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)
Class of 2007-02-08
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/066-summa-i-q-16-a-1-is-truth-in-the-mind-or-in-things-doctors/

[0:01] 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, common doctor and angelic doctor, pray for us and help us to understand all that you've written. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Before we begin the sixteenth question, you know, I happened to pick up this book here called "The Thirty-Three Doctors of the Church."

[0:34] You ever seen this one? Oh no. And we went to this little, religious bookshop that my daughter-in-law goes to a lot, and I figure I had to buy something. So this looked interesting, you know. And it's kind of interesting. It's kind of you know popular treatment of them, but it gives some interesting anecdotes and interesting quotes about them and so on. And we'll share as time goes on some of these things, but just share a couple things here about Thomas Aquinas, huh?

[1:01] Because he's one of the thirty-three doctors of the church, huh? Now, Pope John the Twenty-Third, remember who you've heard of, right? He dwelt on the title of Saint Thomas as the common doctor, right? He's that's another title. This is the angelic doctor and the common doctor. And a little quote here from Pope John the Twenty-Third. His teaching was more than any other, fully in keeping with the truths that God has revealed, with the writings of the holy fathers, and with the principles of right reason.

[1:57] And therefore, Holy Church has adopted it as her own, and has given the name of common or universal teacher to its author. So he's a common or universal teacher. He has that title, right, as well as the angelic doctor.

[2:19] Now, not to leave out a personal note, Pope John the Twenty-Third recalled that he was linked to Saint Thomas by the fact that his predecessor, the same name in the papacy, Pope John the Twenty-Second, right, had canonized what Saint Thomas.

[2:42] He also confessed that he himself had been quite attached from the earliest years of our priesthood to Thomistic studies, huh? But now going back to his namesake, there, John the Twenty-Second, who canonized Thomas, huh?

[3:01] Pope John the Twenty Second, who canonized Saint Thomas in thirteen twenty three, made a statement that is hard to surpass. And actually, there's two statements in the quote from Pope John the Twenty Second. This is the first quote. He illuminated the church more than all the doctors. That's quite a compliment, right? He illuminated the church more than all the doctors. It's like when Thomas Aquinas died, and Albert the Great, who outlived him, was informed of it.

[3:35] He says, "The light of the church has been extinguished." That's interesting, huh? He illuminated the church more than all the doctors. And now the second thing I think is very important for us as students. Again, from John the Twenty Second, in his books, a man will advance more in one year than in the teaching of the others for a lifetime. That's interesting, huh?

[4:12] And of course, he's referring to Pope Leo the Thirteenth there, talking about Thomas in the Council of Trent. You've heard this, but this is a quote from Leo the Thirteenth. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of the conclave to lay upon the altar, together with the Code of Sacred Scripture and the Decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs, the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.

[4:49] So it was put next to the Bible and to the the Decrees of the Pontiffs. Okay, well, that's enough to maybe encourage us to read some more Thomas. Can learn more from one year now this guy than from a lifetime of reading the others.

[5:24] Yeah, it's Father Christopher Ringers, or something. I think it's when Saint Lawrence of Bendezi was made a doctor of the Church that he was a Capuchin and that was the kind of occasion for doing it. A lot of interesting things in there. I was reading just this morning, I happened to be reading about Saint John Damascene, and two things that stand out, I guess, in Damascene among his teaching.

[5:49] One, of course, is the defense of statues and so on against iconoclasm. You don't realize how long that lasted, almost a hundred years, right? And then he's supposed to. But especially the great doctor for the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But another thing it mentions in there is that he upheld the immaculate conception too, which wasn't you know generally taught in those days by everybody, you know.

[6:17] And that's that's interesting that he stands out. Very nice things. He's very important, I guess, for the Byzantine liturgy too. Yeah. And they they say he's regarding in the East as their greatest doctor, Saint John Damascene. Okay, we're up to question 16, huh? Thomas has a little premium here for the sixteen question. And he gives a connection first of all between what we've been talking about, the knowledge of God, right, and this consideration now of truth, right.

[6:52] Since knowledge is knowledge of the true. After the consideration of the knowledge of God, one ought to inquire about what truth. And about this, four things are asked.

[7:14] And the first question is whether truth is in things or only in the understanding. Secondly, if it's in the understanding, whether it is only in the understanding, putting together and dividing. That is to say, the understanding making a what affirmative statement or a negative statement, right? And not when I say man, true or false. Unicorn, true or false? I don't make a statement about man or unicorn.

