Prima Secundae
135. Summa I-II q.57: Order of the Virtues, Speculative Habits as Virtues, and Understanding, Science and Wisdom
Class of 2013-10-17
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/135-summa-i-ii-q-57-order-of-the-virtues-speculative-habits-as/

[0:00] Father, Son, 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, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. So we're up to question fifty-seven here, and let's look at the little premium here.

[0:39] Then we're not to consider about the distinction of the virtues. This is divided into what three, right? And first, as regards the intellectual virtues, or the virtues of what reason, right? Tend to want to avoid the word intellectual because it's a pejorative word in my vocabulary. You don't have to be intellectual. Second, as regards the what morals, right? Third, as regards the theological virtues, huh?

[1:15] So, now that order strikes me as a little bit strange at first sight, right? Because we're in theology, right? And in theology, everything is referred to God, right? So why doesn't he begin with the theological virtues, right? It's third, right? If you compare that with the secunda secunde, where he takes up the virtues in detail, he takes up the theological virtues first, and then the four cardinal virtues and the virtues attached to each of them, right?

[1:51] Second, right, huh? So it's just the reverse order that you have here, right? And seems like not proper to the theological order, right? Okay. I think you've got to understand that the

[2:07] theological order is not followed everywhere in a kind of simple way, right? Sometimes there seems to be a little variation, right? Okay. It's not the next Kantian way of naming things, but a little bit like that, right? Okay. I'm struck by this, like when you take the the road in natural philosophy and the road in wisdom, which are to some extent what contrary, right? Huh? The road in natural philosophy is from the general to the particular, and it's towards matter down into matter, right?

[2:46] So as you go from the eight books of natural hearing, right, to the book on the universe, and then the books of generation, corruption, and the books and minerals and so on, you're going from the general down to the particular. But you're also going down deeper into what matter, right? And then when you start the De Anima again, right? where you consider the soul in a kind of abstraction from matter, but not a complete one, because it has to be defined as the form or first act of an actual body, equipped with tools.

[3:18] You as you go from that to the intermediary works, you know, like the sense and sensible and memory and reminiscence, and then down to the history of animals and the generation of animals and so on, parts of animals. You're going again, what, from the general to particular, but also down towards what matter, right? Now, what do you do in wisdom, right?

[3:43] Well, you go towards the immaterial, as much said, right? And to some extent, you're going from the less universal to the more universal. This is especially clear in the ninth book of wisdom, which is the book on act and ability, right? Where he begins with the act that is motion and the ability for motion, and then the second part of book nine, he talks about act universally, in which case you find out other kinds of ability besides the ability for motion, the ability to move something or to be moved, right?

[4:17] The ability for form and so on, ability to think and so on, and something like that with substance, right? You deal with material substance in books seven and eight mainly, but you come to a kind of a general understanding of substance, and then later on you can talk about the immaterial substances. And even the case of the one, which is the subject of wisdom of being, you kind of have to ascend from the what one that is convertible with number, right?

[4:46] I mean, I mean, not convertible with number right. One is the beginning of number, right? To the one that is convertible with being, right? And that's a hard thing to ascend from that, right? And when Thomas points out how both Plato and Aristotle, two of the greatest minds we've had, are both, yeah, quite distinguished there, right? They attribute to one what the other one, has, huh? And okay, I think that's a big contrast between wisdom and what natural philosophy, right?

[5:18] One's going down deep into matter, right? Huh? Usque ad elementa, as it says in the Latin in the premium, and from the general to the particular, and here it's going just the reverse, right?

[5:31] But then when I I read, let's say, the eight books of natural hearing, which is the most general part of natural philosophy, you go from motion and what's tied with motion, like place and time, and the divisions of kinds of motion, so on. You go from motion towards the what mover, right? But first the moved mover, and then towards the unmoved mover, finding the eighth book, and the unmoved mover is shown to be not a body, right?

[6:01] So in a way you're going towards the immaterial, right? See, does that contradict what you're doing in natural philosophy as a whole? But it's very striking, right? And we always point to this as one thing you have to know to even realize there are things that are immaterial, right? Okay. Now the other place where you realize there's something immaterial is when you talk about the immortality and soul, right?

[6:24] But again, when Aristotle takes up the soul, he takes up first the living soul, which the plant has, right? And then he takes up the sensing soul, which the animal has, right? And lastly, he takes up the understanding soul. But as you move from the plant to the animal, which has still some immateriality in the sense its knowing involves a kind of immateriality, and you get to the understanding soul, which is can exist, you know, even after the death of the body, right?

