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
Class of 2007-01-25
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/064-summa-i-q-14-a-16-and-intro-to-q-15-is-gods-knowledge-looking/

[0:01] In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. And we're, up to the sixteenth and last article here of Question fourteen.

[0:49] huh? You know, we we know God through material things, not very well through material things, and um came up in the Trinity, in, the Trinity, but it it comes up before that really. Um.

[1:17] Material creatures are composed, and there's one kind of composition that we talk about in the first book of Natural hearing, and that is a composition of matter and form,

[1:32] like in us, the composition of what body and soul, and of course you negate that kind of composition in God. There's no composition of matter and form in God.

[1:45] Um, but then in the categories, which is the first book of logic, we meet this composition of substance and accident, and again there's no composition of substance and accident in God. So when we say that God is not only good, but his goodness itself, which negation do we have in mind in these two?

[2:18] Logical. Yeah. No. The one of what? Matter and form, right? Okay. Okay. Because if God and His goodness are not the same thing, then His goodness would be as a form in some kind of subject, right? And there would be a composition of matter and form. So after you negate this composition of matter and form, then you realize that God and His goodness are the same thing, or God and His existence are the same thing.

[2:53] And sometimes you know, because of our way of speaking, we'll say that God has something, right? But then to understand that correctly, we say God is whatever He has. So if God has existence, He's existence itself. If He has goodness, He's goodness itself, right? But now when you got to this question on the first one on the operations of God, and we saw that God's what understanding, His ability to understand, but His actual understanding is the same as His substance, right?

[3:28] That for God to be is to understand, which is definitely not the case for me. I can be for a long time without understanding something. So it's not the same thing, right? It'd be wonderful for you know to be would be done to understand everything, you know. Just for me to be would be to understand everything, you know. I'm so composed, you know, huh? Or discomposed in one sense.

[3:54] So when you say that they're the same in God, right? God's understanding, His substance is very active. Understanding is the same as His existence and substance, which composition is negating in the creature. Yeah, the substance and accident, right? So it's kind of interesting to see

[4:19] that the composition you get in the first book of natural philosophy, the first book of natural hearing, the composition of matter and form, and the composition you meet in the first book of logic that's come down to us from the father of logic, the categories, the composition of substance and accident, that those two are negated. We talk about God and the inter into right. We we've done here, right?

[4:43] But I was kinda struck by it because it comes up again the Trinity, and when Thomas is talking about how God the Father and His fatherhood are the same thing, right? Well, that's like the negation of matter and form, right? But when you say that these other things I said, the Father the same as Him, it's more like the negation of the composition of substance and accident.

[5:08] What's kind of striking is you right together, you know, the two fundamental books, one in logic, the first book of logic, and the other the first book of natural philosophy. They both teach us about two different kinds of composition found in creature, both of which are negated back in our chapter question on the simplicity of God. So

[5:34] let's go on here. But it's interesting that Thomas doesn't talk about God being alive until he gets to what God understanding Himself and having an operation of understanding. He doesn't attach in other words consideration of the life of God to His substance, but to His what operation, right? Which kind of agrees with the way we think about life and at first in human. in material things, right?

[6:03] That the living thing moves itself, and so on. So we're down to the last article now. To the sixteenth, one proceeds thus: It seems that God does not have about things a speculative knowledge, for the knowledge of God is a cause of things, as has been shown above.

[6:30] But speculative knowledge is not a cause of what? Yeah. Therefore, the science or knowledge of God is not speculative. I got to be careful. I'm now. Usually, to translate that by the English word of looking, right? Because speculative now has a sense of the stock market or something like that, or you know, or guessing or something of that sort, right? But what you have in Greek, you see, it begins with the Greek philosophers.

[7:00] They'll speak of some knowledge, like wisdom, as being theoretical, right? And theoretical is merely the Greek word for what? Looking, yeah. Okay. And calling knowledge looking knowledge means as for the sake of seeing, for the sake of understanding, and opposed to practical knowledge or doing. Now, knowledge is for the sake of doing. Well, the Latin word for theoretical is speculative. But when you translate these into English, or transliterate, I should say, into theoretical or practical, I mean, excuse me, theoretical or speculative, they don't have the same meaning now in English as exactly what they had.

[7:44] Okay. It'd be better, in sense, to call looking knowledge. Although we'd be not what we're accustomed to call it. Moreover, speculative or looking knowledge is by abstraction from things. At least Aristotle said so. Which does not belong to divine knowledge. It doesn't derive his knowledge from things.

