Aristotle's Proemium: Wonder, Liberal Knowledge, and the Most Divine Wisdom

Orientation #

He says the proemium divides into two parts; “we have completed the first part,” on the skopos of wisdom (knowing causes, ultimately the first causes). Today is “the third reading,” the second part: the kind of knowledge wisdom is. The recording opens mid-sentence on the universality of act “for the whole philosophy” (tail of the previous discussion) and with the opening prayer. He does not say what comes next time. The previous class treated the “great turnaround” in the order of wisdom’s objects across the Metaphysics; the next continues on wonder and the epilogue of the proem.

The class, in order #

1. The plan of the second part (“attribute four things to the kind of knowledge”) #

Aristotle attributes four things to wisdom as a kind of knowledge; there is an order among them, “one kind of naturally leads into the other,” though the later ones cannot always be deduced from the earlier (“in some cases this is true”). The philosopher “kills two or three birds with one stone”: in showing the skopos he taught much besides.

• Aside: Msgr. Dionne once asked whether the professor was as well ordered as Aristotle — “never said anything after that.”

2. First attribute: looking knowledge, shown from wonder (“there is no other beginning of philosophy than wonder”) #

Point: wisdom is looking knowledge, “for the sake of understanding, not for the sake of making or doing,” shown (a) from the desire that gave rise to it and (b) from when men begin to philosophize. Text: it is not poietike; “due to wonder (thaumazein) men both now and at first began to philosophize.”

• His London professor: everybody quotes Aristotle, “but Plato said it first.” All the better: the two greatest philosophers agree.
• Theaetetus: dialogues named from Socrates’ chief interlocutor, whose subject fits him — Gorgias the rhetorician on rhetoric, Laches the old general on courage; Theaetetus the mathematician (see Heath’s notes to Euclid) on episteme, reasoned-out knowledge, which a mathematician is most apt to have. Theodorus introduces his pupil as “something of a philosopher”; when Theaetetus breaks out in wonder, Socrates says his teacher guessed rightly: “there is no other beginning of philosophy than wonder. Period.” So “if you don’t have wonder, you are not a philosopher.”
• The “not bad genealogy”: Iris the offspring of Thauma. Thauma is wonder personified; Iris is both messenger of the gods and rainbow — the rainbow unites heaven and earth, the messenger unites man with God. So wonder unites man with God on the side of reason (not necessarily of will, “which might unite us even more”): wonder wants what and why, hence the cause, the cause of the cause, up to the first cause, which is God. Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics shows both what and why are answered by the cause, so wonder is the desire to know the cause.
• Democritus’ fragment: “I would rather discover one cause than be master of the kingdom of the Persians” — the Persian king, with a thousand chefs and a harem, worshipped like a god, had every object of desire to excess; a fortiori the cause of the cause.

3. Why wonder is a sign of looking knowledge; the order of wonder (“fleeing their ignorance”) #

Argument: (1) the one wondering thinks himself ignorant and wants to flee ignorance; (2) so he seeks episteme for the sake of understanding, “not for the sake of some use”; (3) had philosophy begun in hunger, thirst, cold or the desire for wealth, it would have produced practical arts — hunting, farming, fishing, digging wells, making beer, carpentry. Some texts put “to flee their ignorance” in parentheses. Order of wonder: first the things at hand, close to sense; then kata mikron, bit by bit, the greater things — the undergoings of the moon, sun, stars, and the origin of the whole universe. So one does not wonder first about being as being but about sensible things, mathematical things, “maybe before that … singular things.” Aristotle returns to this order later on.

4. Confirming sign: the philomythos (“the philomythos is the philosophos pos”) #

Point: the lover of myth is a philosopher secundum quid, in some imperfect way, not simply — Aristotle does not identify them.

• Mythos: first myth or fairy tale, then story in general, then in the book on the poetic art precisely plot; the lover of stories wants to know how they turn out and so has a kind of wonder. Mythos is composed ex thaumasion, of wonderful things.
• Hamlet’s ending: Fortinbras finds dead king, queen, prince — “if you want to see awe or wonder, you’ve come to the right place” (transcript has “war”); a book title, “Awe or Wonder: the emotional effect of Shakespearean tragedy”; epic even more so.
• Albert the Great on this passage: poetry dat modum admirandi, gives the way of wondering — the philomythos as a stepping stone to the philosopher’s wonder.
• Poetics: poetry more philosophic than history, history being about the singular and philosophy the universal; great fiction is “the universal singularized” or the singular universalized, in between. Supermarket wonder about which actor is attached to whom vs. Homer, Shakespeare, Sophocles: Romeo and Juliet are not an historical pair in Verona but young lovers; the chorus after Oedipus’ downfall says not “O Oedipus” but “O you generations of men.” So the philomythos rises from wonder about the singular toward wonder about the universal.
• Msgr. Dionne: no Greek philosophers without Homer; Socrates, banishing Homer, tells how Homer delighted him young; historians put Homer some 150 years before Thales.
• Shakespeare’s dramas are “plays”: play is done for its own sake and is pleasant. Thomas in the De Hebdomadibus (transcript “De Humanis Bus”) compares the life of the mind to play, quoting the Sapiential books, “run into your house and play with your thoughts.”
• Note: the comparison is not between poet and philosopher but between philomythos and philosophos, and here only in terms of wonder. His own further likeness: a plot has beginning, middle and end, as does philosophy; a plot ties and unties knots — Metaphysics Book 3 ties the knots, Books 4-14 untie them. Aristotle omits this as not relevant to his purpose.
• Euclid’s Elements and natural philosophy also rise from wonder (Theaetetus was a mathematician); modern mathematics tends not to arouse wonder but has a practical orientation, “as you’d expect in the modern world.”

