Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999)
4. Natural Beginnings of Philosophy: Wonder, the Natural Road, and Axioms
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[0:03] So we're giving you a little introduction to philosophy, and this is distinguished into four questions that come in a certain order, right? And the first question is what is a philosopher, right? The second question is what is philosophy. The third question is what are the kinds and parts of philosophy, and the fourth question will be how should one come into philosophy?

[0:41] Now the question, what is a philosopher? We saw that the original and true, I think, in full sense of the word is a lover of wisdom, and then we examined what wisdom is and saw that it's a knowledge of causes, and at the end, a knowledge of the very first cause, huh? And it's looking knowledge, right? And it's liberal or free, and it's not really human possession, but it's the best and most honorable knowledge because it's the most divine knowledge.

[1:18] And we saw that the philosopher has to love wisdom for its own sake, more than anything else, he loves for its own sake, and therefore he must love it as the end or purpose of his life. He must love it as a common good, both the common good of reason and the common good of mankind.

[1:40] So the second question we took up was what is philosophy, huh? And perhaps the first answer you should give is that philosophy is a methodos, knowledge over a road, that knowledge that follows a road, and by road we mean an order, right? The before and after in our knowledge, and the reason why philosophy is a methodos is that it's a work of reason, and in every work of reason you find order.

[2:14] Because that's what philosophy is, you could say it involves two ways it can be had. One is to have a knowledge of the road to follow, and the other is to go down that road, right? And to go down that road to its end, the mind comes to a halt or a stop. Then you have episteme, which I translate into English as a reasoned-out knowledge, a reasoned-out understanding.

[2:41] But you could say that in the beginning it's not a reasoned-out knowledge, but a search, an investigation. It's a zetesis as Aristotle says in Greek, or historia, meaning investigation, but in the end it's a reasoned-out knowledge, huh?

[3:01] Now there are three kinds of philosophy. Two chief kinds, which are looking philosophy, whose end is to understand, and practical philosophy, or the philosophy of doing, whose end is to do, right? And then there is a third kind of philosophy, which is the tool, more philosophy, and that is logic, huh? Okay. We saw that looking philosophy has three parts: mathematical philosophy, and then natural philosophy, and then what Aristotle usually calls first philosophy or wisdom.

[3:45] And likewise, practical philosophy has three parts: ethics, which is about the good of the individual man, family, which is or domestics, which is about the good of the family, and then political philosophy, which is about the good of the city or the nation. What one should do.

[4:09] And then you have logic, as we mentioned, huh? Now we say that these seven are parts of philosophy, huh? We don't mean part now in the sense of original sense of part, but composes a whole, right? We mean what they call subject parts, right? Okay. Each of these is a reasoned out knowledge, right? Each of these is knowledge over a road.

[4:36] So geometry is a reasoned out knowledge of continuous quantity. That is of lines and angles and figures, right? Arithmetic, arithmetic in the Greek sense, is a reasoned out knowledge of numbers, huh? And natural philosophy is a reasoned out knowledge of natural things. And wisdom you'll find out is a reasoned out knowledge of what is, completely universal. And likewise, ethics is a reasoned out knowledge of human happiness, and the purpose of human happiness, and so on, the virtue.

[5:13] Likewise, the domestics of political philosophy are reasoned out knowledges of the family and of the what city, huh? Okay. And logic is a reasoned out knowledge. We'll see about of definition and statement and argument, huh? Or syllogism.

[5:32] Now the fourth. Now one other thing there. We also distinguished briefly the roads in our knowledge, huh? And we'll be coming back to these roads at various times. But there are three roads in our knowledge that come in a certain order, at least in our looking knowledge. And the first road is made by nature. And that's the road from the what senses into reason. And then the other roads are made by reason, and there's the common road of reason, the road of reason as reason, which is the road from reasonable guesses to or towards reasoned out knowledge.

[6:14] And then there's the private road of each reasoned out knowledge. Okay. We'll say some more today about the natural road, but the road of reason as reason, we'll be talking about that when we begin logic, right? And then as we start say natural philosophy, we'll talk about the private roads and and the seven or eight elements that are found in every private road, huh? Okay.

[6:43] How did you put it? What geometry? It's reasoned out knowledge of continuous quantity. Continuous, yeah. Okay. Quantity is divisible forever. It's quantity whose parts are made at a common boundary, like a line or a surface or three-dimensional continuum. Okay. Now the fourth question was, how should one come into philosophy?

