Prima Secundae
110. Are the Bold Quickest at the Start? The Treatise on Anger Begins, with Mozart and Modern Philosophy (Question 45, Article 4; Question 46)
Class of 2013-03-14
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/110-are-the-bold-quickest-at-the-start-the-treatise-on-anger/

[0:00] Order now, whether the bold are more prompt in the beginning than in the what the dangers themselves, right? To the fourth, one proceeds thus: it seems that the bold are not more prompt in the beginning than in the dangers themselves. For trembling is caused from what fear, right? And fear, of course, is contrary to what boldness, right?

[0:35] But the bold, right, are sometimes what are afraid in the beginning, as the philosopher says in the book on what problems. Incidentally, we don't know if that is, in fact, the work of the what the philosopher, right?

[0:52] I was talking to Warren Murray this morning there about something I went on in class last night. You know, I was comparing the author of the De De Fallaciis ad Custom Nobis Artistas. That's the work that's this is dubious Thomas, right? You know, some people think it is, some are not. And I was comparing what he says with what Albert the Great says there about the fallacy of simply and secundum quid, right?

[1:21] And the author of the De Fallaciis says that we make this kind of mistake going from the what secundum quid to simpliciter And Albert the Great says we usually make this going from secundum secundum quid to simpliciter. but sometimes the reverse, right? So I was taking some examples, right? Huh? You'll find that most examples are going from the secundum quid to simpliciter. And. I used to say to my students, you know, when I was teaching an assumption, I'd say, "Now, I know it sounds kind of abstract, you this kind of mistake, you know, but you're making it all day long, you know, because you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, or you're not doing something you should be doing, right?

[2:14] Okay. And why do you do something you shouldn't do? Well, because in some ways, what? But simply, it's bad, right? So you're going from what something being in some very limited way good, right? Huh? To saying what it's good simply, right? Okay. You can take a very simple example, you know, delicious poison. Is it good to drink? It tastes good, so in some ways, it's good, right?

[2:44] But simply, you'd say it's what. Looking at the whole picture, it's something bad, right? Okay. But if I wanted poison, you might probably try to, you know, get a poison that tastes good, right? Or make it taste good if I could, right? And then you say, "Oh, I want I want one of these." And that finishes you off, right? Okay. Or then you don't do something you should do because, in some ways, bad, right?

[3:08] So I said you don't study because it prevents you from going down to the party down the hall, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in some way, it's bad, right? It prevents you from going to the party, right? And there's nothing that's so good that it doesn't prevent you from doing something else that is good, right? So in some ways, it's bad, right? So you're making this mistake all the time, but you're going from what secundum quid to simpliciter right?

[3:39] But in the Meno when when Meno says, you know, you know what happens in there, Socrates says, I don't know what virtue is, and he's maybe being ironic. He says, I don't know what virtue is, right? And Meno said, Why not virtue is, you know? And Socrates, Oh, oh, tell me, you know. And so they have a conversation, and it appears that in the conversation that Meno doesn't know what virtue is either, right?

[4:05] Well, then Socrates says, Let's put our heads together and try to find out what it is, right? And Meno says, Well, how can we go looking for what we don't know we're looking for? Well, in a sense, he's saying that because it's what not known, simply, therefore it can't even be known in some way. Okay. I used to use the example to try to teach them a little bit of that.

[4:33] I'd say I come into class and I say, I don't know how many students are in class today. I'm an awfully smart guy, and I know how to direct myself to what I don't know. And that way is what counting, right? So now I count the thing, right? And let's say I get to 23, okay? Now how did I direct myself to 23? Because I didn't know I was looking for 23, right?

[5:00] Okay, what do with the amazing facility, right? How did I do it, you know? Well, I had to have known 23 in some way, because 23 is in fact the number of students in class today, right? And I knew I was looking for the number of students in class today, and that was enough to tell me to take the road of counting, right? Now, if you'd asked me what is a student, I would have taken a different road, because counting would never tell me what a student is.