[8:24] Because notice, if his knowledge is his very substance, his very existence, if it was derived from things, then God's being would derive be derived from things, huh? Yeah.

[8:38] But against this, everything which is more noble or excellent ought to be attributed to God. But looking knowledge is more noble than practical knowledge, as is clear through the philosopher in the beginning of the metaphysics and the famous proemium to to wisdom, which I think we did one time didn't we? So I'll let you? Go back to your notes on that right now.

[9:08] But notice, such knowledge would seem to be for its own sake, but practical knowledge is for the sake of doing. So it's not as knowledge is desirable. So we might attribute to God the best of all things, right? So, therefore, God has of things a looking knowledge.

[9:30] So, they say rarely affirm, seldom deny. Oh, he's distinguished. So Thomas begins his reply in the by the article by making some distinction here.

[9:45] Of course, people have written doctoral thesis on these various ways that knowledge can be speculative and practical, and Thomas will open into that. I answer, it should be said that some knowledge is looking only. Some. Some knowledge is practical only, right? And some, in one way, is looking, and in another way, what? Practical, right? Now, for the evidence of all this, it should be known that some knowledge can be called speculative or looking in three ways.

[10:24] huh? You never make this kind of distinction anybody other than Aristotle or Thomas. First, from the side of things, what? Known, huh? Because they are not what? Doable by the knower, huh? Just as is the knowledge of man about natural things, or about divine things, huh? So, natural things are things whose cause is nature, right? Not man, huh? So, of natural things as such, you have only a looking knowledge, huh?

[11:05] Because the thing is studied. Nay, a fortiori, this would be true about divine things or knowledge of angels, to that matter, right? I can't make an angel or affect him very much. I hope he's he's enlightened me, but.

[11:25] Now, in a second way, as regards the way of knowing, huh? And and this could be even if the thing is something doable, but you don't consider it in so far as it's doable, huh? As if a builder should consider a house, defining, huh? And dividing, and considering the universal predicates of it, huh? It's almost the way of speculative knowledge: defining, dividing, and demonstrating.

[12:03] And this is what to consider things that are doable, but in a what speculative way? And not according as they are what doable, right? It's a little bit like you know if you take an art appreciation course, right? You get a certain knowledge of music or painting or whatever it might be, but you don't really learn how to make music or how to what? Draw or paint and so on, right?

[12:32] But you you learn something that you know enables you to appreciate these things and to know the difference between a portrait and a landscape and so on, right? Not look for the same things.

[12:46] Can't find that character in the landscape painting. Well, it's the wrong thing to be looking for, right? For he says something is operable or doable through the applying of form to matter, right? Not through the what taking apart of the composed thing into the universal formal principles of it.

[13:16] And third, as regards its what end, for the practical understanding differs by its end from the speculative one, as Aristotle says in the third book about the soul. Right.

[13:36] For the practical understanding is ordered to the end of operation, but the end of the speculative is a consideration of what truth, right? And so, in Thomas, you know, following Aristotle, divides the virtues of reason, divides them a little differently than Aristotle does, but he divides them into the virtues of practical reason, which are art and foresight, right? Reason about making and right reason about doing, and then the virtues of looking reason, which are natural understanding and reasoned out understanding and wisdom itself.

[14:20] Whence is some builder was considered how some house could come about, but he did not what order his knowledge to the end of operation, right? But to knowing only, and how did you make that? Kind of curious how you made that. Not that I am going to intend to make that, but kind of curious how you make a computer or something. Okay.

[14:51] So, not ordering it to the end of doing, but to knowing only, it will be as far as the end is concerned a speculative consideration, although it's about a thing that is what doable.

[15:05] Now, a knowledge which is looking by reason of the thing known is looking only, right? But that which is looking either by its way of proceeding, right, or by or according to its end, is in some way speculative, right, by reason of its way of proceeding or by its end, but in some way practical because it is about something what doable.

[15:35] Okay. But when it's something doable, and you consider how it's doable, and you intend to do something with it, when it's ordered to the end of doing, then it is simply without what qualification practical, right? Now, after all these distinctions, now you can answer the question, right? Huh?

[16:01] Now, according to what has been said here, therefore, it should be said that the knowledge which God has of Himself or about Himself is a looking knowledge only. Can God change Himself or do something with Himself?