[7:14] And one can answer with the brevity of wisdom in one sentence: How should you come into philosophy? You should come into philosophy from its natural beginnings through the use of reason.

[7:32] So we want to ask then, what are the natural beginnings of philosophy? philosophy? And secondly, why should one come into philosophy from those natural beginnings? And then we have to ask, what reason is? What it is to use reason, and why one should come into philosophy through the use of reason. Okay, that's almost obvious that philosophy is working reason. Okay. So now the natural beginnings. Thickest piece of chalk I ever made.

[8:05] How clear this all? How stink this about? Now, what are the natural beginnings? Natural beginnings of philosophy. Fortunately, keep the board isn't. See the blackboard or green board is something. Okay.

[8:34] Now, some of these natural beginnings are in desire. Others are in our knowledge. Okay. Now there are two main beginnings in our desire. And one is wonder,

[9:05] and you saw maybe those readings from Plato and Aristotle, where they say that in the beginning and now men begin to philosophize out of wonder, right?

[9:18] And the wonder could be defined as the natural desire to know, right? The parentheses for its own sake, right? The cause. Okay, so natural desire to know for its own sake, the cause, and you see that expressed in that fragment of Democritus: "I would rather discover one cause than be master of the kingdom of the Persians." This is the greatest king in the world at that time, right?

[9:58] Now, in the passage where. Socrates talks about wonder. You see the questions what and why. You could also define wonder as a natural desire to know what and why.

[10:17] So you see the question what there in the words of Theaetetus and why there in Socrates. And you see the little childhood rhyme, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, How I Wonder What You Are. Now, in one of the books of logic, in fact, the center of logic, the second book of the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle, he shows that both the question what and the question why are looking for the cause.

[10:49] And sometimes these two questions differ only in arrangement. What is an eclipse of the sun? It's the cutting off of the light of the sun by the moon coming between the Earth and the Sun. Why is the light of the Sun eclipsed suddenly today? Because it come between, right? The two. So both of these questions, what and why, are answered by knowing the cause.

[11:20] Later on in logic, we talk about definition, which answers the question what it is, and demonstration, which answers the question why. But definition and demonstration are very closely related. As Aristotle will point out, sometimes a definition is the beginning of a demonstration, sometimes it's the conclusion of a demonstration, sometimes it differs from a demonstration only by arrangement. And so these two definitions are equivalent, right? Okay.

[11:55] Now this is more the beginning of looking philosophy than a practical philosophy, because we're talking about the natural desire to know. I'm going to add in some parentheses for its own sake,

[12:11] not for the sake of doing or making something. While a practical philosophy is seeking knowledge not for its own sake, but for the sake of doing, right? For The sake of living well, right? Doing well. So the natural desire behind practical philosophy doesn't have a name, doesn't have a name, but it's the natural desire to live well.

[12:43] Man has a natural desire not only to live but to live well, right? So in ethics, we're asking when is an individual human being living well, right? And in domestic and in political philosophy, when is the life of the family good, right? And when is the life of the city or the nation good, huh? So these are the two fundamental natural beginnings of philosophy in our desire.

[13:12] But one, as I say, is more the beginning of looking philosophy; the other, more practical philosophy. Incidentally, I might make a little theological footnote

[13:24] on one of the major differences between philosophy and theology. Is that in philosophy, looking philosophy and practical philosophy are two different kinds of philosophy, right? Two different kinds. Now, in theology, you have sometimes people talk about dogmatic theology, right? And they'll talk about moral theology, right? And in the definition of, say, infallibility, there in Vatican I, they'll speak of the Pope as having infallibility in matters of faith and morals, right?

[14:06] But dogmatic theology and moral theology are not two kinds of theology, not two different knowledges. They're really one and the same. So what is divided into philosophy is one in theology, and the reason for that is that in theology you're sharing in God's knowledge itself. In God's knowledge, that everything of God is altogether but one and simple. So in God there's no not two kinds of knowledge, right?

[14:43] But his one knowledge is both chiefly theoretical, but also practical. And so theology is sharing in God's knowledge. So there's only one theology. So don't think that dogmatic and moral theology has some likeness to this distinction, right? It's not a distinction of two theologies. There's only one theology.