[6:55] You're in a way going towards the immaterial, and this is the second main place where you're you're going to see that there is something besides the material world, right? And so you say, well, you've got to be careful, right? So even though you see it as a whole, what you're doing is going from the what general to particular and towards matter, but doesn't mean that every single thing you're doing it, right?

[7:19] Aristotle, even in the De Anima, you know, he used to always note this passage here where he he manifests something about the senses through the understanding. Generally, he does the reverse, right? You know, you first see that sensing is undergoing, and then later on, the reason is undergoing too, right? But sometimes, you know, it doesn't mean that in every little bit you do it, right? So you kind of kind of see a reason why he does what he does, right?

[7:48] In my favorite book, the Summa Contra Gentiles right. Well, very very much so. You're considering everything in reference to God, right? God is the God in Himself, and then God is the beginning of things, then God is the end, right? But he does that twice, huh? First, as regards what you can know about those three things by reason, a natural reason as well as by faith, and then in the fourth book, what you can know about God in these three ways only by faith, right?

[8:16] The Trinity and the Incarnation and so on, last things. So, or likewise when you take up geometry right geometry, right? What does geometry do? Well, you look at geometry as a whole. It's a plane geometry followed by solid geometry. Was that general and particular? Not exactly, because the circle is not a what particular kind of the sphere is not a particular kind of circle, is it? And the cube is not a particular kind of square.

[8:45] But you know, when Euclid begins the the sphere, he says, imagine a circle and the diameter of the circle, and rotating it around its diameter, and you get a sphere. And then you get to the what cube? You got six what squares and so on, right? So you see, as a whole, what is geometry doing? It's not going from the general to the particular, but from the simple to the what?

[9:10] Composed. You look at even the definitions in the first book: definition of point, definition of the line, definition of angle, definition of figures. Right? You're going from the simple to composed, right? Okay. But yeah, if you look at say the first theorem in Euclid, where he's trying to cut a or first couple of theorems, I should say, where he's trying to cut a what line equal to a given line, right?

[9:38] How does he do it? Well, he first of all talks about how he constructs an equilateral triangle, right, by drawing these two circles. So in a way, you're knowing the the line, which is simpler, right, to something more composed, right? So I don't think that destroys what you say in general about it, but you've got to not be too fanatical about saying that there's no what exception. to it, or something like that, right?

[10:02] Okay. Okay. Now, why does he take up the virtues of reason and the moral virtues before the theological virtues here, right? Because as a whole, he doesn't do that at all in the long part there in the Secunda Secundae, right? Where he takes up the three theological virtues before the cardinal virtues, you know, which involve both of these, right? Why? I say, you know, well maybe it's a little bit of what condescension to our need to go from what is more known to what is less known, right?

[10:43] So the virtues of reason and the moral virtues are more known to us than the theological virtues, right? So when he gets down to details, he reverses the order, right? That's one thing it's saying right?

[10:59] now, setting aside that problem, just look at the first two, right? He takes up the distinction of intellectual virtues before the moral virtues, right? And what does Aristotle do in the Ethics, right? Yeah, the books three through what? Well, actually, two, two through five are about the moral virtues, and in book six is the intellectual virtues. So that's a second puzzling thing here, right?

[11:29] But there's something like all the virtues of reason in God, but in a superior way. But in terms of the moral virtues, is there something like liberality with money or like temperance, right, with food and drink in God? No, see. So the virtues of reason, right, are more like God, right, what is found in God, right, than are the what? Many of the moral virtues, right, not all, right.

[12:01] So maybe there's a little bit of a logical order there, right? And you can see, like when he takes up the cardinal virtues in the Secunda Secundae he takes up prudence first, right, and then what? Justice, right, and which both of which are found in God, but in a higher way, right? Just distributive justice, as we say, no commutative justice. And then he takes up what? Fortitude and temperance, right?

[12:27] Well Aristotle takes up fortitude and temperance in the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics, and doesn't take up justice until the fifth book, and then prudence is taken up in the sixth book, right? But again, prudence and justice are more divine than courage, right, and temperance, right. So we'll say, you know, that properly speaking, there's foresight in God, right? Properly speaking, there's justice in God, right? There's no fortitude in God, properly speaking, but there's metaphorically he's said to be strong, right?

