Prima Secundae
43. Serving the Lord and Learning from the Teacher; Counsel as Inquiry and Counsel About the End (Summa I-II, Q.14, Articles 1–2)
Class of 2011-12-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/043-serving-the-lord-and-learning-from-the-teacher-counsel-as/

[0:03] In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment. Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, ordain and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, Pray for us. and help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:32] God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Notice the order here and the order down here. Sing joyfully to the Lord, all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness, huh? That's the first thing you have to do, right? To serve the Lord with gladness, the name, right? And then come before Him with joyful song, and then you can know. And often refer to this when I talk about the Summa Contra Gentiles, right?

[1:16] Know that the Lord is God. He made us as we are. His people, the flock, He tends. That's the way the books one, two, and three are divided, right? God in Himself, God as the Maker of things, things, but why we are his, and then God's providence, right? It's in the end of all things, huh? And then, at least this is the one I learned it in years ago.

[1:44] Notice the order down here. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise. Now, sometimes you'll see Thomas even calling thanksgiving a part of praise, right? It seems to me there is a sort of distinction between thanksgiving and praise, because you are thanking God for what He's given us, right, huh? Or you are praising God for what He is in Himself, right? And so, when we go from prayer in the sense of the Our Father, asking God for suitable things, right?

[2:17] You know that you need. Then you go to thanksgiving. You are being a little bit less like me, because you are thanking God for what He's given you, right? And it's kind of stepping stone to praise, which you really forget about yourself, right? And you are just praising God for what He is in Himself, huh? With this, with this itself, and it follows the same order as we explained.

[2:41] Give thanks to Him, which is thanksgiving, of course, and bless His name, which is praising Him, right, huh? And then, you know, Augustine says, "Because God is good, we are." Okay, and then His His mercy. And faithfulness is a bit like justice, but it's kind of justice to oneself, right? God is true to His things. Now, what connection is there between this and the thirteenth chapter of John huh Well I've got a little Protestant New Testament here.

[3:22] I don't want to bring the real good one, you know, the Greek and Latin one. Now, this got the Greek and English interlinear But it's a good text, nonetheless

[3:44] Yeah, well, you've got the Protestant Bible. The Catholic Bible says ninety-nine. Ninety-nine, the Catholic Bible. Yeah, yeah. When I grew up, it would speak of the Catholic numbering and the Protestant numbering, right? And then there must be these darn scriptural scholars who decided to compromise and adopt the Protestant numbering, right? But it files it all up, you know, when Augustine and Thomas, following Augustine, divides the Psalms into three fifties, and the fiftieth Psalm in the correct numbering is a Psalm of what?

[4:15] Asking forgiveness, right? That favorite Psalm of Saint Teresa of Avila, right? The hundredth Psalm is a Psalm of good deeds, right? The hundred fiftieth Psalm are resting in God with the three orders, three levels of charity. First, where you are fighting your sins, then where you're progressing through the virtues, and then finally resting in God, contemplating. It's beautiful: fifty, a hundred, and fifty. It's all fouled up now.

[4:40] They make the mistake, anyway. He does this. So the. Well, yeah, one more thing I want to say up here. Notice how the order here is a little bit like what you have in the in the Ethics of Aristotle, where you take up the moral virtues before the speculative virtues of reason, right? And Thomas Aquinas, the commentary on Aristotle, says that he takes up the moral virtues before the virtues of reason There are two reasons: because they're more known to us, and because by them we are disposed for the virtues.

[5:23] So we have to, in a sense, serve the Lord with gladness here, right? Before we're ready to learn all about Him here, right? Okay, I think that makes sense. It's like the order which you have in the things. Well, in the thirteenth chapter, that's where our Lord washes the feet, right? Among other things, gives them this example, but the words in particular, where Christ says, huh. So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set down again, he said unto them, "Know ye what I have done to you?

[6:05] Ye call me Master and Lord, right? Okay. And ye say, 'Well, for so I am. ' If then, if I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, huh? So what does what do the apostles call our Lord? Two things. I got to be careful about the translation here, right? Because when you translate the Greek word didaskalos by master, you think of master, which is opposed to slave.

[6:43] Yeah. Why it's really master in the sense of magister, right? Like the antonomasia for Lombard right? In the Sentences, it's called the magister, right? With capital M. So, but the Greek word is actually didaskalos, which means what? Teacher. Yeah, yeah. Notice when Christ first refers to what they say, right? He says, "Humeis phoneite me, huh? You call me ho didaskalos, huh? The teacher, kai ho kurios, huh?