[15:06] But there's two quite distinct kinds of philosophy, and that's because of the human level, right? He's going to proceed quite differently. Now there are also two natural beginnings of philosophy in our knowledge, and one we met already, and that is the natural road And. The road from the senses into what reason, and maybe after we finish this, we'll say a few more words about that. Okay.

[15:52] Now the other natural beginning in our knowledge is what you might call the natural. Understanding of the axioms and their parts. If you read a little bit of Euclid, there, you may see that he distinguishes between the postulates, which are private to geometry, like among the postulates is the statement that all right angles are equal, right, and that's private to geometry to talk about right angles. But then the postulates are more general statements, right?

[16:40] Like the whole is larger than one of its parts, right? Quantities equal to the same to each other. Now, the axioms in this context here means the statements that are known through themselves, They're not statements that are proven by other statements. They're statements known through themselves and by all men, like the whole is larger than one of its parts. We often say in class, if anybody thinks the whole is not larger than the part, we'll give him a part of his celery this week, right?

[17:14] We'll give him a part of his dinner, right? Or a part of the car he bought, right? Since he sees no difference between the part and the whole. And he'll rave and rant, and you know that he's lying when he says he doesn't know the whole is more than the part, right? Okay. So there are some statements that are known to themselves by all men, and these are called the axioms, right?

[17:36] And it almost seems like we're born knowing them, but actually we actually, I think, come to know them, right, through our common experience. Once we see a whole and a part, and we actually understand what a whole and a part is, or come to understand what a whole and a part is, and it's obvious that a whole is more than a part, right?

[17:55] These statements underlie all reasoned-out knowledge. As we point out before, if you understood nothing before reasoning, you had nothing to what reason from, right? So there must be some statements that are known naturally before reason, and that's what the axioms are. And these are also, you could also reason that

[18:27] through itself is before and a cause of what is through another, right? What is so through itself, right, is before and a cause of what is so through another. Take for example, sweet, right?

[18:45] Sugar seems to be sweet to itself, right? Sugar through being sugar is sweet. Is coffee sweet? through being coffee. No. If coffee is sweet, it's sweet to another, right? So if the coffee is sweet, but not sweet to itself, there must be before it something that is what. Yeah. Okay. The same way with statements, right? If some statements are known to other statements, there must be some statements before them that are what known to themselves, and that's what we call the.

[19:25] Actually, Euclid distinguishes between the statements known to themselves by all men, which are the axioms, and the statements known to themselves by those who are learned in some science. So if you know, for example, in arithmetic, what a odd number is and what an even number is, it's obvious that no odd number is even, right? Okay. Now, if you know from geometry that a right angle is and an acute angle is, it's kind of obvious that a obtuse angle is greater than an acute angle.

[19:59] But not maybe we would know that, right? The peasant might not know that, right? But he'd know what a whole and a part of it, is, right? So these are the statements naturally known. They naturally come to know. So these are the four natural beginnings of philosophy. Two of them in desire, and two of them in our knowledge.

[20:26] Maybe we've said enough here about what wonder is, and this is fairly obvious. It is natural desire to live well. Let's come back a bit, though, to the natural road in our knowledge, right? And speak a little bit more about that road.

[20:58] Now, as I said before, when you speak of a road in our knowledge, you mean an order in our knowledge. Order means a before and after, right? So if you want to understand the natural road in our knowledge, you have to see the before and after in that road.

[21:20] Now, there's two before and afters you can see in that road, and they somewhat, you know, correspond to each other, but they should be considered separately because each brings out something more. So you can speak of a before and after

[21:46] in kinds of knowing along this road from the senses into reason. And you can speak of a before and after in things as known along this road, right?

[22:25] Now, in Aristotle's *Premium to Wisdom*, he took up the natural road a bit in order to see better what wisdom is aiming at. Remember that? And he gave us something of the order, right, of different kinds of knowing along that road—the road from the senses into reason. Well, obviously, what comes first along that road is sensing, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. So sensing comes before anything else along that road.

[23:02] Then Aristotle pointed out that in man, and in fact in higher animals, sensing gives rise to something called memory. Okay, remember something about the sense, right? I can't remember anything before my fifth birthday, about when I was in kindergarten, right? I remember anything before that, But remember all kinds of things in the past, right? So sensing comes before memory.