[5:32] If he was in class, okay. So this is the sense what Meno's saying, right? He's saying because we don't know something, we can't direct ourselves towards it, and therefore we shouldn't pay somebody who's trying to find the cause of cancer or some other disease, right? Because he doesn't know he's looking for. You know, just by chance that he'd come across it, right? That's not true, is it?

[5:58] A man who's, you know, engaged should be. Have at least a better chance of getting to the cause than someone who just, you know, shooting the breeze, right? Okay, and bumps into the cause, right? So, so for the most part, we're reasoning from what is so secundum quid to what is so what, simply, right? And but occasionally you have the reverse, right? In this example of Minou, right?

[6:38] So Thomas Aquinas says that logic has what maximum difficultatem, the greatest difficulty, right? And that logic is the exception to the rule that you study the easy before the difficult,

[6:57] because you have to learn logic pretty early to proceed well in all the parts of philosophy. So you have to learn logic early, but it's extremely difficult because you're dealing with things that are not sensible, right? Or even imaginable, right? So in that sense, you know, geometry and even natural philosophy seems to be easier, right, than logic. But logic is something you have to learn to know the road of the way of proceeding, the way to go.

[7:27] I've heard in academia people saying that logic is just came from dead white males and therefore it can be bypassed and it can be more fruitful endeavors, and it just seems like it's shooting themselves in both feet. Yeah. Yeah.

[7:48] The thing that's talking about the modern philosophers is that they rarely even talk, if at all, hardly about these kinds of mistakes, right? And even if you study these kinds of mistakes and to some extent learn what these kinds of mistakes are, right, you can still make that kind of mistake, right? And but if you don't even talk about these kinds of mistakes and try to recognize some examples of them, you know, and get some experience with these kinds of mistakes, you're you're bound to what fall into these things.

[8:22] You go to the modern philosophers, and that's where it is one after another, you know, huh? Like young people without experience, being foolishly bold, the way they harken back to the last article. Can't recognize that homosexual marriage is a is a square circle, right? Okay, interrupt the article four here. Trembling is caused from fear, right? Huh? Which is contrary to boldness, but the bold sometimes in the beginning tremble, as the philosopher says in the book of Problems.

[9:09] It is the philosopher, right? Therefore, they are more prompt in the beginning than what, and therefore they are not more prompt in the beginning because they're trembling, right? Then in the what, being in the dangers themselves, right?

[9:29] Moreover, passion is increased by the increase of its what object, right? Just as if the good is lovable, so what is more good is more lovable.

[9:46] But the difficult is a object of boldness. Therefore, when you increase the arduousness, you increase the boldness. But It becomes what. It but when it is present, huh? It becomes what more arduous and more difficult the the danger, right? Huh. So, but the danger when it is what present, huh? Becomes more what arduous and difficult, huh? Therefore, the boldness ought to what increase, huh?

[10:31] Moreover, from wounds inflicted, anger is provoked, huh? But anger causes what boldness, right? That's interesting, right? We were speaking before about hope causing boldness. Does anger cause boldness?

[10:55] For the philosopher says in the second, book of the rhetoric, that anger is what audacious, right, or productive of audacity. Therefore, when we are in some dangers and are struck, we are rendered more what bold. Audacity of Hope So President Obama's book

[11:31] Once the Indian stories talk about the danger of audacity in the life of the mind. What is it? Dionysius uses the term bold imagination, right? That's really the cause of error, right? Bold imagination, daring imagination.

[11:59] That's really one of the volumes there of Benedict the Sixteenth there, you know, the Gospels and so on, right? Jesus of Nazareth, right? And occasionally get some of these, you know, opinions of the scriptural scholars. You know, there's a lot of bold imagination there.

[12:19] I guess you know the the in said Mark and Luke, I think Mark likes say the account of Christ, you know, who am I, you know? And and Peter eventually says in that thing, you are the Messiah, right?

