Aristotle: First Philosophy (Wisdom) #

All handout series

The Matter and Order of Wisdom #

paper · Metaphysics WS01 · 54 pages · PDF · WS01_The_Matter_and_Order_of_Wisdom.pdf

Covers: Essay on what wisdom (First Philosophy/Metaphysics) is about and the order of its matters, and the order of the fourteen books; builds on the Proemium of Book 1 (980a21-983a23) read with Aquinas’s exposition.

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 16. Genus, Difference, and Lowest Species Reviewed: Why the Division Is Exhaustive, and Are There Lowest Species? (from 54:39) · p. 4
• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 24. The Art of Division: Integral and Universal Wholes, Distinction, and the Rule of Two or Three (from 35:14) · p. 30
• Logic (2016) — 5. Ante-Predicaments II: Said Of and In a Subject, Individual Substance, and the Ten Categories (from 12:44) · p. 11
• Logic (2016) — 9. Crossing Two Divisions, How Words Become Equivocal by Reason, and the Start of the Chapter on Substance (from 59:59) · p. 11
• Natural Hearing — 54. The Eight Senses of ‘In’, Equivocation and the Axioms (from 36:37) · p. 11
• Natural Hearing — 70. Motion and Time Divisible Forever: Aristotle’s Argument from Faster and Slower (from 32:38) · p. 30
• Natural Hearing — 83. Shakespeare’s ‘Stumbling on Abuse’: Nature, Bad as Privation, and Equivocal Words (from 44:40) · p. 4
• De Anima — 104. Q.79 a.1, last replies, and a.2: Angels and mind, the first cause as the best thing, Socratic consistency, and understanding as a passive power (from 12:42) · p. 37
• Wisdom (2005) — 4. Metaphysics I.2: The Six Marks of the Wise Man; Wisdom as Knowledge of What Is Said of All (from 31:40) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2005) — 7. Metaphysics I, Proemium: Wonder Fulfilled, Iris Daughter of Thaumas, and Learning from Predecessors (from 45:34) · p. 52
• Wisdom (2005) — 8. The Four Causes and the First Philosophers: Thales and Anaximander (from 1:57) · p. 52
• Wisdom (2005) — 14. Anaxagoras on Mind, Part 2: How the Mind Rules Itself, the Ten Attributes of Mind, and a Greater Mind That Is Angelic Rather Than Divine (from 58:33) · p. 52
• Wisdom (2005) — 29. Substance as the First Meaning of Being, the Philosopher, and Why Wisdom Must Consider the Axioms (from 45:32) · p. 11
• Wisdom (2005) — 30. Why Wisdom Defends the Axioms and the ‘Great Turnaround’ in the Order of Wisdom (Book IV, Reading 5; Overview of Book V) (from 8:02) · pp. 7–46
• Wisdom (2005) — 47. Metaphysics IX, Reading 2: Rational vs. Natural Abilities — Knowledge of Contraries and the Modern Misunderstanding of Reason and Nature (from 24:03) · p. 11
• Wisdom (2005) — 48. Metaphysics IX, Readings 1–3: Kinds of Ability, the Megarian Error, and Why Motion Seems Most Real (from 37:14) · p. 10
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 25. Before and After in the Acts of Reason: Guessing, Thinking Out, and Discourse (from 42:45) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 28. Bad as Non-Being, Faith and the Road to Knowing (from 22:37) · p. 9
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 30. First Cause, First Being, and the Order of the Books of Wisdom (from 0:39) · pp. 7–17
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 31. Can Objections Undo Faith or the Axioms? Introducing Book II and How Man Knows Truth (from 19:37) · p. 17
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 32. Dispositions of the Will for the Philosopher, and Hope and Fear in Pursuing Truth (Metaphysics II intro) (from 18:37) · pp. 17–40
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 33. Is Truth Easy or Difficult? Metaphysics II: Three Ways It Is Easy, Two Causes of Difficulty, and Gratitude to Predecessors (from 32:02) · p. 24
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 47. The Six Marks of the Wise Man and the Universal ‘Said of All’ vs. Cause of All (Hegel, Plato) (from 12:24) · p. 9
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 51. Books Two to Four: Truth, Dialectic, Being as Being and the Axioms (from 39:14) · p. 9
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 52. The Great Turnaround, the Order of the Sciences and Preview of Book Nine (from 4:11) · p. 9
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 53. Aristotle’s Proemium: Wonder, Liberal Knowledge, and the Most Divine Wisdom (from 8:52) · pp. 9–37
• Wisdom (2016) — 9. Metaphysics I, Reading 2: The Six-Part Description of the Wise Man — Universality, Certitude, Causes, Knowledge for Its Own Sake, and the Origin of ‘Philosopher’ (Part 2 of 3) (from 16:11) · p. 11
• Prima Pars — 6. Dei Filius IV: How Reason Serves the Mysteries of Faith, Why Faith and Reason Cannot Contradict, and Why Theology Judges Philosophy (from 22:15) · pp. 11–30
• Prima Pars — 71. Summa Theologiae I, Q.17 aa.1–2: Falsity in Things and in the Senses (fool’s gold, likeness and deception, proper, common and accidental sensibles) (from 26:07) · p. 11
• Prima Pars — 125. Summa I, q.36, aa.3-4: From the Father Through the Son, and the Father and Son as One Source of the Holy Spirit (from 1:31) · p. 17
• Prima Pars — 138. Aquinas on the Trinity: Whether Fatherhood Comes Before Generation, and Why Notional Acts Are Attributed to the Persons (from 44:18) · p. 24
• Prima Secundae — 135. Summa I-II q.57: Order of the Virtues, Speculative Habits as Virtues, and Understanding, Science and Wisdom (from 57:44) · p. 11
• Prima Secundae — 136. Principles vs. Conclusions, Why Opinion Is Not a Virtue, and Art vs. Foresight (Prudence) · p. 11
• Prima Secundae — 157. Summa I-II, Q. 66, Arts. 5–6: Wisdom as the Greatest Intellectual Virtue and Charity as the Greatest Theological Virtue (from 23:21) · p. 11
• Prima Secundae — 222. Aquinas on Law, Part 2: The Precepts of the Natural Law, Virtuous Acts, and Whether the Natural Law Is the Same for Everyone (Q94 a2–4) (from 13:29) · p. 11
• Tertia Pars — 1. From the Head to the Feet: The Word Made Flesh and the Plan of the Tertia Pars (from 4:37) · p. 11
• Tertia Pars — 26. Habitual Grace Follows the Union (Q.7, a.13); Mixing Up Word Senses; Introduction to Q.8 on Christ as Head of the Church (from 23:26) · p. 11
• Tertia Pars — 110. Abstract and Concrete Names of God, and Why It Was Fitting for Christ to Die (Question 50, Articles 1–2) (from 7:05) · p. 24

Introductory Note for the Fourteen Books #

foreword · Metaphysics 01 · 3 pages · PDF · WS02_B1_01-Intro._Note_on_the_14_Books.pdf

Covers: Introduction to the fourteen books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: why the name ‘Metaphysics’ is a custom, why Aristotle calls this philosophy wisdom simply (versus natural philosophy and ethics/political philosophy as wisdom in a qualified way), the name’s meaning as coming after natural philosophy, and how best to study the books (Aristotle with Aquinas’ exposition, plus notes and translations).