[23:39] After memory, if you recall in Aristotle's treatment there, there comes what we call experience now, Experience in the sense of a collection of many memories of the same sort of thing.

[24:09] Now it's after experience that you start to get a knowledge of the universal, right? It's something proper to reason, and because in experience you've seen many individuals of the same kind, and you have brought them together, and you start to see what they have in common, and you separate out what they have in common, you now have a knowledge of the universal. So as a little child, your mummy said, "See the dog in the yard," and that was an individual dog that you sensed, right?

[24:43] And maybe remember something about your sense. The next day there's another dog, and says, "See that dog, right? " Okay. And gradually you're picking up memories, right? Sensing and many memories, and eventually you start to get an experience of dogs, right? But then some day the little child will look out the window on his own and say, "Mummy, a dog! " See, he separated out what's common to those many, right?

[25:09] And now he recognizes this new individual, right, as coming under this universal, right? Okay. So sensing, memory, experience are all a knowledge of the what singular.

[25:28] But after that, I'm going to go down the end of that, right? You start to have this knowledge of universal. What comes first is that natural understanding we spoke about. Okay. The

[25:44] natural understanding of these very basic universals that hold like whole and part, and so on. And from that and other things, we come to a reasoned-out understanding of things, reasoned-out knowledge.

[26:09] Reasoned-out understanding, we call it reasoned-out knowledge. And after many forms of reasoned-out understanding, like geometry and arithmetic, and natural philosophy, and ethics and domestics and political, comes wisdom, right? And when you study wisdom, you'll see that it perfects both natural understanding and reasoned-out understanding. It's really a kind of unique thing. So wisdom is going to come here at the very end.

[26:56] So that's something of the order there, that before and after different kinds of knowing along this road. Sensing comes before memory. Memory comes before experience. Experience comes before any knowledge of universals. But among universals comes this natural understanding of these very general things like whole and part. And then a reasoned-out understanding. There've been many forms of reasoned-out understanding, and you can distinguish the order among them. And at the very end comes what wisdom, right?

[27:29] Yeah. Wisdom, are we to understand metaphysics? Aristotle speaks of wisdom. Yeah, yeah. Aristotle usually calls it first philosophy. Metaphysics comes from Andronicus of Rhodes, right? Who saw that these books come after the books in natural philosophy. And so, if you look at the Greek, it's actually three words: meta, meaning after, ta, which is the article, physica, meta ta physica, after the books in natural philosophy. If you ever, you know, get even the Random House, you know, the basic books of Aristotle, you'll see that they place the metaphysics after the books in natural philosophy.

[28:11] Because in the order of learning, it comes after, And transphysica, as they say in Thomas, right? Across or after the natural books. Now, there's also a before and after in things as known along this road.

[28:38] And there you can distinguish two before and afters. To distinguish the order before and after, the order in which. Different things are known along

[29:02] this road, and then the order in which the same thing is known along this road. In other words, because of this natural road, because of the order made by nature in our knowledge, we're going to know some things before other things. But also because of that natural road, we're going to know the same thing in different ways, in one way before another way.

[29:48] Let's talk about the first one, the order in which different things are known. Well, you can begin with something very obvious and very general, right? And that is that sensible Things

[30:06] are known before things that cannot be sensed. Okay, that's kind of obvious, right? If you're going the road from senses into reason, obviously sensible things, things that can be sensed, right, are going to be known before things cannot be sensed, right?

[30:37] And you could add to that, of course, obviously, things that are more sensible will be known before things that are less sensible, right? But now, under this idea, we're going to distinguish three befores, and going to do them in an ascending order from the particular more to the general, right?

[31:04] Material things are going to be known before immaterial things. Okay, that's kind of obvious, huh? And that's why natural philosophy, which is about material things, right, comes before wisdom, which is about immaterial things. Okay.

[31:42] Of course, the very first philosophers only knew about material things, and it's not until Anaxagoras and then Plato and Aristotle himself that the Greek philosophers started to have reasons to think that there exist immaterial things. Okay. So in the beginning, they knew only material things, and they thought of everything as being material, right? And it's only by reasoning that they arrived at the idea there exist immaterial things, and then they realized there's some knowledge after metaphysics, right?