[16:21] There's no New Year's resolutions, right? He can't change Himself, huh? For He is not doable. Now, about all other things, right? He has a knowledge that is both what speculative and what yeah

[16:50] speculative as regards the what mode, huh? For whatever in things we know speculatively by defining and dividing and distinguishing, I might add, right? So he did a lot of distinguishing here. The whole the whole of this God much more knows much more perfectly knows, right?

[17:15] But about those things which He is able to make, but in no time is He going to make them. At no time is He going to make them. He does not have a practical knowledge, according as practical knowledge is so called from its end, right? So what do you call that? The scientia what? Some species intelligenci, I think he called it before. The knowledge of those things He's able to make, but plans not to make ever, right?

[17:49] Okay, as opposed to this knowledge of vision, where He knows these things that He has made or is making or will make, okay? So here you'd have what these things are doable by God. He knows how to do them, but he doesn't intend to do them, right? So in one sense, it's not practical, right?

[18:18] But thus He has a practical knowledge about those things which He makes according to some what time, or in some time, at some time.

[18:30] But bad things, I guess, mala, although they are not doable by Him, right? Nevertheless, they come under what His practical knowledge, just as the good things, in so far as He either permits them or impedes them, right, or orders them, right. I don't teach you to say God to say you know say you know. Willy nilly, you're going to praise God, right? But if you if you behave yourself, you're going to be praising his mercy.

[19:05] If you misbehave, you'll be glorified his justice. So, willy-nilly, he's got to order that. It's good. Just as sicknesses come under the practical knowledge of the doctor, not that he's trying to make you sick, but insofar as through his art he cures them, right? Huh? So he distinguishes, huh? My old teacher Kasurik said, in some way, in experimental science, where you learn kind of how to make things, right?

[19:38] Huh? You have a knowledge which is more like God's knowledge of natural things, which is a knowledge of how to make them. My natural philosophy is more purely speculative knowledge.

[19:59] So he says, going back to the first objection now, the Knowledge of God is the cause of things. It has been said, right? And such a knowledge seems to be what practical. Well, Thomas says first of all, the knowledge of God is a cause, but not of Himself, right? You have to be very careful if you say God is causa sui because if you understand in an affirmative sense, you got a kind of contradiction, right?

[20:26] You contradict the axiom of before and after. Nothing is before or after itself, right? So God's knowledge of Himself, as he said in the by the article, is entirely what looking knowledge, right? And there kind of you get a sign too that that looking knowledge is the highest thing there is, right? Because obviously God's knowledge of Himself is what's best in His knowledge, right? He knows Himself and knows Himself as much as He's knowable.

[21:00] But that's not to know Himself as doable, because He's not a doable sort of thing, right? He completely necessary, right? He's completely unchangeable. So he says first of all, Thomas makes that distinction: the knowledge of God is a cause, but not of Himself, right? But only of other things, right?

[21:25] Of which some are in act, as of those things which, in some time, come to be, right? And of some things only in His power, of those things which is able to make, is able to make, and nevertheless never makes, right? And the second things are not completely practical, right? They're not practical by their end, right? Even though he might what know something doable and know how to do it, but not intend to do it.

[21:56] But it's only those things that he knows how to do, and it's only those things that are doable, and that he knows how to do, obviously, and that he intends to do, that are fully what practical, right? Okay. You know,

[22:20] second objection was saying that looking knowledge is taken by what abstraction from things, but they're thinking of the way we know our knowledge is derived from things. So the second should be said that for knowledge to be taken from the things known

[22:40] does not, as such, belong to what looking knowledge, but per accidens as it's human, right? Because our knowledge begins what from our senses, and our senses are acted upon by things, huh? So things act upon our senses, and through our senses, our reason begins to think about these things, and so on. And so our knowledge derives from things, right? But that doesn't belong to looking knowledge, what?

[23:11] Such, fallacy of, per accidens right? First fallacy outside of what? speech, fallacy that deceives even the wise. Aristotle says in the book of Sophistical Refutations. Now, to that which is objected in the contrary, he's going to reply to the second, right? That about doable things.

[23:45] Perfect knowledge is not had except if they are known insofar as they are doable. You can have a perfect knowledge of doable things unless you know them in the way in which they are doable. How they doable? And therefore, since the knowledge of God is in all ways perfect, it is necessary that He knows those things which are doable by Himself as such, right? And not only as they are what, seeable.

