses, because He is the only one who can give us happiness, and our happiness will consist in the profound union with Him that we call “glory” or “vision.”)

RIght, because being a right hand and being left hand is part of their nature. There is something inherent in what a human being is to have those two appendages. So all people in all different language have a concept of a right and a left hand, because all people discover this inherent relationship in their bodies, which we all share in common. This is a discovery of the final causality of natural things.

Am I on the right track?

God bless,
Ut

Yes, although even if the relation does not follow necessarily from the things nature, the relation is inherent. If I place one stone to the left of a different stone, the second stone is automatically to the right of the first one.

It is true that “left” and “right” are conventional, and relative to the observer (by changing my position, I change what I regard as left and right), but the mutual relationships between stone A and stone B are there in rerum natura (in reality, not in my mind). That is the important point here. There are relations (or whatever you want to call them) in reality, not just in my (or your) mind.

 

[lmelahn]

Why not have the cow stand in the shade of the pine tree chewing the cud ? Then you can observe the distance. But as you move the cow further and furher away from the tree you eventually have get out your measuring rod and extimate the distance between the two. Either way we understand distsance by defining it. But the definition relates directly to reality, an actual difference of known or determinible quantity. So distance is not just a definition but a relation, something real as it relates to one or more objects. Without the objects, or some object to be related to, it has no meaning and is not conceivable. So the relation exists, as an accident, dependent on the existence of actually existing objects. Nothing mysterious here .

But I do have something that is truly mysterioius which may be coming soon. And it will be an even greater challange. I mean, how do separate substances know things? I will look forward to some interesting thoughts on that. So brush up everyone - we need a change of pace.-,.

Linus2nd

By “separate substances” do you mean the angels?

 

[lmelahn]

I will be taking a break from this discussion until Monday at the earliest. (A couple of days’ vacation with my religious community.)

By the way, I appreciate this discussion, and I hope you all don’t mind if I re-use some of the content of the discussion in my future classes. (There is a possibility that I will be teaching an introductory course on metaphysics next year to help out in our department.)

 

[utunumsint]

I will be taking a break from this discussion until Monday at the earliest. (A couple of days’ vacation with my religious community.)

By the way, I appreciate this discussion, and I hope you all don’t mind if I re-use some of the content of the discussion in my future classes. (There is a possibility that I will be teaching an introductory course on metaphysics next year to help out in our department.)

Refresh and recharge! Good idea.

I’ll try and do the same with my religious community of wife and five kids.

I certainly hope you get to teach that class next year. You have helped clarify many things for me on this thread.

God bless Father,
Ut

 

[Linusthe2nd]

By “separate substances” do you mean the angels?

Yes, but Thomas seemed to prefer the term ’ separated substances ’ in the S.C.G.and in his commentaries. I thought it would be an interesting topic to take up next since it is in line with this one. And I know there will be lots of questions, I don’t pretend to understand it myself , just the bare bones at most. My interest stems from a very obtuse proof for the intellignece of God in Book 1, SCG, chap. 44, para 2. To understand that proof we have to understand how separarated substances come to know things, at least other separated substances. Then we might understand how they know God.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I will be taking a break from this discussion until Monday at the earliest. (A couple of days’ vacation with my religious community.)

By the way, I appreciate this discussion, and I hope you all don’t mind if I re-use some of the content of the discussion in my future classes. (There is a possibility that I will be teaching an introductory course on metaphysics next year to help out in our department.)

I hope you will use them to do a paper, perhaps a book .

We do appreciete your help a great deal.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Whether it is surprising or not, I will leave for you to decide .

However, it makes sense, when we reflect upon it. Our primary object of knowledge is the things in the world outside. The interior workings of our intellect are a mystery that is only penetrated with difficulty.

We have to use analogy, because our intellection is a spiritual reality. Our minds work directly with material realities. As you have pointed out many times—and I have agreed with you on this—we have to use analogy to understand anything that is beyond sensory experience.

Thank you.