[12:41] But in Matthew, he says you are the Christ, the Son of God, right? So it's a more complete profession of faith, right? And if I remember correctly, it's in read it after that in Matthew that Christ says, you know, the Lord Peter and upon this rock I build my church, you know. After he says it's. God has revealed this to you, and so on. He didn't say that, I don't think, in in in Mark, right?

[13:06] And it's kind of appropriate, you know, that you have a a complete profession of faith there, you might say, to the divinity as well as humanity of Christ, right? Before you say, "When I build on your faith, right, the whole church, right?" And what Christian scriptural scholars say? Well, Mark was the original one, right? And then later on, they started to think maybe he's divine or something like that, and that was added.

[13:31] This is this is bold imagination, right? They're trying to. So you know, I hear some of these odd things that I, fortunately, never met before. You know, he

[13:43] mentions them as he goes along. You know, sometimes you know. So bold imagination. But against this is what is said in the third book of the ethics that the bold right are what flying before I guess right and are willing before dangers, but in the dangers themselves they what fail right they start to dissolve right.

[14:23] Well, Thomas says, "Answer should be said that boldness, since it is a certain motion of the desiring power, it follows the grasping of the what sensing power, the sensing knowing power, but the sense knowing power, right, is not what collativa, right, which means bringing together, right? Okay. So when you define and reason, you bring together, right? The genus and the differences to make the definition, or the major and the minor premise to make the what syllogism, right?

[15:05] Nor are the inquisitive of what the individual items that stand around the thing, right? But it has a sudden what judgment, huh? Subitum judicium. Now it happens that sometimes that according to a sudden grasp are not able to be known all the things which what bring about some difficulty and some activity, right?

[15:36] Whence there arises a motion of boldness to what approach the dangers, huh? But when one already experiences the danger, then they sense a greater what difficulty than they estimate, and therefore they what. They fail, fail, right? They start to weaken, huh?

[16:02] But reason, what, discusses right. All the things which bring somewhat difficulty to the negotiation, to the activity, and therefore the what brave, who from the judgment of reason into some dangerous things, in the beginning seem to be more what, remiss, right.

[16:31] Because not what I suppose, passionate, right, huh? But with the deliberation that is do the thing, right, the what, approach, right, agreement to, right. But when they are in the dangers themselves, they do not experience something that was unforeseen, right. But sometimes they are less than the things that they had what, taken into account, right, because they're talking about things that could happen and so on, right.

[17:09] And therefore they persist more, right, huh? Or also because on account of the good of what virtue itself, they take up dangerous things, right. And that the will of the good in them perseveres, right, no matter how great are the what, the dangers, right. But the bold, on account of their guess only, right, making hope, and excluding fear, so when they get into the thing and something they didn't foresee takes place, right, then they what, panic, right, yeah, yeah.

[18:03] Now to the first about trembling, the first therefore should be said that also in bold things, there happens what, trembling, right. On account of the calling back of heat from the exterior to the interior, right. That's because your your life is in danger, right? So the blood is drawn back from the outside to the inside, right? That's why you have what they call the the white fear, right, huh?

[18:34] Why if you're in danger of being embarrassed, right, huh? Which is an exterior thing, right? Then the blood rushes out to the thing, my face gets all red, and I'm embarrassed, right.

[18:49] So. But in the bold, the what, heat is recalled back, right, to the heart. And in those fearing, it descends to what the lower parts, right? Talked about that before.

[19:19] Now, what about this subjection? To the second, it should be said that the object of love is simply the what good. Whence, being increased, meaning being a greater good, right?

[19:40] Simply, it increases the what love. So, if I love something because it's beautiful, you make it more beautiful. Oh, I love it even more, right? Okay.

[19:57] But the object of boldness is composed from the. The good and the bad, right? And the motion of boldness in the bad presupposes the motion of hope in the what? Good. And therefore, if so much is added of difficulty to the danger that it exceeds hope, there does not follow a motion of audacity, but a what? Diminishing of it, right?

