Metaphysics I.1 (end): Why Knowing the Cause Is Wiser Than Experience

Orientation #

He opens by recalling last time: Aristotle compared art/science (knowledge of the universal) with experience (knowledge of the singular), and showed that in doing the man of experience may succeed better (prev. lecture). Today he takes the second difference — experience knows only that, art knows why — and follows it to the conclusion of the first reading.

The class, in order #

1. The second difference: knowing that vs. knowing why (“wisdom consists more in knowing than in doing”) #

Point: experience tells you only that something is so; art or science, as perfected, is knowledge of the cause, of why.

• Asked who is wiser, the man who knows that or the man who knows why, everyone answers: the man who knows why. So the man of art or science seems wiser.
• This also shows wisdom lies more in knowing than in doing — “a consolation to us lazy fellows.”
• His old professor Kasurik quoted Thomas, homo sedens fit sapiens; Kasurik rendered it “the man sitting makes wisdom,” but he corrects: the Latin is “becomes wise.” The man running around gets things done but does not become wise.
• The next three paragraphs of p. 2 manifest this by signs.

2. First sign: the chief artist and the handicraftsman (“they know the causes of the things made”) #

The architectonic artist (Greek: chief + artist) commands; the subordinate carries out. He recalls the same distinction from the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics.

• Doctor and pharmacist: the prescription is a command; the pharmacist as such need not know why you should have this medicine — that is what qualifies a doctor. We all think the doctor wiser: a sign that wisdom is knowing why.
• Napoleon and the head of cavalry: the cavalry officer must know how to lead a charge, but Napoleon knows why the charge helps the victory at this moment rather than earlier or later.
• Printing the letter C: the aide is told to make the children start at the top, not the bottom. There is a reason — it carries over smoothly into cursive (“cat” written from the top needs no interruption) — but the aide need only know that.
• His own freshman year: Kasurik told him “Duane, where’s your Greek?” and “go get Euclid,” without saying why; only later did he see how many doors Greek opened. Then you are wiser.
• “Whence also we think” — not the editorial we, not “we philosophers,” but men in general: the chief artists are more honourable and wiser. The handicraftsmen “are a bit like inanimate things. They make, but they do not know what they make, as fire burns”; inanimate things make by a certain nature, the handicraftsmen by custom, a second nature.
• The Charge of the Light Brigade (Tennyson): “there is not the question why, there is but to do and die.” His brother Marcus at the factory: “you’re not paid to think, you’re just paid to do.”
• The man in his father’s factory who started every new job, got the others into the knack, and moved on — paid more than anyone, because he knew why it should be done that way.
• Aside: he wonders whether, learning to add and divide, he ever knew why it works or only that that was the way to line up the columns.
• Scientists physically unable to run their own experiments still seem wiser than those carrying out the instructions — wise in terms of knowing, not doing. “In being Mary rather than Martha.”

3. Second sign: the ability to teach (“the sign of knowing is the ability to teach”) #

1. We think the teacher wiser than the taught, and teaching is the sign of knowing.
2. The man of experience can only say “Look, kid, when you get to be my age, you’ll see” — take my word for it. That is not teaching in the fullest sense.
3. The man who gives the reason why can teach fully; therefore he knows more.

• Believing the teacher is only the beginning of learning; until you see the reasons yourself you are not fully taught.
• At St. Mary’s College a student brought moral questions to priests who gave the correct answer but could not explain why; he explained why, so the student thought him wiser — wise in the sense of teaching.

4. Third sign: a reduction to the absurd (“nobody thinks that sensing is wisdom”) #

Either wisdom is chiefly knowledge of the singular and that it is so, or of the universal and why it is so.

1. If the first, then whatever best knows the singular and that it is so is wisdom.
2. But in that order sensing is more authoritative than memory: he re-checks a remembered building against the thing; he memorises Shakespeare, drifts into a slight variation, and the printed text corrects him. Seeing you sit is surer than remembering it.
3. Experience is just a collection of memories.
4. So sensing would be wisdom — and the newborn, who needs no glasses, would be wiser than he is; the dog who sniffs things out wiser than us. Nobody thinks sensing is wisdom.
5. Therefore wisdom is knowledge of the universal and why.

• Compared to Euclid I.6: the sides are equal or unequal; from “unequal” something absurd follows (eventually, part equal to whole); therefore equal.
• Freshmen asked whether wisdom comes at the beginning, middle or end of our knowledge invariably say at the end — never at the very beginning.

5. The direction our knowledge moves (“as you go north towards the North Pole”) #

From sensing to memory to experience to art/science, knowledge moves from the singular and that toward the universal and why, i.e. toward the cause.

• So one can anticipate that at the end stands the most universal knowledge, going furthest in causes — not only the cause of the cause but the first cause.
• North Pole: going north things get colder, so you anticipate it is very cold up there; but Aristotle will still give extra reasons rather than rest on the anticipation. In the second reading he brings this out more slowly.
• He stresses: emphasise that it is knowing the cause more than knowing the universal; the excellence of wisdom will be in terms of the cause.