It is not only to understand something which is beyond sensory experience that we use analogy. We do it when we want to understand sensory experience too. And it is because we do not become the thing known; but remaining different from it, we compare it with other objects with which we have had similar interactions before. If we find an object B with which we can compare the object A, then we say we know the object A.

In general, we know objects by establishing relations between its composing elements, or by describing their interactions, or by comparing them with other objects (which display similar interactions). So, if we meet an object which is simple and unique, we remain muted in front of it: we are in front of it but we don’t know it.

Its geometric figure, yes. Its substantial form, no. The clay remains clay; it does not become wood (which is what would happen if it changed its substantial form).

It is the prerogative of spiritual substances to have an operative faculty—the intellect—that is capable of taking on even the substantial form of other substances. That is their particular similarity with God: that they can conceive (make concepts of) things in their intellects (and also love them with their wills).

The soul does not have physical parts (which is what makes it simple), but it does have accidents: namely, the intellect and the will (as well as various relations). Hence, we can talk about the soul as if it were a kind of secondary matter—where “matter” here is not physical matter, but simply means a receptive principle that is ready to receive other forms (namely, the intellect and the will).

Spiritual creatures are so noble, in comparison to sub-human creatures, that, not only can their soul receive forms (like the intellect and the will), but even one of its operative capacities (the intellect) can receive forms.

Suddenly (even after saying that it is a mystery -sorry for you, Linus), you talk about spiritual substances, and the intellect, and the will, etcetera), as if you were talking about your right and left hands. But what you are doing here, Imelahn, is to model what you understand by the word “intellect”. You have said that it is penetrated with difficulty, and I can see that you have not penetrated it yet, because you still have to use very rough comparisons. But by making those rough comparisons you get the impression that you know it; and you do…, you do, but you need to realize that those rough comparisons were not impressed on your intellect by the action of another intellect (or by the reflect action of your own intellect). In other words, in the act of knowing itself your intellect does not become identical to itself (if it became something, it became clay).

Don’t forget that the intellect works closely with the imagination when it knows geometric figures like this. The abstraction of the “figure” is the whole basis for geometry. (Notice that squares and circles do not exist in reality in exactly the same way that geometry textbooks define them. The objects of Euclidean geometry are abstract idealizations of reality.)

If the objects of geometry are idealizations of reality (and I don’t necessarily reject that), it means that they are not produced by the action of reality upon our mind. Besides, it is not possible to show that the squares and circles that we imagine are the Euclidean squares and circles. What we know about the possibilities of our imagination does not support the alleged assumption of the geometrical forms by it. So, what could be the origin of those mental entities? If they are not impressed on our intellect by the “real” squares and circles, are they a reminiscence of our stay in the topos uranus?

He is not malleable, but He does not need to be, because He already knows all of His creatures in His very Essence. We have to pass from not-knowing to knowing, which is why our intellects are changeable. God already knows.

Sub-human creatures are non-malleable by defect. God is non-malleable by excess.

Then, in that case, the intellect is not “malleable” because it is spiritual, but because it does not know. However, there are many things which do not know, and I tend to think that you would not say that they are “malleable” (your “sub-human creatures are non-malleable” induces me to think that). You are missing something, Imelahn…

 

[JuanFlorencio]

In the same way in general, yes. We all apprehend enough about an object to be able to speak to each other about it and know what we are talking about.

In the same way in every specific detail, no. I think this is obvious. (I have stated many times that we know things from the outside in: from the more general to the more specific. People differ in their penetration of the mystery of an object; they may also follow different paths to more specific knowledge.)

But we also would be unable to speak about such an object unless we had a common understanding of it.

On the contrary, it is necessary for there to be communication at all. Otherwise, no one would understand what the other was speaking about. Also, even assuming we had perfect, comprehensive knowledge of an object (which we do not), language would serve to learn about things we cannot see directly.

If you have said that reality acts upon our intellect to impress on it its forms, what do you mean when you say that people differ in their penetration of the mystery of an object (here, Linus, more mysteries!, oh, my friend…)? You should say that people differ in their degree of hardness or resistance to be penetrated by reality.

I said: “we would not need to speak”. What do you mean when you respond: “no one would understand what the other was speaking about”.