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Aristotle’s Proemium to Wisdom #

reading · Metaphysics First Reading · 6 pages · PDF · WS02_B1_02-Aristotles_Proemium_to_Wisdom.pdf

Covers: Metaphysics I.1-2: ‘All men by nature desire to know’ through the nature of the knowledge sought (wisdom) and the goal of the investigation.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note for Aristotle’s Proemium to Wisdom #

note · Metaphysics Proemium · 9 pages · PDF · WS02_B1_03-Note_for_Proemium.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on Aristotle’s proemium to Wisdom (Metaphysics). It explains the two divisions of the fourteen books (editorial/reference and logical/understandable). It compares the proemium/main work division to the prologue/play of Romeo and Juliet and to Plato’s Timaeus. The last pages discuss wisdom as sweet, savoury, refreshing and restful.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Ethics — 10. Aristotle’s Proemium to the Ethics: The Highest End, Method and Fit Hearers (from 2:14) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2005) — 3. Metaphysics I.1 (end): Why Knowing the Cause Is Wiser Than Experience (from 17:50) · p. 3
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 1. Why ‘Metaphysics’ Is the Wrong Name: Wisdom, Reason and Shakespeare’s Definition of Reason (from 41:48) · p. 2
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 2. Looking Before and After: The Senses of Order, Distinction and Error, and Two Ways of Dividing a Book (from 45:21) · p. 2

Note for the Second Book of Wisdom #

note · Metaphysics 01 · 3 pages · PDF · WS02_B2_01-Note_for_Second_Book.pdf

Covers: Introductory note explaining why the Second Book (alpha elatton) of Wisdom (Metaphysics) comes after Book One’s Proemium and review of predecessors and before Book Three: how we may discover what we do not know, the road to follow in wisdom, and the order of the dialectical questions in Book Three. Notes that Books One and Two show wisdom must be sought in the four kinds of cause with a first cause in each, likens this to the Nicomachean Ethics Books One and Ten, and the Phaedo’s balance of hope and fear.

Read from in:

• Prima Pars — 86. Sweet and Right: A Psalm Commentary on God’s Mercy and Justice, and Whether All Things Fall Under Providence (Summa I, Q.22 a.2) (from 38:36) · p. 3

Note for Second Book of Wisdom, Reading One #

note · Metaphysics Reading One · 10 pages · PDF · WS02_B2_02-Note_for_Reading_One.pdf

Covers: Commentary on the first reading of the second book of Wisdom (Metaphysics II/alpha elatton): whether knowing truth is easy or difficult for man, and how the causes of difficulty lie either in the thing (matter, motion) or in us (separated substances, God); with analogies to understanding people and to loving; the last page discusses the dependence of the learner on a teacher and modern pride.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 27. Good, Bad and Privation: Why Act Is Better than Ability (from 47:39) · p. 10

Note for Readings Two through Four #

note · Metaphysics Readings 2-4 · 4 pages · PDF · WS02_B2_03-Note_for_Readings_Two_through_Four.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on Readings 2-4 of the Second Book of Wisdom (Metaphysics alpha elatton). It explains the principle “propter quod unumquodque, illud magis” (what makes a thing so is more so) with examples: fire and heat, water and wetness, premisses and conclusion, end and means. It applies the principle to show that the cause is more true than the effect, and notes Aquinas’s qualification that it holds only among things of one order. It ends by arguing that there cannot be an infinite regress in causes, comparing limits, points and beginnings, and that a first cause exists in the same way as an unmoved mover, a good desired for its own sake, and genera with no higher genus.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• De Anima — 152. How We Know Our Habits Through Their Acts (Q.87, a.2): Faith, Charity, and the Principle ‘Propter quod unumquodque tale, et illud magis’ (from 4:57) · p. 1
• Ethics — 5. The Good, the Better and the End of Man: Own Act, Virtue and Proportion (from 10:02) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2005) — 17. Why Truth Belongs to the Wise Man: Wisdom, Truth, and the Balance of Hope and Fear (Metaphysics II, Reading 2) (from 22:06) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2005) — 33. Metaphysics V, Reading 18 on ‘Perfect’ and the Start of Book VI: How Wisdom Differs from the Making and Doing Sciences (from 27:25) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 34. Truth and the Cause: Why Wisdom Most Considers Truth, and the Beginning of the First-Cause Argument (from 24:17) · p. 1
• Prima Pars — 14. Summa I, q.2, a.3: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Ways, the Most Universals, and Replies on Evil and Enough Causes (from 37:58) · p. 1
• Prima Pars — 66. Summa I q.16 a.1: Is Truth in the Mind or in Things? (Doctors of the Church, Truth vs. Goodness, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth) (from 18:30) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 17. Aquinas on Beatitude I: Seeing God and Sinlessness, the Speculative Sciences, and Knowing the Angels (Prima Secundae q.3 a.6–7) (from 47:09) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 45. Aquinas on Consent (ST I-II q.15, aa.1-3): Will or Intellect, Animals, End or Means (from 45:41) · p. 1

Aristotle, Book Two of Wisdom, Reading Five #

reading · Metaphysics Reading Five · 1 pages · PDF · WS02_B2_04-Reading_Five.pdf

Covers: Translation of the close of Metaphysics II (alpha elatton): listeners’ expectations follow custom; mathematical precision is not to be demanded in things having matter; so first consider what nature is, and whether one or several sciences consider causes and beginnings.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Wisdom (2005) — 20. Metaphysics II, Reading 5: Custom, Certitude, and Matching the Way of Proceeding to the Subject (from 8:25) · p. 1

Note for Second Book of Wisdom, Reading Five #

note · Metaphysics Reading Five · 6 pages · PDF · WS02_B2_05-Note_for_Reading_Five.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on Reading Five of the Second Book of Wisdom (Metaphysics II, alpha elatton). It distinguishes what we know from how we know it and argues that the way of knowing in each reasoned-out science must fit its subject matter, not custom or individual inclination. It compares this to the arts working different materials and to Thomas’s comparison with the moral virtues, and ends by mentioning paideia.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note on One as Subject of Wisdom #

note · Metaphysics WS02_B4 (Note on One as Subject of Wisdom) · 7 pages · PDF · WS02_B4_NOTE-One_as_Subject_of_Wisdom.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary distinguishing the one that is the subject of wisdom (convertible with being) from being and from the one that is the beginning of number, and undivided being from undivided and distinct from others; draws on Aquinas (De Veritate, SCG II, In X Metaphysicorum lect. 1, In IV Metaphysicorum lect. 4) and the division of Book 10 and the opposites of Book 5.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Introductory Note to the Fifth Book of Wisdom #

foreword · Metaphysics 01 · 2 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_01-Intro._Note_to_Fifth_Book.pdf

Covers: Introductory note to Book Five (Delta) of the Metaphysics (“Wisdom”): explains that the words distinguished in Book Five are those used in the axioms and in wisdom, so their distinction illuminates the beginning, end and middle of reason’s knowledge. Notes that these key words are equivocal by reason (many meanings with an order among them). Gives Thomas’s threefold division of Book Five: names of causes, names of the subject of wisdom or its parts, names of the properties of the subject.

