Book V: The Meanings of 'Beginning' and of 'Being' (By Happening, by the Figures of Predication, as True)

Orientation #

He says this is the start of Book Five, following on the fourth book and the proemium of Book One (which he recalls). He announces one more class before he leaves for five weeks of teaching at TAC in California. The neighbouring classes treat the fifth reading of Book IV and the ninth reading on the senses of being.

The class, in order #

1. Understanding your words is not wisdom, but not understanding them is folly (“If a man understands the words he uses”) #

Two if-then statements, from last time:

1. “If a man understands the words he uses, then he is wise” — false. Wisdom consists chiefly in knowing the causes, the first causes, not in knowing the meanings of words.
2. “If a man does not understand the words he uses, then he is not wise” — true. So the study of the senses of words in Book Five matters, though it is not itself wisdom.

• Aside (students at his house, doing the post-predicaments in the Categories): Aristotle distinguishes four kinds of opposition; “opposites” is also taken up here in Book Five under the parts of one.
• The Marxists at Laval: dialectical materialism makes matter the source of everything and the struggle of opposites the source of development — from Hegel — yet they never distinguish the senses of “opposites,” and this is not secondary but central to their thought. Are they wise? They do not even understand their own words.
• Thomas’s remark (on a Psalm or an epistle of St Paul) about the man who does not know the articles of faith: “time is going against him.”

2. “Beginning” is equivocal by a likeness of ratios; the first sense (“as on a line and road”) #

The word is equivocal by reason — here by a likeness of ratios; with such words the first and most known meaning is the one clearest to the senses, and later meanings are ratios less and less like it.

• First sense: “that is called a beginning, whence one would first move over a thing, as on a line and road” — the beginning of this table, with the opposite limit the end.
• “Beginning” is broader than “cause”: the point is the beginning of the line but not its cause.
• Thomas’s addition: my motion down the table has its own beginning corresponding to the table’s, and the time of that motion its own; later parts of the table answer to later parts of the motion and of the time. The central meaning is the beginning of the table, with those others attached at the side.

3. Second sense: where it is convenient to begin (“the road to Boston”) #

Going to Boston I do not drive out to western Massachusetts to find the road’s beginning; wherever I get on is my beginning — beginning not of the road but of my motion, determined by convenience.

• Aristotle’s comparison: as in learning, one should sometimes begin not from what is first in the thing but from where one could learn most easily. He warns this is only a comparison: someone reported Monsignor Dion and another professor treating the second meaning as the beginning in learning — that is the fifth meaning, not the second.
• Heisenberg (Gifford lectures): in studying we never begin from the beginning of things — we do not start from the first cause, nor from the proton, though “proton” means first.

4. Third sense: the fundamental part (“the keel of the ship, or the foundation of a house”) #

Like the first, the beginning is in that of which it is a beginning, but now not as a limit — as the first or fundamental part: “whence first something comes to be existing within it.” The keel of the ship; the foundation of a house, on which all else is built. In animals some say the heart, some the brain, others whatever they hit upon — one need not settle that to see the meaning.

5. Fourth sense: the beginning outside the thing (“as a child from the father and the mother”) #

“Whence something first comes to be, not existing within it, and whence motion and change is first apt to begin” — the mover, the maker: the carpenter of the table, the child from father and mother, who are neither the edge nor the fundamental part of the child. Also “the one by whose choice things moved are moved” — Benedict XVI, President Bush, a general, the princes of cities. Arts too are beginnings, especially the chief arts, because they especially begin things.

• Greek archē carried over into government: monarchy, rule by one man. Latin principium gives “prince” — and the nun in charge of the school, “principal” spelled P-A-L, is a beginning in this fourth sense, while “principle” P-L-E is in the fifth.

6. The axiom “nothing is a beginning of itself” (“in the first book of Natural hearing”) #

Objection: the foundation is the beginning of the house and part of the house, so is it a beginning of itself? Likewise the point is in the line. Reply: there is always a distinction between the beginning and that of which it is the beginning, but the distinction differs with the sense of the word. In the third sense it is the distinction of part from whole — we say the foundation is the beginning of the house, never of the foundation. Only in the fourth sense is the beginning wholly outside: “the carpenter is not in the chair, hopefully.” Demanding the axiom only in that last form is failing to notice that “beginning” is equivocal.

