“Wherefore that manner of knowledge is better than others, for it can comprehend of its own nature not only the subject peculiar to itself, but also the subjects of the other kinds of knowledge.
“Suppose that the senses and imagination thus oppose reasoning, saying, ‘The universal natural kinds, which reason believes that it can perceive, are nothing; for what is comprehensible to the senses and the imagination cannot be universal: therefore either the judgment of reason is true, and that which can be perceived by the senses is nothing; or, since reason knows well that there are many subjects comprehensible to the senses and imagination, the conception of reason is vain, for it holds to be universal what is an individual matter comprehensible to the senses.”
‘To this reason might answer, that ‘it sees from a general point of view what is comprehensible to the senses and the imagination, but they cannot aspire to a knowledge of universals, since their manner of knowledge cannot go further than material or bodily appearances; and in the matter of knowledge, it is better to trust to the stronger and more nearly perfect judgment.’”
—from Book 5, Prose 5
I know a fellow who is convinced he gets everything, and yet he knows very little. He’s one of those macho, piss and vinegar guys, who believes himself an expert on all matters, and I still can’t bring myself to say to him, as kindly as possible, that he is completely clueless.
“I worked at Fairchild back in the 1980’s, and I can tell you right now that the Air Force has totally retired the A-10 Thunderbolt. Heck, we only made 400 of them, and the only ones that are left are in the ANG.”
Good grief. Fairchild made exactly 718 of them, and the Air Force currently has four operational wings with A-10’s in front line service, in addition to those in AFR and ANG units.
“My ex-wife was a Catholic, though I’m a real God-fearing Baptist, so let me tell you what it means to be a Catholic. I figured it all out.”
Please, tell me what you know of a faith you briefly looked at from the outside, and never bothered to engage from the inside.
“I know who the good people are, and I know who the bad people are, because I learned how to kick the crap out of all those hippie liberals, way back then in high school.”
Jesus wept.
That which is either incapable or unwilling of reaching beyond itself can never understand what is greater than itself. A stone remains a stone, taking in nothing from outside of its own limits. How sad it is when a human mind is like a stone.
If my own senses and imagination had the opportunity to speak for themselves, they might well be as cocky as my foolish white trash friend. Having no other reference to appeal to, how could I explain to my senses that reason has a deeper grasp on things?
“Impossible! You must be some kind of faggot Communist!”
The senses, of course, can never really say anything, since they lack the powers of judgment and speech. Still, let us pretend that they are somehow talking back to reason.
“I see all these individual things, and yet you speak of a reality in terms of crazy universal ideas. You just made it up. What a fantasy! I can’t see any of that, so clearly it can’t be real. How dare you tell me that my experience is false!”
No one ever told the senses that what they experienced was false, only that they saw one part, without a conception of the whole. There is no reason for the senses to take offense for being what they are.
The deeper problem is that the senses assume that being what they are excludes the possibility of being anything else, something higher and better, just as, in politics, when the conservative excludes the liberal, and the liberal excludes the conservative.
“I deny you, since you cannot be real in my narrow world.”
There is the problem Boethius faced, and there is the problem I face in every day of my life. I think small, and so I am small.
Nature designed the eye to see, and what an incredible organ it is. Nature also designed the mind to think, and it’s a shame when I waste it.
Consider, for a moment, that there is something greater than the human mind. It is Intelligence, the fullness of all knowing, and some of us call it the Divine. I just realized that I inadvertently ended up quoting the Bhagavad Gita.
When the senses complain that they cannot understand the ways of reason, why am I then complaining that my reason cannot comprehend the ways of God?
“Suppose that the senses and imagination thus oppose reasoning, saying, ‘The universal natural kinds, which reason believes that it can perceive, are nothing; for what is comprehensible to the senses and the imagination cannot be universal: therefore either the judgment of reason is true, and that which can be perceived by the senses is nothing; or, since reason knows well that there are many subjects comprehensible to the senses and imagination, the conception of reason is vain, for it holds to be universal what is an individual matter comprehensible to the senses.”
‘To this reason might answer, that ‘it sees from a general point of view what is comprehensible to the senses and the imagination, but they cannot aspire to a knowledge of universals, since their manner of knowledge cannot go further than material or bodily appearances; and in the matter of knowledge, it is better to trust to the stronger and more nearly perfect judgment.’”
—from Book 5, Prose 5
I know a fellow who is convinced he gets everything, and yet he knows very little. He’s one of those macho, piss and vinegar guys, who believes himself an expert on all matters, and I still can’t bring myself to say to him, as kindly as possible, that he is completely clueless.
“I worked at Fairchild back in the 1980’s, and I can tell you right now that the Air Force has totally retired the A-10 Thunderbolt. Heck, we only made 400 of them, and the only ones that are left are in the ANG.”
Good grief. Fairchild made exactly 718 of them, and the Air Force currently has four operational wings with A-10’s in front line service, in addition to those in AFR and ANG units.
“My ex-wife was a Catholic, though I’m a real God-fearing Baptist, so let me tell you what it means to be a Catholic. I figured it all out.”
Please, tell me what you know of a faith you briefly looked at from the outside, and never bothered to engage from the inside.
“I know who the good people are, and I know who the bad people are, because I learned how to kick the crap out of all those hippie liberals, way back then in high school.”
Jesus wept.
That which is either incapable or unwilling of reaching beyond itself can never understand what is greater than itself. A stone remains a stone, taking in nothing from outside of its own limits. How sad it is when a human mind is like a stone.
If my own senses and imagination had the opportunity to speak for themselves, they might well be as cocky as my foolish white trash friend. Having no other reference to appeal to, how could I explain to my senses that reason has a deeper grasp on things?
“Impossible! You must be some kind of faggot Communist!”
The senses, of course, can never really say anything, since they lack the powers of judgment and speech. Still, let us pretend that they are somehow talking back to reason.
“I see all these individual things, and yet you speak of a reality in terms of crazy universal ideas. You just made it up. What a fantasy! I can’t see any of that, so clearly it can’t be real. How dare you tell me that my experience is false!”
No one ever told the senses that what they experienced was false, only that they saw one part, without a conception of the whole. There is no reason for the senses to take offense for being what they are.
The deeper problem is that the senses assume that being what they are excludes the possibility of being anything else, something higher and better, just as, in politics, when the conservative excludes the liberal, and the liberal excludes the conservative.
“I deny you, since you cannot be real in my narrow world.”
There is the problem Boethius faced, and there is the problem I face in every day of my life. I think small, and so I am small.
Nature designed the eye to see, and what an incredible organ it is. Nature also designed the mind to think, and it’s a shame when I waste it.
Consider, for a moment, that there is something greater than the human mind. It is Intelligence, the fullness of all knowing, and some of us call it the Divine. I just realized that I inadvertently ended up quoting the Bhagavad Gita.
When the senses complain that they cannot understand the ways of reason, why am I then complaining that my reason cannot comprehend the ways of God?
Written in 1/2016
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