Wednesday, May 4

Five 'wits' derived from the faculties of the 'Soul'



May 4, 2016.
Don Wesley 1933







The five 'wits' are derived from the Faculties of the 'Soul'
That Aristotle describes in 'De Anima'



If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son.   ----  Rudyard Kipling


What does this expression
"have your wits about you" mean?



My Class Teacher had us read Job and Hamlet: 1948 
Doug Lunan was His Name.
Years later, for some; it is to be intelligent enough
to read between the line and other things.



















"g) Five senses refers to the five traditionally recognized methods of perception, or sense: hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste.

h) In the time of William Shakespeare, there were commonly reckoned to be five wits and five senses. The five wits were sometimes taken to be synonymous with the five senses, but were otherwise also known and regarded as the five inward wits, distinguishing them from the five senses, which were the five outward wits.

i) The inward wits are part of medieval psychological thought. Geoffrey Chaucer translated Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy into Middle English.

j) According to Chaucer's translation, "imagination" is the most basic internal faculty of perception.

k) Humans are thus "sensible", "imaginable", and "reasonable" (i.e. capable of sensing, imagination, and reason, as defined), all three of which feed into memory."