[32:18] After the study of natural things. huh? Okay. So that comes under this, okay? Now, a second thing which is even more universal than this, right? One way we get from material things to the existence of material things is because the immaterial things are in some way causes of material things, and so we reason from the effects in the material world to the causes in the immaterial world.

[32:55] But this is true not only in going from the material world to the immaterial world that we tend to go from the effect towards the cause, but even in the natural world, right? Even in material world, the effect is for the most part, anyway, more known to us than the what cause. So this is a more general going material before immaterial. Effects

[33:22] is usually known before causes. Notice the reason for that is that the senses are more acknowledged of effects than of causes. Take for example day and night, right? An effect that we see every day, right? Day and night, huh? The ancients knew there was day and night as well as we know there's day and night, right? But there's some disagreement as day and night caused by the sun going around the earth, or is day and night caused by the earth turning on its axis?

[34:04] Right. Not obvious which one it is, is it? Okay. And the fact that they disagreed, or people have disagreed historically, right, as to the cause of day and night, right, while agreeing that there is day and night, is a sign that the effect, right, day and night, is more known than whatever its cause is, huh? Okay. Have you ever drunk alcoholic beverages? Right. You may have had a certain experienced certain effect of alcoholic beverage upon you, right?

[34:35] Huh. See. But why does alcohol have that effect? Kind of hidden from us, isn't it? And you ask a chemist, you know, for the formula of alcohol, and it still doesn't tell us why alcohol has that effect, right? Okay. Or we notice that trees grow, right? But why do they grow, right? That's hidden, right? And notice the question why, which we often ask, right? Every time we ask the question why, that's a sign that we know the effect before the cause, right?

[35:13] Okay. We see an effect, but we don't know its cause, and we ask why. Okay. So historians will agree that there was a French Revolution, but they will disagree sometimes as to why there was the French Revolution, right? Okay. And we often know what people do, but are puzzled as to why they did it, right? And we often are mistaken as to why people did this, who did that, right?

[35:41] Even though we're pretty sure that they did it. Okay. You see how that's a little broader than material before the immaterial, because not only are immaterial things causes of material things, and so only go from material things to immaterial things. That's one way of going from effects to causes. But even in the material world, right, there are causes too. Okay. And even there, we tend to. Know the effect before the cause, huh?

[36:10] Okay. Einstein, you know, was trying to find out why stones fall to the ground. A lot of people think, you know, that Sir Isaac Newton answered the question with gravity or something like that, right? When they actually go and read the text of Sir Isaac Newton, he says, "I don't know why they fall to the ground." And it's the editor who made it appear as if Newton had discovered why stones fall to the ground.

[36:39] But Newton himself was no doubt that he didn't know. And when Einstein went to England and gave a talk on Newton, right? He said what he admired in Newton was more his knowing what he didn't know than what he did know, right? It was a famous remark of Newton that I don't know why it may have appeared to have been to other people, right? But to myself, I seem to be like a little boy playing with the seashells on the seashore, right?

[37:08] Or the whole vast ocean of truth lay out there undiscovered, you know. But the people came after Newton, you know. I mean, the poets say, you know, all was dark, and God said that Newton being always light. But Newton himself doesn't have that. What? Yeah, he doesn't have that ignorance of his own ignorance, right? So Einstein was trying to find out, isn't it? But no, that's something that's very common, right?

[37:34] The stones fall to the ground. But here Einstein saying Newton didn't know. Newton says, "I don't know," right? And Einstein was trying to find out why they do. I

[37:51] know. So you could reason from this too as to why wisdom comes last, right? Wisdom is a knowledge of the first cause, right? You know the effect before the cause, right? Sometimes the cause has a cause, right? But you know the cause before you know the cause of the cause, right? So if we, for the most part, go from the effect towards the cause, then a knowledge of the first cause would come at the end of our knowledge, right?

[38:20] As we say before, would be the order in our knowing, right? Okay. But you could also see that because we know material things and mathematics, like natural philosophy, is about material things, but you define them without using this concrete matter, right? This is extension. Well, wisdom is about immaterial things. If there are not immaterial things, there'd be no wisdom. Other than natural philosophy, natural philosophy would be wisdom.

[38:49] So from both of these, you can see why wisdom comes last in the order of learning, right? Okay. Now the third thing is going to generalize this. The cause tends to be simpler than the effect. Okay. In fact, when you study God, the first cause, you find out that God is the simplest thing there is. If you ever looked at the Summa Theologiae, question two in the Prima Pars is on the existence of God, right?