[7:50] Is there something true or false? Would you mark unicorn true or false? When my granddaughter is interested in unicorns as a pet unicorn. Yes. So unicorns are in fiction at least, right? That would be true, right? Unicorns are in the woods. I suppose would be false. But if you don't make a statement, affirming or denying something, unicorn, unicorn is neither true nor what false. Seems.

[8:26] Now the third and the fourth questions. True like good are in a way among the most universal things. Of course, the first of the most universal things is is being. Whatever is must be a being in some way, right? And you'll find that Thomas would take up the other most universals and he would compare them, right? And in the third article, it'll be about the comparison of the true to being, right?

[9:10] The equally universal and so on. And fourth, about the comparison of true to what? Good. Now the most universal. Sometimes Thomas will speak about all the most universals, and they are being, right? Thing or something, a one and

[9:34] something other, and then true and what? Good, right? Aristotle already pointed out these as being most universal. But Thomas, therefore, in the first four articles, he's talking mainly about truth, like the wise man talks about the metaphysician talks about them. And then he starts to go a little more to to God now, in particular, whether God is truth, right?

[10:06] Of course, you may we might remember our Lord having said one place, what I am the way, the truth, and the what life, right? And why is truth and life

[10:22] appropriated to the second person? Because if God is truth itself, then this is true of the Father and the Holy Spirit as well as the Son. But why is the Son saying in particular that I am the way, the truth, and the what life. He's coupling truth with life there, right? But why is this appropriate? Well, the Son proceeds by way of what God's understanding Himself, and so truth is tied up with God's understanding Himself, truly.

[10:59] And so, because the Son proceeds by way of God's understanding Himself, He is the Word, as Saint John tells us. He's also appropriate to Him, truth, right? And of course, as you'll see later on, here after taking up truth and falsity, and at the end of the consideration of the mind, he takes up uh where the life is found in God, right? So Thomas puts consideration of God's life with the consideration of God's truth, right, together.

[11:33] And Christ, when he says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he puts truth and life together. Same thing. Okay. Christ is the way, as man, he's the way, right? But as God, he's truth itself and life itself. But those two things are connected in the same way that Thomas has connected here. we'll say. Or he takes up the life right after the truth and the falsity consideration.

[11:59] But it's appropriated to the Son because He proceeds by way of understanding by the Word of God. Now, the sixth article: whether all things are true by one truth, namely the divine truth, right, or by many truths.

[12:21] Then the seventh article about the eternity of truth. It's a very interesting thing to take up. And the sixth, eighth, and last about the unchangeableness of what truth. So we're going to

[12:41] learn a lot about truth, right? We're going to learn the truth about truth. So we can learn the truth not only about other things but about truth itself. That's kind of interesting, huh? Just as the mind can think about other things and even about what itself. So let's look now at the first article. Whether truth is only in the understanding. To first, one proceeds thus: it seems that truth is not only in the understanding, but it's more in what things.

[13:21] For Augustine, in the book on Soliloquies, talking to himself, right? He was the lover of Augustine of Augustine. He disproves or rejects this making known of truth that the true is that which is what seen, right?

[13:41] Because according to this, stones, which are in the very depths, you might say, of the earth, would not be true stones because they are not what seen, right?

[13:54] He also disproves or rejects this other statement that the true is that which thus has itself, as it seems to be what known, right? If he wants to and is able to know.

[14:11] So if you you want to and are able to know, then truth is what seems so to you. Thomas Augustine rejects that. Because according to this, it would follow that nothing would be true if no one was able to what to know.

[14:32] And thus he defines true: the true is that which is. And thus it seems that truth is in things and not in the what understanding, right?

[14:53] Okay. Moreover, second objection: whatever is true is true by what truth, huh? Just as whatever is what colored is colored by color, right? Okay. Whatever is white is white by whiteness, huh? Okay.

[15:19] If therefore truth was in the understanding only, nothing would be true except that which is understood. Which is the mistake of the ancient philosophers who said that everything that seems to be so is what true, huh? And Plato discusses that opinion of the ancient philosophers, huh? In the dialogues, he doesn't agree with that. To which you would follow that contradictory things would be at the same time true.