[20:33] But if there is what? Nevertheless, the emotion of boldness. The more there is danger, the more what? The boldness is what? Regarded, right? Huh? So, have Shakespeare saying that, right?

[20:51] You know, couldn't somebody saying you know? We're outnumbered by the French, or it is, right? You know, well then, all the more should be your what? Boldness, right? All the more should be your rising to the occasion, right? Huh? No. That team is better than our team. You know, they're really good. Let's watch them out there. You know. Well, then you got to play all the better, right?

[21:14] Huh? You know, so you rise up with more, more effort, right? Huh? To third, it should be said that from an injury is not caused anger unless there is some what? Hope, as will be said below in the treatise on anger, right? And therefore, if there is such so great a danger that exceeds the hope of victory, there does not follow what? Anger, right? But it does.

[21:45] But it is true that if anger follows, right? Then boldness will be increased, right? Huh? Okay. So, if I get angry with you, I'll be probably bolder, right? Unless I lose hope of avenging myself, right? Then I'll go down.

[22:08] Okay. Now. Would boldness um, it exists as a passion, but it also exists in the will? I suppose, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe the equivocal word, right? Yeah, put it out the bottom. Because when he talks about reason, kind of taking account of the dangers and thinking about them and thinking about what can happen, and going into the danger like that, it seems it's approaching more with the will and reason rather than simply.

[22:43] Yeah, he's talking more about virtue, right? But but it the virtue of of courage, say though, is is is in the body, right? But it's partaking of reason, right? There's something of just listening to reason, right? Mhm. I see, so I see, to talk about I see, in the one case, it's about the passion; the other is about the perfection. Yeah, yeah. Perfection. So to begin the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talked about, you know, the the part of the soul that is reason itself, right?

[23:11] And then the part that is not reason. And then he maybe subdivide that into one part that can listen to reason, right? And the other They can. Not, yeah. yeah. And that's what you know, moral virtue really is, right? It's partaking of reason, you know, in the passions, yeah, or even the will, right? Justice and so on.

[23:43] It's almost like saying, you know, what is essentially rational is more rational than what is rational by participation, right? But you know, if you listen to Mozart's music, right, that's the best example we have of the truth, or best sign of the truth that the emotions can partake of what reason. It's funny though. I was I was curious about Corelli a bit, you know, and I've almost all Corelli's music, right?

[24:15] So I was looking up another thing. I think I must be a little more about Corelli, you know. And so I typed in Corelli, you know, and it comes up all these things, you know. We keep what's the thing? We've been doing. Yes, yes. Well, I'll skip that if I can to get it more reliable. So I went to another one there, and it's really, you know, introduced me to this Baroque treasures they have there, right?

[24:40] And so they're beautiful. Really beautiful, the pictures they have sometimes in there. But you go to one of them, and they've got you know a view of the whole Baroque period, you know, St. German, Montaigne, and so on. Give the whole history of it, and then they had one where they had all the principal Baroque composers. And I hit upon them with the corelli you see, one of the principal ones.

[25:05] But they have you know Corelli and Bach and Handel and so on, all the great guys, But even Gemniani and people of that sort, you know. And they have a

[25:18] little biographical sketch of them, you know, and then they have some little snippets from his pieces, right? Then they have another one, but they actually have whole pieces, right? And you know, beautiful, beautiful thing set up, you know. There's a lot of free music you don't know, but the Baroque represents the emotions, right? Sharing and reason, right? And Mozart's music is the same, and so you realize that you know there was something real to what Plato and Aristotle said that there was a part of the soul that can partake of reason, right?

[25:54] I remember when I was first, you know, listening intensely to music of Mozart, and I come in and talk about it with my Kasurik, you know, and he'd say, Duane, you think that's more understandable than it is, right? You know, because you know the music sounds reasonable, but you can't exactly see what the reason is, right? You know what I mean? Except in very general terms, right?