[7:20] The Lord and Lord. And kai kalos legete, and you speak well, right? You speak truly, that is to say, right? You know, that's the when Socrates there at the apology, right? You know, his accusers had said, "Watch out for Socrates; he's a good speaker," you know, huh? And Socrates up, he says, "I don't know what they meant by saying that, you know. Unless they meant by a good speaker one who speaks truly, right?

[7:51] Then I am a good speaker. And he's, I don't know what they meant by saying that, See wait a second, he says, huh? Kai kalos legete, you speak well, right? Calling me, see?

[8:06] Um. Oh my goodness. Okay. For I am, he says that, right? If then I walk, I wash your feet, right? I un ego enipsa humon tous podas your feet. Ho kurios, kai ho didaskalos, huh? Then you ought to do the same. song, okay? But don't see a verse of the order now, right? What he says, and he says, first I am your kurios, I am your Lord, and I am your didaskalos, I am your what?

[8:43] Teacher, right? Huh? And the interlinear, the the is the word teacher, right? Just correct word. I mean, master is ambiguous, right? Okay. That's what the boy used to call young, person who behaved. The boy was master, and the woman was miss, you know. And what master meant was you—you have mastered your emotions to some extent, so you control your your passions and so on, right? But it's about—I mean, you get mastered, right?

[9:12] So, okay. But notice now the first two couples here. When you serve the Lord, are you doing him as teacher or as kurios? Kurios. As Lord, yeah. But when you come before the joyful Son and you've come to know these things, you're coming before him like a what? Teacher.

[9:45] And so, kurios and didaskalos—the same order, right? I am your kurios, therefore you should serve me, right? Faithfully and so on, right? And I am your didaskalos your teacher, right? That's interesting, huh? What is a teacher? And if you had to say what a teacher is, without saying something teaches us. But what would be the best way of describing what is a teacher? What does he do? What does he do to us?

[10:20] This guy's got his first teaching college authority. Says, looks down upon us to this day. Why are you doing this to me? That's what the expression their faces look like. Why? Terror. He communicates. What? He communicates. Yeah. Yeah. But it's even a better thing than that. Perfect knowledge. Yeah. What's the best way of describing? Forms. What? He forms you. Yeah. Yeah. To me, it seems the best thing you can say about a teacher is that he enlightens you.

[10:54] Enlightens you about something, right? You know how it says in the beginning of the Gospel John, "This is the true light, the light to every man coming into this world." Right. But even in the beatific vision, right, where Thomas refers to at the end of the prayer for the the Eucharist, he calls it what? "Lux Vera," huh? True light, right? So, and we, when somebody dies, huh?

[11:21] What do we say? May eternal rest and perpetual light. Yeah, yeah. And perpetual light, I suppose, is the light of what? Here, light. We shall see light, right? So, in a sense, in the beatific vision, God is above all the teacher, right, huh? So Christ is the teacher because he's enlightened, huh? And so we come before him, right, to be enlightened, huh? But we don't dare come before him to be enlightened, and we shouldn't really until we what?

[11:53] Obey him, right? Conserve him, right, huh? And then we can come. We're well disposed, right, to come before him and and learn in this order, right, of the Summa Contra Gentiles Okay. I was rummaging around somewhere some of my books there in one of the other rooms there, and I found my old volume there of things from Pius the tenth, right? It's got the Latin text there, and you know, it wasn't his translation.

[12:18] And I was looking again at the his I guess it's a it was an apostolic letter, something like that. Was was was the category of it? But the one called the Angelic Doctor, right? Son Thomas, right? Huh? Looked it up in the Vatican website. Couldn't find it, but they had the Latin text there, you know. But anyway, I pleased to note that he quotes John the twenty second, huh?

[12:46] Who's the Pope who I think canonized Thomas, right? But I referred to it, John the twenty second said before. I think that. He says you can. He is illuminating, enlightening the church, right? More than all the rest, and you can learn more from a year of studying him than from a lifetime in the others. That was quite of a really impressive thing that John the Twenty Second says.

[13:10] But I'm impressed with Pius X there reiterating that, you know, and saying that that's been shown to be true, right? So, but it's Thomas, huh?

[13:24] Well, I forget the exact year, but I think was before then. I think, yeah, yeah. Okay. Now we're ready to take the. What counsel, right?

