Metaphysics I, Proemium: Wonder Fulfilled, Iris Daughter of Thaumas, and Learning from Predecessors

Orientation #

He is finishing the proemium of the Metaphysics (“the third reading”), then looks ahead: after the proemium, Book I reviews what the predecessors said about causes; Book III opens on how discoveries are made; next time he will “look a little bit at the Greeks, the early Greeks again… and see what they said about the causes.” Verified sources: handouts “The Royal Fragment” p. 13 and “The Matter and Order of Wisdom” p. 52, and printed volumes DHB Vol I – The First Philosophers p. 29, DHB Vol III – The School of Aristotle p. 501.

The class, in order #

1. Two senses of wonder (“a different kind of wonder”) #

Objection he raises against himself: philosophy begins in wonder, and wonder is a desire to know the cause — so wonder disappears once the cause is known. But in Book XII Aristotle says the excellence of God compels our wonder. Contradiction?

• Reply: two senses. (a) Wonder as desire to know what you don’t know — it vanishes on knowing, “just like my hunger disappears once I’ve eaten.” (b) Wonder as awe at excellence — arising not from ignorance but from knowledge, as before a beautiful statue or painting.
• Loose synonyms people offer: curiosity for the first, admiration for the second — but curiosity is taken for a vice, being interested in unimportant things. Aside: his wife teaching in a small Massachusetts town, where everyone knows everyone’s business.

2. Aristotle’s three examples of wonder (“things that happen wonderfully by chance”) #

Reading the text: all begin from wondering if things are thus — about chance events (the philomythos is at home here), the turnings of the sun, the incommensurability of the diagonal.

• Chance: Friar Lawrence’s messenger never reaches Romeo because of the plague — terrible things happen by chance.
• Sun: it seems to go up and down the sky over the year.
• Diagonal: in a square no line, however small, measures both side and diagonal.

3. Wonder is aroused most by what is contrary to expectation (“contrary to what we expect”) #

Thomas’s commentary does not unfold this, but Thomas says it elsewhere: we wonder most not simply at an unknown cause but at an unknown cause of something happening against expectation.

• Dropping the glass: it falls, you are not surprised (though you don’t really know why it falls); if it went up, you would ask why.
• Euclid III (inferred): a line at right angles to the endpoint touches the circle at one point; no straight line can be drawn between circle and tangent; so the horn angle is less than any rectilineal angle. Contrary to expectation, since rectilineal angles can be made ever smaller (like closing scissors) and there seems open space down to the point. His politician friend, who dismissed geometry as “high school stuff,” was struck by it.
• Einstein’s autobiographical sketch in the Harper Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist makes the same point as Thomas.
• Theological instance: you don’t expect God to become man and die for us — so wonder is aroused, “Why did he do this?” On “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — the usual explanation is the reality of Christ’s suffering, but Thomas gives a number of reasons, one being this kind of wonder that God’s own Son should suffer so.
• Text: it is necessary to finish in the contrary of wonder, and the better; the geometer would wonder at nothing so much as if the diagonal were measurable.

4. An extra reason, not Aristotle’s, that wisdom is knowledge of the first cause (“Aristotle doesn’t reason this way, but you could”) #

1. He who wonders wants to know the cause. 2. If the cause has a cause, he wants the cause of the cause. 3. So wonder drives on to the very first cause. Conclusion: because philosophy begins in wonder, its goal had to be a knowledge of the first cause — some kind of wisdom.

5. Iris the offspring of Thaumas (“it wasn’t a bad genealogy”) #

In the Theaetetus, after saying philosophy begins in wonder, Socrates praises the genealogy (from Hesiod) that Iris is the child of Thaumas (thaumazein, wonder personified), and does not explain himself. Maybe “Plato stuck that line in there to see if you’d wonder about it, to see if you were something of a philosopher.”

• In the poets Iris is two things: messenger of the gods, and the rainbow personified. Not by chance: the rainbow unites heaven and earth (a student supplies this), the messenger unites gods with men.
• Therefore: wonder, like Iris, unites man to God — on the side of his reason — since wonder drives to the first cause, and the first cause is God. Hence not a bad genealogy, “beautifully said, as the poet.”
• Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage, The Tempest, the play where he speaks most of wonder, has Iris appear, hailed as “many coloured messenger.”

