Metaphysics II, Reading 4: Why There Must Be a First End and a First Form

Orientation #

He says “we’re in the fourth reading of the second book of wisdom”, and recalls what “we said back in Book Nine” about those who deny ability, and the breakdown of equivocal names he gave “the other day” (prev. lecture, not resolved by the context block). The verified sources place a handout, “The Skopos or Aim of the Categories” (p. 30), and DHB Vol III, The School of Aristotle, p. 83, in this episode; the handout evidently underlies the discussion of the highest genera and the Categories (segment 9). The recording begins mid-sentence on divine attributes and ends mid-sentence on Plato and Cratylus. The previous class treated the material cause and the unmoved mover; the next continues the arguments on form and begins the “way of proceeding”.

The class, in order #

1. Fragment before the prayer (“the justice and mercy, for instance, are the same thing”) #

Tail of a discussion: attributes said to be “in Him” must be understood by analogy; justice and mercy are the same thing in Him, not the same in creation. Then the opening prayer.

2. Why end and form matter most to the wise man (“the most important causes for the wise man”) #

Point: Aristotle treats end and form more fully than matter and mover because these are the wise man’s causes.

1. The end is the cause of the other causes being causes, hence most appropriate to the first cause.
2. Perhaps also a special opposition between end and endless, and between form/definition (which “comes from the idea of end or limit”) and the infinite.
3. Confirmation from Metaphysics I, end of lectio 2, 982b4: wisdom is architektonikōtatē of all epistēmē (the “chief art” that commands the others), more ruling (archikōteron) than the one obeying, the one knowing tinos heneka (that for the sake of which, i.e. the definition of end) each thing ought to be done (prakteon hekaston), the good of each and holōs the best in the whole of nature (en tē physei pasē, like Thomas’s in rerum natura). This is the sixth and crowning attribute of the wise man.
4. Thomas recalls this in his proemium to the Nicomachean Ethics: wisdom is the highest perfection of reason; reason’s task (Shakespeare) is “to look before and after”; and the order of things among themselves is for the sake of their order to the end, so the wise man must know the last end. God is to ariston, summum bonum (Summa Contra Gentiles).

Form: the subject of wisdom is being as being, chiefly substance; one meaning of substance is what it is, tied to form; and form is that through which a thing has being (through my soul I am; through the form of geometry I am a geometer). Separated substances have being more, because they are just form, whereas I have being through a part of me. Boethius: Divina substantia forma est. Book VII of wisdom begins the study of substance through definition and what it is. Mover comes after these. Matter is least appropriate to wisdom (though wisdom, being about ability as well as act, can go down to matter); matter belongs to natural philosophy, since (De Koninck, following Thomas) what has matter is mobile. End of Physics I: Aristotle clears up difficulties about matter and Plato’s confusion of matter with lack of form, but reserves the questions about form to first philosophy, again a sign of form’s importance.

3. “Exposition”, not commentary (“Thomas lays it out”) #

Thomas gives four reasons (or difficulties) for the end and four for the form. The title of his work is expositio: “laying out” is the precise English; even moderns “comment”, but Thomas spreads out the order and the arguments. Aside: Shakespeare’s “unfold yourself”; unfold a handkerchief and you see the whole pattern.

4. First difficulty about the end: endless means, no end (“if you make it endless, you have no end”) #

Text: since that for the sake of which is the end, and is not for the sake of something else but other things for its sake, if there is such a last thing the series is not infinite; if there is nothing such, there is no that for the sake of which.

1. End = that for the sake of which something is or is done; means = that which is for the sake of another.
2. If everything were desired for the sake of something else, everything would be a means and nothing an end; so the cause called end is done away with. Conversely, if that cause exists, the series is not endless. “It’s kind of obvious.” Second way (from ethics): if I desire a for b and b for c, I must desire b before a and c before both; if every desired thing is desired for another, there is always something to be desired first, so desire could never begin. Aside on experience and wisdom: Dionne, explaining Albert’s text, said the “many particulars” needed for wisdom are not many singulars (as behind natural philosophy or ethics) but the particular reasoned sciences: Physics (last books) reasons to an unmoved mover, logic to definitions not going on forever, ethics to an end not desired for another (happiness, already in Plato’s Symposium). Here the same is seen in a completely universal way; without the lower sciences “you could get indigestion”.

5. Second difficulty: to deny the end is to deny the good (“it’s hidden from them that they’re doing away with the good”) #

Text: those laying down the infinite, it is hidden from them that they take away the nature of the good.

• Definition of end (that for the sake of which) vs. first definition of good (what all want): different, but connected, since what all want is that for whose sake they do what they do, and they do it because they think it good. Better: end and means are both good, but the means because it leads to the end; so the end is chiefly the good.
• Applied to the moderns who will not count the end as a cause, especially in natural things: “what’s the good of doing away with the end? It does away with the good.”
• Compare Book IX: those who say nothing is possible except what is actual do away with ability, motion and becoming, “no little thing”; Aristotle could have said the same here. “You just have to stop and kind of savour this.”

