Reading 13: Only Two Causes, and Lack versus Contrary (Virtue, Vice, Ignorance, Error)

Orientation #

He opens by contrasting Reading 13 with the twelfth reading, where “we realize that there are three things found in every becoming” (prev. lecture), and with readings ten and eleven, which had “some necessity but also some probability”; Reading 13 “becomes strong, much stronger.” He closes by announcing the fifth paragraph as “also new and the most difficult of all,” to be taken next. Verified sources place the audio against Aquinas’s commentary on Physics I, lectio 13 (and lectio 12 for the back-references), read from his handout on Reading 13.

The class, in order #

1. Map of Reading 13: what is new, what is restatement (“something very new”) #

Point: Reading 13 becomes stronger in “these three things” (the subject, the opposite, the form); paragraphs 1, 4 and 5 contain something altogether new, paragraphs 2, 3 and 6 are summaries and restatements in various ways.

2. Paragraph 1: only two of the three are causes as such (“only two are causes as such”) #

Point: of the three things found in every becoming, only the underlying subject and the acquired form are causes as such of what comes to be; the opposite in no way enters the product.

Argument as he gives it:

1. Take apart (examine) what comes to be: you find the underlying matter that remained through the becoming, and the form or act acquired.
2. The opposite is not found there at all (“in no way enters into the final product”).
3. So only two of the three are causes within of what comes to be.

Examples:

• Soft butter into the refrigerator, hard butter comes to be: take apart hard butter and there is butter and hardness, but no softness — the opposite is not in the product.
• Dry cloth into water, wet cloth: cloth and wetness, but dryness is no part of the wet cloth, nor did dryness make the cloth wet (“how could dryness make the cloth wet?”).

He adds what Aristotle does not say: the opposite is not even an extrinsic cause (as a carpenter is of the chair without being in it), nor did softness make the butter hard, “and certainly not that for the sake of which.” Aristotle stresses the cause within because he is manifesting what nature is, and nature is a cause within: matter and form are “the two senses of nature within,” the passive and the active sense, to be seen later. The “from which” (the word from) is in no way a cause.

3. Paragraph 2: restatement of the subject as one in number, two in definition (“one in number, but two in sort”) #

Point: nothing particularly new; the subject is one in number but two in sort or definition, as before (the man, the gold, the matter can be numbered; the one is “more this something”; what becomes does not come from it by happening; the form is one).

4. Paragraph 3: the beginnings as two or as three (“neither more than the contraries in a way”) #

Point: the beginnings ought in one way to be called two, in another way three.

• The back-reference: contraries cannot be acted upon by each other (eleventh reading); Heraclitus’s apparent contradiction in change is untied because the underlying subject is other and not contrary — butter is not by definition hard or soft but able to be both, though not at the same time.
• The distinction: contraries taken concretely (hard and soft, where “hard” implies hardness plus what it is in) — two suffice; contraries taken purely as hardness and softness — a third is needed, the butter. In a way three things in every becoming; in a way only two are beginnings or causes as such; count what happens to one of them and you have three.
• Parallel cases of “the same thing as two or three”: Aristotle’s plot as beginning-middle-end, or as tying and untying the knot; the family as parents and children, or father, mother and children; his “logical example,” names said of many either univocally or equivocally (two), equivocal then subdivided into purely equivocal and analogous (“equivocal by reason”), or, as Thomas sometimes does, three at once (entirely the same meaning, entirely different, partly the same and partly other); the commandments of love — two (love God, love neighbour) but “as yourself” presupposes love of self, so in a way three. Since self-love is natural there is less need to command it, but it does fall into charity, whence the truth in “charity begins at home.” “No big deal,” he says, just different ways of speaking.

5. Paragraph 4: change need not begin from the contrary, only from the lack (“presence and absence”) #

Point: now Aristotle “corrects and determines the truth with complete necessity”: something must underlie the contraries, but the other contrary is not necessary — it is enough that one of the contraries makes the change by its presence and absence. This is the significance of what was hinted in the tenth reading, that one contrary seems to lack something with respect to the other (empty/full, rare/dense, segregated/mixed).

The distinction contrary form vs. lack of form, manifested “a little bit” since Aristotle is brief:

• Contraries strictly: species or forms furthest apart in the same genus, e.g. in the genus of habit, virtue and vice (Ethics: human virtue begun in book 1, the virtues and opposing vices in books 2-6; book 7 things not quite virtue or vice, or more than them — continence and incontinence).
• Virtuous man confirmed in goodness, vicious man confirmed in evil, no conflict since “his will is as bad as his emotions” (Bin Laden rejoicing on tape over New York; Don Giovanni). Continent man: reason and will win out with a struggle (the Alcoholics Anonymous man); incontinent man gives in and regrets. Vice is not a mere lack but “something real,” a real inclination.
• The newborn grandchild Mary Rosa: neither virtue nor vice; she can go from lack of virtue to virtue without ever being vicious. A person of our age lacking virtue probably has the opposite vice, and one with the vice resists being changed: harder to make a thief just than to raise a baby just (“as they find out in jail”); harder to convert the Paris prostitute than to raise the girl chaste, since they easily relapse.
• Conclusion: everyone with the vice lacks the virtue, but not everyone lacking the virtue has the vice; so what is necessarily before virtue is lack of virtue, not the vice. Change does not necessarily begin from the contrary (often it does), but necessarily from the lack of the form to be acquired: “I can’t come to have virtue I already have.” So change is not always between two poised forms.