[13:02] By temperance, right? He's sober, chaste, and then even metaphorically, doesn't seem to be, you know, instead of God, right? Huh? You know, we wouldn't call God chaste, right? You know, you know, or sober? Would you say? You know, it doesn't get drunk. or something. It doesn't even seem to be appropriate, right? So you see how he's following the order there, right? And so it's more proper here to start with the virtues of reason, right?

[13:30] In the science we're talking about God, right? But maybe also the virtues of reason are a little not as numerous, right? And basically he's going to be talking here about what five of them, right? Huh? In the same five that Aristotle distinguishes at the beginning of the sixth book, you know.

[13:51] So we'll let him get away with this, huh? Wait for the next edition to come out. I know it's like in my favorite book, the Summa Contra Gentiles, he takes up, you know, the human soul before he takes up the separated substances, right? which is opposite of the order in the what Summa Theologiae, he takes up the angels before the soul, right? But actually, in the summa contra gentiles, there's three sections there.

[14:26] One is about the understanding substance, right? And we're coming to that, right, as well as the angels, and then he takes up the more particularly begins with the our understanding substance, right, and goes to the angels, right? But you had that general consideration before, so that kind of gives him a little leeway to to do that now. Okay. Now about the first six things are asked about the virtues of reason itself, huh?

[15:01] First, whether the intellectual habits of the speculative understanding are virtues, right? Now, what's the distinction between speculative reason and and practical reason, right? How do they differ? The two different powers in us.

[15:26] Yeah, by their end. Yeah, yeah. Because the end of the speculative is just to what? To know, to know the truth, right? But the end of the practical is the making or doing of something, right? Okay.

[15:40] Of course, it's especially the speculative ones that seem to be like God, right? Of course, the famous thing there when he says to Martha and Mary, says to Martha, you know, Mary has chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken away from her, but she has chosen the speculative or contemplative life, right? Martha has chosen the practical, well, the practical one will come to an end with this world, right?

[16:03] And the speculative will continue and be perfected the next. So she has chosen the better part, and it's not to take away with her, because it's going to be continued the next, huh? Okay. So if you spent your life here making houses and chairs and tables, you won't be doing that in the next world, right? Okay. But if you spend your time thinking about God, well, you are going to be even more so.

[16:25] Maybe you'll be absorbed in him, right? It's funny how we get so much attention, you know, in heaven, you know, when they're thinking, they're seeing God face. How do you get their attention?

[16:38] You know. There is an answer to that, but I mean, it's going to be a problem there, right? Okay. So that's kind of a general question about the speculative virtues, right? Are habits right? Are they virtues, right? We saw before how he spoke of a way in which foresight is more a virtue than what than geometry is, right? Remember that. Well, he's speaking of how a virtue in the fullest sense not only makes you capable of a good act, but inclines you to use it well, right?

[17:17] Well, foresight presupposes this what rectitude of the appetite by the moral virtues, right? And without that, you can't have foresight, right? And then he says the same thing about faith, right? Huh? Faith is a virtue, right? Huh? Because it's moved by the the will, which is always according Augustine, no one believes unless he wills to do so, right? So you can see why he has that question there at first, right?

[17:49] And then whether there are three, to wit, wisdom, science or reasoned out knowledge and understanding, huh? Try to call it natural understanding, right? But just like Aristotle calls it nous, right? Thomas calls it intellectus, right? What you understand without having to what reason it out right you understand without having to what reason it out, right?

[18:16] Third, whether the intellectual habit, which is art, is a what virtue, right? I mean, it's the same question there that we had about the speculative ones, right? Because it doesn't require rectitude of what appetite, right? So I can be a good cook and still be a glutton, right, or something, okay? And

[18:39] then whether prudence or foresight is a virtue distinct from art, right? He doesn't ask whether it's a what virtue, but it's distinct virtue. Yeah, Because it i it's kind of virtue in the full sense, right?

[18:55] When you speak of the cardinal virtues, they're all virtues in the fullest sense of virtue, right? But he merely asks a different question: whether it's a virtue distinct from art, right? Well, this is the old famous distinction between doing and what making, right?

[19:14] We've talked about that use of words before, right? So, in a sense, making something is doing something, but not every doing is a making, right? And the reason why making gets a new name is because it's a product, but in the doing, the other activity of doing, there's no product, right? So it just keeps the name doing, and then one gets a new name making. It's one way of understanding that.

[19:43] And then, with a foresight, is a virtue necessary to man? Well, somebody has. It's interesting that he asked that, right? Doesn't ask that about sapientia scientia, intellectus, even though they're very high virtues, huh? But you got to live, right? And you need foresight to direct you, right?