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note for Word Beginning #

note · Metaphysics 02 · 6 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_02-Note_for_Word_Beginning.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on the word ‘beginning’ (archê) in Metaphysics Book Five, the reading on the senses of beginning. It covers why beginning matters to wisdom and first philosophy, and how it relates to before and after and to the word one. It ends with Aquinas texts from the Scriptum on the Sentences.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Natural Hearing — 66. Points Cannot Compose a Line: Aristotle’s Arguments in the First Reading (from 5:41) · p. 2
• Natural Hearing — 73. The Now as Indivisible Limit of Past and Future (from 42:39) · p. 2
• Wisdom (2005) — 23. Metaphysics III, Second Reading: Which Causes Wisdom Studies, the Axioms, and Whether the Way We Know Must Be the Way Things Are (from 28:34) · p. 2
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 25. Before and After in the Acts of Reason: Guessing, Thinking Out, and Discourse (from 20:52) · p. 2
• Prima Pars — 118. Summa I, Q.32 a.3–4 and Q.33 intro: The Five Notions, When Opinions About Them Become Heresy, and Whether the Father Is ‘Beginning’ Without Being ‘Before’ (from 44:45) · p. 2

Note for Word Cause #

note · Metaphysics 03 · 10 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_03-Note_for_Word_Cause.pdf

Covers: Commentary on the word ‘cause’: its importance for the philosopher, the four kinds of cause as senses of the word, Aristotle’s enumeration of predecessors’ opinions in Book One, cause said analogically (not as a genus) of the four kinds; with appended Aquinas texts (In I Physicorum; Scriptum super IV Sententiarum on instrumental causality).

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Natural Hearing — 41. The Four Kinds of Causes: Matter, Form, Mover, End (from 1:14) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 3. Custom as Tyrant, Method and Matter, and the Logical Division of the Fourteen Books of Wisdom (from 28:37) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 4. Metaphysics Book Nine, Reading 1: Distinguishing Kinds and Senses, and the Meanings of Ability (from 7:12) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 32. Dispositions of the Will for the Philosopher, and Hope and Fear in Pursuing Truth (Metaphysics II intro) (from 51:38) · p. 1
• Prima Secundae — 125. Infused Habits and the Growth of Habits: Carrying Words Over, Greatness as Perfection, and the Four Opinions on More and Less (from 50:50) · p. 2

Note for Word Nature #

note · Physics 04 · 3 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_04-Note_for_Word_Nature.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s note on the many meanings of the word ’nature’: why it matters for philosophy, how the senses are related (by ratio, generalization, likeness of ratios), with a text from Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles listing the senses. It ends on nature as a cause of order, citing Physics VIII 252a11-12 and Aquinas’s commentary In VIII Physic., lect. 3, n. 993.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note on Word Necessary #

note · Metaphysics 05 · 5 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_05-Note_for_Word_Necessary.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s note on the word ’necessary’ (Metaphysics V, chapter on the necessary), citing Aquinas on cause and necessity (De Malo, Scriptum on the Sentences) and the division of the fourth sense of necessary against the first three, ending with the necessity of end from the Summa Contra Gentiles III.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note for Word One #

note · Metaphysics 06 - Note for Word One · 5 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_06-Note_for_Word_One.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s note explaining why Aristotle considers the word ‘one’ in Metaphysics Book Five (Delta) before ‘being’ and substance, and why understanding ‘one’ is necessary. It is a commentary on the reading of the word ‘one’ (Metaphysics V, ch. 6).

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Prima Secundae — 8. Aquinas on the Last End (Summa I-II, Q1, Art. 5): Can a Man Have Many Last Ends? No One Can Serve Two Masters (from 38:50) · p. 1

Texts for the Name Being #

note · Metaphysics 07 · 11 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_07-Note_for_Word_Being.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s note on the word ‘being’: why a philosopher must understand its senses and their order, and the four groups of meanings taken up in Metaphysics Books 6-9. It ends with a passage from Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles III, c. 65, on God’s knowledge of singulars.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 11. Metaphysics IX: The Second Error, ‘Everything Is Possible’, and the Definition of the Possible (from 1:14) · p. 10

Note on and Texts on Whole and Part (Aquinas on Whole and Part) #

note · Metaphysics 08 · 17 pages · PDF · WS02_B5_08-Aquinas_on_Whole_and_Part.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s note on the threefold distinction of whole and part (integral, universal, potential) drawn from Aquinas, with Latin texts (De Spiritualibus Creaturis a.11 ad 2; Sent. I d.3 q.4 a.2 ad 1), related to Aristotle’s reading on ‘part’ in Metaphysics V (Wisdom). Later pages continue with texts on whole and part.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note for Sixth Book of Wisdom #

note · Metaphysics Intro · 1 pages · PDF · WS02_B6_01-Intro._Note_for_Book_Six.pdf

Covers: Introductory note on Book Six of Wisdom (Metaphysics VI): reading one distinguishes wisdom from other reasoned knowledge and from natural philosophy and mathematics; readings two to four treat being by happening and being as true. Notes that the placed excerpt from Aquinas’s exposition of Boethius’s De Trinitate distinguishes the kinds of speculative science and their methods.

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Note for Second Book of Wisdom, Reading One #

note · Metaphysics Reading One · 10 pages · PDF · WS02_B6_02-Note_for_Reading_One.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on Reading One of the second book of Wisdom (Metaphysics II): whether truth is easy or difficult for man to know. He distinguishes difficulty in the thing (matter, motion) from difficulty in us (separated substances, God), with analogies to understanding people and to loving. It ends with a remark on the dependence of the learner on a teacher.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note for Sixth Book of Wisdom, Readings 2-3 #

note · Metaphysics Readings 2-3 · 6 pages · PDF · WS02_B6_03-Note_for_Readings_Two_and_Three.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on Metaphysics VI (Wisdom), Readings 2-3, on whether everything happens by necessity and on being per accidens. It quotes Aquinas (De Malo Q.6, De Sortibus, ST I Q.116 a.1) against views that all things happen by necessity, and on how reason can take as one what is per accidens.

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Note for Sixth Book of Wisdom, Reading 4 #

note · Metaphysics Reading 4 · 25 pages · PDF · WS02_B6_04-Note_for_Reading_Four.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s commentary on Reading 4 of Book 6 of the Metaphysics (Wisdom), on the distinction between good (chiefly in things) and true (chiefly in the mind), drawing on Aquinas (ST I, Q.16, a.1). The 25-page file also appears to include appended Aquinas texts, e.g. Scriptum super IV Sententiarum, d.1, q.1, a.4, on sacramental instrumental causality.

