Endless Ends and Endless Definitions, and the Influence of Custom on Thinking (Metaphysics II, Readings 4–5)

Orientation #

He is taking up the fourth reading of Book II, on the causes called end and form, and then moves into the fifth reading on custom. He says explicitly that he must stop, that the class returns next week, and that he is going to England on Saturday. The previous class continued the same Book II commentary on the impossibility of infinite regress among causes.

The class, in order #

1. The end cannot be endless (“that for the sake of which is an end”) #

Point: if the series of things-for-the-sake-of-something never stops, there is no end at all.

• Text read: “that for the sake of which is an end, and such as what is not for the sake of another, but other things for the sake of it. So if there be something last such as this, it will not be endless. If there is nothing such, there will not be that for the sake of which.”
• Distinction: end = wanted for its own sake, other things for its sake vs. means = desired for the sake of something else. If everything is a means, nothing is desired as an end.
• Parallel to the movers: a series of moved movers, however long or infinite, is “one grand what mover with nothing before”; likewise a whole infinite series of means is “one grand means” — the cause called end is abolished.
• His own version of the argument (he notes he gives it differently from Aristotle): if I desire A for the sake of B, I must desire B first — medicine for the sake of health presupposes desiring health. So if everything is desired for something else, there is always something to be desired before anything can be desired, and you could never begin to desire at all.
• Aside: the word itself. “Means” carries the idea of middle; an endless series of means contradicts the very word “end.”
• Story: his father’s engineer at the factory, who could not accept that philosophy was studied for its own sake and after weeks supplied his own answer — “it’s brain food,” build up the brain like muscles and then go do something with it. This is the common “what’s that good for?” — the assumption that a thing must be good for something other than itself.
• Plato/Socrates make the same point about happiness in the Symposium.

2. What falls with the end: the good, mind, and effort (“taking away the nature of the good”) #

Point: the destructive consequences of an endless series — arguments two, three and four are “destructive,” showing what follows.

1. The good goes. End and good are basically the same: the good is defined as “what all want,” the end as “that for the sake of which” / what is aimed at — we aim at what we desire and act for its sake, so taking away one takes away the other. He credits Aristotle (and Thomas) with seeing this connection more than anyone; Kant speaks of doing your duty but not of the good as end. From the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics.
2. Effort goes. “No one would attempt to do anything, not expecting to come to a limit.”
3. Mind goes. “Nor would there be mind in things, for the one having mind always acts for the sake of something; but this is a limit, for the end is always a limit.”

• Example: “how high can you count?” — to a hundred so I can count to a thousand, to a thousand so I can count to a million… that is mindless, it never comes to an end.
• Example: the early-TV slogan, “our most important product is progress.” If progress is conceived as going on forever, it cannot be an end — like the man counting.

3. Why the end is treated here: it is the cause of the other causes (“the end is the cause of all the other causes”) #

Point: the end most concerns the lover of wisdom.

• Chair example: the carpenter makes the wood be actually the wood of a chair and puts the shape into the wood — so he causes the causality of matter and form. But why did he make it? For sitting. So sitting causes the carpenter, who causes matter and form.
• Consequence for Metaphysics XII: showing God is the first cause cannot stop at unmoved mover or first maker; He must also be the first end, otherwise, if the first maker made for the sake of something other than himself, he would not be fully the first cause.
• St. Bonaventure: God is the end because He is the beginning; compared to a circle, where the same point begins and ends — as you leave the point you are approaching it. Better than the materialist circle: “dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return,” where the end is destruction, not that-for-the-sake-of-which. Chesterton, one of the last things he said: “my end is my beginning.” And the saying: happy is the man who can join the end of his life to the beginning.
• Second reason he treats end here: the word itself is directly opposed to an endless series.

4. Digression: “end/limit” and “beginning” in Book V (“the end of the table”) #

Point: the senses of end (limit) and beginning themselves already show a first.

• Senses of end he gives: (1) end of a continuum — the end of a table; (2) end of motion; (3) end of intention, that for the sake of which; (4) definition — better seen in Latin (finis) and Greek (horos, horismos; horismos is kin to horizon, the limit of the sky).
• The first sense already anticipates the rest: end of a body is a surface, of a surface a line, of a line a point — “that’s the end that has no end.”
• Likewise beginning: the point is the beginning of a line, and the point has no beginning. Aristotle and Thomas point out that beginning is more universal than cause: every cause is a beginning, not every beginning a cause — the point begins the line but does not cause it.
• Dependence shown by the cube: the cube is limited because its six squares are limited, the squares because their lines are limited, the lines because they have ends — and the point stops it. Anticipates the causes.
• The day: is the first hour the beginning of the day? the first minute? Eventually something indivisible.