5. Second sign: what happened witnesses (“all the necessities of life being to some extent satisfied”) #

Text: “what happened also witnesses this” (martyres — a martyr is a witness). Only when the necessities of life and also the things for leisure (relaxation, the arts) were somehow assured did men begin to seek “this kind of phronesis.” Family illustration: grandfather, over from Sweden at fifteen, blacksmith in Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, exhausted at day’s end — no philosophizing; father, one of many children, no high school in town, worked his way through high school in Alexandria sleeping in the shop, rose to manager, then bought 51% of the company against his wife’s warning; with necessities assured (and summer work in the factory required) the family produced “three philosophers,” one on each coast and one in the Midwest — mother: “why not an article about the three Berquists?” Being freed from the rat race does not make you a philosopher, but philosophy does not come until then. Line 24: “they sought it not for any other need.”

6. Second attribute: free or liberal knowledge (“the free is that which is for its own sake”) #

Point (line 25): wisdom is eleutheran, free, “a little bit like the Latin liberalis” — liberal, not servile. Follows “like a conclusion” from its being looking knowledge.

• Liberal vs. servile knowledge, by likeness of ratio to free man vs. slave in Athens: the slave exists for the master, the free man for his own sake; so servile knowledge is for making or doing, liberal knowledge for its own sake. Older editions still speak of “a survey of liberal and servile arts.” Connotation: the free man with slaves has leisure (“leisure the basis of culture, as that famous book said”), though he may not philosophize.
• Liberal arts (trivium and quadrivium, explained by Thomas in the De Trinitate) are the beginning of liberal knowledge, wisdom its end; “liberal arts education” is not strictly a synonym for liberal education.
• Lines 26-27: hautou heneka, for its own sake; “monen,” only this is fully free, since mathematics and natural philosophy are stepping stones to wisdom and wisdom to nothing (“we don’t know anything about theology at this point”).
• Student: are the other theoretical sciences then just for the sake of the higher? No: for their own sake and also for the higher, so not as fully liberal — Euclid II.14 is delightful for its own sake and also for something higher; likewise play is for its own sake yet also recreates us for serious things, so one should not live for play (Ethics X).

7. Third attribute: not a human possession (“in many ways the nature of man is a slave”) #

Point: wisdom does not seem a “human possession” — not that man cannot attain it, but a possession is what you can use whenever you want because it is yours (his own book vs. a library book that must be returned). Text: pollachos he physis ton anthropon doule — “in many ways man’s nature is enslaved.” Reason, what most makes man man, must mostly provide for body, car, house, family — for the good of another. He once gave a talk unfolding the ways: unavoidable slavery (feeding, clothing, rest, money, sickness, possessions to be attended to — he gets the car checked more regularly than his health); then slavery to passions (Hamlet: “give me that man that is not enslaved to his passions”), to the tyranny of custom (Shakespeare), fashion, hair. As Euclid leaves you to fill out the other cases, Aristotle leaves you to unfold the ways. So the most liberal knowledge does not seem to fit the human condition; “Aristotle is not naive.”

• Simonides: God alone should have this; man is not worthy. The Sumerian religious vessel pictured in McNeill’s Rise of the West — beasts below, men, gods above: beasts made to relieve men of labor, men to relieve the gods, so only the gods are free and man escaping servitude usurps the gods’ part and is punished.
• Ethics X quotes the poets against them: not “being men, seek human things, being mortal, mortal things,” but strive for immortal things. Here: if the poets were right, philosophers would be most unfortunate; but “according to the proverb, bards tell many a lie,” and the divine cannot be phthoneron, envious — the creature’s goodness comes from God and reflects His goodness (he only touches the reason). Because the desire to know is natural, wisdom must be somehow possible and good for us; the poets exaggerate. Yet it shows man cannot pursue it whenever he wants, sometimes not at all: it is more divine than human — which leads into the fourth attribute.

8. Fourth attribute: most divine, hence most honorable (“two ways that knowledge could be called divine”) #

Text: theiotate, most divine, and therefore most honorable; “toiaute de dichos,” in two ways: because about God, or because it is the knowledge God has — as “knowledge of God” has two senses. Wisdom is divine in both.