Read from in:

• De Anima — 2. The Proemium of the De Anima: Why Knowledge of the Soul Is Most Desirable, and What ‘Soul’ Means (from 13:06) · p. 1
• De Anima — 66. Summa I, Q.75 a.4: Is the Soul the Man? Body and Soul, and Truth as the Mean Between Extremes (from 32:59) · p. 14
• De Anima — 92. Summa I q.77 a.5: Are All the Powers of the Soul in the Soul as Their Subject? Soul and Spirit, and the Meanings of ‘Of’ · p. 14
• De Anima — 93. Reply to Augustine and Plato: Truth Between Two Extremes, and Must We Know Things the Way They Are? (from 1:42) · p. 14
• De Anima — 116. Summa I, Q.79, Art.11: Are Speculative and Practical Intellect Different Powers? (Seeing vs. Doing; Knowing vs. Loving) (from 33:10) · p. 1
• De Anima — 139. Summa I q.84 a.6: Does Our Knowledge Come from the Senses? Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle’s Middle Way (from 17:21) · p. 14
• Ethics — 9. Defining Moral Virtue: A Habit of Choosing the Mean, and the Virtues Between Their Extremes (from 55:19) · p. 14
• Wisdom (2005) — 38. Metaphysics VI: The Whole Truth, Contradiction, and Truth in the Mind, Good in Things; Predicates and Definition in Logic (from 0:28) · p. 14
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 10. Metaphysics IX: Motion as the Most Known Act, and Heraclitus and Hegel (from 10:25) · p. 14
• Prima Pars — 66. Summa I q.16 a.1: Is Truth in the Mind or in Things? (Doctors of the Church, Truth vs. Goodness, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth) (from 41:08) · p. 14
• Prima Pars — 98. Order of Teaching About God, and Whether There Is Procession in God (Arius and Sabellius) (from 1:02:52) · p. 14
• Prima Pars — 99. Inward Procession, the Word, and Why the Word’s Procession Is Called Generation (ST I q.27 a.1–2) · p. 14
• Prima Pars — 105. Summa I, Q.28, Art. 4 and Intro to Q.29: The Four Real Relations in God and the Plan of the Treatise on the Divine Persons (from 7:00) · p. 14
• Prima Secundae — 96. The Desire for Unity, Greater Power, and Sadness’s Effects on Learning and the Soul (Q.36, Arts. 3-4; Q.37, Arts. 1-2) (from 5:47) · p. 14
• Prima Secundae — 111. Aquinas on Anger, Part 1: Is Anger a Special Passion, and Is Its Object Good or Bad? (Articles 1–2, with side topics on ‘simply’ versus ‘in some way’, the natural desire to see God, and the art of logic) (from 55:20) · p. 14
• Prima Secundae — 152. Summa I-II Q.64 a.2–3: The Middle of Reason, Justice, and the Middle of the Intellectual Virtues (Truth, Contraries, and Opposites) (from 24:54) · p. 14

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Eight, Reading One #

reading · Metaphysics Reading One · 9 pages · PDF · WS02_B8B9_01-Eighth_Book_of_Wisdom.pdf

Covers: Translation of Metaphysics Book Eight (Eta) in full: recap of the claims about substance, sensible substances as matter, form and composite, and the unity of definition and of matter and form, ending with the cause of unity being what moves from potency to act.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Wisdom (2005) — 40. Metaphysics VIII, Reading 1: Summing Up Book VII, Change, and Knowing First Matter by Proportion (from 1:35) · pp. 1–2
• Wisdom (2005) — 41. Metaphysics VIII, Reading 2: Substantial Form Compared with Accidental Form, and Why Proportions Matter (from 0:38) · pp. 2–3
• Wisdom (2005) — 42. Metaphysics VIII, Reading 3 (Part 1): Form Compared with Plato’s Separate Species (from 7:22) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2005) — 43. Metaphysics VIII, Reading 3 (Part 2): Definitions and Forms Are Like Numbers (from 0:38) · p. 5
• Wisdom (2005) — 44. Metaphysics Book 8, Reading 4: How Matter Relates to Its Products, to the Other Causes, and to Coming to Be (with Wine and Vinegar and Socrates’ Argument from Contraries) (from 2:53) · pp. 6–7
• Wisdom (2005) — 45. Metaphysics Book 8, Reading 5: How Matter and Form Are One, and an Introduction to Book 9 on Act and Ability (from 4:20) · pp. 8–9

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Nine (Ninth Book of Wisdom) #

reading · Metaphysics Reading One · 13 pages · PDF · WS02_B8B9_02-Ninth_Book_of_Wisdom.pdf

Covers: Translation of Metaphysics Θ (Book Nine), from the opening on ability (potency) and act through the end of the book on being as true and non-being as false. It opens on the senses of ability, and ends with there being no deception about incomposite substances or unchangeable things.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Wisdom (2005) — 46. Metaphysics IX, Reading 1: Substance, the Categories, and the Senses of Ability (Active and Passive Potency) (from 0:47) · pp. 1–2
• Wisdom (2005) — 47. Metaphysics IX, Reading 2: Rational vs. Natural Abilities — Knowledge of Contraries and the Modern Misunderstanding of Reason and Nature (from 11:30) · p. 2
• Wisdom (2005) — 48. Metaphysics IX, Readings 1–3: Kinds of Ability, the Megarian Error, and Why Motion Seems Most Real (from 11:17) · pp. 3–4
• Wisdom (2005) — 49. The Meanings of ‘Necessary’ and Metaphysics IX, Reading 4: Rational Ability, Choice, and Mind versus Love as First Mover (from 16:08) · pp. 4–5
• Wisdom (2005) — 50. Metaphysics IX, Reading 5: Act Known by Induction and Proportion; Motion vs. Perfect Act (from 1:29) · pp. 6–7
• Wisdom (2005) — 51. Juliet’s Beauty and God’s Self-Knowledge; Reading 6 on Proximate Ability; Opening of Reading 7 on the Senses of ‘Before’ (from 30:34) · p. 7
• Wisdom (2005) — 52. Metaphysics IX, Readings 7–8: Act Before Ability in Definition, Time and Perfection (The Chicken or the Egg) (from 1:45) · pp. 8–10
• Wisdom (2005) — 53. Metaphysics IX, Reading 9: Eternal and Corruptible Things, Necessary and Impossible, Pure Act, and What Is More Knowable to Us (from 10:52) · p. 10
• Wisdom (2005) — 54. Metaphysics IX, Readings 9–10: Act Is Better Than Ability, the Transcendentals, and the Ability for Contraries (from 32:38) · pp. 11–12
• Wisdom (2005) — 55. Metaphysics IX, Reading 10: Evil as Privation, God as Pure Act and the Best Thing, and Why Act Is More Knowable (from 0:09) · p. 12
• Wisdom (2005) — 56. Metaphysics IX, Chapter 10: Truth and Falsity in the Mind’s Composing and Dividing (from 24:28) · p. 13
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 10. Metaphysics IX: Motion as the Most Known Act, and Heraclitus and Hegel (from 1:47) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 23. Metaphysics IX, Lectio Seven: Actuality is Prior to Potency in Definition, Time, and Substance (from 12:49) · p. 8