5. Definitions do not go on forever (“the definition of what it was to be”) #

Point: since form is grasped in the definition, showing definitions have a first shows form does.

• Euclid example, definitions nested: square = equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral; quadrilateral = rectilineal plane figure contained by four sides; before that rectilineal plane figure; before that plane figure; before that figure.

1. If every part of every definition were itself defined endlessly, infinitely many definitions would have to be known before knowing any definition.
2. But we do come to know things by definition — contrary to experience.
3. So there cannot be an infinity of them.

• Aristotle’s second point: “neither is it possible always to lead back up into another definition, exceeding in thought” — exceeding in thought = said of more, more universal. Each prior one is said of more, the later not. “What does not have a first does not have a next one following” — like the unmoved-mover argument: you would have only middle thoughts, and all your thoughts would presuppose something that isn’t there.

6. Why the mind must come to a stop (“come to the indivisible”) #

Point: the same reasoning holds for statements as for definitions.

• If every statement is known through other statements, there is an infinity of statements and the mind never comes to rest: why A? because B; why B? because C — always passing on.
• The Greek word: episteme, which he renders “reasoned out understanding,” comes etymologically from words for to halt, to come to a stop — so an endless series is opposed to the very word.
• Image from the biological works: the mouse on a pile of grain cannot move because the grains keep giving way; like us trying to walk in water — nothing at rest to push off from.
• Objection handled in the text: is thought like the line, endlessly divisible? No — with a line the divisions do not stop you, but in thought you would have to actually know the infinite things before knowing what comes after.
• A sentence he says he does not understand well: “it is necessary to understand matter and what is moved”; and “what is unlimited is nothing, and if not, at least what it is to be unlimited is not unlimited.” His gloss: you can define motion (you do in natural philosophy), and you can know the unlimited — but not by going through an infinite series; you know it in general.
• Also: if the kinds of causes were unlimited in multitude, there would be no knowledge either — shown somewhat in Book I.

7. Where this leaves the argument (“so you’re convinced that there are first causes”) #

Point: the gain so far, and the confusion that remains.

• Aristotle is backing up the claim that wisdom is about first causes: there must be first causes before there can be knowledge of them.
• Sub-plot: Book I gave four kinds of causes; now each kind has a first. What remains unsettled: is the first cause of all things matter, or a mover, or one of Plato’s forms? Other things must be considered for exact knowledge.
• Why end and form are stressed here rather than matter and mover: form is the cause of being, and Book IV will show wisdom is about being as being; end is the cause of the other causes’ causing; matter and mover are more proper to natural things.
• The particular sciences each see one of these: natural philosophy a first mover and perhaps first matter; logic, that definitions and syllogisms do not go on forever; ethics, that the end does not. Here it is seen universally — an instance of what Dionne said, that particular experience prepares the mind for the universal.

8. Recapitulation: whose job is the question of method? (“what is the road to Boston”) #

Point: why the general question about the road belongs ex officio to the wise man.

• Standing in Aristotle’s shoes at the end of Book I: we know wisdom’s goal, that it is the most desirable and most divine knowledge, and that we cannot simply learn it from predecessors — we must discover it ourselves.
• Seeing the fate of the predecessors raises: “we all want to get to Boston, but those who tried did not get there — what is the road to Boston?”
• But a more general question is presupposed: not “what road in geometry / natural philosophy / ethics / wisdom, and is it the same road in all?” but how should one determine the road to follow in any reasoned-out knowledge — and, since there is one knowledge of opposites, how it should not be determined.
• Why the wise man? Because the one who teaches everyone how their private road is to be determined is directing everybody, and the wise man directs everybody. He is very brief about it, “but it belongs to the wise man from his office.”

9. The fifth reading opens: the influence of custom (“men will take the road to which they are accustomed”) #

Point: men in fact adopt the method they are used to, which is not how the road should be determined.

• He proposes the general title “the influence of custom upon thinking,” with two (maybe three) parts: how we think — Aristotle’s emphasis here; and what we think — Thomas at the beginning of the Summa Theologiae.
• Custom over what we think, examples:
  • John Paul II’s remarks on the theologian [ed.: unnamed in transcript] who asked whether we may hope all are saved. Augustine and Thomas, on Christ’s words “many are called but few are chosen” and “narrow is the road… and few there are who find it,” took it that most are lost; St. Paul on the Jews as a figure for us, with God not well pleased with most. Now we seem to have gone to the opposite extreme, that nearly everybody is saved.
  • Reading Evelyn Waugh’s life of Campion: one is struck by the severity and cruelty of the punishments then common; we have “cruel and unusual punishments” in the Constitution and now dispute executing minors. Tocqueville [ed.: “they” in the transcript] on how democratic times soften punishment of criminals — we think ourselves like the other man and so feel with him; in an aristocratic age another class’s suffering is felt like an animal’s.
  • The Paston letters: a well-to-do English family beating their young daughter daily until she agreed to marry a rich old money-bag; the historian warns us not to think them cruel parents — it was simply taken for granted, as was not being free to marry whom you wish.
  • “We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men are created equal” — said in slave Rome or Athens it would have sounded ridiculous.
  • Demosthenes mocking an opponent for having scrubbed benches, i.e. for low birth; we admire the self-made man. “I’m not going to learn rhetoric from this guy, because this would be very poor rhetoric in our time.”