[39:20] Question three is on the what? Simplicity of God. Okay. So the composed is known for the simple. So the last thing we know is God is the simplest thing there is. Yeah, something like that in physics. Now, we talk about all the great physicists talk about the principle of simplicity, right? How the fundamental Equations are simple, right? And the father of modern physics there, Max Planck, said, right?

[40:08] The more universal an equation is, the simpler it is. Okay. But if you look at Einstein's lecture there at Columbia, there he has you know students as well as professors in the audience, and he says, "Simple doesn't mean easy." There was the the equations of relativity theory are very simple, but not easy to understand. that you count the time when relativity theory came out, and at West Point there, you know, the professor was supposed to teach relativity theory one day, right?

[40:45] Mm-hmm. And he came into class, and he called upon Douglas MacArthur who was a student at the time, right? Mm-hmm. And he was the brightest student in the class, right? He says, "Uh Cadet MacArthur, do you understand this?" MacArthur said, "No, sir." And the professor said, "Neither do I." Class dismissed. Okay. But notice, God is the simplest thing there is, but he's the hardest thing to really understand.

[41:14] But notice, huh? Notice even in mathematics, huh, we define the simple by the composed, huh? Just think of the definition of body, the definition of surface, the definition of line, and the definition of what point, huh? A body is that which has length, width, and depth, right? There are three affirmative things in the notion of body, right? A surface involves one negation. A surface has length and width, but no depth.

[41:53] But the surface is simpler than the body, right? Then you go to the line. The line has length, but no width and no depth. Two negations, right? The point has position, but neither length nor width nor depth. Euclid defines the point as you may see in geometry there, that which has no parts. Now, as you define that which is simple and has no parts by the negation of what is composed and has parts,

[42:26] and and even when something is grammatically affirmative, like we say, God is simple, right? But when we show in theology that God is simple, we show that he's not composed in any way. So it's really understanding the simple by the negation of composed. It's like we tend to come to know the cause and effect, so we know the simple through the composed. Okay.

[42:56] So. In general, then you can say along this road, sensible things are known before things cannot be sensed. Now that's kind of obvious. More sensible before the less sensible. But then, under that, you can bring out these things: that material things are known before immaterial things; effects are usually known before causes; and composed things are known before simple things. I'm going to raise this so I can have room to talk about the order in which the same thing is known.

[43:52] So this now is the order in which the same thing is known along this road now from the senses into intellect. Right. Now the first thing is pointed out by the great Boethius, right? And this statement of Boethius in the Consolation of philosophy, is repeated down through the whole Middle Ages, right? Boethius says, "A thing is singular when sensed, but universal when understood. " The thing is singular, individual, right?

[44:44] When sensed and universal when understood. Let me give a simple example of that. The chair that I see with my eyes, which is one of my senses, or that I feel with my hand, which is involving sense of touch, right, is an individual chair, right? Is singular chair, right? But when I understand what this is, I'm understanding what a chair is, right? And what a chair is is something what common to many, said of many, something universal.

[45:27] Okay. Now. When Socrates asks somebody what is something, right, they invariably give examples of the thing. Okay. If I had a little child in this room, right, and I asked this little child, "What is a chair? " What do you think he'd do? That's a chair. That's a chair. What is a nose? That's a nose. That's a nose. Right. Okay. You wouldn't expect him to come out with a definition of what a chair is, would you?

[46:03] Okay. It would take some time to really, you know, define what a chair is. You might begin by saying a chair is something to sit on, but so is a bench, right? So is a saddle, right? But something to sit on for one person, you know. There's everything to sit on for one person. A chair, saddle is one person too, you know. You take a while to think out, as we say, the definition of what.

[46:31] Okay. So what invariably happens is that they give examples of something, and Socrates tells them, "Well, you're giving too much. I want what's common to all these, right? " Okay. And then they try to frame a universal definition, right? But that's something natural, you see. When my children went to kindergarten, they come home with a piece of paper and have a circle on it and a square on it and a triangle on it, and they say, "Daddy, this is a circle, that's a square, that's a triangle, right?

[47:03] " But if you ask a little child, "What is a circle? " You wouldn't say it's a plane figure contained by one line. You point to the clock or something else that's circular, right? Say that's a circle, right? So it's natural to give examples of a thing before defining it. And in fact, as we'll see in logic, there is a road from examples to the definition.