• About God, by syllogism: wisdom is knowledge of the first cause (minor, shown before); the first cause is God, or God is among the first causes (probable opinion, demonstrated only in Book 12); so wisdom is knowledge about God.
• The knowledge God has, from the common opinion of the Greeks: Pythagoras, who invented the name, refused “wise” — “God alone is wise; call me a lover of wisdom” (humility in the name, not just its etymology); Heraclitus, “the central thinker”: as ape to man, so man to God (Homo sapiens compares man to the ape, not to God); as child to man, so man to God (“Daddy knows everything,” until a certain age — to a student about to be a father); Parmenides: only such as mortal wisdom can attain; Socrates: Chaerephon’s oracle, “no one wiser than Socrates,” solved by finding the reputed wise “doubly ignorant” — “at least I know I don’t know” (Heraclitus: the oracle gives a sign); Plato: philosophy is becoming like God so far as possible, not equal (Theaetetus).
• Aristotle: God alone, or most of all, is wise; either deny man is wise or grant it only in an imperfect way — God is wise and knows all things simply, man in some imperfect way, as everyone knows what a brother is and so in a way knows his brother Mark.
• Then syllogism: the divine is most honorable and best; wisdom is most divine; so most honorable and best. After the skopos, showing desirability matters most, “even though it may be difficult to get to.” Lines 6-7: only this has both — God among the causes and beginnings, and He alone (monos) or most of all (malista) would have it. Line 10: all others are more necessary, none better — to breathe vs. to philosophize; the art of fishing vs. geometry.

9. Recap (“that’s quite a mouthful”) #

Wisdom is looking not practical; liberal not servile, the most liberal; not a human possession, since needs must first be satisfied; best and most honorable, being most divine in both senses. He had planned corollaries but stops here.

His words #

• skopos: the aim of wisdom, knowing the first causes
• looking knowledge: knowledge for the sake of understanding [ed.: theoretical/speculative]
• poietike: making knowledge; wisdom is not this
• thaumazein / thauma: to wonder; wonder (personified)
• episteme: reasoned-out knowledge or understanding
• kata mikron: bit by bit (the order of wonder)
• philomythos: lover of myths, stories, plots; philosophos pos, a philosopher “in some way,” secundum quid
• mythos: myth, story, plot (in the Poetics)
• ex thaumasion: composed of wonderful things
• dat modum admirandi (Albert): gives the way of wondering
• martyres: witnesses
• phronesis: here, this kind of wisdom
• eleutheran / liberalis: free, liberal (vs. servile), by likeness to free man and slave
• hautou heneka: for its own sake; monen: only this (fully free)
• pollachos he physis ton anthropon doule: in many ways man’s nature is a slave
• phthoneron: envious, denied of God
• theiotate: most divine; dichos: in two ways (about God / God’s own)
• monos, malista: alone, most of all
• simply vs. in some imperfect way: God wise simply; man not simply

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Metaphysics I.2, second part of the proemium: lines 24-27, 6-7, 10 as he cites them (982b24-983a11 inferred); handout “The Matter and Order of Wisdom,” pp. 9-37 (verified) Mentioned
• Plato, Theaetetus (wonder; Iris and Thauma; becoming like God)
• Plato, Gorgias; Laches; Apology story of the oracle (inferred locus for Chaerephon)
• Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (what and why answered by the cause)
• Aristotle, Poetics (mythos as plot; poetry more philosophic than history)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics X (not live for play; against the poets’ “mortal things”)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics XII (God as first cause), III-XIV (knots)
• Democritus fragment; Simonides; Heraclitus; Parmenides; Pythagoras (tradition)
• Albert the Great on this passage; Thomas, De Trinitate (liberal arts); Thomas, De Hebdomadibus and the Sapiential books (“play with your thoughts”)
• Euclid, Elements II.14; Heath’s notes on Theaetetus
• Shakespeare, Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet; Sophocles, Oedipus; Homer
• McNeill, The Rise of the West; “Leisure the Basis of Culture”; “Awe or Wonder” (book title)

His questions #

• Did Aristotle say first that philosophy begins in wonder? No, Plato did — all the better, both agree (Theaetetus).
• Why should Iris be both messenger of the gods and rainbow, and offspring of wonder? Both unite heaven and earth; wonder unites man with God on the side of reason.
• If philosophy had begun in hunger or thirst, what would have resulted? Practical arts — hunting, farming, beer-making — not looking knowledge.
• In what way is the philomythos a philosopher? Secundum quid: he is filled with wonder, and myth is composed of wonders.
• Are the other theoretical sciences just for the sake of the higher one? (student) No; for their own sake and also for the higher, hence not fully liberal.
• Is wisdom really a human possession? Not something usable whenever we want; man’s nature is in many ways a slave.
• Can God be envious of man’s wisdom? No — bards tell many a lie; creatures’ goodness comes from God.
• In what two ways is wisdom divine? About God (syllogized from first causes) and the knowledge God has (common opinion of the Greeks).
• Which is better, to breathe or to philosophize? To philosophize; but to breathe is more necessary — all others more necessary, none better.