Digression on brevity: “brevity is the soul of wit” (wit = wisdom, per the commentators). How can shortness be the soul of wisdom, if the wise man knows more? Euclid II.5: a line cut into equal and unequal segments, the rectangle of the unequal segments plus the square on the middle piece equals the square on the half; so of rectangles with equal perimeter the square contains most area, and the nearer to a square the more. Then, since the continuous is divisible, less perimeter can contain more area: 5×5 has perimeter 20 and area 25; 2×10 has perimeter 24 and area 20 (“I use less fence but fenced in more land”). Proportion: words are to what is said as perimeter to area, so one can say more with fewer words; “the fool multiplieth his words” (Proverbs, as he recalls). Asides: ancients buying land by perimeter; Max Planck on the quantum, the more universal a theory the simpler its form; God the simplest and cause of all; angels with fewer thoughts expressing more, up to God’s one thought; his poem, God said it all in one word, and when that word became man he spoke few words and said so much, “the brevity and soul of wit”.

6. Third and fourth difficulties: no effort, no mind (“no one or nothing would try to do anything”) #

Third: no one would try to do anything, being unable to reach an end; like a child counting to no end, nobody really tries that; not even nature, Thomas adds. All effort is taken away. Fourth: since the mind acts with some reachable goal in mind, you do away with mind as a cause of things. Notice how brief the text is and how much it holds. People in conversation think a thing is good only if good for something else; hidden from them is that then nothing would be good. Anecdotes: his father’s engineer, the one educated man at the factory, could not accept “for its own sake” and finally decided philosophy was “brain food” to go out and do something practical; the kind Chinese shopkeeper who found their study funny because it served no purpose. Aristotle is reasoning against notions people really have. Senses of end: peras means end or limit (Metaphysics V, the many senses of limit); sophism “happiness is the end of life, death is the end of life, so happiness is death” mixes the first sense with the third; the fourth sense is the one in definition (finis). Students fall back on the first sense, so say “end or purpose”; telos is more particular, like purpose, whereas “end of the table” is not its purpose.

7. Form reduced to definition (“Aristotle always ties up this kind of cause with definition”) #

Point: to show form is not endless he shows definition is not endless.

• Form is defined (Physics II, Metaphysics V) as the logos of what was to be; the definition of the species is completed by the form. Boethius’s definition of nature, unumquodque informans specifica differentia, shows the link between what it is and form.
• Text: neither is it possible to lead back the what-was-to-be into another definition pleonazonta tō logō, which Thomas explains not as “more full” but as more universal, said of more.
• Example: square is defined through quadrilateral; quadrilateral through rectilineal plane figure; that through plane figure; that through figure; each prior definition extends to more. Does it go on forever, so that nothing is first? Recall Book IX: act is not led back to a more universal definition.
• Text: “the one before is more, but the after is not; of which there is nothing first, nor would there be anything after.” Reading: if every definition had one before it, nothing would be first, everything in the middle, but no middle without a first, as in the first argument.

8. Porphyry: is there a highest genus? (“is every genus a species, or is there a highest genus”) #

Point: this is first seen in logic, from Porphyry’s Isagoge, which brought definitions together.

• Usefulness of Porphyry’s gathering: Thomas’s either-or syllogism in the Summa Contra Gentiles that no name is said univocally of God and creatures: every univocal name is genus, difference, species, property or accident, then each is eliminated. Aside: Brother Edmund called Dionne the most honest teacher, since he cast light on the text rather than repeating it; at Laval the first logic course was Albert the Great paraphrasing the Isagoge.
• From Porphyry: a genus can be a species and a species a genus. Two questions: is every species a genus, or is there a lowest species; and, relevant here, is every genus a species, or is there a highest genus? If so, defining has an end. This presupposes Porphyry and is presupposed to the Categories, about the ten genera that are not species. Three ways he shows a highest genus:

1. (Student: “you can’t define anything.”) If every definition presupposed another you could never begin, exactly as, if every premise were a conclusion, you could never begin to reason (Euclid: a conclusion becomes a premise, but not every premise is a conclusion). But experience shows things were made known by definition: perfect number, trapezium, rhombus. Student: is this the modern error of demanding proof for the fifth postulate? His brother Marcus taught that it is obvious though less obvious than the others, and more obvious where it is brought in; attempted proofs are circular, and assuming it without noticing is a sign they really know it, as with those who deny the axiom of contradiction “because something contradicts it”.
2. You cannot know square without quadrilateral, nor that without “contained by straight lines”, nor that without “contained”; if endless, you could not begin to know anything.
3. A genus is said of more than its species, so if every genus were a species there would always be a more universal name and no most universal; but being, something, thing are most universal. Then: are these one genus or equivocal? The Categories shows being is not said equivocally, yet not one genus, so there are many highest genera; Thomas explains why ten in the laying out of Physics III and Metaphysics V. Student: could you define anything if being were univocal? If being were a genus it would have differences, since a genus is a name said of many differing in species; but being is not a genus, and where would the differences come from? Porphyry could have brought this up but did not. Thomas’s argument is the clue: the five predicables are a complete distinction of names said univocally of many. He told Monsignor Porphyry should have done that; Monsignor: yes, salva reverentia, Porphyry should have distinguished names said univocally from names said equivocally (which divide into by chance and by reason, as given the other day). So being is one name of all things but not one genus.