[15:52] For contradictory things together are seen to be seem to be true by to different people, right? Aristotle attacks this idea too, also in the fourth book of wisdom, fourth book of the metaphysics.

[16:13] Moreover, an account of which each thing and that more. Now that's the famous principle. We've talked about it before, right? But when Aristotle or Thomas quote it, they often quote in this brief form, right? And sometimes I unfold that more fully and say that when the same belongs to two things, but to one of them because of the other, right? It belongs more to the what? Cause, right?

[16:46] So if the fire is hot and the air around the fire is hot, but the air around the fire is hot because of the fire, which is hotter. Yeah. So

[17:01] now Aristotle says, huh? Um. In the book on the categories, the praedicamentis is the way they say that in Latin. So we get the word predicament, huh? If you're in a category, you can't get out. Um. From this, that a thing is or is not, the opinion or the speech is true or false, huh? So Aristotle's saying, you know, when I sit down, it becomes true that I'm sitting, right?

[17:36] When I stand up, it becomes false that I'm sitting, right? So my sitting is the cause of the statement I'm sitting being what true. Well, then isn't my sitting more true than the statement? Because it's the cause of the other one being what? Yeah. So it seems to be a question of that, right? Okay.

[17:59] I might mention, but Thomas doesn't seem to do so explicitly here. Aristotle seems to speak in the second book of wisdom as if truth and being went along together, right? And he speaks there as if the cause is more true than the effect.

[18:27] Because if using the principle again, if true is said of the cause and of the effect, but the effect is true because of the cause, then the cause is more true than the what? Effect. And therefore, the first cause would be most true. So it makes sense to Aristotle that the first cause would say, "I'm truth itself. You could not be more true than to be truth itself, right?

[18:58] " But it agrees with what the first cause says in another place that I am who am, right? Because that means he's what first in being too. But if he's first in being, he's first in what truth, right? So the one who says I am who am is also the one who says I am truth itself. Makes a lot of sense, Aristotle, doesn't it? To Hilary of Poitiers and so on.

[19:28] Okay, but that's what Aristotle speaks of in the second book of wisdom, right? Um. But in the sixth book of wisdom, Aristotle seems to say that truth is in the mind, right? And he makes a contrast in the sixth book between truth and goodness, huh? And where he says that goodness is chiefly in things,

[20:01] and the will is good only because it wants the good, right? But truth is primarily in the mind, and most of all in the what mind affirming or denying one thing of another. So in the Sed contra, he quotes the philosopher, huh? That's the figure of speech we've mentioned many times, huh? That dominates, you know, the Bible, Gospel, Christ, they all name by antonomasia, and so he calls Aristotle by antonomasia the philosopher, just as Aristotle called Homer the poet.

[20:39] But against this is what the philosopher says, meaning Aristotle in the sixth book after the books of natural philosophy, sixth book of wisdom. That the true and the false are not in things, but in the what understanding, right? And so I explain that to students. I'd say, now, if you dug down in the earth, would you find bits of truth down there? Do you think? Yeah. If you're swimming in the ocean, you know, or going spread the net, you know, oh, pulled up some truth today, you know, and I got some fishes and some truth.

[21:14] Isn't it? Doesn't seem to be any truth in the ground or any truth in the what? Air, right? Air in the water, right? Walk around, walk into truth, and they'll fall off the trees. so truth doesn't seem to be in things. It seems to be something seems to be true or false in the same place. In general speaking, in the statements that your mind makes, right? Okay.

[21:43] And so you know, if I gave students a true/false exam and I had stone, man, horse, would you mark it true or false? No, it's only when you say "man is an animal" or "man is not an animal" that you have something true or false, right? Or "man is a stone" or "man is not a stone." Okay, sometimes the negative is true, and sometimes affirmative, right? And sometimes the the negative is false, and sometimes affirmative is false, right?

[22:15] Back in those example they just gave. So it's not until you make a statement, which the mind makes, that you seem to have something strictly speaking true or what false.

[22:29] But there might be some way in which you might say also that truth is in what things, right? Okay, now most the way Thomas begins to reply now.

[22:44] I answer: It should be said that just as good names that to which desire tends, right? So Aristotle first defines the good as the good is what all want. The good is what is wanted. So true names that in which the what, or towards which the understanding tends, huh?