6. Three kinds of art: necessity, pleasure, knowing alone (“where men had leisure”) #

The first finder of an art beyond the common senses was admired not only for usefulness but as wise and distinguished from others — like the inventor of the telephone.

• Arts for necessity: farming, well-digging, cooking, tailoring, shoemaking. Arts for passing the time pleasantly: Demodocus in the Odyssey takes his harp off the wall and sings the fall of Troy. We think Demodocus wiser than the cook; the Greeks said Homer is teacher of all the Greeks, as we say of Shakespeare for English speakers — you do not make dinner with Hamlet or a shoe with Macbeth.
• Then a third kind, neither for necessity nor pleasure but simply for knowing, arising where there was leisure: mathematics first around Egypt, where the priestly class had leisure.
• Warning about “mathematics”: mathematikos first means one fond of learning, near philomathes (lover of learning). Plato: a philosopher must be a philomathes. But a lover of learning is not as focused as a lover of wisdom, since wisdom is the end of all learning.
• Pythagoras seems to have coined “philosopher”: asked to be called wise for his discoveries in geometry and number, he said God alone is wise — call me a lover of wisdom. So the word’s origin contains not only love of wisdom but the humility of the true philosopher. Heraclitus: as an ape is to a man, so man to God; or as a child to a man, so man to God. Socrates in the Apology on the Delphic oracle. Aristotle too will say at the end that God alone is wise in the full sense.
• Theorem and theoretical come from the Greek for “to look at”: something to look at, not to do. Tocqueville on Archimedes and the ancient mathematicians, who wanted nothing practical but things beautiful in simplicity and wonderful to be known. His own case: algebra and poorly taught geometry meant nothing until he read Euclid and found it interesting just to be known.
• Modern experimental science is mixed: a union of natural science and technology — Thomas would say natural philosophy and the mechanical arts — as witnessed by its oldest part being called mechanics (physics from the word for nature, mechanics from the servile arts). Yet even there Einstein is Time’s man of the century, admired for knowing, not doing; he can do nothing about the universe as a whole. The physicists who made the bomb, not knowing what it would lead to, rather lost their reputation for wisdom.

7. Art and science distinguished elsewhere (“has been said in the Ethics”) #

Aristotle has used art and science (techne, epistēmē) interchangeably for knowledge of the universal and the why; lest we think he sees no difference, he refers to the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics.

8. The grand conclusion of the first reading (“wisdom to be about the first causes and beginnings”) #

“That for the sake of which we have now made a discourse is this: that all hold what is called wisdom to be about the first causes and beginnings.”

• He notes Aristotle is anticipating: what has been shown is only that the knower of the cause is wiser; it follows that the knower of the cause of the cause is wiser still, and the knower of the first cause wisest.
• The ladder is recapitulated: memory above sensing, experience above memory, the artist above the man of experience, the chief artist above the handicraftsman. Since the chief artist directs, the wisest of all will be he who directs others and is directed by none — “that’s why God is wise.”
• Looking sciences above making ones. Shakespeare’s works are called plays; Thomas, in his proemium to Boethius’ De Hebdomadibus (he says “I think”), quotes a sapiential book, “run into your house and play with your thoughts,” and compares the philosophical life to play — because play is pleasant and for its own sake, as philosophy is.
• But the last sentence draws back: “at least we can say it is clear that wisdom is about beginnings and causes” — as if more could be clarified about the cause of the cause and the first cause.
• The whole procedure: he is not offering a private thought about wisdom, but drawing out and clarifying what we all already scattered-ly know about who is wiser.

9. Student objection: the experienced grandparent and the farmer (“there are many exceptions out there”) #

Objection: a grandparent who raised two generations judges better than the expert who writes the books; a Wyoming farmer challenged the engineers laying Route 80. Reply: that is the very point Aristotle makes — as far as making or doing goes, the man of experience may be superior, and Aristotle is more nuanced than the objection assumes. From the first difference (singular vs. universal) he reasoned to the experienced man’s advantage in doing; only from knowing the cause does he reason to the artist’s superiority in knowing and wisdom. In practical philosophy Aristotle stresses listening to the man of experience.

• A husband knows this wife will be upset if this happens, without knowing why; a man who knew all the universals about women would not know as well what this woman gets upset about.
• His own case in the academic world: he knows how things will go, not why they should go that way — “because they’re crazy.”
• Aristotle was brief about memory over sensing and experience over memory because there is little to contest; the contested step is experience vs. art.
• Buckley’s remark on Bertrand Russell, whose school run on liberty was physically wrecked by the children: he is living proof that all the symbolic logic in the world is no substitute for common sense — and, one may add, no substitute for experience, as far as doing goes.