Proemium to Wisdom and Reason #

foreword · Metaphysics WS03_01 · 3 pages · PDF · WS03_01-Proemium_Wisdom_and_Reason.pdf

Covers: Short introductory essay linking wisdom and reason: wisdom is the highest perfection of reason. It draws on Aquinas’s proemium to the Ethics (sapientis est ordinare), Shakespeare’s definition of reason, and Metaphysics II on truth. It ends with a note that the papers on the definition of reason are placed under this heading.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Aristotle: Proemium to Wisdom #

reading · Metaphysics First Reading · 6 pages · PDF · WS03_02-Aristotle_Proem_to_Wisdom.pdf

Covers: Translation of the proem to Metaphysics I (chapters 1-2): all men desire to know, sense, memory, experience and art, the nature of wisdom, and the knowledge sought, ending with the goal of the investigation.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Shakespeare’s Exhortation to Use Reason, with a Proemium (and appendix on Aquinas’s division of moral philosophy) #

other · Shakespeare WS03_03 · 10 pages · PDF · WS03_03-Exhortation_and_Proemium.pdf

Covers: Hamlet’s exhortation to use reason (Hamlet IV.4 “What is a man…”), a proemium explaining it, an appendix quoting Hamlet I.3, and a closing passage on the division of moral philosophy into monastic (ethics), domestic, and political.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 8. The Senses of Before and After, Order, and the Exhortation’s Five Reasons to Use Reason (from 27:30) · pp. 2–5
• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 9. Why Philosophy Requires Reason: Review, Error and Mistake, and Better vs. More Necessary (from 6:03) · pp. 5–6
• Logic (2016) — 34. Truth and Falsity in Statements: Either/Or and If-Then Statements and Syllogisms (from 18:07) · p. 5
• Logic (2016) — 46. God’s Simplicity, Macbeth’s ‘Fair Is Foul’ and the Two Roots of Error: Speech vs. Things in the Fallacies (from 33:10) · p. 5
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 13. Shakespeare’s Definition of Reason, the Exhortation to Use Reason, and Wisdom (from 23:39) · p. 2
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 17. Act as Form and Act as Operation: Metaphysics IX, Perfect vs. Imperfect Act, and Happiness (from 20:16) · p. 5
• Wisdom (2016) — 11. Metaphysics Proemium: The Natural Road and the Six Marks of the Wise Man (from 23:23) · p. 5
• Prima Pars — 139. Aquinas on the Trinity: Does the Father Generate the Son by Will or by Nature? Nature, Will, and the Senses of ‘Necessary’ (from 58:14) · p. 5
• Prima Secundae — 1. Thomas’s Premium to the Ethics: Wisdom, Order and the Parts of Moral Philosophy; Aristotle’s Opening — the Good Is What All Want (from 16:33) · p. 8
• Prima Secundae — 67. Aquinas on the Order of the Passions: Love First Among the Concupiscible, Hope First Among the Irascible (ST I-II q.25 a.2-3) (from 29:14) · p. 5
• Prima Secundae — 77. Concupiscence I: Is It Only in the Senses, and Is It Its Own Passion? (ST I-II q.30 a.1–2) (from 15:12) · p. 5
• Prima Secundae — 185. Summa I-II Q.77 aa.3–6: Sins of Weakness, Love of Self, the Three Concupiscences, and Whether Passion Lessens Sin (from 0:41) · p. 5
• Prima Secundae — 204. Mortal Sin and Eternal Punishment: Aquinas on Aversion, Conversion, and the Beginning of Order (Q. 87, aa. 3–5) (from 12:25) · p. 5

An Exposition of Hamlet’s Exhortation to Use Reason #

paper · Shakespeare WS03_04 · 55 pages · PDF · WS03_04-Exposition_of_Exhortation.pdf

Covers: Essay expounding Hamlet’s forty-nine-word exhortation to use reason (Hamlet IV.4, “What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed…”), giving five reasons for using reason, including that man is an animal with reason, becomes like God by using it, and reaches his chief good through it.

Read from in:

• De Anima — 23. Two Abilities and Two Acts: Knowing, Learning and the Senses (De Anima II.5, Part 2) (from 8:59) · p. 42
• Secunda Secundae — 10. Explicit and Implicit Faith: The Learned and the Simple, and Belief in the Mystery of Christ (II-II q.2 aa.5-7) (from 22:26) · p. 49

Hamlet’s Exhortation to Use Reason #

paper · Shakespeare WS03_05 · 23 pages · PDF · WS03_05-Shorter_Lecture_on_Exhort.pdf

Covers: Essay (shorter lecture) on Hamlet’s forty-nine-word exhortation to use reason (Hamlet IV.4, “What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed…”), giving five reasons for using reason; ends with man’s being true to himself and achieving his chief good.

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

The First Definition of Reason #

paper · Shakespeare WS03_06 · 115 pages · PDF · WS03_06-First_Definition_of_Reason.pdf