[23:17] But there is this difference or distance, huh? This difference, distinction between desire and understanding, or for that matter, any kind of knowledge. Because knowledge is as the known is in the what, Knower, right? And of course, Empedocles had already what, seen this point, huh? The Greek philosopher, huh? Except he misunderstood the way in which the known is in the knower, right? Okay.

[23:55] Notice how we use the name of an act of the hand for understanding, right? Do you grasp what I'm saying? If you grasp what I'm saying, that means you understand what I'm saying, right? But when I grasp something, right? It's contained in some way in my hand, isn't it? So when the mind grasps something, that's when it knows something, right? But that use of the word grasp is a sign that we think of the mind as like containing, huh?

[24:34] The thing known, right? And you know, when you're studying for an exam or something like that, and you're trying to get something into your head, right? You know that famous story. You know, Augustine's supposed to have been walking along the seashore, right? The little boy was running down to the ocean and trying to put the ocean into the little hole, and Augustine asked him, "What are you doing?"

[24:54] And couldn't, put, you know, the ocean there into the the hole. And he said, "You'll never get that in there, you know." He says, "Neither will you ever get the Trinity into your mind either." But again, it's indicating, right, that knowing is trying to get something into your what, mind, huh? Okay, whether it be the Trinity or whatever it might be, huh? So he says, "There is this distinction between desire and understanding or any knowledge.

[25:24] That knowledge is as the known is in the knower. But desire is according as the one desiring is inclined to the what, thing desired itself, right? So the song says, 'I left my heart what, in San Francisco, right? Okay. Not a very good place to leave your heart these days. ' Yeah."

[25:58] But you are said to be what? The heart, which is the one that desires, or the faculty of desiring, is said to be in the thing what desired, right? Our Lord said something like that where He spoke of, you know, putting away treasures in heaven for yourself, right? He says where your treasure is, there also your heart shall be, right? Okay. So

[26:31] the good is more what in things, huh? Okay, and your heart is where what? The thing you love, that's right. And the opposite of that, my heart's not in it. What does that mean? I don't want to do that. My heart's not in. it.

[26:54] And that's why popularly we speak of losing your heart, right? Well, as I used to say to students, you know, it's not good to lose your mind.

[27:09] But it could be good to lose your heart. It depends on to whom lose it, right? You see the difference, huh? But just as we use more for knowing, grasping, right? That doesn't seem to name perfection of of the heart though to be grasping, does it? That's perfection of the mind to be grasping things, huh? But we use with the heart the the word what give, right?

[27:35] To give somebody your love, right? Huh? Okay. Now if I give you my love, in a sense, it's like saying I don't have anymore. It's it's in you now, right? Because the good is in things, right? That's a big contrast between knowing and wanting or loving, right? Okay. Knowing is the business of getting the known into the knower in some way, right? So if I remember you, if I recognize you, right, it's because your shape and your color and so on, I've got them inside me in some way, right?

[28:15] Okay. But love is a kind of going out to the thing you you love, right? And thus the end or limit of desire, which is the good, is in the thing lovable or desirable, huh?

[28:40] But the limit of knowledge, which is the true, is in the what? Understanding itself, huh? You see the distinction, huh? Okay. Sometimes I speak of that a kind of contrariety of knowledge and what? Love, right?

[29:04] Do you say loving somebody is taking them apart? That sounds kind of opposed to love, right? Taking somebody apart is not, doesn't sound like a very loving act, does it? But that's the way to know something, right?

[29:24] Take it apart so you can get it entirely into your mind, right? Okay. The Greek philosopher said, "Don't try to understand everything, lest you understand nothing."

[29:54] But just as the good is in things, in so far as it has an order to desire, and an account to this, the Notion or the definition of goodness is derived from the thing desirable into the what desiring. According as desire is said to be good in so far as it is of the good, right? So good will is a will that what wills the good, right?

[30:26] Okay, a good desire is a desire for the good, right? So good is primarily in the thing desired, right? And because that's good, then my desire for it is good, right? Okay, I'm a philosopher, which means a lover of wisdom, right? Well, is the love of wisdom good or not?

[30:50] Well, if wisdom is something very good, something more divine than human, really, right? Then the love of wisdom is something good, right? Huh? Why if foolishness is something bad, then the love of a foolishness would be something what bad, right? Huh?

[31:14] So also since true is in the understanding, as it is conformed to the thing understood, it is necessary that the definition of true is derived from the understanding to the thing understood. That a thing understood is called true as it has some order to the what understanding, huh? Okay, now he's going to subdivide this. The thing, however, understood is able to have an order to some understanding, either what per se or per accidens.