[13:49] Question fourteen in the prima Secundae. Then we're not to consider about counsel, and about this six things are sata. First, whether counsel is a inquisition, right?

[14:10] Investigation, right? Inquiry, right? Secondly, whether counsel is about the end, or only about those things which are towards the end. Third, whether counsel is only about those things which are done by us.

[14:34] Fourth, whether counsel is about all the things which are done by us. Fifth, whether counsel proceeds in the order of resolution. Very thorough, guys, Thomas.

[14:53] Most people have not even seen the question, right? Let alone the answer. And whether counsel proceeds in infinitum, forever, right? In endless. Kind of like Zeno, you know. Yeah.

[15:10] yeah. You know, the biggest example. you know, you know how they say that statistics don't lie, but what Politicians do Yeah, yeah. Statisticians do, you know, huh? Anyway, there's this dispute now going on there between. Well, you got the governor of Texas is running right for office, right? And then there's a big dispute there in Wisconsin there between the labor unions, you know, the teacher unions, and the governor there, right?

[15:40] So of course the Democrats and the Republicans and so on are on different sides, right? These things. And the question was, is the schooling better in in Wisconsin or in Texas? That kind of comes up, right? Because in Texas the unions are are not strong, right? Like they are in Wisconsin, right? Well, this kind of lackey there for the Democrats, Paul Krugman, now the kind of famous economist, but he's got a column now in the New York Times.

[16:06] He's always saying these things. Well, the on these national tests, the Wisconsin students have a higher average than the ones from Texas, right? So the students must be doing something right, he's saying, right? That sounds, you know, prima facie, you know, true, you know. But now when they go into the categories, they found out that the white students in Texas are scoring higher than the white students in Wisconsin.

[16:36] And the black students in Texas are scoring higher than the black students in Wisconsin. And Hispanic students, right, in Texas, are scoring higher than the what Hispanic students in Wisconsin. So, which schooling is better? See, well, nationwide, blacks and Hispanics don't do as good as whites because of their family background and other reasons like that. And that's not the fault of the schools, right? That's something that takes place over the country, right?

[17:09] So, because Texas has many more Hispanic students, at least than Wisconsin has, the overall average in Wisconsin is what higher, right? But actually, they're not doing as good a job, right? But shows you how tricky it is, huh? These statistics, right? You know, there's all kinds of things that you know. I think it's kind of an interesting example isn't it Yeah That that came out recently there, huh?

[17:33] That's Mark Twain's comment on statistics. Yeah, yeah. So you've got to be. people are always throwing these things out, though. You say, oh, oh, maybe that's so, you know, you know, because you have to really go into these things, some length. That's what I think. That's what Twain said. You've heard that there's lies, or damn lies,

[18:01] and statistics. Yeah, yeah. Now, this reading on counsel, of course, is very important for you know moral theology or for ethics, for that matter. But also because consul is something so much a part of our life, it's like things in other parts of the life of the mind that's interesting to compare, right? To the first, then one proceeds. Thus, it seems that consul is not a inquiry, shall we say, right?

[18:30] For Damascene says that counsel is what an appetitive desire, right? But it does not pertain to desire to inquire. Therefore, counsel is not a what inquiry, right?

[18:50] Well, we'll see. We'll see. You know, because it might be what a desire that is before counsel right? I desire to be wealthy, right? Therefore, I take counsel as to how I can, you know, make money off people.

[19:14] Moreover, the what to inquire of the understanding to inquire is of the understanding what discursing, right? That's the word that Shakespeare has, right, in the definition of reason, right? The ability for large discourse, looking before and after,

[19:35] and thus it does not belong to God, right? Thomas has a chapter in the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles. There's no discourse in God. Whose knowledge is not discursive, as is also had in the first book here of the Summa. But counsel is sometimes attributed to God, right? According to that of the Epistle to the Ephesians,

[20:03] he does all things according to the counsel of his will. Therefore, counsel is not an inquiry. Moreover, inquiry is about doubtful things, dubious things, res dubiae. But counsel is given about those things which are certain goods, according to that of the Apostle. Now that's the what? antonomasia for Saint Paul. Saint Paul and what? Saint Peter are called apostles by antonomasia. John the Twenty, John Paul the Second called them what?