7. Fifth sense: the beginning in knowing, and words out of order (“whence a thing is first known”) #

“Whence a thing is first known is also called the beginning of a thing” — what underlies demonstrations. The axioms are the common beginnings of all reasoned-out understanding; each has also private beginnings, which Euclid calls the postulates. This beginning is more hidden, more in the mind.

• The college student who asked what “first principles” means: they used to mean the first beginnings.
• The danger in learning from the Greeks and Romans: we take over the word in its later meaning and lose the order to the earlier ones. We say “principles of economics,” “principles of sociology,” and no longer hear “beginning” in the word. Either go back to principium or extend the English and say “the beginnings of economics.”
• Same with “method”: hodos is road, something sensible; the Greeks spoke afterwards of a road in the mind — equivocal, but genuinely like the road one walks, since in proving I come to one thing before another. Losing that, “we don’t know what we’re talking about.”
• On the modern mind and its use of words one could hang a sign: “out of order.” “That’s a very serious thing… a fundamental defect in our mental life.”

8. Sixth sense: any cause, even the end (“even the end is a beginning in a way”) #

Generalized: any kind of cause is in some way a beginning — nature, element, understanding, choice, substance, and last of all that for the sake of which, since “the good and the beautiful are often the beginning of knowledge and motion.” Strange as it sounds, the end is a beginning because you desire it first and then look for means.

• Parallel stretching of a word, from Book Four: “being” said of substance, then of accidents, then of coming to be — and finally even of non-being, to be blind, to be ignorant.
• But not every beginning is a cause. Aristotle goes from general to particular: beginning, cause, element — as with distinction, division, definition: every definition involves a division but not conversely, every division is a distinction but not conversely.
• The likeness of ratios: as I go from here to there with my body, so I go from premises to conclusion. Not the same thing; a certain likeness.
• The beauty of Juliet is the beginning of Romeo’s climbing the wall.

9. Which sense fits the beginnings of philosophy? (“Wonder is the beginning of philosophy”) #

From the proemium and Plato’s Theaetetus (Socrates: there is no other beginning of philosophy than wonder). Student answers, and he confirms:

• Wonder — the fourth sense: wonder is not a part of the knowledge, so not a beginning in the thing, nor a beginning in the knowing.
• The axioms of being and non-being, and the private beginnings of each science — the fifth sense.
• Since the fourth sense comes before the fifth, one is readier to say wonder is the beginning of philosophy than that the axioms are.
• Knowledge of the road to follow (e.g. in geometry: from the simple to the composed, from the equal to the unequal) — a student says second, then third; he says more like the third, with something of the fifth, but a different kind of beginning from the axioms and postulates, which are within as premises of the syllogism. So: a man who does not wonder lacks one beginning of philosophy; who does not know the axioms lacks another; who does not know the road lacks another.

10. The common notion of beginning, and a Trinitarian footnote (“the Father is the beginning of the Son”) #

Common to all beginnings: “to be that first when something is, or comes to be, or is known.” Aristotle uses this notion later in Book Five for the word “before”; beginning is in a way the source of before and after. A student asks whether the senses of beginning are related to the senses of before — yes. But “first” itself means before all the rest, so in some sense before and after comes first; hence he prefers to start from the chapter in the Categories, where before and after are distinguished by themselves, without “beginning.” (The Categories division leaves out the fourth sense, but is better here.)

• “A very subtle thing”: in the Trinity the Father is the beginning of the Son but not before the Son. Thomas says Aristotle’s account holds of beginnings in creatures, which are always before. Thomas quotes the Athanasian Creed — no before and after in God — and runs through the four senses of before in the Categories to show the Father is before the Son in none of them: not in time, not in being (he cannot be without the Son), not in knowing, not in the remaining sense. He is the origin, since the Son proceeds from him, but not first. Aristotle may be excused for not knowing the beginnings in the Trinity. When we say God is the beginning of creatures, God is before creatures.

11. Nothing is more necessary in philosophy than to begin well (“Arche hemisu pantos”) #

The Greek proverb quoted by Plato and Aristotle: “the beginning is half of all” — Plato says more than half.