Covers: Essay arguing that Shakespeare’s Hamlet (IV.4) gives the first definition of reason: the ability for large discourse, looking before and after. It concludes that the philosopher, whose wisdom is the highest perfection of reason, must most of all look before and after. It also includes a section on a definition of comedy.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 31. Three Kinds of Syllogism: The Four Forms of If-Then Speech, the Meno and Euclid (from 5:54) · p. 103
• Logic (2016) — 17. From Quantity to ‘Towards Something’: Categories, Chapter 7 on Relation (from 5:21) · p. 105
• Logic (2016) — 35. If-Then Arguments, Conversion of Statements, and the First Figure of the Syllogism (from 3:18) · p. 103
• Natural Hearing — 36. Smallest Pieces and Modern Physics: Arguments 2-7 Against Anaxagoras, Locke and Ability (from 7:24) · p. 103
• Natural Hearing — 56. Aristotle’s Physics IV: Time Is Not Motion, but Something of Motion (from 57:06) · p. 104
• Natural Hearing — 57. Time as the Number of Motion, and the Problem of the Now (from 11:58) · p. 18
• Natural Hearing — 59. Time, Metaphor and Boethius: Measuring Time and the Numbering Soul (from 11:33) · p. 18
• Natural Hearing — 61. Why the Philosophy of the Continuous Matters: Motion, Time, Zeno and the Limits of Imagination (from 1:04:40) · p. 104
• Natural Hearing — 80. Q&A: Motion and Rest in the Now, More Known to Us, Purgatory and Baptism (from 43:34) · p. 114
• De Anima — 3. Why Knowing the Soul Is Hard: How Natural Science Reasons, and the Phaedo’s Two Views of the Soul (from 13:36) · pp. 10–112
• De Anima — 33. De Anima III.3: Grasping and Judging, Sensing vs. Reason, and the Prevalence of Error (from 59:26) · p. 103
• De Anima — 88. Summa I q.77 a.1–2: Differences and Properties, the Definition of Faith, and Why the Soul Has Many Powers (from 5:18) · p. 95
• De Anima — 104. Q.79 a.1, last replies, and a.2: Angels and mind, the first cause as the best thing, Socratic consistency, and understanding as a passive power (from 28:10) · p. 3
• De Anima — 140. Summa I q.84 a.7: Why We Think Through Images, and Why the Brain Isn’t the Organ of Thought (from 42:32) · p. 103
• De Anima — 152. How We Know Our Habits Through Their Acts (Q.87, a.2): Faith, Charity, and the Principle ‘Propter quod unumquodque tale, et illud magis’ (from 29:48) · p. 21
• Ethics — 4. The End of Man: Own Act, Virtue, and the Act with Reason Done Well (from 11:01) · p. 86
• Ethics — 7. Good, Better, and the End of Man: Review and the Two Kinds of Human Virtue (from 6:33) · p. 86
• Wisdom (2005) — 28. Wisdom as the Knowledge of Being as Being: ‘Through Itself’, the First Cause, and Words Equivocal by Reason (from 28:50) · p. 86
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 8. Names Equivocal by Reason: Six Kinds and the Senses of ‘Nature’ (from 10:07) · p. 95
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 10. Metaphysics IX: Motion as the Most Known Act, and Heraclitus and Hegel (from 16:42) · p. 50
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 11. Metaphysics IX: The Second Error, ‘Everything Is Possible’, and the Definition of the Possible (from 0:38) · p. 103
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 25. Before and After in the Acts of Reason: Guessing, Thinking Out, and Discourse (from 31:14) · p. 112
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 38. Metaphysics II, Reading 5: The Roads in Our Knowledge and the Natural Road (from 36:17) · p. 90
• Prima Pars — 31. Is God in All Things and Everywhere? (Summa I, q.8, a.1–2) (from 6:23) · p. 95
• Prima Pars — 35. Summa I q.10 a.3-5: Is Only God Eternal? How Eternity Differs from Time, and the Aevum Introduced (from 12:25) · p. 95
• Prima Pars — 76. Summa I, Q.19, Arts. 1–2: Light and Life in St. John; Whether There Is Will in God and Whether He Wills Other Things (from 14:24) · p. 8
• Prima Pars — 93. Divine Power (Q. 25, a. 1): Active and Passive Ability in God (from 7:59) · p. 82
• Prima Secundae — 3. Aristotle’s Ethics I: The Good, the Last End, Certitude in Ethics, and Man’s Own Act (from 12:04) · p. 86
• Prima Secundae — 5. Prologue to the Second Part and Question 1, Article 1: Does Man Act for an End? (from 35:26) · p. 86
• Prima Secundae — 9. Summa I-II, Q.1, Articles 6–7: Whether we will everything for the sake of the last end, and whether all people share one last end (jest, speculation, taste and the sweetness of the Lord) (from 7:54) · p. 86
• Prima Secundae — 10. Summa I-II, Q.1, Article 8 and Q.2, Articles 1–2: God as the end of all things, and why happiness is not in riches or honor (from 38:40) · p. 32
• Prima Secundae — 11. Felicitas as Fruit, Boethius on False Happiness, and Why Happiness Is Not Honor or Glory (ST I-II q.2 aa.1-3) (from 22:23) · p. 32
• Prima Secundae — 12. Why Happiness Is Not Power, Bodily Goods, or Pleasure (ST I-II q.2 aa.4-6) (from 45:41) · p. 86
• Prima Secundae — 91. Theobald, Shakespeare and Homer on ‘Looking Before and After’; Is Every Sadness Contrary to Every Pleasure? (Summa I-II, Q35, A4) (from 12:26) · p. 68
• Prima Secundae — 113. Aquinas on Anger, Part 1: Anger vs. Hate, Who We Get Angry At, and the Kinds of Anger (Summa I-II, Q. 46, Articles 6–8) (from 31:56) · p. 58
• Prima Secundae — 129. Aquinas on Habits: How They Are Corrupted and Diminished (Summa I-II, Q. 53) (from 26:14) · p. 103
• Prima Secundae — 156. Summa I-II, Q. 66, Arts. 2–4: Equality of the Virtues, Intellectual vs. Moral Virtue, and Justice as the Chief Moral Virtue (from 21:34) · p. 58
• Prima Secundae — 194. Where Original Sin Lives: Flesh or Soul, Chief and Instrumental Causes (ST I-II q.83 a.1) (from 28:56) · p. 58
• Prima Secundae — 219. Eternal Law, Part 1: Is the Eternal Law Known to All? Distinction, Before and After, and the Last Instant of Change (from 7:19) · p. 58
• Prima Secundae — 245. Aquinas on the Old Law Sacrifices (Holocaust, Sin and Peace Offerings) and the Trinity as Alpha and Omega (from 38:08) · p. 24
• Prima Secundae — 265. Grace, Part 1 (ST I-II q.109 a.1): Can We Know Truth Without Grace? God as First Mover, and How Words Like ‘Act’ and ‘Motion’ Carry Over (from 23:18) · p. 50
• Tertia Pars — 54. Summa III, Q. 20: Is Christ Subject to the Father and to Himself? (with the ‘crowning’ sense of before and conjecture about the Trinity) (from 35:17) · p. 58

Necessity and Difficulty of Beginning Well in Philosophy #

paper · Metaphysics WS04_01 · 3 pages · PDF · WS04_01-The_Need_to_Begin_Well.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s essay on why beginning well is necessary in philosophy (the beginning is small but powerful, with three corollaries) and why it is difficult (with four corollaries, including the need to go slowly and to return to the beginnings). It is a general introduction to first philosophy and wisdom, not a translation of a text.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Texts on Necessity and Difficulty of Beginning Well #

foreword · Presocratics WS04_02 · 31 pages · PDF · WS04_02-Texts_on_Beginning_Well.pdf

Covers: Common foreword and first collection of key texts (Parmenides DK 5 and DK 2, then texts from Plato and Aristotle) on the necessity and difficulty of beginning well in philosophy.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Natural Hearing — 26. Contradiction and the Progress of Knowledge: Heraclitus, Aristotle and the Untying of Knots (from 48:48) · p. 21
• Wisdom (2005) — 22. The Role of Contradiction in Discovery: Heraclitus, Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Einstein and Theology (from 28:59) · p. 21
• Tertia Pars — 39. Summa III q.15 a.1–3: Whether Christ Had Sin, the Fomes of Sin, or Ignorance (with music, moral virtue and reason’s rule over the emotions) (from 1:57) · p. 27

Distinction of the Beginnings of Philosophy #

note · Metaphysics WS04_03 · 2 pages · PDF · WS04_03-The_Beginnings_of_Philosophy.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s short essay distinguishing three kinds of beginnings of philosophy: (1) beginnings about things, (2) knowledge of the roads or methods to follow in thinking, and (3) dispositions of will and emotion that help one use reason well. Philosophy is defined as reasoned-out knowledge (episteme, methodos). No Aristotle passage is translated or cited.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Beginnings of Philosophy in Will (and Emotions) #

note · Metaphysics WS04_04 · 6 pages · PDF · WS04_04-Beginnings_in_the_Will_and_the_Emotions.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s essay on the dispositions of will and emotion that begin philosophy: wonder (about the universal, what and why, causes, especially natural things), together with hope of overcoming difficulty and fear of error, and related dispositions that foster friendship among philosophers.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Distinction of the Roads in Our Knowledge #

paper · Metaphysics WS04_05 · 3 pages · PDF · WS04_05-Distinction_of_the_Roads.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s essay distinguishing the roads in our looking (speculative) knowledge: the first, natural road from the senses into reason; the second, road of reason as reason (common and private roads of reasoned-out knowledge); and where each is to be considered (natural philosophy and wisdom, logic, and the start of each particular science).