[24:19] But this is an important distinction he makes. But nevertheless, He does not recede from the what nobility of looking knowledge, because all other things beside Himself He sees in Himself, right? He knows everything else He knows in Himself by knowing Himself, right? And He knows Himself only by what? Looking knowledge, huh?

[24:51] And thus, in the speculative knowledge of Himself, in the looking knowledge of Himself, He has a knowledge both looking and practical of all the things. So God's knowledge, you could say, is primarily what looking knowledge. Now, if you go back to the first question, remember that was raised about theology, right? And it's theology, looking knowledge, or practical knowledge. Well, in philosophy, there are two kinds of philosophy: looking philosophy and practical philosophy.

[25:30] And looking philosophy has three kinds, right? Mathematical philosophy, natural philosophy, and then first philosophy or wisdom. And practical philosophy has three kinds: huh? Ethics, domestics, and political philosophy, right? And then sometimes we add logic. That's just a tool, you know, for quite a few things. And so, in Lady Wisdom is personified there, right, in the dialogue with Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy. She has on her dress there a theta and the pi, right?

[26:07] And the theta represents theoretical philosophy, and the pi, what, practical philosophy, the two kinds of philosophy. And the theta is put above the p because Boethius says it's higher, okay?

[26:26] But God's knowledge in a way transcends that distinction. You could say God's knowledge, though, is primarily looking knowledge because it's primarily a knowledge of Himself, right? And so the same thing can be said in a lesser way of our theology here, right? Because our theology here is sharing in the divine wisdom, and therefore our theology is primarily looking because it's primarily a knowledge of God. That's why it's called theology.

[27:07] But it, what, like God's knowledge, extends to practical. And so, moral theology, so-called, and dogmatic theology, are not two different disciplines like looking philosophy and practical philosophy are.

[27:33] Now, in the history of Greek philosophy, the first philosophers are known many for their contributions to natural philosophy and to mathematical philosophy, right? So the first philosopher, Thales, was both a geometer and a natural philosopher. But then Socrates is kind of associated with a turn towards practical philosophy, and the dialogues of Plato, which represent the conversations in a way of Socrates,

[28:08] you might say that they are much more conversations about impractical philosophy than looking philosophy. And then, of course, you come to Aristotle. It's kind of you know perfect balance there of the two, right? The two, they're two different things, right? Aristotle's at the Nicomachean Ethics he's looking forward to political philosophy and the completion of the philosophy he says about human things, right? As opposed to the you know wisdom which is about divine things.

[28:41] So to some extent we transcend that dichotomy of looking and practical knowledge, right? And have in one science theology, both dogmatic theology, right, which is looking knowledge. And then moral theology, which seems to be practical, right? And

[29:16] now, a lot of times, persons that talk about the theoretical and the practical, they'll take the conversation there of Christ with Martha and Mary, right? And Martha is complaining that Mary is sitting at the what, feet of Jesus and drinking in his words and his wisdom, right? And so she wants Christ to say something, so she'll help her with the practical things, the dinner and whatever else is to be done.

[29:39] And Christ says, "You know, Mary hath chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken away from her." And so, when they comment on that, they say she's chosen looking knowledge rather than the practical knowledge. She's chosen the better part. And then, when he adds that it shall not be taken away from her, well, practical knowledge will kind of cease at the end of this world, and in the next world we just have looking knowledge.

[30:06] So, what Mary has chosen will not be taken away from her, but it will be completed in the next world. But all this practical knowledge, playing the stock market, making houses, and making dinner, and making books, and so on—none of that is going to be done in the next world, right? We won't be eating, or drinking, or giving in marriage or being given in marriage, and we won't be, you know, clothing ourselves and and putting gasoline into our automobiles and all that sort of nonsense.

[30:38] It's going to be quite a different life, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or a worse life if you go the other place. Yeah, yeah.

[30:55] I just got the the chapter twenty-six there in Matthew, you know, where it's beginning of the the passion and so on, getting into it. And of course, he says God wants Christ to die out of mercy, right, to redeem us. When the church father says,

[31:22] "The the Pharisees want to die out of envy, the Judas out of avarice, and he says the devil out of fear that his his kingdom is going to be destroyed by this guy going around teaching and making miracles, right? Not realizing that that his kingdom will be even more overthrown by the death of Christ, huh? But they'll be all got these people, you know, for a different reason, want to get rid of the guy, huh?