[32:05] Now what's this distinction that he's talking about here? Per se, it has an order to the understanding from which it depends according to its being, right? So if an understanding is the cause of something existing, right? Huh? He says that's got a per se order, right?

[32:32] But it has a per accidens order to the understanding by which it is what Knowable, right? knowable, right? So just in human affairs, right? As he goes on to make a comparison here, just as if we say that a house compared is compared to the understanding of the artist, the carpenter, right? Per se, right?

[33:00] But per accidens, it is compared to an understanding from which it does not depend for its existence. So he's distinguishing between the relation that what? When I walk out in your yard here and I see a tree there, right? Does that tree depend upon me for its existence? No. That's different from the what? Carpenter who's made this chair, right? And the chair depends upon him for its what?

[33:28] Existence, right? So he says the judgment about a thing is not taken according to that which is in it per accidens. That means what? By accident or by happening, right? But by that which belongs to it as such.

[34:08] Whence each thing is said to be true absolutely according to the order that it has to an understanding from which it what? Depends. And hence it is that artificial things are said to be true by order to our understanding, right? Because we're the cause of those things we make by art, right? For that is said to be a true house which follows the what?

[34:39] Which which attains to a likeness of the form which is in the mind of the what? Artist, right? And that speech is said to be true in so far as it is a sign of a true understanding.

[35:00] And likewise, natural things are said to be true according as they reach or take on a likeness of the forms which are in the divine mind. Thinking back upon the ideas they talked about in the previous question.

[35:22] For that is said to be a true stone which achieves or or arrives at the proper nature of a stone according to the forethought of the divine what? Understanding.

[35:42] Thus, therefore, truth is chiefly in the understanding, but only secondarily what in things. So he's not denying altogether that truth is in things, but it's in things according as they are compared to the understanding as to their beginning or cause.

[36:03] Got that? Okay. This is why you have different, somewhat what, true notions about truth. And according to this, truth is diversely made known. For Augustine, in the book about true religion, says that truth is that by which is shown that which is.

[36:31] And Hilary says that the true is what declares or makes known what is right being. And this pertains to truth according as it is in the what understanding right, which is making known or declaring something right is in things.

[37:02] So if I say man is an animal right, then I'm declaring what is what so in things right. Okay. But this is something primarily in my mind right, my mind that is saying that man is an animal right.

[37:25] But to the truth of the thing, according to its order to the understanding, pertains this definition of Augustine in the book of true religion. So Augustine has two definitions there right. He quoted the the first one which is taking truth as being in the mind. Truth is that by which is shown what is right. Okay. So when I say man is an animal, I'm showing what really is out there right.

[37:56] And that's primarily in my mind that truth right. But now, in carrying over truth though to the thing in comparison to the mind, Augustine has this definition in the same book. Truth is the what highest likeness to the beginning without any what unlikeness.

[38:22] And a certain definition of Anselm was one of these 33 doctors here by the way. The truth is a rightness perceptible only by the what mind right. For rectitude there is what is in accordance with the principle or beginning. And a certain definition of Avicenna, the great Arab or Mohammedan philosopher, who was then, he talked about these most universals at some length. When Thomas, at the beginning of the De Veritate, the Questiones Disputate De Veritate, he'll quote Avicenna right about the six most universals,

[39:10] and a certain definition of Avicenna that the truth of each thing is a property of its being, that is what rendered stable to it.

[39:22] But what is said sometimes that truth is the what? Almost like the equality, right, of the thing and of the understanding can pertain to what? Both of them, right? Okay. Now that third definition I was pointing to the other day when I said that people tend to answer the central question of philosophy: Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? Remember that?

[39:52] And people kind of tend to answer yes at first, right? Because they have in mind this idea that truth is the equality or agreement of the mind to things. Now that's kind of a concrete way. of saying it, but Shakespeare. a number of times will speak as someone is saying more than the truth or less than the truth, right? Even this great comic character, Falstaff says, you know, if they say more than the truth or less than the truth, they are villains of the son's apartments, right?