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 1. Aristotle’s Proemium I: The Natural Desire to Know and Wisdom as Knowledge of Causes (from 17:12) · p. 1
• Natural Hearing — 67. Which Definition Comes First? Circularity in Aristotle’s Reasoning (from 7:16) · p. 1
• De Anima — 119. Summa I, Q.79 a.12: Synderesis as the Natural Habit of Practical First Principles (reason as nature, Heraclitus on listening to reason, habit and power) (from 33:46) · p. 1
• Wisdom (2005) — 2. The First Road in Our Knowledge: From Sensation and Memory to Experience and Art (from 11:46) · p. 1

An Introduction to the First Road in Our Knowledge #

paper · Other WS04_06 · 16 pages · PDF · WS04_06-First_Road_in_our_Knowledge.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s essay on what a road in our knowledge is (order of before and after) and the first road, from the senses into reason; it ends by discussing errors of Spinoza, Locke and Berkeley about the general and the universal whole. Not a translation of Aristotle.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 4. Natural Beginnings of Philosophy: Wonder, the Natural Road, and Axioms (from 21:14) · pp. 3–9
• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 5. Why Begin from Nature: Beginnings, Order, and Heraclitus on the Common · p. 9
• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 39. Syllogism Figures, Wisely and Slow, and the Eight Recurring Forms of Argument (from 8:19) · p. 2
• Natural Hearing — 6. Aristotle Defines Nature: Five Parts, Nature vs. Art, and Experimental Science (from 26:15) · p. 2
• De Anima — 44. Why the Understandable Doesn’t Always Understand; Reading Aristotle through Thomas; Liberal Education (from 14:51) · p. 9
• De Anima — 45. De Anima III.5: The Agent Intellect as Light—Separable, Impassible, Unmixed, and Act (from 14:44) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2005) — 55. Metaphysics IX, Reading 10: Evil as Privation, God as Pure Act and the Best Thing, and Why Act Is More Knowable (from 42:01) · p. 8
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 29. Act Before Ability: Knowability, Truth and the End of Book IX (from 19:25) · p. 8
• Wisdom (2006, Colorado) — 38. Metaphysics II, Reading 5: The Roads in Our Knowledge and the Natural Road (from 45:48) · p. 4
• Wisdom (2016) — 8. Metaphysics I, Reading 1: The Natural Road from Sense to Reason, and Why God’s Love Causes Goodness (Part 1 of 3) (from 2:45) · p. 4

Second Road in our Knowledge #

paper · Other WS04_07 · 6 pages · PDF · WS04_07-Second_Road_in_our_Knowledge.pdf

Covers: Essay on the second road in our knowledge, the road of reason as reason, based on the before and after in acts of reason: understanding what a thing is before statements, statements before reasoning; guessing before knowing; and thinking out (distinctions, definitions, order) before reasoning to conclusions. Uses Euclid Book I and Aristotle’s De Anima as examples. It is part of a series on first philosophy and wisdom.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 24. The Art of Division: Integral and Universal Wholes, Distinction, and the Rule of Two or Three (from 0:36) · p. 5
• Wisdom (2005) — 25. Dividing to Reach the Beginnings: Kinds of Whole and Part, Universals, and Hegel’s Error (from 11:26) · p. 5
• Prima Pars — 19. Summa I, Q.3, Art.7: Is God Altogether Simple? Five Arguments, Pure Act, and the Mistake About the First Cause (from 34:20) · p. 5
• Prima Pars — 112. Aquinas on the Trinity (Summa I, q.30 a.3): Numbers in God, the Transcendental ‘Many’ and Two Kinds of ‘One’ (from 16:20) · p. 5

The Before and After in the Acts of (Looking) Reason #

paper · Other WS04_08 · 8 pages · PDF · WS04_08-Order_in_Acts_of_Reason.pdf

Covers: Essay on the second road in our knowledge, the road of reason as reason: the order among the acts of looking reason as distinguished into three (Aristotle and Aquinas: grasping what something is, composing/dividing statements, reasoning) and into two (Plato and Albert the Great), tied to the books of the Organon. Ends on grasping preceding judging.

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 5. Why Begin from Nature: Beginnings, Order, and Heraclitus on the Common (from 1:03:53) · p. 7
• Logic (2016) — 2. Logic’s Three Acts of Reason, Univocal and Equivocal Names, and the Genus (from 6:17) · p. 1
• De Anima — 56. The Soul as Gateway, Naming God’s Simplicity, and Student Questions (from 15:13) · p. 7
• De Anima — 111. Article 7 Replies and Article 8: Reason and Understanding as One Power, Motion and Rest, Episteme and Natural Understanding (from 38:49) · p. 2
• Prima Pars — 17. Summa Theologiae I, Q.3, Articles 3–4: God is His own nature and His own existence (from 2:01) · p. 5
• Prima Pars — 64. Summa I, Q.14 a.16 and Intro to Q.15: Is God’s Knowledge Looking (Speculative) or Practical? Plato’s Forms and Whether Truth Requires That the Way We Know Be the Way Things Are (from 20:27) · p. 7
• Prima Secundae — 19. Shakespeare’s Definition of Reason and the Trinity; Is Beatitude Chiefly Vision or Pleasure? (Summa I-II, Q.4, A.2) (from 17:36) · p. 7
• Prima Secundae — 161. Charity Never Fails, and How the Gifts of the Holy Spirit Differ from the Virtues (Summa I-II q.67 a.6, q.68 a.1) (from 25:38) · p. 7

The Third Road(s) in Our Knowledge #

note · Other WS04_09 · 2 pages · PDF · WS04_09-Third_Road_in_our_Knowledge.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s short essay on the third road in our knowledge: the private road of each reasoned-out knowledge (way of defining, making known its beginnings, limit of judgment, way of demonstrating, causes used, rigor, and order of determination). It contrasts natural philosophy and mathematics, citing Physics II and I and Euclid’s Elements.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Distinction of the Beginnings about Things #

paper · Metaphysics WS04_10 · 4 pages · PDF · WS04_10-Distinction_of_Beginnings_about_Things.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s essay distinguishing beginnings common to all reasoned out knowledge (e.g. being/non-being, whole/part, before/after) from those private to each science, with Boethius’s division of statements known through themselves to all vs. to the wise; ends with axioms of before and after in first philosophy.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Contradiction and the Growth of Reason #

paper · Metaphysics WS04_11 · 34 pages · PDF · WS04_11-Contradiction_and_Reason.pdf