[20:53] The princes of the apostles, right? But this is the figure of speech, right? About virgins, he says, "I do not have a command of the Lord, right? You don't have to be a virgin, right? You can get married, huh? But I do give a what counsel, right? Okay. This is a very important text. But this is something certain, right? This is good counsel. So, therefore, counsel is not a what inquiry, right?

[21:35] But against this is what Gregory and of course I have a text here, Nemesius right? There must be somebody studying it, right? Okay. Now it's the I used to think that the Liber de causis was by Aristotle, and Thomas and some of the other writers kind of followed that opinion, but then he figured out who was by, you know. And it's a shortening of a larger work by somebody else.

[22:05] Was almost like you know the continuation of the metaphysics, right? You know, and he had a great deal of authority, you know? But against this is what Gregory Nemesius says, right? Every counsel is a what? Seeking, a question, yeah, yeah, seeking question, a quest. Not however, every quest is a what counsel, right? Okay. I'm doing logic there at the at my house there on Wednesday nights. There we're doing dialectic now, right?

[22:39] Well, this is not counsel, right? This is about universal things, right? But the similarity there between taking counsel and dialectica. I answer: It should be said that choice, as has been said, follows the judgment of reason about things to be what done. But in things to be done, multa incertitudo, much lack of certitude, right? Much incertitude is found

[23:19] because actions are about singular things that are what contingent, right? Which, on account of their variability, are what uncertain. But in doubtful things and uncertain things, reason does not put forth a judgment without a. Inquiry preceding, unless you're a fool, right?

[23:53] And therefore, necessarily, there is necessary an inquiry of reason before the judgment about things to be what done, right? Now, this is like what you have in philosophy, where you have dialectical investigation, right? Before you try to judge what the truth must be, right? So Aristotle, in most of his works, will have a dialectic before he tries to what determine with certitude what the truth is, The only science we might not do this would be, say, geometry or arithmetic, right?

[24:31] Okay. I think I've spoken before of how our reason guesses before it knows, And that's probably the reason why we're very often mistaken, right? Because you guess, you obviously can be mistaken. But for the most part, in geometry, if you guess, um, you're right, okay. Like if you take an equilateral triangle, will those three angles be equal?

[25:07] Yeah. Yeah, I think we'd all guess they'd be equal, right? You know. Now that's not to know with certitude, but you know, is it? So you can go right away trying to get the certitude about the thing. The reason why it must be so, right? But in other sciences, when people guess first, you might guess one thing: that water is the beginning of all things, and you think it's mother earth, and you think it's air, and you think it's all these and so on, right?

[25:35] And so right away there's disagreement and so on. So Aristotle says that dialectical reasoning is reasoning from probable opinions even to contradictory conclusions, right? And so every article in the Summa begins with a kind of miniature dialectic, right? Where you have this side and then that side, right? But in the questionis disputatis that Thomas says, you might have ten or fifteen arguments on one side and ten on the other side, or something like that, right?

[26:06] Okay. Here Thomas kind of cuts it down for the beginners, right? Giving the milk, okay, not the whiskey of the questionis disputatis right? And this inquiry is called what counsel right? huh Okay.

[26:32] And a kind of which the philosopher says, now that's another what, antonomasia, right? The philosopher. He says in the third book of the Ethics that choice is the desire of the thing which has been counselled beforehand, right? Of the pre-counselled. Okay. Now maybe the word counsel is used in some other senses too, but that's something, but sense of counsel that we're concerned with here, right?

[27:09] I just love these accounts, you know, of the Inchon landing, you know. Yeah. And of course they they sent these guys down from Washington, you know, to try to convince MacArthur that it was too risky, you know. And I heard, you know, several people, you know, describing these things. You know, people are very nervous, you know, because the way MacArthur speaks, you know, he goes the party starts very slowly, you know, kind of destroys them, you know, but but but then, you know, the people describe MacArthur on the way to to Inchon landing, you know, and he called his officer and he went over the whole thing again once more, right?

[27:44] And he said, "Yep, it's the right right decision," MacArthur said, you know, and then he picked up his Bible and started reading. So is he sure that the you know Inchon landing right? Apparently, the Japanese had had made an Inchon landing during the war with the Russians in 1905. MacArthur was a witness of, so he knew it could be done, right? So, but anyway, those things are not certain, right?

[28:12] Just got through. My son gave me a book on the Peloponnesian War. You know, all these all these things that could have gone this way that way. The military. That's counsel, right?