[26:17] You realize it's reasonable by participation, right? It's not, it's not thought, right? But it's partaking of thought of reason, and that's why I think, you know, I'm very suspicious of a philosopher who doesn't like Mozart and the Baroque, right?

[26:42] You know, I remember reading an article in the Worcester paper there about some professor, philosopher at Clark University, and he's all into jazz, and

[26:51] he can't be a good. I mean, I support the Czechoslovaks there, you know, and he's got Mozart's piano concertos on, you know, and so on, and uh and uh the Kasurik thought Mozart was a separated substance, you know, an angelic doctor of music so to speak doctor of music, so to speak, and uh, Monsignor Dionne had the same opinion, you know, and so on. But uh, uh...

[27:22] You know, Wagner's music is, of course, you know, very irrational, right? And it moves people to. To irrational action, yeah. And I remember when my cousin was in the Navy there, right, and he was down Newport, where at that time they still had a Navy base there in Newport, and this was the time when rock and roll was going, you know, and we played this crazy rock and roll thing, and the people were picking up these collapsible chairs and fought.

[27:52] You never did it. Did he hit one of these? None of those chairs would fold up. You know, right? We're fighting with those things.

[28:04] You would never, and then sometimes you see these riots at these rock concerts too, you know. Well, it's it's not making people reasonable, right? It's making them unreasonable. And it was Jewish um, Conner. Stern. is the last name, I'm trying to remember his first name. Carl Carl Stern. He his, his parents were in the music. He was German. They loved music, and he he mentions in his biography, autobiography, how when they came out of a Mozart concert, that they were full of energy and joy, and they felt strength, and when they came out of a Wagner concert.

[28:44] they were like drained. They felt drained, and it was very striking to see that. My teacher, my teacher, certainly said you know, the romantic music it tears you out. He says, you know.

[28:58] Did you know that Carl Stern was a professor of and inspiration to Bernard Nathanson? Actually, although the influence was subtle and sort of blossomed over time it helped in his conversion. And just depression.

[29:18] I know said too, you know, I've been studying, say, Thomas, you know, I can go into Mozart, you know, and the transition is there's no shock in transition, you know. It's not this sort of rock and roll stuff. you just, you know, it's opposed. And uh, I often think a little bit though what Aristotle says, huh? When he's comparing or contrasting reason with the senses, right? And the way in which they're being acted upon by their object, right?

[29:45] And the senses, because they are in a bodily organ, right? When they're acted upon by an object that is too strong, they're kind of what weakened, right? And so you know, if you taste something, you know, that's very hot, you know, something like that. you know can't taste anything afterwards for a while, right? And you you know somebody shines a bright light on you in your face, you're kind of you know you know blinded, right?

[30:10] And but he says in the case of reason, you understand something very understandable. You turn to something less understandable, you can understand it better, right? And you could apply that even to going from what philosophy, good philosophy, to music, right? Huh? You can recognize the music that is reasonable, right? If you have considered things that are very reasonable, right? huh? And so, when this guy Clark, there is.

[30:43] listening to jazz, right? Now I know other philosophers who are into jazz. that's their, That's their thing, you know. They're not. I know right away they're not a good philosopher, right? You know.

[30:55] So I mean, you interview somebody for position and assumption, you know. You know, I got a question, what kind of music do you listen to? It's kind of like if somebody tells you.

[31:06] I used to always ask him, you know, also whether you know, do you prefer beer or wine? You know, the guy prefers beer, but then there's something wrong.

[31:16] It's not true So true. Yeah I also, you know, coffee or tea? That used to be to get them. But uh, I I I used to joke, you know, this, you know, Hegel drank, you know, coffee, you know, you know, great excess, you know, huh? Gets them going, you know, like that, you know. The kind of practical man gets going by by coffee, right? Huh? You know.