[20:09] You don't have to be a geometer, right? To be saved, but you need some kind of foresight. And six, well, we'll have to pass until we get there, right? With the eubulia synesis, and gnome sunt virtutes adjunctae prudentiae But eubulia is good counsel, right? And synesis and gnome are two kinds of what? Judgment, right? But the main thing in prudence is what? Command, right?

[20:38] My brother Mark, you know, when you hear about this, I think there are three things. You got to take counsel, right? And you got to decide what to do, right? Judgment, and then finally, you got to. He and his two friends here in Quebec, you know, one of the guys was very imaginative, could think of all kinds of things to do, but he had no judgment as which one he should do.

[20:59] So he had eubulia, right? And then my brother Mark, he had judgment, which thing you should do, right? But he's kind of lackadaisical and so on. And the other guy was like, go, go guy, you know. So he was the command guy, right? So they divided the three parts of prudence among themselves. He said, Yeah. So they had to be together to do the prudent thing. Yeah, yeah.

[21:23] That's beautiful, though it does because it makes you think of the three things you know that you have to you have to have, right? What does Augustine say? He decided to become good, didn't he, or convert or something, but not quite yet, you know. See, he's got the good judgment, but he doesn't get up and you know you know throw away that get rid of that woman anyway.

[21:43] Okay. To the first end, one goes forward thus. It seems that the intellectual habits are speculative. Speculative is a Latin word. The Greek word is what? Theoretical. So sometimes in texts you see theoretical philosophy or theoretical reason, speculative reason or speculative philosophy. But the English word is what? Looking. Yeah, that's what the word means. Okay. So I call I shock you by calling it looking philosophy, right?

[22:15] I mean, that's speak English, right? But in Latin you say speculative and Greek theoretical. That's why I like the word theorem, right? In Euclid, right? You kind of you know speak of you know forty-eight propositions in Book One, right? But that's kind of misleading thing because proposition is is taken from the Greek word prothesis right? Which he proposes what he's going to prove at the beginning of each one of these, right?

[22:42] But actually, what you have here is something to look at, and that's why I like the word theorem, right? A theorem is something to look at.

[22:51] Interesting. Look at these things that he has. Okay. So the first end one goes forward thus. It seems that the speculative or looking. Intellectual habits are not what virtues, right?

[23:08] For virtue is a habitus operativus, a habit that does something, right? But the speculative habits do not do anything. For they are distinguished, the speculative is distinguished from the practical, that is from the one that is operative, right? And therefore, intellectual habits, speculative habits, are not what virtues, right? Theorists don't do anything. I had a colleague, you know, who was married, and if he's sitting in the living room there reading a book, you know, as long as he's he's reading the book, his wife realizes she shouldn't interrupt him, right?

[23:50] Huh? But when he stops and kind of leans back, then she can come in through his mouth. Because that's that's the time you're kind of trying to absorb what you read, right? You're thinking about it. This is this is this is the culmination of what you read, right? And she comes in, you know, he's not doing anything, you know, now. So he's reading, you know, you know.

[24:09] People are kind of funny the way they are. My mother did the same thing to me when I visited with her one time, and I was reading some. I don't know what I was reading, and I thought she was napping. We were sitting in big armchairs next to, and I was reading, and exactly, I'm looking up and I'm thinking to myself, and that's when she comes right in.

[24:35] What are you doing? What are you talking about? What are you thinking about? Moreover, virtue is of those things through which a man becomes happy, right, or blessed, right. Felix, by the way, comes from the Latin word for what fruitful, right? So, happy life is a fruitful life. It's kind of interesting. Another way of saying it's enjoyable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the fruit of your activity, right?

[25:06] Now, what I like about the word fruit is the fruit is is a the apple, whatever it may be, is a natural result of a what activity, right? Of the plant and so on, and happiness is a natural result of virtuous activity, right? So felicitas, is the reward of what virtue, right? So it's not that virtue is its own reward, but anyway, it does bring its own reward, right?

[25:31] So Thomas says virtue is the road to happiness, and vice is the road to misery. You can see that latter statement in the newspaper every day, right? Someone who was, you know, not on the road, he's actually reached misery, right, due to his particular vice.

[25:53] But intellectual habits do not consider human acts, but other human goods, huh? Through which man obtains what Beatitude, right? But more natural things and what divine things, right? So Aristotle calls theology divine, right? But it's not divine in the way that our theology is, but still about God, right, in some way. So in the sixth book of the metaphysics, right, he calls it theology, right? But we have to show that our science has more right to name theology than this does.