[28:26] Military prudence. Yeah. Now, why should Damascene make this mistake, right? Well, there must be a reason, huh? Because he's not not a dummy, huh? The first, therefore, it should be said that when the acts of two powers are ordered to each other, right? In both there is something that pertains to the other power, right? Huh? And therefore, what both acts is able to be denominated, named from either power, right?

[29:08] Now it is manifest that the act of reason that is directing in those things which are towards the end, and the act of the will, according to what the rule of reason tending towards it, that those two acts are what ordered to each other, right? And those two powers, therefore, which these are the acts. Whence, in the act of the will, which is choice, there appears something of reason, to wit, order, right?

[29:40] Who knows how that's something of reason before and after that order, right? That's great Shakespeare, right? I teach you. And in counsel, which is an act of reason, there appears something of the will, as the matter about which counsel is being taken, right? Because counsel is about those things which man wills to what to do, and also as a motive, because from the fact or from this that man wills the end, he is moved to taking counsel about those things which are towards the end.

[30:28] So because I want to be wealthy, right? I take counsel as to how I might become wealthy, right? And therefore, as the philosopher says in the sixth book of the ethics, that choice is intellectus appetitivus, right?

[30:50] That to choice, what both he shows both run together for choice, right? Thus Damascene says that counsel is appetitus inquisitivus, right? An inquiring desire, right? Okay.

[31:09] So the counsel in some way pertains both to the will about which and from which there is the inquiry, right? And it pertains to reason, what inquiry, right? But it's more what an act of the reason than of the what will, right? Just as choice is more an act of the what will than the reason, but we can speak, you know, denominating in some way each each of these acts, right?

[31:43] So both counsel and vachna have sometimes spoken of as being an act of the other power, right? Counsel of the desire and choice of the reason, right? But because the two acts are connected, right, ordered. But just as choice is more really an act of the will, so counsel is more an act of the reason, right?

[32:07] Now what about this use of counsel said of God? huh? Did Paul there, the apostle, to the second, then he said it should be said that those things which is said about God, right, are taken without every defect which is found in us, right? As in us now, science is of conclusions. Through a what discourse, running from the causes to the what effects. Sometimes the reverse right?

[32:45] For the effect of the cause, and from opposite to opposite, from like to like. But science said of God signifies what? Certitude about all effects in the light of the first cause, without any what discourse. So when you carry these words over from creatures to God, you have to draw throw out every what imperfection, right? That's found in the creature. That's why often when they carry a word over, they drop the genus and keep the difference.

[33:26] And what really is is science for us? Well, the syllogism making us know the cause and that which is a cause cannot be otherwise. Well, there's no syllogism there in God, right? Though he knows what syllogism is, but there is knowing the cause and that which it is a cause and cannot be otherwise. He knows all that, right? So you keep the difference there and you drop the genus. But the genus is taken more from matter, which is imperfect, right, and the difference from form, which is godlike, perfect, as Aristotle says.

[33:58] And likewise, counsel is attributed to God as regards the certitude of His position or judgment, right? Which in us comes from the inquiry of what counsel, right? Okay. It's like a little bit like you know you apply the word science to God, right? Because because of the certitude, right? But not because of the discourse from the premises to conclusion, right? Okay.

[34:30] So when you ask God something, and say just a minute, I got to think about that a little bit. I'll get back to you. Yeah. But this inquiry has no place in God, and in this and therefore counsel in this way, according to this, is not attributed to God, right?

[34:55] And according to this, Damascene says, right, that God does not take counsel for of someone ignorant to take what counsel, right? Okay. My my son-in-law there had a copy of Bush's book, you know, the one about decision points, right? It's a very interesting book, you know, because it's all about the decisions he made as president, right? But you can see the man was you know taking counsel when he when he made these decisions.

[35:32] He was not you know jumping here to you know equipping these things. The last Bush, the last. The last one, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's been out for a while. It was said of his father too. I know in the Gulf War, Father Owen and stuff like that. He consulted with several American bishops before he went to the war, and said, I don't know what counsel they gave him, but but he he wanted to have counsel.

[35:58] So this is a common thing, isn't it? That's one way that a word becomes equivocal by reason, right? It's carried over, but you drop out part of its what meaning, yeah, and the part that pertains to the imperfection of the creature when you carry the name over to God, huh? Okay.

[36:28] Thomas has a very nice part there in the first part of the Summa there, or the Summa Contra Gentiles, where he's talking about how the names of the emotions are carried over to the will, right? Drop the what the bodily aspect of it, right? The imperfection of it, huh? But you keep some of the formal meaning, right? So you keep words like desire and love and liking, right, and so on.