[31:39] Uh, what's the name of that coffee place there. You know. Starbucks. No, they don't. Yeah, yeah. America runs on you know what their coffee is. That's that's an advertisement story. Actually, it's a long time. Or Sammy Johnson drank tea, you know. Mm-hmm. I was gonna say 40 cups a day, but they're 40 full cups. The firm that I used to work at ended up becoming a sweatshop, and they ended up changing the coffee coffee service that they provided for us for free.

[32:17] They upgraded us to Starbucks to the really high octane Starbucks. So everybody's walking around the office on fire. This is a lot. says a lot.

[32:36] So I don't have too much time here. Let's just look at the premium here, at least, anger, right? So. This is the last one, right? It's in 46.

[32:47] Well, I know 47 is about anger too, yeah. 48. This last passion taken up here it's going to be 46, 47. Okay. Then we ought to consider about anger, huh? And first about anger, secundum se, huh? In itself or by itself, right, huh?

[33:14] Secondly, about the cause that is that makes anger, right? And the remedy of that what cause, huh? I guess that'd be the next question, right? Forty-seven, right? And then third about its what effect, right? This is the way he divided the treatise on what love, right, huh? He had a question on love itself or by itself, right? And then the causes of love, and then the like effect of love, right?

[33:50] Okay. Now about the first eight things are asked: whether anger is a what special passion, right? Okay. Because some people think it's a composed passion, right? And maybe some truth to that. That's the thing. But you don't remember a question like that in the other ones, right? But that's perhaps part of the reason why anger is taken up what? Yeah, because it, you know, in some way composed, maybe right, or there's some truth anyway.

[34:28] Second, whether the object of anger is the good or the bad? That's a very fundamental question, right, huh? But it is questionable which it is.

[34:45] Strange. Whether anger is in the concupiscible? Well, strange that he should be asking that at this late date, right? That was in the distinction before, right?

[34:58] Fourth, whether anger is with reason. Okay. Now it's interesting the gospel. And sometimes in the gospel, Christ is said to be what angry at the hardness of their hearts, right? They seem to be so immovable, right, huh? In their in their hardness of their hearts.

[35:29] Five. Whether anger is what more natural, would you say. That's strange. Remember, you know the the metaphor of Shakespeare, right? Where he says they are in the very wrath of love. Well, because anger is like concupiscence, right, and being what vehement, right, huh? Okay. They're in the very wrath of love. Clubs cannot part them. Okay. And of course, when Thomas takes up the the virtues at length in the Secundae, Secundae, right, he takes up them according to the what four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues, right?

[36:17] And other virtues are attached to consideration of one of these, huh? And so they attach to them because they have a likeness in their mode, right? So anger, I mean mildness, which is the virtue that moderates anger, is attached to what temperance, which moderates what Concupiscence, right? Okay. And because we're dealing with two strong emotions, one of which what they both of which can urge us to do something that's wrong, right?

[36:52] And therefore, they both are need chiefly of moderation, right? Okay. In the case of courage, it's not so much moderation because you're kind of, you know you gotta be strengthened, right? Huh? Okay. This is very interesting, huh? Which is more natural? It seems so strange. Six, whether anger is more grave than what? Hate. Hate, yeah. Of course, I guess when they say that the difference between hurting somebody because you're angry with them and because you hate them, right?

[37:28] Anger, you're more apt to what stop and get to a certain point because you've achieved your yeah, but hate you just go into it, right? Huh? You know. And I think Thomas talks about that when talking about the Jews there in regard to the you know crucify him, right? Crucify him, right? There's a real what? Hate. Why? Why? There's some evidence in the text there that Pilate wants to kind of release our Lord because he finds nothing really wrong to speak in the Lord, and he's going kind of crazy about it, so he's gonna have him you know whipped and so on, and then they see how pitiful he looks, they say, well, they would be satisfied.

[38:10] Well, if they're angry, they might be, right? You know. You see, In other words, you bloody somebody's nose, and that's, you don't go any further than that, right? You see, coming out his nose, you know, you find your anger subsides, right? Huh? You know, but hate, you know, you're gonna crucify the guy, right?