[40:26] Okay? that's interesting. You can speak of more than the truth or less than the truth. Two ways of departing the truth. Now Shakespeare says another way, or Kent in King Lear says, "All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so." Right. Okay. And this actually comes in in a way in the courtroom swearing in, right? You say, "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

[41:15] Okay. Now most people don't know what that means, and it might seem to the average person that the last two phrases are just reiterating what you said. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It's kind of saying the same thing three times, right? But to say the whole truth is against what?

[41:42] Saying less than truth, right? And nothing but the truth is saying more than the truth, right? That's what you're actually saying. Now, actually, to say the truth is to say that what is is, and what is not is not. Okay. So

[42:13] saying the truth is saying that what is is, and what is not is not. But falsehood, right, would be the opposite of either one of these, huh?

[42:43] Saying what is is not, and saying what is not is would be false, right? So if I say you are sitting, I'm saying what is is, right? And therefore, I'm speaking truly. If I say you are not standing, I'm saying what is true. I'm saying what is not is not. But if I say you are standing, now I'm saying something false because I'm saying what is not in your standing is.

[43:27] Or if I say you are not sitting, I'm false, right? Because I'm saying what is is not, right? Okay. So to say what is is not is to say less than the truth.

[43:52] To say what is not is is to say more than the truth. Okay. Now, sometimes I make that more concrete with a simple example. Suppose I'm the bartender, and they want me to testify as to who was at the bar between nine and ten. And let's say Tom and Bill were there, right? Nobody else is at the bar, right? I'd be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth if I said Tom and Bill were there, right?

[44:32] If I said just Tom was there, I wouldn't be telling the whole truth, would I? I'd be saying less than the truth, right? Because in a way, I'm saying that Bill, who was there, was not. Okay. But if I said Tom and Bill, or a good customer I won't get into trouble. And Harry were there, right? Then I'd also be deprived of the truth, right? Because only Tom and Bill were there.

[45:10] And now I'm saying what more than the truth. I'm saying what is not, namely Harry, right? Harry was not there. I'm saying he was there, right?

[45:22] Um. So in the sense that I'm swaying to to tell the truth, which is this here, right? The whole truth, which would be opposed to giving this kind of testimony, and nothing but the truth, which would be opposed to this. So when I'm saying more than the truth, sometimes we say other less than the truth, right? So truth is what neither more nor less, which means it's equal, right?

[45:51] That what the mind is saying is is uh neither more nor less than what is out there, and therefore it's what the adequatio, the Latin word says there, right? Kind of the equality of the mind and things, huh?

[46:08] But notice Thomas is maintaining in this article the truth is chiefly in the mind, as the philosopher himself teaches in sixth book of what, wisdom, right? And that's why, as they say, if you if you dig in the earth or you fish in the ocean or you walk through the air or fly through the air and so on, just get back an airplane, but didn't see truth coming by, you know, you know, there's truth up in the clouds or someplace, right?

[46:36] There's no truth out there, right? It's really chiefly in the mind, and as we'll find out, maybe mainly in the mind making a what, a statement, right? Most explicitly.

[46:51] Okay. Now the first objection was quoting Augustine, right? Where he he reproves the notification of the truth is the true is that which is seen. Okay. Or the true is that which seems so to the knower if he wants to and is able to know, right? So he says the first, therefore it should be said that Augustine speaks about the truth of the thing, and excludes from the notion of this truth a comparison to our understanding, right?

[47:32] For that which is per accidens is excluded from the definition of each thing, right? Did you put green in the definition of circle? Well, a circle could happen to be green, couldn't it? Yeah. But it doesn't belong to the what? Circle as circle, right? Now sometimes people have to stop and and get used to these phrases. You see, per se,

[48:11] which is a Latin translation for what the Greeks said, Plato, Aristotle, they used the expression kath' hauto, right? But in English, per se can be translated as to itself. It's a more literal translation, right? But a lot of times we use the term as such, right? Okay. Now what does it mean to say that a a circle as such is not green? Yeah, you just kind of see it, right?

[48:55] The circle as circle is not green. A circle might happen to be green, right? But doesn't belong to circle as circle to be green. You could also say it doesn't belong to the circle through itself to be green. That sounds a little funny way speaking. But if you restate it a little bit, say a circle through being a circle is not green, right? Although it can happen to be green, right?

[49:24] You see the difference there, right? Okay. But a circle as circle has what a point in interior equidistant from all the points in circumference, right? Okay. I mean the other things you could say about the circle, right? The circle as circle is a plane figure, right? See, the circle through itself is a plane figure, right? Through being a circle, right? Now, okay. Is man as such white?