[26:34] Therefore, habits of this sort cannot be called what virtues. It's not about human acts or by which we achieve our happiness, right? So if happiness is the reward of virtue, how can this be? Moreover, scientia is a speculative habit, right? But science and virtue are distinguished as diverse genera, and not one under the other, right? As is clear through the philosopher himself in the fourth book of places.

[27:08] It's the book on dialectical reasoning. Therefore, the speculative habits are not what virtues So you're convinced, huh? For the time being. But against this is that only speculative habits consider necessary things, huh? Which are unable to be what other than they are, right? But the philosopher lays in the sixth book, lays down the sixth book of the ethics. Certain intellectual virtues in the part of the soul which considers necessary things, which cannot be what otherwise.

[27:46] huh? Supposed to foresight, right? We get, you know, necessarily soul, right? And even art, there we can do a different way. Therefore, the intellectual speculative habits are what Virtues, huh?

[28:07] I answer: It should be said that since every virtue is said in order to the what good, right? As has been said above. For a twofold reason, some habit is said to be a virtue, as has also been said above, right? In one way, because it makes the ability for what doing well, right? And another way, because with or in addition to the ability, it makes also one use that ability well, right?

[28:44] And this, as has been said above, pertains only to those habits which regard the what desiring part of the soul, right? In that the desiring power of the soul is what makes us what use all the powers and what habits that we have, right? So was it Voltaire supposed to have looked at the objections in the Summa, you know, so he could, you know? Do them against unsuspecting Catholics, you know, and things they couldn't answer, right?

[29:16] Well, he's let's say misusing, huh? Summa. Since, therefore, the speculative intellectual habits do not perfect the desiring power, nor do they in some way what regard it, but only the intellectual part.

[29:38] They're able to be called virtues in so far as they make for the what ability of good operation, right? Which is the consideration of the true. For this indeed is the what good work of the understanding, right? But however, they are not said to be virtues in the second way, as making one use well, right? The Power or the what habit, huh? Okay.

[30:08] So I can use my my speculative knowledge to deceive my students, right, huh? And actually convince them, you know, that the what that the whole is not always more than the part, right? And I told you I was teaching Hegel, you know. The fun of it, I in one of my lectures, I was showing that the Hegelian method is superior to Aristotle's syllogism. And I walked out, and the student was kind of walking along with me, and he says, "Gee, that was really a great lecture, Mister Burquist, and and someone finally found something better than the syllogism."

[30:41] So I got to go back and drop these on Zulus, yeah. Yeah. I was not really as perverse as I may sound, you know. I was really trying to convince him the whole is not always greater than the part. I wasn't that convincing, but anyway. For from this that someone has the habit of speculative science, he is not inclined to what using it, right? But he becomes able to look at the true in those things which he has a what, yeah.

[31:19] But that he uses the knowledge had, this is by the will moving, right? And therefore, virtue which perfects the will as charity, huh, which is in the will, or justice, right, which is in the will. That's why they say you can have justice properly speaking, in God, because he has will, right? But courage and what temperance are properly in the irascible and the concupiscible appetite, and God doesn't have those emotions, right?

[31:47] He's not an emotional guy, right? Ah, well, habits like charity and justice they make one to use well these what speculative habits, right? And according to this, also in the acts of these habits there can be merit if they come to be from what charity, right, huh? Just as Gregory says in the sixth book of Moralia huh? Okay. And notice what he said the contemplative is of greater merit than the active.

[32:22] That's the way you say that, right? Because he's quite the man in moral philosophy, right? Moral Theology. Okay. So we saw, met the distinction before when he spoke about that there could be virtues in reason. Remember that he made the same distinction there, didn't he? when he talked about how foresight or prudence could be a virtue in the full sense, but not art or some other ones, right?

[32:48] Or faith itself can be a virtue, right, in the full sense, huh? Now, to the first thing there about not being operative. To the first, therefore, it should be said that twofold is one's what work or doing. Exterior and interior, right? The practical, therefore, or the operative, which is divided against the speculative, is taken from the exterior work, right? To which the speculative habit has no what order, right?

[33:23] But nevertheless, it has an order to the interior work of the understanding, which is to look at the what true to consider the true, right?

[33:36] And according to this, it is a what operative habit, right? Okay, so that's not too hard to see the answer to that first objection, right?