[47:34] When I want to define, for example, what a Shakespearean sonnet is, right, I read a number of individual sonnets, right, and I compare those sonnets, right, and I try to separate out what they have in common. And the more I think about them and compare them, the more I see they have in common. They have a certain number of lines, and I look carefully and count the lines.

[48:00] I might say they all have in common 14 lines, right? And then I start to notice other things, the meter there, and so on, right? And gradually thinking out the definition of a Shakespearean sonnet by what? Comparing the examples of it, right? Okay.

[48:18] This is a chair. That's a chair, and so on. What does this and that have in common, right? Okay. So there's a road from examples to the definition. But it's natural to begin with examples before

[48:36] Now, in reasoning something like that. that the universal statements from which the syllogism proceeds, they are usually established by some kind of what induction, right? Induction is an argument from many singulars to the what universal, right? Why the syllogism begins with something universal? The reasons for that, right? So, just as people give examples of a thing before they define it, before they give universal definition of it, right?

[49:08] So, induction comes for us before syllogism, right? So, in the Phaedo, for example, Socrates makes an induction, and then when he gets universal statement through induction, he reasons by syllogism to the immortality of the soul. Okay.

[49:33] This is one of the reasons too. Aristotle said wisdom is so difficult because it's the most what universal science, right? So, in some ways, the furthest away from senses. And if you ever had the misfortune to teach philosophy, you know you'll have students say, "Oh, this is so abstract," you know, right? But in a sense, they're talking about it's so universal, right? And therefore, it's not, you know, it's kind of the most consensus which you're thinking, right?

[50:09] Now, the second thing is, for the most part, you can say we know things in an outward way before inwardly. Now, notice in English, "outward" is almost a synonym for what sensible, right? I remember as a child the definition of sacrament: an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace, right? But "outward" meant it was something what you could sense, right? So, when you meet somebody else for the first time, right, you know them in a kind of what outward way, right?

[51:08] Then you don't know them in an inward way, do you? But as you talk to them and listen to them, right, and as you see how they act on the battlefield and other trying circumstances, right, then you begin to know something about what they're like in inward way, right?

[51:33] Now this is the this is especially true in ethics and in natural philosophy, right? In geometry, of course, you're dealing with things on the surface, Plane geometry, right? But the senses know things in outward way. Reason tries to see into them, right? And so we use words like insight for reason, right? We use words like you know penetrating. Let's get inside of something. We speak of a good mind as being sharp, right?

[52:04] Okay, but having insight into things can see into them, right? So this is again very important in logic because when we ask what something is,

[52:17] we tend to draw a line around that thing and know it in a kind of outward way before we know it well inwardly, right? Okay. Give the

[52:32] example of that, right? Aristotle is taking up virtue there in the end of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, and then later on in the second book he really defines it, right? But he begins by saying virtue is a praiseworthy quality. Okay. Now what kind of a notion of virtue is that?

[53:02] Is it an inward or outward knowledge of virtue? Outward. Yeah. Why vice would be a what? Blameworthy, huh? Okay. Notice praise is in the one who's praising, right? So you have a kind of outside knowledge, right? But as a child, you know certain things. You know you're told you don't do, and certain things you can do, right? And certain things you're praised for doing, and other things you're criticized for doing, right?

[53:32] Then. So without maybe seeing inwardly why this is good or bad, you have a kind of outside knowledge, right? Okay. Now, again, you can kind of sometimes reason from the outward knowledge to an inward knowledge. So you might say, "become a moral virtue, It's a praiseworthy quality. But then you say, "What is it that's praised?" Right. Well, in eating, it's the man who doesn't eat too much or too little, right?

[54:04] Okay. So then you can start to see more inwardly what virtue is, right? It's it's a habit in the middle, right? Okay. So you're starting to go from an outward knowledge to a more inward knowledge. So when Aristotle's taking up human happiness. He in the Greek he says he because he's very graphe Graphe means you know draw a line around him and carry around that he draws a line somewhere around that side and then he begins.