[38:32] So, So is it better to have somebody angry with you than someone hating you, huh? Okay. Seven, whether anger is only towards those to whom there is what justice, right? Huh? Because the angry man seems to hear reason a bit right now. You deserve to be punished, right?

[39:01] And then, about the species of anger. They have got the species of anger, right? This case is as amazing as Euclid of Alexandria, right? One theorem after another. The guy figured this out. It proves beautiful, and you can follow without too much difficulty. Just beautiful, you know. But like my brother Mark would say, You know, why didn't I think of that? Why did you think of that?

[39:34] You know, the great geometers think of that. You know, this is Thomas, you know. It becomes clearer to read and reread Thomas, you know. But how did he think of all these things? We just we're just

[39:53] following him. No, yeah. But you know Aristotle, you know when he reads the guys before him, right? He reads them very carefully, right? And he recalls what they said, right? And if he disagrees with that, you know, he he gives a reason why he disagrees with that. And if he brings out their reason, you know, why they thought what they did, he he'll answer that argument, you know, that they have, right?

[40:26] He probably gave the physics there, you know, he disagrees with Melissus and so on, and he considers both the falseness of their position and the reason they gave for it. Why it's not good? What the defect in the reason is? And come on, falseness don't do that at all. They hardly even recall that that their predecessors said something different than what they're saying. Let alone they don't recall the reason they gave what they said.

[40:55] They don't give a reason against the position of the earlier thinkers, or make any attempt to show away the arguments that they gave. You know, as Thomas said about the Latin Averroes they they speak as if wisdom began with them, right? In Berkeley,

[41:18] you know, as a kind of illusion, he's talking the difficulty their mind has. And he says in the Principia, he says some say it's due to the obscurity of things or the weakness of our mind. But I think it is because we insist upon certain principles we shouldn't insist upon. Well, Aristotle he talks about the difficulty in knowing, right? He says sometimes it's on the side of what we're trying to know, right?

[41:48] Sometimes it's on the side of our what mind, right? So the difficulty in knowing what motion is or what time is or what matter is is a difficulty due to the thing itself, right? Because motion and time and even matter hardly exist, right? But the difficulty in knowing God, Aristotle says, is an account of weakness of our mind, right? He's too knowable for our mind.

[42:17] And when Thomas, you know, comments in that text, he says, well, the difficulty can be either due to the object or to the doer, right? And you can apply this to other things besides knowing, right? So he says some things are difficult to love, right? And some, you know, are difficult to love because they're not very good. So I used to take, you know, an obvious example.

[42:44] It's difficult to love cancer, you know. Is that a fault in your heart that you just can't love it? You have no love for it, you know. Um, they're the difficulty because the object, okay. But now it's difficult to love the common good, you know. Difficult to love God, right? And if these things are very good, right? God is most good, right? But then the difficulty must be in you, you know.

[43:17] So that's a beautiful distinction, right? But how you lose to, you know, some have thought, you know, that there was difficulty due to the obscurity of things and the weakness of our mind. But I think, think, son, that there's principles we insisted upon, right? And so on. I said, well, if we insisted upon certain principles, we should not have insisted upon is not a sign of weakness of our mind.

[43:42] You know, I just realized right away there's a there's something questionable about the way he's proceeding, right? But he's not really recalling why Aristotle said this, right? Was he giving any reason against that being the cause of what our error, right? See, if you have a hard time lifting something, right, can be because the thing is too heavy, or because you are what, palsy of old age, you know.

[44:10] So I'm not as good now at lifting heavy things as I was when I was younger, right? You know, and don't like, you know, running around with suitcases there in the airport or something. You know, the things wouldn't have maybe bothered me when I was twenty years younger or something. You know. So that's that's really a kind of fundamental distinction, you know Because in the object or in in the.