6. “A knowledge of God in both senses” (“in both senses”) #

Wisdom is knowledge of God both as object and as most fully God’s own. Parallels: a knowledge of reason is a knowledge of reason in both senses; the De anima is a knowledge of the soul in both senses; the definition of definition is a knowledge of definition by definition. Logic arises this way, because it is thinking about thinking — we do not begin by thinking about thinking; if I couldn’t think about thinking there would be no logic.

7. The epilogue at the bottom of page five (“what is the goal that the search”) #

Aristotle recalls the third reading and the first two: the knowledge sought is looking knowledge, liberal as opposed to servile, not a human possession, the best and most honourable because most divine; and the goal that the zētēsis (search), the methodos (“knowledge over a road”), must reach is knowledge of the first cause.

• What he stresses: Aristotle reasons to wisdom’s being best and most honourable from its being about the first cause, not from its being about what is said of all things. Parallel from the first reading: art/science was not shown superior to experience by knowing the universal — from that difference he reasoned rather to its inferiority for doing — but by knowing the cause. “That’s important when you get later on to what I call the great turnaround.”

8. Student question: the incommensurability, and Euclid II.5 (“more perimeter but less area”) #

Asked to explain incommensurability, he declines to demonstrate it (it is back in Euclid Book X, inferred): take any side of a square and its diagonal; no line, however small, measures both evenly. Then, “changed around a little bit… with a certain tragedy, as Aristotle says, to arouse more wonder,” Euclid II.5: of rectangles (taken broadly, including the square) with the same perimeter, the square has most area, and the area falls off as the square of the difference of the sides.

• Perimeter 20: 5×5 = 25; 4×6 = 24 (diff. 1² = 1); 3×7 = 21 (diff. 2² = 4); 2×8 = 16 (diff. 3² = 9).
• Hence one can have more perimeter and less area: 2×10 has perimeter 24 but area 20. Two men fence playgrounds; one uses less fence and gets more room. Legend: crooked ancient geometers sold land by perimeter.
• Max Planck, “the father of modern physics,” on discovering the quantum: the simpler a mathematical law, the more extensive it is — more deduced from less, as more area from less perimeter.
• Words: “as Shakespeare says, brevity is the soul of wit — brevity is the soul of wisdom.” Paradox: the wise man has more to say yet says it in fewer words; the Sapiential books say the fool multiplieth his words. God says it all in one Word. Proportion: “what you say is to words, about what area is to perimeter.”
• Story: at Laval, facing four professors on coursework, a cousin’s whole semester condensed on an index card; he “snowed him with the index card” — the professor’s semester said in far fewer words.
• His own poem: “God the Father said it all in one word. No wonder when that word became a man, he spoke in words so few and said so much.”

9. Student question: is curiositas pursuing the singular over the universal? (“a disordered desire to know”) #

Partly, yes. Curiositas in Thomas is the vice opposed to wonder: a disordered desire to know, pursuing what is unimportant or need not be known — often the singular. Supermarket tabloids (“Prince Charles really killed Princess Diana”); prying into others’ private lives. The danger: there is so much to learn before wisdom that if you don’t stick to the straight and narrow you never get there. A historian from Worcester State College on scholars “learning more and more about less and less” — not American history, not 19th-century American history, but one decade, one aspect; or fifteen years on the definitive biography of a Henry Clay.

10. How is wisdom acquired: discovery or learning from another? (“put yourself back in Aristotle’s shoes”) #

The proemium has shown wisdom is the best and most desirable knowledge; so you want it; what next?

1. There are only two ways to get knowledge you lack: discover it yourself, or learn it from someone who has it — true for geometry as for natural philosophy and ethics.
2. If someone already has it, it is reasonable to learn from him. A student adds: assuming you would actually get there and not fall into “a slimy, muddy pit.”
3. Objection: isn’t it more glorious to discover it yourself? Reply: the knowledge discovered is the same knowledge as the knowledge learned; only the honour differs. So if you insist on discovering everything yourself you will have more honour and less knowing — which makes you a lover of honour more than a lover of knowing; that is the pride spoken of before. And if nobody learned from anybody, no art or science would develop.
4. So: look first at those who searched for causes before you; learn from them if they succeeded; only if they failed must you investigate yourself — and then perhaps not without their help.