9. Second argument on form: understanding comes to the indivisibles (“before one comes to the atoma”) #

Text (about line 20): those who speak thus take away epistasthai, for one cannot eidenai before coming to the atoma.

• Eidenai in the first sentence of the Metaphysics (“all men by nature desire to eidenai”) means understand rather than know broadly; the sign from the eyes fits: as the eye sometimes looks just to see the beautiful, the eye of the soul seeks to understand for its own sake (less perimeter, more area, worth understanding without thought of selling land). Physics I likewise pairs eidenai and epistasthai.
• Epistēmē means coming to a halt; the English “understand” (come to a stand) keeps this, hence his phrase “reasoned out understanding”; the Analytics take things apart down to the indivisible.
• Text: for things thus infinite, understanding would not be possible. De Anima I compares thoughts to numbers, not to the line, which is divisible forever; the line must be taken as a whole. Greek: according to the divisions it does not histatai (come to a stop), so to understand is not possible, “not standing”.
• Plato, under Cratylus: how understand what does not stand still? So he looked for a standing, unchanging world. The recording breaks off here; the remaining two of Thomas’s four reasons on form are not reached.

His words #

• second book of wisdom; Metaphysics II [ed.: Metaphysics]
• fourth reading; lectio 4
• exposition; Thomas’s expositio, “laying out”, preferred to “commentary”
• architektonikōtatē; the most chief, commanding art
• tinos heneka; that for the sake of which, the definition of end
• end; that for the sake of which something is or is done; means: what is for the sake of another
• good; first definition, what all want
• natural hearing; the Physics [ed.: Physics]
• ability; possibility [ed.: potency], with act
• peras / telos; limit / end; telos more particular, like purpose
• pleonazonta tō logō; not “more full” but more universal, said of more
• what was to be; the definiendum in form’s definition [ed.: to ti ēn einai]
• five predicables; genus, difference, species, property, accident, a complete division of univocal names
• eidenai; to understand, not knowing broadly
• epistasthai / epistēmē; coming to a halt; “reasoned out understanding”
• atoma; the indivisibles
• histatai; comes to a stand
• Dianoia; his name for De Anima [ed.: De Anima]

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Metaphysics II, lectio 4 (the passages on end and on form, to about line 20, c. 994b)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics I, 982b4 (architektonikōtatē, sixth attribute of the wise man)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics I, first sentence (all men by nature desire to eidenai)
• Thomas Aquinas, Exposition of the Metaphysics II lect. 4 (pleonazonta as more universal; “not even nature”)

Mentioned

• Thomas, Proemium to the Nicomachean Ethics; Summa Contra Gentiles (summum bonum; no univocal name of God and creatures)
• Aristotle, Physics I (end, matter and form; eidenai/epistasthai), II (definition of form), III (Thomas’s exposition, ten genera); Metaphysics V (senses of limit, form; ten genera), VII (opening), IX (act, ability); De Anima I; Prior and Posterior Analytics
• Porphyry, Isagoge; Albert the Great’s paraphrase; Boethius (Divina substantia forma est; definition of nature)
• Euclid, Elements II.5; fifth postulate
• Plato, Symposium; Cratylus; Shakespeare (look before and after; brevity is the soul of wit; unfold yourself); Proverbs (the fool multiplies words); Max Planck

His questions #

• Why does Aristotle treat end and form more fully than the other causes? Because they are the most important causes for the wise man: the end is the cause of the other causes’ causality, and form is the beginning of being.
• If everything is desired for the sake of something else, can you begin to desire? No; something must always be desired first, so desire could never begin.
• What’s the good of doing away with the end? It does away with the good, since the end is chiefly the good.
• Would anyone try to count when there is no end? No; no one, not even nature, tries for what cannot be reached.
• Does the series square, quadrilateral, plane figure, figure go on forever? No; if every definition had one before it, nothing would be first.
• How do you know there is a genus that is not a species? You could not define or know anything, and there would be no most universal name; but things are made known by definition and being is most universal.
• Could you define anything if being were univocal? If being were a genus it would need differences; being is not a genus.
• How can you understand something that does not stand still? Left open as Plato’s problem; the recording ends here.