[54:32] Okay. Sometimes when I talk about wisdom itself, and I'll say, "Well, wisdom is the best knowledge." Now, what kind of definition of wisdom is that? Yeah, it doesn't really tell you inwardly what wisdom is, does it? Because "best" means what? Better than all the rest, right? Okay. But it doesn't even tell you what wisdom is a knowledge of, right? Okay. But is there again, like there's a road from the singulars, right, the definition?

[55:10] Is there a road from this outward knowledge to an inward knowledge, right? If I begin, I say wisdom is the best knowledge, and "best" means what? Better than all the rest, and then I investigate. Well, why is one knowledge better than another, right?

[55:31] Okay. And maybe I figure out that. From each other out in a way Well, but they limit, right? See, there's only one point that has that longitude and that latitude, right? But there's an infinity of points that have the longitude, an infinity of points. See, how do you get down to one point? You do though, don't you? It's an amazing thing. Okay. So this explains all kinds of things about what definition, right?

[55:59] Why we name a thing before we define it. Because you don't need as distinct a knowledge to name a thing as to define it, right? And why, when we define, how we begin with a general thing like animal for dog, right?

[56:32] So notice, son, these are this is before and after knowing one and the same thing, right? Aristotle, when he gets through with all this,

[56:45] stands back at these two last things we talked about, the before and after is different things known, and the before and after same things known, and he sees something they have in common, and that is that what is more known to us, right? Is before what is less known to us, right? So the confused is more known to us than the distinct, right? Things are more known to us in outward way than in inward way.

[57:16] The singular, huh? More known to us now. Material things are more known to us than immaterial things, son. The effects are usually more known to us than causes. Composed is more known to us, right? At the same time, and this is the most subtle thing he sees, that what is more known to us is less fully known. When I know something in outward way, it's not perfectly known, is it?

[57:43] And when I know something confused way, it's imperfectly known, right? But more known to us. And so we're more sure about the confused than we are about the distinct. If you give me a glass of red wine to drink, what is this? What's a dry red wine? To be a little more specific. The more specific I try to get, the less what? Sure I am, right? I ask the students, how old am I?

[58:12] Am I over twenty? Oh yeah, you're over 20, Mr. Rivers. Over thirty? Yeah. But as you start to narrow it down, they get less. That's right, I'm in the fifties or the sixties, you know. You know, now they're starting to fight it. They're just not too sure. You know, I look younger than I am. You just called the dentist this morning. Okay.

[58:34] All right. So how much do I weigh? Over 100 pounds? Yeah. Over 300? No. But now you start to get more precise. You get what? Less certain. Yeah. Yeah.

[58:51] Descartes was all goofed up on that because Descartes, in his discourse on method, right, he identifies certitude with clarity and distinction. And do they go together? For us?

[59:11] You might think at first, right? Go down Main Street and ask somebody. You know, are you more sure in your clear and distinct knowledge or in your vague and confused knowledge? You'll probably say you're clear and distinct knowledge, right? See. But as I try to say more distinctly what this red wine I'm drinking is, right, I become what? Less certain. Yeah.

[59:39] How can I be more sure that I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon than that I'm drinking a dry red wine? And how can I be more sure that I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley in particular than I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon? Right? I can't be. Do

[59:59] you see that? So that's a little bit about the next road there we saw before. Could you repeat for us those two last thoughts that Aristotle would reflect on those? He states it very briefly, but expand a little bit what he says. He says the more known to us

[1:00:32] before what is less known to us, right? But what is less known to us is the more known, meaning the more what? Fully or perfectly known. And what is more known to us is the what? Less known, meaning the imperfectly known. Okay.

[1:00:57] So Plato and Aristotle would compare our mind to going from darkness towards what? Light, right? Okay. But where it is more has more light is kind of blinding to us at first.

[1:01:21] So when I know I'm drinking dry red wine, I'm more sure that I'm drinking dry red wine than I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, right? But what I'm drinking is less known, than I know that I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon right What I'm drinking is less known, than I know that I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, right?

[1:01:42] But I know the effect. I know the effect more by itself than I know it in the light of its cause, right? So we know there's all kinds of diseases. They're looking for the causes of, right? So we know more the effect by itself than in the light of its cause. But you don't fully understand the effect until you know the what cause, right?

[1:02:10] Where did Aristotle discuss that? It's not in the Nicomachean Ethics. No, in the first chapter there of the so-called physics, right? We'll look at that text later on. We start to do some natural philosophy, We're going to do some logic before that.