[31:50] Even even the the father in sense wants to have him die too, but but out of mercy for us, huh? It's an amazing thing. Okay, so we're up to question what fifteen here.

[32:08] Now you got to be careful with this word idea, huh? It's a transliteration, not a translation. Okay. And you hear people referring sometimes to the the ideas of Plato, right, huh? And of course, the word idea in English doesn't mean what the Greek word means, and it's kind of a mis translation almost, right? Okay. The Greek word is eidos, huh Species huh And maybe it would be better translated you know forms with a capital F.

[32:48] That'd be a better translation, huh? Now Plato, huh? You probably heard about what Plato did, right? A couple ways you could you could explain this a bit, but one way of explaining a bit is that Plato answered what yes to the famous question, right? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are?

[33:25] Now, as I say, there's two answers you can give that question. My students can always scratch their heads, you know, and some break and say yes and no, yes or no. Either truth does require that the way we know be the way things are, or or it doesn't. And so

[33:47] the the chief philosophers, as as Albert the Great and Thomas call them, Plato and Aristotle, seem to be giving different answers to this fundamental question. And Plato seems to be answering at least implicitly yes, and Aristotle is saying no. And we might have seen a little bit of that in the second book of Natural Hearing, where Aristotle first brings it up, right? When he's distinguishing between the what natural philosophy and mathematical philosophy, but there he starts to make this point that truth does not require that the way we know be the way things are.

[34:27] But I think if you went down the history of philosophy, at least a cursory going down the history of philosophy, you'd seem to have more people agreeing with Plato than Aristotle, right? And I think that in kind of a confused understanding of this, confused understanding of what truth is, you might tend to agree with Plato because we all know that truth means somehow the conformity of the mind with things, right?

[35:03] The agreement of the mind with things—that seems to be what truth is, huh? And so, if the way we know is not the way things are, they don't seem to agree. Our mind with things, and therefore, our mind seems to be what false.

[35:21] Well, what our mind says about things has to agree with them, right? But the way in which we know them doesn't have to be the way in which they exist. That's kind of a subtle thing to see, and you shouldn't try to understand that all at once, but bit by bit, huh?

[35:43] Not to recall a little bit when Aristotle first takes it up in the second book of natural hearing, because he doesn't fully resolve this until the the last two books of wisdom, right? But he starts, you know, saying a little bit about it there in the second book of natural hearing, and Thomas's commentary will kind of expand on it. But there Aristotle makes the point that you can consider truly in separation things that don't exist in separation.

[36:18] So you can consider sphere, let's say, in geometry, without the rubber or the rubber sphere, right? Without the steel right? It isn't a steel bearing or something, right? Without the wood of a wooden ball or something, right? Snowball and so on. You can leave out snow and wood, and you know, even though in the real world there doesn't seem to be any sphere except the earth or rubber ball or the thing you see.

[36:55] Um. Aristotle would say that shape is knowable without wood. It's knowable without snow. It's knowable without steel. It's knowable without earth. It's knowable without any kind of sensible matter, right?

[37:19] So you're not false in knowing it without. The false that Aristotle would come if you say that because I know it without these other things, right? Because I know sphere without sensible matter, therefore that there are spheres outside my mind without sensible matter.

[37:43] Now Plato, you know, he left Athens in disgust after they put Socrates to death, right? Because here's a guy who admires more than anybody else. in the world, his teacher, right? And like you guys are hoping with these, you know, whistled in disgust that they put Socrates to death, you know.

[38:03] And he traveled to what the Greek cities in Italy, huh? Southern Italy, where the Pythagoreans had established their places, and he imbued, you know, the Pythagorean teachings and so on. And he made some contributions, they say, to to there's some theorems attributed to Plato, right? You know, between any two square numbers, there's one mean proportional. Between any two cube numbers, two mean proportional. These are some theorems attributed to Plato.

[38:31] And so there's a heavily mathematical bent to Plato, right? But anyway, he was convinced that the Pythagoreans are knowing the truth, right? But of course, the Pythagoreans are knowing sphere and separation from sensible matter. So if truth requires that the way we know be the way things are, then there must really be geometrical spheres and cubes and so on and numbers, and the other things studied in mathematics, or pure mathematics, truly in separation from sensible matter.

[39:05] So alongside the sensible world, there's this mathematical world, which corresponds to pure mathematics, right? Just like the sensible world corresponds to our senses and so on. Aristotle says, no, no, no, no, Plato. They're separated in thought, but not in things, huh? Nor is our mind false in so doing that, right? Because our mind, in knowing sphere and separation from any sensible matter, is not saying that it exists in separation, right?