10. Custom is stronger than argument (“custom is stronger than argument”) #

Point: his own general thesis, with its reason.

• He asks students which is stronger in our thinking, custom or argument; most, with limited experience, say custom.
• Test cases: he argues to them how absurd it is that the earth turns on its axis rather than the sun moving round us — mold dirt into a ball and it does not circle, it falls in a straight line to the centre; and there should be a great wind. They cannot answer, but will not change their minds. Likewise “water is H₂O” is rock solid to them — “how do you know? it looks homogeneous to me.”
• His reason: custom acts on the mind long before argument does; once customary it is a second nature, “like breathing out and breathing in, like in the musical,” so it seems naturally known, a starting point. In the Socratic dialogues, those accustomed to something think they know it — custom can make you think you know what you do not, and make something false seem true.
• Max Planck, “sometimes given the title the father of modern physics”: December 1900, the quantum hypothesis; walking in the park with his son he said he thought he had discovered something as great as Newton; five years later Einstein showed light cannot be understood without the quantum, and thirteen years later Bohr that matter cannot. Yet Planck said the new ideas are never accepted by the older generation of physicists — they are accepted as the old ones die out and the young meet the new ideas at the start of their academic career. “These are the guys who are trained to follow the evidence” — if custom is stronger for them, how much more for the common man.

His words #

• “what means” — a means, something desired for the sake of something else; an infinite series of them collapses into “one grand means.”
• “one grand what mover” — the whole infinite series of moved movers taken as one, with nothing before it.
• end / limit — the same Greek word; senses: end of a continuum, of motion, of intention, and definition (horos, horismos; cf. horizon, Latin finis).
• “exceeding in thought” — said of more, i.e. more universal.
• “reasoned out understanding” [ed.: science] — his rendering of episteme, whose etymology is “to halt, to come to a stop.”
• “the road” [ed.: method] — the way of proceeding in a science; “what is the road to Boston?”
• “the wise man orders all the rest” — from the proemium; the ground for assigning the general question of method to wisdom.

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Metaphysics II, fourth reading: the passage on that-for-the-sake-of-which; on taking away the nature of the good; “no one would attempt to do anything, not expecting to come to a limit”; on definitions “exceeding in thought”; “it is not possible to understand before one has come to the indivisible”; on the unlimited.
• Aristotle, Metaphysics II, fifth reading, opening lines on custom and the road.

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics I (four kinds of causes; kinds not unlimited); proemium (the wise man orders); Book V (senses of end/limit, of beginning); Book IV (being as being); Book XII (God as first cause).
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I (the good is what all want).
• Aristotle, biological works: the mouse on the pile of grain.
• Plato, Symposium (happiness).
• Euclid, Elements, chain of definitions (inferred).
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, beginning (custom and what we think).
• Kant (duty, not the good as end); St. Bonaventure (God end because beginning); Chesterton (“my end is my beginning”); Evelyn Waugh, life of Campion; the Paston letters; Demosthenes; Declaration of Independence; Max Planck.

His questions #

• If I desire medicine for the sake of health, could I desire medicine before I desired health? No — so with an endless series you could never begin to desire anything.
• Would you really have the end if your end is progress? No — like the man counting, it never comes to an end.
• Why didn’t the carpenter make the chair — what for? For sitting; so the end causes the other causes to be causes.
• What’s the end of a point? Nothing — it is “the end that has no end”; likewise the point has no beginning.
• If every part of every definition were itself defined, how many definitions would you need before knowing any? Infinitely many — so we could never know anything by definition.
• Is thought like the line, which is not stopped by divisions? No — in thought you must actually know the prior things first.
• Can you define motion? Can you define the unlimited? Yes, motion in natural philosophy; and the unlimited is known in general, not by traversing an infinite series.
• What general question is presupposed to asking the road of geometry, ethics, wisdom? How one should — and should not — determine the road in any reasoned-out knowledge.
• Why should the wise man take up that general question ex officio? Because he who teaches all the others how to determine their road directs everybody, and the wise man directs everybody.
• Which is stronger in our thinking, custom or argument? Custom, for the most part — because it acts on the mind long before argument and becomes a second nature.
• Is the first cause of all things matter, a mover, or one of Plato’s forms? Left open — more must be considered first.