[36:55] But you drop the bodily changes associated with the emotions. So it's a kind of double aspect, right? In the emotion, kind of a formal aspect and then a material thing. One part is dropped out. That's how you can carry it over, right? Then you can sometimes carry it over from the will to God, to God's will. But then you have to drop some things. Is there any fear in God?

[37:29] No. Is there boldness in God? But Thomas says, you know, some of them can be carried over metaphorically, right? But some can't even be carried over metaphorically. There's no fear in God. That's a metaphor Okay.

[37:45] No hate in God. But he says, "I hate divorce I know, but that's a metaphor. Talk to the third thing, right? Nothing prevents some things from being what most certain goods, according to the judgment of the wise, right, and of spiritual men, huh? Which nevertheless are not certain goods according to the the judgment of the many, right, or carnal men, right, fleshly men, right? And therefore, about such counsels are what given, huh?

[38:40] There's a story about the priest who wanted to leave. The priesthood there with John Paul II when he was bishop, I guess, huh? Oh. He did. He did. You know, he said, "Let's go in the church and pray about this, right?" So went and prayed for a long time, and they came out, and John and John Paul said, "What do you think?" I think I should still leave.

[39:04] Let's go back and pray about some more. And I'm tired to go back in church. Finally, he kind of said, "I think I should stay." You know, it's kind of a marvelous story, though. You know, you know.

[39:20] Yeah. Who is it? The one who went into the abbey there at the Gethsemane? You know, he says, "No." First, Tim went to confession inside the abbey. You're going to be tempted someday to leave this place, you know. And that's like this priest. Well, it's ideas under this temptation, right? It should be expected. Yeah, yeah. You expect, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of warning him, you know. Okay.

[39:48] Let's go to the second article here. It is an inquiry, then. The answer is yes, right? Contrary to all those objections. That's kind of interesting the way Thomas forces himself in every article to zoom into this kind of form, right? Because a lot of thinkers that would seem to be something what artificial to always adapt that form, right? What is that? I mean, kind of dialectically, I think.

[40:28] Yeah, yeah. But is that really an impediment, you know, to the mind's freedom? Maybe a bit of to its freedom, right? But it makes you what? Stop and think a little bit about the thing, right? Think of reasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if other thinkers do this, they might, you know, not be so rash in their judgments and in what they put forward, you know. I was thinking I was reading an article the other day there about the the Constitution, so on, and how they put certain forms in there, you know, that kind of stop both the mob and even even the experts, you know, huh?

[41:11] They're all kind of hamstrung a bit, huh? And it's kind of an article that was suggested because recently one of the big shots in the Obama administration said we need less democracy, you know, you know, so the experts, you know, deciding for us, you know, freedom. So, and they're kind of suspicious of this sort of thing, you know. So they they built in these kind of forms that seem to be impeding, you know, what you want to do, but they really keep you, make you stop and think a little bit more, right, before you you you do things.

[41:43] It reminds me of what C. S. Lewis there, you know, spoke of how the great artists, you know, they adapt themselves to a form, and seems to us, you know, impediment, you know, but actually help them to what produce these things, right? You think of you know Shakespeare's 154, isn't sonnets, you know, but they're all in that all 14 lines, all iambic pentameter, all with the same rhyme scheme.

[42:07] I mean, that's going to that's going to ruin the guy's ability to express himself. Tell that to him. Yeah, you know what I mean. And when I read about Mozart, you know, he was more conservative, you know, than Haid or anybody else, you know, about keeping the form the same way it was, and yet enabled him to express himself, right? It's something something about that discipline, right?

[42:30] But in all these things, it seems at first sight, you know, to other people, kind of an artificial thing, you know, or artificial, automatic, you know, not. I went a little. It's like Sherlock Holmes said, a good artist knows when to stop. I read it. I read it.

[42:54] Any further, I mean, you get the fully blown up question and disputati, right? You don't have anything like that in the moderns, huh? Just they disdain other people. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing I noticed, we in the modern philosophers, you know, they often be saying and very basic things and important things, exactly the opposite. Let's say what Aristotle said, without mentioning that he said the opposite.

[43:20] Yeah. Without recalling in any way the reasons he might have given, let alone giving any refutation of that position or that in the answer to the argument, right? What kind of a proceeding is that? You know, just doesn't make any sense.