• He notes it is fitting that Aristotle’s first words are words of beginning and cause, since wisdom is about first causes (proemium, Book One), and Book One reviewed the predecessors’ accounts of the causes.
• De Koninck: a man should read good literature — Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare — before philosophy, because the wonder Homer gave the Greeks was a stepping stone to the wonder that begins philosophy. Today’s fiction and films lead to immorality, not to philosophy: “we don’t have the beginning.”
• Aristotle’s image: a mistake at the beginning is like the wrong turn at the fork — small at first, and the further you go the further off you are. “A little mistake in the beginning is a great one in the end.” A student: a telescope moved a fraction of an inch moves 400 light years out. He adds: worse with a gun.

12. Being by happening: three kinds (“the just is musical, and the man musical”) #

The distinction of kath’ auto (per se, through itself, as such) from being by happening is met elsewhere — e.g. among the causes in this same book: if the cook is a violinist, we may say the violinist cooked my dinner, but not through being a violinist; he is cause by happening. Likewise the cook who plays the violin after dinner. Aristotle himself compares: “a musician builds a house, because it happens to the housebuilder to be musical.” Three kinds, by the text:

1. Both happen to the same existing thing — “Christian geometer.” There is something by which I am a Christian (baptism, grace), something by which I am a geometer (the science in my head), but nothing by which I am a Christian geometer — there is no such thing as Christian geometry. There is a way of becoming a Christian and a way of becoming a geometer, but no way of becoming a Christian geometer; I was not born one. So am I really one, or simply a man who is a Christian and also a geometer? A very weak sense of being. (Affirmative-action hiring is based on this kind of being.)
2. One happens to the other, the subject being taken as subject — “geometrical man”; likewise scientific, artistic, logical men. Geometry and man do not come together to form one thing.
3. The reverse, where the adjective is subject of the other — “human geometer.” In Book Six he will recall this sense of being and give reasons for not saying much about it, since it hardly is — but he does say something, for completeness.

• The historian, who is interested in the singular, must take it into account: hiring a black woman logician kills two birds with one stone, and it matters to her life. Styles Bridges, senator from New Hampshire, was passed over for the vice-presidential nomination because with Landon at the head of the ticket everyone would sing “London Bridge is falling down” — wholly accidental, and it cost him the office; his biographer must record it.

13. Being by itself according to the figures of predication (“whatever signify the figures of predication”) #

Help from logic. The figures of predication (Latin modi praedicandi) are distinguished by the ways something can be said of individual substances; “category” in Greek means predication, said of. An individual substance exists not in another subject: you, me, Gene Autry’s horse Champion, Lassie.

• Said by reason of what they are: man, dog, horse — substance.
• Said by reason of something in them that is not what they are — Champion beautiful, healthy, a father or son; Thomas divides these into how much, how, and towards what (quantity, quality, relation).
• Said by reason of something outside: clothed, sitting, in this room. As you go from substance along, you get less and less being: to be a man, then to be healthy, five foot ten, a father, a geometer; my being a geometer is more than my being in this room or clothed. The ways of being said of correspond to the ways of being: man is said of me by reason of what I am, geometry by how I am, father by what I am towards another. Text: “For in as many ways being is said, in so many ways it signifies” — what it is, quality, quantity, towards something, to act upon or undergo, where, when.
• Grammatical confirmation: any verb resolves into “to be” plus something — “man walks” / “man is walking.”
• This shows the likeness of logic to wisdom (as of geometry to wisdom), partly in universality, partly in immateriality.
• Book Five has chapters on substance, quantity, quality and towards something, but not on the last six — yet those are in some sense real: the man in the prison cell knows there is something real about being in a cell, though it is not as real as to be a man or to be wise or wicked; and I really am in the 21st and not the 13th century.

14. Being as the true, and beings of reason (“being and it is signified that is true”) #

The text: “being and ‘it is’ signify that which is true; non-being, that which is not true but false.” The problem goes back to Plato’s Sophist: how can you speak of falsehood, since to say what is false is to say what is not, and what is not is nothing? And: what is it to be blind? One must say the man our Lord cured was truly blind, or deny the miracle — yet outside the mind blindness is not a being but a lack. A student: it is more the denial of a reality than an affirmation; he agrees — being ignorant is really not-knowing, yet it is true to say the student is ignorant.