[49:58] Well, you're white. See. But you'd say man as such is an animal, right? Okay. Or man per se, man through being a man, right? Is an animal, right? Okay. Of course, you can see a connection here between the through itself or the as such and necessity.

[50:33] Two as such is half of four, right? It necessarily then is going to be half of four. But the circle as such is not green, and therefore, although it could happen to be green, it certainly is not necessary that a circle be be green, right? Okay. Or an animal that has reason as such doesn't have to be white. Could happen to be white, you know. Maybe could happen to be green.

[50:59] for all I know, but but it doesn't belong to an animal that has reason as such to be white, huh? Maybe an animal that has reason as such is capable of laughter. That's what that was a stock example in the Middle ages, right? Okay. Now the great Plato saw that necessary knowledge, right, knowledge in the strict sense, where something is necessarily so, right, was tied up with what is so as such, right?

[51:37] Of course, Aristotle, being the great pupil for twenty years of Plato, picks up on that and brings that out a lot in the what in the posterior Analytics, right? Which is about knowing what is necessarily so and knowing that is necessarily so, right? But eventually, to know something is necessarily so and to know it is necessarily so, you have to see that this belongs to that as such, through being itself, right?

[52:04] I see. So I mentioned before in geometry there. You know the parallel theorems. You can always draw a parallel through the vertex, A line parallel to the opposite side here, right? And then you know the alternate angles are equal, and therefore the three angles are going to add up to what? 180 degrees or two right angles, huh? So it belongs to triangle as such to have interior angles equal to what?

[52:41] Two right angles, right? Or 180 degrees, people say nowadays. Okay. But it doesn't belong to the triangle as such to be green or yellow, right? And so you can't know that it's necessarily true.

[53:01] So it belongs to triangle as such to be three-sided, right? Belongs to triangle as such to be a plane figure, right? It belongs to triangle as such to have interior angles equal to right angles, but it doesn't belong to triangle as such to be green, right? And so you can't know that necessarily, right? Okay. How about the philosopher? I'm a philosopher. A, philosopher is a lover of wisdom, huh?

[53:32] Now, does it belong to the lover of wisdom as such to be white? How about Swedish? How about to be a grandfather? Anything belong to the lover of wisdom as such? Well, one thing would be to be a lover of what? Reason, right? Okay. Because wisdom is the what? Highest or greatest perfection of reason. So how could one love wisdom without loving what? Reason, right? And

[54:18] could you be a philosopher without being a lover of order? If reason is the ability for large discourse, looking before and after. So you can only know that something is necessarily so if you have something that belongs to something as such or to itself per se.

[55:04] So he says that which, in the reply to his objection, for that which is per accidens through happening or by happening, is excluded from each what definition.

[55:23] So does the teacher learn something when he teaches? If you talk to teachers, right? You know, especially teachers, you know, who are not in college, I see, at a higher level, they'll say that they learn something every time they teach a course, right? Okay. So Charles de Koninck and I knew him in the late fifties. 60s. He's been teaching the eight books of natural hearing the physics, since the 1930s.

[56:06] They said he still saw something new every time he went through there, right? And so every teacher will tell you that, right? But does belong to the teacher as such to be learning what he's teaching?

[56:26] So it might happen very much so, right? But does the man teach insofar as he doesn't know what he's teaching? I heard you know stories, you know, professors say at the end of a course, if I knew as much now as I knew, if I knew at the beginning as much as I know now, I would have taught this differently, right? Which is, as I'm admitting, he's not being a teacher fully, right?

[56:52] You see, and that's kind of a subtle thing, right? See, and you know, same thing in making. You know, do we learn to make something by making it, right? And how's a cook or a baker or somebody or a carpenter for that matter, right? Don't they learn how to make houses and pies and and meals and so on by making them?

[57:21] But does it belong to the maker of houses as such to be learning how to make a house? Because insofar as he's learning how to make a house, he doesn't know how to make a house, and to that extent, he's not yet a housebuilder, right? You know, even it's very common. I mean, carpenters say, you know, they get on a more interesting job, you know, they say, you know, they like this job because they're learning something, right?

[57:51] Yeah. So that's a little more difficult to see that it doesn't belong to you as such, though, right? As a teacher to be learning what you're teaching, even though it might be true, huh? Okay.