[43:47] Aristotle, in the third book of wisdom, there he recalls all the things his predecessors are saying about the causes, right, and why they were saying them, and then they give reasons against both sometimes, right? You know, well, if you force yourself to do that, I mean, you're going to proceed with a man who's taking counsel, right, but on universal matters.

[44:13] Second article: whether counsel is about the end or also or not only about those things which are to the end. To the second one proceeds thus: it seems that counsel is not only about those things which are towards the end, but also about the end itself, right?

[44:38] Well, whatever things have what doubt, right, incertitude, about these, it's possible to investigate. But about human operable things, right, doable things, there happens to be what doubt about the end, and not only about those things towards the end. We see it a lot of times, right? You don't know what the aim of life, right? You pick up Nicomachean Ethics, and then you'll find out.

[45:11] Since, therefore, inquiry about things to be done is counsel, it seems that there can be counsel about the end. Moreover, the matter of counsel are human operations, but some human operations are ends, as is said in the first book of the Ethics. Therefore, counsel can be about the end, right? Should I philosophize? Should I be a philosopher? What's the end of life, right? To be a philosopher.

[45:47] The end of your end. Kind of funny you say, you know, what are you philosophers doing for the common good, right? Chris, the the flippin' quick answer is, we are the common good.

[46:08] But against this is what some Gregory, right, says. But we have doubts. That not about the end, but about those things which are towards the end, there is counsel, right? Yeah.

[46:30] Thomas answers. I answer. It should be said that the end and things to be done has the notion of a beginning, right? In that reasons or arguments about those things which are towards the end are taken from the end itself.

[46:55] But the beginning does not fall under the what question. But the beginnings ought to be supposed in every what investigation. Goes back to kind of that famous portion, right? That the end is like the what premise in the syllogism, right? Okay. And you must begin from some premise that is not what to be investigated. Then you have to investigate, investigate, you know. Okay.

[47:27] Whence, since counsel is a what a quest, shall we say, and how else translate to adjust the right quest here there? Doesn't seem in bed a quest a question.

[47:43] I don't think we did those two words, huh? Question and quest. About the end, there is not counsel, but only about those things which are what towards the end, right?

[48:07] Nevertheless, it can happen that what is an end with respect to some things is ordered to what another end, huh? Aristotle talks explicitly when he distinguishes the four kinds of causes, right?

[48:23] In the physics and in the metaphysics. Just as that which is a principle or premise of one demonstration is the conclusion of a what another, right?

[48:37] So I speak sometimes of what continuous demonstrations, right? Not really continuous. That's interesting word, huh? Because. If you go back to logic, there where you first meet this idea, of continuous,

[48:56] the continuous is a quantity whose parts meet at a common boundary, right? But then in arithmetic, which is about what, discrete quantity, like say the number seven, right? The three and the four don't meet anywhere, right? But in a circle, you know, the two semicircles meet at a line, in the center called the diameter, right? Or the two parts of a line meet at a point, and so on.

[49:26] But sometimes they carry the word continuous over to arithmetic. And one example they do is when you have a continuous what proportion, right? So you say four is to six as six is to nine. Two is to three as four is to six. Well, this would be said to be continuous because the end of one ratio is the beginning of another ratio, right? But it's not continuous. The original meaning of continuous isn't.

[50:04] But there's a certain likeness to it, right? Okay, because you might say, you know, in the continuous, this line here is the end of this semicircle going in this direction, and the beginning of this semicircle over here, right? Or this point right there is the end of this part of the line and the beginning of this part of the line, right? So by certain likeness to that, we say this is a continuous what proportion, because the end of what one ratio is the beginning of another.

[50:44] It's the same number, right? Why this is not a continuous portion, right? So Aristotle then speaks of syllogisms as being continuous when what? Conclusion of one becomes a premise of another. Yeah. Okay.

[51:06] So Thomas is talking about continuous, right? Syllogisms there, right? So Euclid, you know, will take the conclusion of one and then use as a premise to prove something else, right?

[51:24] The same way with the end, right? Something can be both an end and a means, right? So money is the end of my money-making activity, but money is for the sake of something else, right? Food or something else, right? Okay.

[51:46] So it can be something like that, continuous, right? The end of one activity can be the means to another end, right? Okay. Nevertheless, he says it happens that what is an end with respect to some things is ordered to another end, just as that which is a beginning of one demonstration is a conclusion of another, right? Okay. And the same thing is true about what? Definitions, right?