[39:42] But it's knowing what is knowable without something else, right? Okay. Now Thomas, in his commentary, there will lead you into this by something even easier to see than that, where he talks about how in an individual, right, you can have a number of things together as individual, and nevertheless, you can truly know one without the other, right? See. So my. Stock example you heard before is that I'm both a philosopher and a grandfather, right?

[40:16] But the nurses at the hospital know me as a grandfather and leave out that I'm a philosopher. And the students in my class might know me to be a philosopher and not know I'm a grandfather, right? So, but the same man here is both a father and a grandfather, right? So I mean a philosopher and a grandfather, okay? I'm a father too, I'm a husband, so. okay?

[40:45] Is the mind false in knowing me to be a philosopher, leaving out that I'm a grandfather, or vice versa? See? Well, maybe I'm both of these things, right? Now, if you say this philosopher is not a grandfather, then your mind would be false, son. But in knowing this man to be a philosopher, leaving out that he's a grandfather, you can say your knowledge of me is imperfect.

[41:13] You wouldn't know I'm going to do this Friday where I'm going to go. But would your mind be false? See? And vice versa, the other person, right, who knows me to be a grandfather, leaving out that I'm a philosopher, is your knowledge of me false? See? Maybe incomplete knowledge of me, but does that mean false, incomplete?

[41:39] In that case, you have to know everything about somebody, right? Before you can know anything truly, it'd really be an imbecile, see? So the reason for this is, you see, my being a philosopher is something about me that is knowable apart from my being a grandfather, and vice versa, right? Okay.

[42:09] But now maybe I couldn't be a philosopher without having reason or something like that, right? So that's not really knowable without that, right? But my being a philosopher is knowable without my being a grandfather, and vice versa. Now

[42:28] the case of mathematics is a little different there because maybe the earth is not knowable without a sphere, but the reverse is true: sphere is knowable without earth, right? Without rubber, without wood, whatever else you might make in this material world, is sphere out of them. Now the other big influence upon Socrates, or I mean Plato, apart from the Pythagoreans, was Socrates, right? And Socrates, if you read the conversations, the dialogues, so-called, which is the Greek word for conversation, he's always trying to get somebody to define something, right?

[43:08] And define something that maybe he talks about every day, and so Socrates was seeing that the way to really know things was through what definition, and you can see that in a way, even in math. You know, if I say no odd number is even, I'm very sure about that, or no prime number is composite, composite number. I'm very sure of that through definitions, right? So Plato, not Plato, yeah, Plato was convinced that through definitions we were getting to know truly, and what, in the definition, the universal is what separated, right, from the singular, right?

[43:55] So in the definition of man, say as an animal that has reason, you and I and Socrates and Winston Churchill and so on are not a part of the definition of man, are we? So the universal is being known by the definition in separation from all individual men, right? Now is our mind false in doing that?

[44:25] Well, if you say the way we know must be the way things are, then we wouldn't be truly knowing through definitions unless truly in things there is universals separated from things. So Plato speaks of a world of forms, they call right,

[44:47] man himself to himself, right, dog himself to himself, and you and I partake in some hard to explain way of this form of man, right, and this dog and that dog partake of the form of dog, and this cat and that cat of that, right? Okay.

[45:12] And in another way, the material dog, right, partakes of the form, right? Okay. Now there's something like this in a way in in the angels, right, and material world, because God made the material world, but He also made the angels with thoughts about material things, and so they both in a sense go back to God, right? Then. Now Augustine

[45:48] knew much more Plato than Aristotle. I don't think he had much access to the works of Aristotle, and he kind of regarded the Platonists as the greatest philosophers around, and as Thomas says in some places, Augustine is always trying to bring in and use Plato so far as he can in being compatible, right, with Christianity, right? That's part of part of the reason why this idea of ideas comes in, right?

[46:16] But Augustine is not going to follow Plato in making these forms exist by themselves in the world of forms, right? But somehow these forms are in God, right? But how do you understand this exactly, right? So I think probably Augustine is is the great

[46:42] influence upon this whole question, right? And the very fact that it comes up, you know, if you look at the sed contras there, which are the clear things in the first article and second article, just on the page right now, they're both taken from Augustine's famous work on the eighty-three questions, right? Okay, and so.