[58:06] Now the second objection, huh? Let's look back a second. Isn't this to fall into the old mistake of the ancient philosophers? He said that whatever is seen seems to be so is true. Okay. The position that both Plato and Aristotle attack. To the second, it should be said that the ancient philosophers—now these are the guys before Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates—that the ancient philosophers did not say that the species of natural things proceed from some understanding, right?

[58:46] But that they come about by chance. That's also the opinion of modern biologists a lot, right? Modern scientists, huh? That these things are not a what? Effect of some mind, but they just happen by random selection and so on, right? Common thing.

[59:08] And because they considered though that the true implies a comparison to an understanding, right? They were forced in this way to constitute the truth of things in order to our understanding, right? Because they didn't know about any other understanding, okay.

[59:28] From which the inconveniences, right, the things that don't fit together, follow, which the philosopher, meaning Aristotle, pursues in the fourth book after the books in natural philosophy, okay, the fourth book of wisdom.

[59:45] Which inconveniences, which things that don't come together, don't fit. Do not happen if we lay down that the truth of things consists in a comparison to the what divine understanding, right?

[1:00:02] That's the problem that the ancient philosophers got into because they didn't know about what. Divine understanding. Divine understanding, right? And so they made the truth even of natural things consist in what presents to our mind. And so it seems to me to be this way, and it seems to you to be that way, and so, and then truth would involve contradictory things, right? I think it's kind of cold today, and you think it's no, I'm not cold today, you know.

[1:00:27] People will say that, right? And so it both is and is not cold, right? Because it seems so to me, one, and the other to you, right? So we get into all these difficulties that Aristotle points out when he's going into the people who deny the the axioms about contradiction, right? The same thing cannot both be and not be. Can't both be cold and not be cold, right?

[1:00:57] Okay. Now the third objection. That an account of which each thing more so, right? To the third, it should be said that although the truth of our understanding is caused from the thing, nevertheless it is not necessary that in the thing be found before the notion of truth. Just as neither in medicine before is found the notion of health, than in the what animal, right?

[1:01:38] For the power of the medicine, not its health causes health, right? Since it is not a what univocal agent, an agent that shares in exactly the same thing that it causes. And likewise, the being of the thing, not its truth, causes the truth of the what understanding, right? So it's your being seated that makes it true that when I say you're sitting, I'm speaking truly, right? It's not the truth of your sitting, but you're what you're being seated.

[1:02:20] That is the cause of my statement. You are sitting being true, huh? And so the being of the of the thing, not its truth, causes the truth the understanding. Whence the philosopher says that opinion and speech is true from the fact that the thing is, not from the fact that the thing is what true. Okay.

[1:02:52] You you follow that? I don't understand what the distinction is. Well, if if I say if I say that, um, it's true to say now that you are sitting, right? Now, if you were to stand up, it would become false, right? But then, if you sat down again, it would become true, right? So, your sitting is the cause of my statement being true, right? Okay. So, it's your being seated that is the cause of my statement being true.

[1:03:33] It's not the truth of your sitting that is what the cause of the truth of my statement. It's irrelevant here. Okay. So, your sitting in itself wouldn't speak of as being true, except in comparison to my statement, right? But nevertheless, the being, your being in the chair in this way, is a cause of the truth of my statement. Okay. He compares it to that thing about medicine, right?

[1:04:06] You know, is the medicine more healthy than your body? No, because healthy would not be said of your body and medicine with the same meaning, would it?

[1:04:26] We wouldn't speak of the medicine as being healthy, except insofar as it's what productive of health, right? But not because it has that healthy, because it's healthy in the same sense which the body is healthy. You see the idea? See, why in that principle you're thinking of, you know, sweet is said of sugar, and sweet is said of my coffee, and sweet means the same thing when said of sugar and said of the coffee, right?

[1:04:56] But since the sugar, the coffee is sweet because of the sugar, right? Then the sugar is sweeter than the coffee, right? But then you have the sugar and the coffee being what sweet in the same meaning of the word sweet, huh? But one is more so than the other, right? Okay. So, your sitting, it's not as if truth is said of your sitting and my statement that you are sitting, right?

[1:05:22] Truth is really found in my statement that you are sitting, right? And your sitting is merely what the cause of my statement being true, right? In the same way that medicine might be the cause of your health or something, right? Not because it's more healthy than your body.