[52:24] So Euclid defines rectilineal plane figure. So rectilineal plane figure is what is being defined, and then he used a rectilineal plane figure to define what square, let's say, right? Okay. Or quadrilateral, let's say. Okay. Then he uses quadrilateral to define square, right? So is quadrilateral a definer or defined? Yeah. Huh Yes Both. It's both, yeah, but now it's back to the same thing, right? Okay. It's not defined by what it defines.

[53:05] Get the kids going on that thing, you know? Why are you doing this to me? No, that's when you do this. What sense is before?

[53:19] Yeah. And therefore, that which is taken as an end of one inquiry is able to be taken as an end, as to an end, another inquiry, right? And that's about it. There'll be counsel, right? So when I picked up the the Nicomachean Ethics, I didn't ask it because I want to be happy.

[53:49] I was trying to find the the way to the road to happiness, right? Maybe it involves philosophizing or something, right? But that's the end of an investigation, right? Okay. So it's got to be some end that is what supposed, right, in an inquiry, huh? Okay. And they might say, well, now if I want to be wise, what must I do? Well, I got to learn logic, huh?

[54:17] So. Some end that is indubitable. To the first therefore, it should be said that that which is taken as an end is already what determined.

[54:41] Hence, when it is had in doubt, it is not had as a what end, right? And therefore, if counsel is had about it, it will not be counsel about it as an end, but about that which is what. Yeah.

[55:03] That reminds me. You know, I just see Thomas speaking again there. He's commenting on the fifth book of wisdom there, where Aristotle is giving a second division of the meanings of one, right? One in number, one in species, one in genus, and one by analogy. And he says one in species of which there he says is the same definition, right? And Thomas says, "Well, why does he say the same definition for one in species, but not one in genus?

[55:37] Because the genus can be defined too, right? " And Thomas says, "Well. " A genus, a definition is from what? The genus of differences of a species, right? So, if a genus is defined, it's not defined in so far as it's a what? Genus, but in so far as it's the species of a higher genus, right? So, genus as genus is not what? Yeah, genera are sometimes defined, yeah, but not in so far as they're a genus, but in so far as they're a what?

[56:12] Yeah, that's important to see, right? Okay, and he's saying there's counsel about an end sometimes, right? But not in so far as it's an end, but in so far as it's a means to somewhat further end, right?

[56:30] For which there's no counsel. What is a starting point for this, right? Okay, do you see that? That's an important thing to see, right? Huh? Now,

[56:47] what kind of thought should that be? If I say that the genus can be defined. As such. Yeah. Simply as such. Yeah. As such, or in some way. Well, it's kind of accidental too, though, as such, as opposed to accidental, right? Okay. It's in so far as the genus happens to be, you might say, a species that can be defined, right? So it's not being defined as a genus, right?

[57:23] Okay. As it's a species of a. So that's the kind same kind distinction that you have here, right? If you take counsel about an end, it's not as as an end. They can say in some way to take counsel about an end, but you're speaking about it what? As a means or another. Yeah, yeah, not speaking per se, so it's speaking as such, right? Okay.

[57:54] Can a son be a father? As son. Yeah. Is a son as son a father? Is a teacher as teacher learning? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In so far as the teacher is learning, he's not a teacher, right?

[58:41] Yeah. But it usually went to seize it because, for the most part, the teacher is always learning when he teaches, right? That's what seems to be what. Very say, right? I found that you know, Aristotle says that the deception, the fallacy of the accident, right? Deceives even the wise, right? No, but I think it especially deceives the wise when it happens always, right?

[59:13] It's always the ignorant who learn, is it? Isn't it Yeah So you got to be ignorant before you can learn, right? It's a big help to learning therefore, right? It's necessary. No, but you can see it's accidental, though, right? Yeah, but it's not. It's necessarily so, isn't it? Therefore, you must be ignorant before you can learn. Is that true? Only sick people get healed, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[59:49] But here, these are things. that are true always, right? But they're still what accidental, right? Okay. But say I am a white man, right? But am I white because I'm a man? Say, well, I mean, there's lots of men who are not white, right? So, so you're not going to be so deceived by that, right? Okay. But something is always there. You can easily be what deceived.

[1:00:22] Happens all the time. Modern philosophers, all the time. Yeah. So up to Article Three here now. Take a break.