11. Aristotle’s and Thomas’s practice (“not… out of vanity”) #

Aristotle wrote nothing in geometry: it had gone far enough without him. In Politics II (inferred) he examines the praised cities like Sparta and the cities proposed in words, such as Socrates’ in the Republic, showing their defects, so that his own account of the best city not be attributed to vanity. Especially in the highest parts of the two philosophies — wisdom and political philosophy — Aristotle is careful to show he is not innovating out of desire for honour but because of real defects in his predecessors. Modern philosophers’ fault: contradicting Aristotle without recalling what he said and why, and showing it deficient — though now there are too many books to do this for all. Thomas did not set aside Aristotle’s logic to write his own but commented on it; he commented on Lombard’s Sentences and first thought to redo that work before striking out on his own (better ordered, more proportioned to the beginner); in ethics he did little on his own.

12. The plan of Book I and what follows (“can we learn it from these guys before”) #

The rest of Book I asks whether we can learn wisdom from the predecessors; the negative conclusion is that their distinction of causes was not sufficiently understood. But there is a positive yield too: from their opinions and reasons one sees whether they touched any cause other than the four — matter, form, mover, end — and so comes away assured there are just these four kinds. Book III then begins with how discoveries are made, directly linked to the end of Book I; Book II stands in between. Aside: Lucy the redheaded cat, demanding to be let in — and the closing exchange, “it must be good to go through this again,” “the wisdom of going over things again and again… finally, sink in.”

His words #

• wonder (two senses) — desire to know what you don’t know, which ends with knowing; and awe at excellence, arising from knowledge.
• curiosity / curiositas — the vice opposed to wonder; disordered desire to know unimportant things.
• philomythos — the lover of myth, present with things happening wonderfully by chance.
• Thaumas / thaumazein — wonder personified; the Greek for wonder.
• horn angle — the angle between circle and tangent, less than any rectilineal angle.
• rectilineal angle — angle formed by two straight lines meeting.
• rectangle (broad sense) — quadrilateral with four right angles, including the square.
• zētēsis — the search; methodos — “knowledge over a road.”
• looking knowledge [ed.: speculative/theoretical] — as opposed to practical; wisdom is the highest of it.
• liberal / servile knowledge — free knowledge, not a human possession.
• “a knowledge of God in both senses” — of God as object and as God’s own knowledge.
• the great turnaround — his name for something coming later.

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Metaphysics I, proemium, third reading (wonder; the three examples; “necessary to finish in the contrary of wonder”) and its closing epilogue at the bottom of page five.
• Thomas Aquinas, commentary on that passage (and Thomas elsewhere on wonder at the unexpected; on “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics XII (excellence of God compels wonder); Politics II (inferred); Physics/natural philosophy for the four causes.
• Plato, Theaetetus; Republic (Socrates’ city); Hesiod; Homer (Iris).
• Euclid, Elements III (tangent, horn angle), II.5 (perimeter and area), X (incommensurability) — book numbers as he gave them, X inferred.
• Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet; The Tempest (“many coloured messenger”); “brevity is the soul of wit.”
• Scripture: Matthew’s words of Christ on the cross; the Sapiential books (“the fool multiplieth his words”).
• Einstein, autobiographical sketch in Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist; Max Planck on simple laws.
• Peter Lombard, Sentences, and Thomas’s commentary.

His questions #

• If wonder is a desire to know the cause, does it not vanish with knowledge — and does Book XII then contradict this? No: a second wonder, awe at excellence, comes from knowledge, not ignorance.
• Is it by chance that Iris is both messenger of the gods and the rainbow? No: both unite heaven and earth; so wonder unites man to God through reason.
• Why does Socrates say it was not a bad genealogy that Iris is the offspring of Thaumas? Because wonder, driving to the first cause, joins man to God.
• Why does Aristotle call wisdom best and most honourable — because it is about what is said of all, or about the first cause? Because it is about the first cause, God.
• What does “measure” mean, in saying no line measures both side and diagonal? Going evenly into both, fitting exactly.
• How can more perimeter enclose less area? Euclid II.5: the square has most area for a given perimeter, and area falls off by the square of the difference of sides.
• How can the wise man say more with fewer words? Words are to what is said as perimeter to area; God says it all in one Word.
• Is curiositas pursuing the singular rather than the universal? Largely, yes — it is a disordered desire to know what is unimportant, often the singular.
• Given wisdom is most desirable, how do you get it — discover it yourself or learn from another? Learn from another if he has it; to insist on discovering all yourself is to love honour more than knowing.
• Did the predecessors succeed, so that we may learn from them? Left open here; the rest of Book I is his examination, and its conclusion is that they did not sufficiently understand the four causes.