10. Student question: why end on “causes” rather than “universals”? (“the excellence of wisdom consists in its knowing the cause”) #

He does not deny wisdom is about the universal; but the excellence of wisdom is from the cause.

1. The excellence of this knowledge will be seen in the third reading: it is about God, and God is not a universal predicated of all things (that would be pantheism) but the first cause.
2. It was already anticipated here: art’s superiority over experience was argued from the cause, while from the universal he argued to its inferiority in doing.
3. The most universal looks at first sight like the weakest knowledge: “this is something” is truer of everything than “this is paper,” yet does it make me wiser? Knowing you are an animal brings me closer to you than “something”; “man, an animal with reason” closer still. So advance in knowledge looks like advance toward the particular.
4. Whereas nobody would deny that a man who knew the first cause of all things would be wise — one might doubt whether it can be known, not whether it would be wisdom. So it is more known to us that wisdom is about the first cause than that it is about what is said of all. Hence at the beginning of the fourth book of wisdom Aristotle reasons from wisdom’s being about the first causes to its being about what is said of all.

• Parallel on a lesser scale: ethics is chiefly about happiness (Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, has philosophy applied to happiness by virtue); from its being about the end of human life follows that it treats all the goods of man in general and their order — goods of the soul above goods of the body above exterior goods. Political philosophy, being about the common good of the city, must treat the whole city and all arts and sciences within it.
• Parallel in theology: it is about the Creator, and therefore about all creatures, but only in a general way, not as the botanist treats the tree. Its excellence is from being about the Creator; treating creatures in general is a consequence.
• He promises this will be clearer at “the great turnaround” — said once as being “in the physics,” then twice as book four (in his course description he lets students guess what it will be).

His words #

• chief artist / architectonic — from the Greek for chief or principal and for artist; the one who commands, as against the subordinate art that obeys.
• handicraftsman — the one who makes without knowing what he makes, “as fire burns”; acts by custom, “a second nature.”
• “whence also we think” — not editorial, not “we philosophers”: men in general.
• reduction to the absurd / to the impossible — indirect proof, as in Euclid I.6.
• mathematikos — in Greek, one fond of learning; near philomathes, lover of learning.
• philomathes — philo, lover; mathes, learning.
• theorem / theoretical — from the Greek “to look at”: something to look at, not to do about.
• looking sciences vs. making sciences [ed.: speculative vs. practical].
• the great turnaround — a later point (he says the Physics, then book four) where Aristotle’s emphasis on cause over universal becomes clear.

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Metaphysics I, proemium, p. 2 of his handout: chief artists more honourable and wiser; “they make, but they do not know what they make, as fire burns”; custom as second nature; the sign of knowing is the ability to teach; arts for necessity and for passing the time; mathematics first around Egypt because of priestly leisure; “what the difference is between art and science… has been said in the Ethics”; “all hold what is called wisdom to be about the first causes and beginnings”; closing “it is clear that wisdom is about beginnings and causes.”

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I (chief and subordinate art); VI (difference of art and science); the Ethics as about happiness.
• Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, opening (inferred from “the fourth book of wisdom”).
• Thomas Aquinas, proemium to De Hebdomadibus of Boethius, with a sapiential verse: “run into your house and play with your thoughts.”
• Euclid, Elements I.6.
• Homer, Odyssey (Demodocus and the fall of Troy).
• Plato, Apology (Socrates and the Delphic oracle); Plato on the philosopher as philomathes.
• Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”
• Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew; “we’ll strive to please you every day.”
• Tocqueville, Democracy in America, on the ancient mathematicians.
• Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.

His questions #

• Who is wiser, the man who knows that something is so or the man who knows why? The man who knows why — hence wisdom is knowing the cause.
• Does the pharmacist as such know why you should have this medicine? No; that is what qualifies a doctor, and we hold the doctor wiser.
• Is “when you get to be my age, you’ll see” teaching in the fullest sense? No; only the man who gives the reason teaches fully, and teaching is the sign of knowing.
• Which is more trustworthy about the singular, sensing or memory? Sensing — so if wisdom were knowledge of the singular, sensing would be wisdom, which nobody holds.
• Does wisdom come at the beginning, the middle or the end of our knowledge? At the end — never at the very beginning.
• Who is considered wiser, Demodocus or the cook? Demodocus; Homer is called teacher of all the Greeks, as Shakespeare of the English speakers.
• Why did Pythagoras refuse to be called wise? God alone is wise; call me a lover of wisdom — the humility in the origin of “philosopher.”
• Is Einstein admired for doing or for knowing? For knowing; he can do nothing about the universe as a whole.
• Aren’t there many exceptions, where the experienced grandparent or farmer beats the expert? Yes, and Aristotle grants it: in doing, experience may be superior; art is wiser only as knowing the cause.
• Why does Aristotle conclude with beginnings and causes rather than universals? Because the excellence of wisdom is from the first cause, which is God and no universal; that it treats all things generally follows from that, as he argues in book four.