Second manifestation, from the Meno: the slave boy before learning to double the square is mistaken (double the side); mistake is wrong knowledge, ignorance is lack of knowledge. “Is Berquist standing now?” — “I don’t know” is ignorance, “Berquist does not stand” is a mistake; the mistaken man is also ignorant, but not every ignorant man is mistaken (he is merely ignorant whether Bush is standing). The mistaken man is harder to teach and may resist; Socrates must first show the boy he is mistaken (“have we done him a good turn?” — now he knows he does not know and will want to know), whereas an ignorant boy could have begun the second conversation at once. Generalised: one is necessarily ignorant of something before coming to know it, not necessarily mistaken.

Third manifestation, persuasion: easier to persuade the undecided voter to vote Republican (more pro-life) than the Democrat, who resists; both lack the persuasion, but one has the contrary thinking — hence persuaders target the undecided.

What he stresses: this is “the second difference” between readings 12-13 and 10-11 — determining the truth with necessity rather than probability — and it corrects the idea of contrary forms; “a lot of people don’t see that distinction between contraries and lacks.” Two kinds of opposition, besides which there is also contradiction, and relatives.

Asides:

• Anecdote from St. Mary’s College: two Ayn Rand followers (Stanford economics, Harvard physics) holding that moral obligation rests only on free agreement (no obligation to parents or God, they conceded); he wrote their position down, then drew contradictions — communists freely agreeing to overthrow the government would be obligated, and one should not criticise what one calls obligatory; a paid agreement to “rub out” a neighbour would be obligatory — “had to remove that error first”; “one of the perfect examples of Socratic conversation” in his life; the men followed the argument, the wife would not.
• The St. John’s student who had read philosophy on his own and thought himself ahead, told he was behind because his errors had to be removed first.

6. Close: the fifth paragraph next (“the most difficult of all”) #

Point: the fifth paragraph is also new and the most difficult; he stops here.

His words #

• becoming strong / stronger: Reading 13 tightens what readings 10-12 said of the three things in every becoming.
• causes as such of what comes to be: matter and form, as found in the product when you “take it apart.”
• the underlying subject / matter that remains: the one-in-number, two-in-definition thing.
• the form the act has been acquired in: the form acquired [ed.: act].
• the contrary opposite / the opposite: the third thing, “from which,” in no way a cause.
• cause within: nature; matter and form as its two senses, passive and active.
• beginnings: [ed.: principles].
• contraries concretely vs. purely: hard/soft (with the subject implied) vs. hardness/softness.
• equivocal by reason: the analogous, as a subdivision of the equivocal.
• contrary form vs. lack of the form: two forms furthest apart in a genus vs. absence of the form [ed.: privation].
• continence / incontinence: reason and will winning out with a struggle / giving in with regret (Ethics book 7).
• mistake (error) vs. ignorance: wrong knowledge vs. lack of knowledge.
• presence and absence: one contrary making the change by being present or absent.
• kinds of opposition: contraries, lacks, contradiction, relatives.

Texts #

Read in class

• Natural Hearing (Physics) I, Reading 13, paragraphs 1-4 (handout), matched to Aquinas, In Physics I, lectio 13 (inferred, verified source).
• Reading 12 handout (“Becoming: the underlying subject and the opposite”), back-referenced; Aquinas lectio 12 (inferred, verified source).

Mentioned

• Readings 10, 11 (Heraclitus’s difficulty; contraries not acted upon by each other; one contrary lacking with respect to the other: empty/full, rare/dense, segregated/mixed).
• Aristotle, Ethics, book 1 (human virtue), books 2-6 (virtues and vices), book 7 (continence and incontinence).
• Aristotle on plot: beginning, middle, end; tying and untying the knot.
• Thomas on names said of many: same, different, partly same meaning.
• Plato, Meno (slave boy doubling the square).
• The two commandments of love.

His questions #

• If you take apart hard butter, what do you find? Butter and hardness, but no softness; the softness is in no way a cause.
• Did the dryness make the wet cloth to be wet? No — how could dryness make the cloth wet? So only two of the three are causes as such.
• How many commandments of love are there? Two, but since “as yourself” presupposes self-love, in a way three.
• Does the newborn baby have the virtue or the vice? Neither; she can go from lack of virtue to virtue without ever being vicious.
• Before you come to be virtuous, are you necessarily vicious? No; but you necessarily lack the virtue.
• Is everybody who lacks the virtue vicious? No; everyone with the vice lacks the virtue, not the converse.
• What’s the difference between a mistake and ignorance? Wrong knowledge vs. lack of knowledge; every mistaken man is ignorant, not every ignorant man mistaken.
• Is it easier to convince somebody who’s ignorant or somebody who’s mistaken? The ignorant; the mistake must first be removed, and the mistaken man resists.
• Is it easier to persuade the undecided voter or the Democrat? The undecided; both lack the persuasion, but the Democrat has the contrary thinking.