• “Nothing will come of nothing” (King Lear to Cordelia; also sung in the film). But if “you can’t get something from nothing,” the philosophers meant something by “nothing.” Parmenides: nothing is more true than to say something of itself — so “nothing is nothing” is true, and in some sense nothing is. Student: we are considering nothing as something, giving it intellectually a reality it does not have — a being of reason. Most beings of reason are negations or lacks: outside reason nothing is nothing, but nothing is something to think about. (He recalls wondering as a child what it would be like if there were nothing at all — no God, none of us.)
• Multiplying beings of reason: “Socrates is Socrates” contains Socrates twice; that whole statement is itself, and so on without end; there is one Socrates in reality. So De Koninck refuted Bertrand Russell, who paired 1,2,3… with 2,4,6… and concluded the even numbers equal all the numbers, the part equal to the whole: De Koninck answers more simply by pairing every number with 2, or by saying “Socrates” as often as there are men. Russell confuses real being with beings of reason. The mind can do this because it is built to reflect on itself — I know, and I know that I know, and so on forever.
• Final case: to be dead. To be dead is not to be; yet the hospital pronounces a man dead, and it is true to say John Paul II is dead, while those not yet born are not dead. So “to be dead” is being in this sense — true, but not being in reality outside the mind. “So it’s very subtle.”

His words #

• “reasoned-out understanding” — knowledge got through reasoning, having common beginnings (axioms) and private beginnings (postulates) [ed.: science / demonstrative science]
• “Natural hearing” — where Aristotle uses the axiom “nothing is a beginning of itself,” first book [ed.: Physics]
• “beginning” — his standing English for archē / principium, deliberately used in place of “principle”
• “equivocal by reason of a likeness of ratios” — the kind of equivocation by which “beginning,” “before,” “road” have many meanings
• “hodos” — road; source of “method,” a road in the mind
• “being by happening” — [ed.: accidental being, ens per accidens]; opposed to kath’ auto, per se, through itself, by itself, as such
• “figures of predication” — Latin modi praedicandi, the ways something is said of individual substances [ed.: categories]
• “beings of reason” — negations and lacks that have being only in reason: blindness, ignorance, nothing, being dead

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Metaphysics V.1, the six senses of “beginning” (inferred lectio)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V.7, being by happening and being by itself; being as true (inferred lectio)
• Thomas Aquinas, commentary on these chapters (paraphrased, not read verbatim)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Categories, post-predicaments: four kinds of opposites; the senses of before and after
• Aristotle, Physics I: “nothing is a beginning of itself”
• Aristotle, Metaphysics I, proemium (wisdom about first causes) and the rest of Book One; Book IV (being said of substance, accident, coming-to-be); Book VI (accidental being not to be dwelt on; how one becomes a geometer)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V, later chapters: “before,” substance, quantity, quality, towards something, “one,” “opposites,” “cause”
• Plato, Theaetetus (wonder); Sophist (how to speak of what is not)
• Euclid (postulates); Athanasian Creed (no before and after in God); Thomas on a Psalm or epistle of St Paul; Heisenberg, Gifford lectures; Shakespeare, King Lear; Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare (De Koninck’s advice); Bertrand Russell on part and whole

His questions #

• If a man understands the words he uses, is he wise? And if he does not? — No to the first: wisdom is chiefly knowing the first causes. Yes to the second: he is not wise.
• Is the foundation of the house the beginning of itself, since it is part of the house? — No: the distinction of beginning from that of which it is the beginning is here the distinction of part from whole.
• In what sense of beginning is wonder the beginning of philosophy? — The fourth: wonder is not a part of the knowledge nor a beginning in the knowing.
• And the axioms of being and non-being? And knowledge of the road to follow? — The axioms in the fifth sense; the road more like the third, with something of the fifth, but a different kind of beginning.
• Is the Father before the Son, since he is his beginning? — No: in no sense of “before”; he is the origin but not first. Aristotle’s account holds of creatures.
• Is there anything by which I am a Christian geometer? — No, since there is no Christian geometry and no way of becoming one; being by happening, hardly being at all.
• What kind of being is it to be blind, to be ignorant, to be dead, to be nothing? — Being as the true: true in the mind, a being of reason, not being in reality outside the mind.
• Can you talk about nothing — does the word mean something? — Only as a being of reason: outside reason nothing is nothing, but nothing is something to think about.