[44:36] You know, if we turn the lights off here, you know, and make it a little dark in here, I'd have a hard time what seeing you, right? But then the difficulty would be in what the thing. They're saying what? Not as

[44:54] light, right? See, but if you you know put one of these lights right in front of me, you know, and cut this, you know, I wouldn't even know who's interrogating me, right? You know I think a bunch of people. And we say, well, if it's light that makes things visible, right? then it's due to the weakness of my mind that I can't stand this what bright light, huh?

[45:16] So that's what the moderns do, right? You know, Santayana on a moment of truthfulness, said today he says we no longer bother to refute our predecessors. We just wave them goodbye.

[45:40] Well, even you know, even Rush Limbaugh, you know, is no philosopher, right? But you know, he's thinking very nicely of the new pope, right? And you know how people don't want to consider the reasons for you know being opposed to abortion, being opposed to contraception, being opposed to homosexual marriage, right, and so on. You know, that's the past, right? You know, and you know, you know, how is it going to appeal to young people now who are in favor of of these things?

[46:12] You know, and but we no longer bother to refute our predecessors; and just wave them goodbye? That's the past. It's it's. I was in Shakespeare's *Troilus and Cressida*, right? You know, that's the the best

[46:34] criticism of fashion, the force of fashion, right? Really, really beautiful, beautiful critique of fashion and the danger of it. Right. Was it Lettice? He said, "Well, if

[46:54] our theories don't meet the facts, it's just too bad for the facts." The thing I always notice when I study a modern philosopher, I never had the impression that I was learning about things from him. You know, I'm learning about him, right? You know, when I when I read Euclid, you know, I think I'm really learning about angles and figures and things and very interesting things, right?

[47:37] And when I read Aristotle, I'm learning about whatever he's talking about, right? But when I read Kant or you know Berkeley or Hegel, you know, I'm learning about what he thought, you know, but not not about things at all. I still have the impression of you. The impression that you're doing that. Strange, strange. I mean, when I read a you know good modern scientist, I have the impression I'm learning something about things, right?

[48:06] He's teaching me some things about things I didn't know about, you know. And *La matière, la lumière* by Louis de Broglie. That's a beautiful book. *La matière, la lumière*. Matter and light. Beautiful book.

[48:29] But I don't have the impression of the modern philosophers at all. That's about the end of this class. I saw a little text there from the *new Pope, you know, huh? There's, some publication, you know, one of my sources there, you know. My wife sent it to us. And kind of interesting, you know. He's talking about this wonder, you know, and so wonders being, you know, you know, again.

[49:11] But you know, I find more wonder than modern scientists like Heisenberg, you know, and so on, than I do in the modern philosophers, right? Kind of real. The Greeks are much

[49:28] closer to the modern scientists, and modern scientists are closer to the Greeks, you know, than the modern philosophers, right? It's very, very strange stuff.

[49:39] It seems a huge problem. We have a culture where young people are—they're schooled but they're not educated. Yeah. And so they're sort of educated in unreality or schooled in unreality. And how do you turn the tide back to right reason and? It seems like you've got all these instances of the emperor has no clothes, where you're you're getting deeper and deeper in reality, weird ideology and stuff like that, and things don't seem to work well.

[50:12] Things get messed up, families fall apart, people fall apart. But just I'm always curious, how can what can be done to reverse the tide within the academic world? This weird slippery slope slide that we're going down now. No, no, because there's so few good schools, right? Yeah, I was. They were saying in recently in the news there that was it 80 percent of high school graduates in New York City can't read.

[50:41] Just read that bad. I know it's bad, and you know it just probably get worse with these computers too with these computers too. You see people coming out of the elite schools who are exceptionally intelligent, but they've been indoctrinated. Yeah. And reason is just they're impervious to it, and yet they have analytical minds that could use reason most incredibly well if they could reason rightly in certain things.

[51:11] They can certain technical areas, but then in more philosophical areas, they're they're they're blinded in a way. It's weird. kind of.