Man (Spirit and Matter)

[balto]

I suppose he is talking about relationality. How can I know you if knowledge is material? You would have to somehow inhabit me. (seems a little weak this one).

The argument is similar to the one about universal forms. If intellects were bodies, then I could only know someone by becoming that person, which is impossible. By knowing another person, I mean understanding their essence, having some understanding of the way they are in themselves, not merely knowing particular facts about them.

This goes back to the idea that when a body moves itself, it is one part moving another. But the mind can somehow consider itself in its entirety. But how can the movement to reflect on itself come from a physical part if it is reflecting on itself as a whole? (Also seems weak).

What does he mean here? Is it that physical change is nothing something that is done for the sake of the action. Motion’s end is the resulting change. But intellect act of knowledge terminates in itself. Not in some other. It is actuating a potency within itself… maybe?

Continued

I think that when he says that no body moves itself, he does not mean the “whole physical body” but instead means that “bodyness” does not move “bodyness.” “Bodyness” defines the powers that are actually available to the body, and moves the parts of the body, but does not move itself (because the bodyness is not physical but formal). But rationality is able to understand rationality (i.e. it is able to move itself).

I think you are correct that he is saying that physical change is not done for the sake of the action. My moving my arm is not done with the object of the action being “moving my arm” but a glass of water for which I want to reach. Earlier thinkandmull said something about the eye not being able to see itself and I think that is more or less what he is talking about, although this needs to be qualified because obviously an eye could see itself in a mirror. He means that an eye cannot “see that it sees.” But the intellect can think that it thinks. It can reflect upon its act of reflecting. Why can this not be physical? Probably because an “eye seeing that it sees” would require grasping the form of the eye, which is not what the eye is capable of doing, because it is an individuated material thing. The intellect is capable of understanding such forms, and its own form is present to itself as another form capable of being abstracted. The form of the eye is not present to it as a sight, since the form is not something that is seen.