Covers: Essay on how the opposition of contradiction and the statement about contradiction (the principle of non-contradiction) are the seeds necessary for the growth of reason and knowledge, as part of beginning well in philosophy. Not a translation of a specific Aristotle passage.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 31. Three Kinds of Syllogism: The Four Forms of If-Then Speech, the Meno and Euclid (from 48:59) · p. 22
• Logic (2016) — 30. Kinds of Opposites and the Trinity: Heaven’s Praise, Evil as Privation, and Why the Father Is Not Before the Son (from 24:21) · p. 10
• Logic (2016) — 42. Demonstration and Dialectic: Form and Matter of the Syllogism, Probable Opinions, Propter Quid and Quia, the Four Questions, and Why Definition Needs Genus and Difference (from 9:49) · p. 22
• Prima Pars — 9. Summa I, q.1, a.6–7: Sacred Doctrine as Wisdom and God as Its Subject (from 20:52) · p. 4

Foreword to Consideration of Mistake or Error #

foreword · Metaphysics WS05_01 · 3 pages · PDF · WS05_01-Foreward_Wisdom_about_Error.pdf

Covers: Introduction to a series on the causes of mistake or error in our thinking: etymologies of mistake and error, the wise man’s concern with eliminating error, and the plan for a following paper on the division of the causes of error.

(The description of what this handout covers was resolved with medium confidence.)

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Division of the Causes of Error #

paper · AquinasCommentary WS05_02 · 3 pages · PDF · WS05_02-Division_of_the_Causes_of_Error.pdf

Covers: Berquist’s short essay on Aquinas’s division of the causes (occasions) of error into those ex parte intellectus (understanding, including senses and imagination) and ex parte affectus (will and emotions, especially pride), citing Aquinas’s commentaries on Timothy and John.

No recorded class was matched to this handout.

Pride as a Cause of Error #

paper · Other WS05_03 · 26 pages · PDF · WS05_03-Pride_as_a_Cause_of_Error.pdf

Covers: Essay on pride as a root and mother of error, drawing on Thomas (Super I ad Timotheum, De Malo, Summa Contra Gentiles I.5) and Shakespeare; concludes that pride, like a tree stump, is the most stubborn part of the tree of error.

Read from in:

• Natural Hearing — 47. Nature Acts for an End: Replies to the Objections and the Infinity of Mind (from 50:56) · p. 22
• De Anima — 44. Why the Understandable Doesn’t Always Understand; Reading Aristotle through Thomas; Liberal Education (from 29:20) · p. 8
• De Anima — 154. Part 2: Truth and good, wits and dimwits, self-rule of the mind, and whether we can know immaterial substances (ST I q.87 a.4 – q.88 a.1) (from 7:13) · p. 8
• Ethics — 3. The Good, the Better, and the Three Kinds of Human Goods (from 49:20) · p. 8

Shakespeare on Error #

paper · Shakespeare WS05_04 · 17 pages · PDF · WS05_04-Shakespeare_on_Error.pdf

Covers: Essay on Shakespeare’s treatment of error: the etymology of error as wandering (Comedy of Errors, Troilus and Cressida), disordered movement of reason, and bold or proud imagination as the beginning of error (Morocco, Arragon, Malvolio, Parolles), with reference to Aquinas’s bonum imaginatum.

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 36. Demonstration: Cause, Necessity and Through Itself (from 39:14) · p. 3
• Logic (2016) — 46. God’s Simplicity, Macbeth’s ‘Fair Is Foul’ and the Two Roots of Error: Speech vs. Things in the Fallacies (from 3:42) · pp. 3–5
• De Anima — 41. How the Senses and Reason Are Acted On Differently, Two Kinds of Ability, and What Reason Knows · p. 3
• De Anima — 42. The Object of Reason: What a Thing Is, Universals and Immaterial Understanding (from 3:14) · p. 3
• Wisdom (2016) — 4. Metaphysics I Proemium (cont.): Wonder, Chance, and the End of Inquiry; Wonder What and Why, Why God Has No Cause, and the Order of Sense, Memory and Experience (from 15:15) · p. 3
• Prima Pars — 72. Summa I, Q.17, a.3: Whether Falsehood Is in the Understanding; Natural vs. Reasoned-Out Understanding; the Four Kinds of Opposition (from 19:50) · p. 3
• Prima Secundae — 74. Love as the Cause of All Action, and the Start of Hate: Its Object and Its Cause in Love (ST I-II q.28 a.6; q.29 aa.1-2) (from 34:19) · p. 3
• Prima Secundae — 83. Truth, Life and Appropriation in the Trinity; the Meter of the Adoro te; Operation as the Cause of Pleasure (ST I-II q.32 a.1) (from 13:52) · p. 3
• Prima Secundae — 224. Natural Law II and Human Law: Replies on Grace and Unjust Laws; Why Human Laws Are Needed and How They Derive from Natural Law (from 24:36) · p. 3
• Prima Secundae — 229. Why Reason Is Not a Body (Thomas’s Three Arguments, Sentences II d.19) and Custom as Law (Summa I-II q.97 a.3) (from 1:07:21) · p. 3

Friar Laurence on Stumbling #

paper · Shakespeare WS05_05 · 14 pages · PDF · WS05_05-Friar_Laurence_on_Stumbling.pdf

Covers: Essay on Friar Laurence’s advice in Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Sc. 3), “Wisely and slow: they stumble that run fast,” unfolding three senses of running. It concludes that modern philosophy stumbled into a “bastard philosophy” by revolting from nature or true birth, and ends with Polonius’s advice in Hamlet (Act I, Sc. 3).

Read from in:

• Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999) — 4. Natural Beginnings of Philosophy: Wonder, the Natural Road, and Axioms (from 2:21) · p. 9
• Natural Hearing — 69. Ends and Limits, and the Dependence of Philosophy on the Natural (from 25:57) · p. 14
• Natural Hearing — 82. Wisely and Slow: Friar Lawrence, Shakespeare, and Seven Places Where the Wise Man Proceeds Slowly (from 30:39) · p. 7
• Prima Pars — 11. Summa Theologiae I, Q.1 aa.9–10 and the Prologue to Q.2: Metaphor in Scripture, the Four Senses, and the Plan of the Summa (from 5:07) · p. 8
• Prima Pars — 35. Summa I q.10 a.3-5: Is Only God Eternal? How Eternity Differs from Time, and the Aevum Introduced (from 36:46) · p. 10
• Prima Secundae — 61. Summa I-II Q.21 a.4: Merit Before God; Why Thomas Treats Human Acts Before the Emotions; Faith, Hope and Charity and the Senses of ‘Before’ (from 17:13) · p. 3
• Prima Secundae — 78. Concupiscence II: Natural and Acquired Desires, and Whether Desire Is Infinite (ST I-II q.30 a.2 replies, a.3–4) (from 12:27) · p. 10
• Tertia Pars — 102. Seeing God as He Is, and Whether Christ Suffered in His Whole Soul (ST III q.46 a.7-8) (from 36:15) · p. 10