[33:46] To the second, it should be said that virtue is of some things in two ways. In one way, as objects, right? And thus, what speculative virtues of this sort are not of those things to which man becomes blessed, right? Except perhaps, according as through says the what cause or the object of complete beatitude, which is God, who is summum speculabile, right? How do you translate summum speculabile?

[34:21] Huh? He's to be looked at, right? Most of all, right? That's the interesting thing, summum speculabile. How do they translate that in English? The summum speculabile. Supreme object of contemplation. Yeah, that's okay.

[34:41] In another way, virtue is said to be of some things as of acts, right? And in this way, the what? Intellectual virtues are of those things through which man becomes blessed. Both because the acts of these virtues are able to be meritorious, right?

[35:02] Then also because they are certain what beginning of perfect beatitude, which consists in the contemplation of the what true. That's very strong what he says here.

[35:18] Can be both meritorious and they can be what a beginning of perfect beatitude. Do you spend your time contemplating God? It reminds me of something that's in I can find it now. When I'm trying to think of the question now, St. Thomas is talking. I covered it in religious life. The brothers, oh, the life of perfection. We're talking about the perfect love of God. That's what it is, the love of God.

[35:54] Whereas it's on perfection of charity, and he quotes from Origen sometimes he quotes from the Fathers because he's saying that well, once you profess. The way of per the state of perfection once you. It's not that you become perfect all at once, but he says you begin, and he speaks of it until you begin this contemplation, which you're actually beginning, and that's what leads to

[36:15] perfection. You see the motto of the of the Dominicans there, which is contemplata aliis tradere right? I think meritorious about that too, you know. But it's also a beginning of what beatitude, right?

[36:31] And those four things Thomas says there about in Summa Contra Gentiles, huh? This most perfect activity, because it's the beginning of beatitude, which is the perfection of man. Now the third one, it should be said that sciences divided against virtue, said in the second way, which pertains to the desiring power, right? Okay.

[36:55] So virtue could be divided into virtue and science, right? And we've talked about that way of speaking before, right? Because sometimes the genus, the name of the genus, so to speak, is kept by one of them because it has most perfectly right, but the genus says right, and the other one gets a what new name, right? Okay. We met that that way of speaking quite often. Now, Article Two.

[37:37] To second one goes forward. Thus, it seems that unsuitably are distinguished three speculative virtues, right? To wit, wisdom, science, and what? Understanding, huh? It's interesting, you know, if you compare Thomas and Aristotle here. Aristotle, at the beginning of the sixth book, there he distinguishes five virtues of reason, right? And three of them are being named here: and art and foresight are the other two, right? And then, in the way he proceeds, he takes up first science and art and foresight, right?

[38:28] And then he takes up wisdom and understanding later on. And distinction between the three and the two is that three of them are about what is from the beginnings, and the last two are about the beginnings. One the beginnings in our knowledge, intellectus, and the other the beginnings of all things, ultimate God, the beginning of all things, right? Huh? That's a very interesting what way of dividing it.

[38:55] You know, we've talked before about how you can't understand a distinction of five, right? Huh? And Aristotle divides them into three and two, but the basis of the distinction is three are about what is from a beginning, and two of them are about beginnings, huh? It's a very subtle thing, right? And I think he does that because the ones that are about beginnings are kind of obscured to us, right?

[39:23] Huh? One because it's at the very beginning of our knowledge, so passes over without even noticing that we have it. And the other's at the very end of our knowledge, so it's it's least known, right? Huh? And everybody knows there are things like geometry. They know there's the art of the carpenter, you know, and the art of the cook, and so on. And they know that some men had foresight, you know, and some had political foresight, and some had military foresight.

[39:47] They know this, right? But what's wisdom? What's wisdom? I don't know. The slightest idea, right? Just a word to them, right? Huh? So, in a sense, he takes the three that are more known, and the then the two that are less known, right? That's beautiful, right? Why Thomas seems to take him into the what? The three in the two, the three that are speculative, and the two that are what practical, right?

[40:14] Aristotle does sometimes too, you know. There's kind of two ways to divide the five into two. That is into three and two, right? But three of them into So the rule of two and three is not being

[40:31] avoided, right? It's being done in more than one way. It's very subtle what these two guys were. Amazing minds. Now the same problem we have about naming here: a species is not ought not to be divided against the genus. Like there are dogs in the world and there are animals in the world. No, no, no, no, no. There are dogs and cats and animals, right? No, no, no.

[41:01] You have to divide genus against it, you know. They're human beings, and they're a woman, and so on. You get in trouble with that, you know.

[41:19] But sapientia is a quaedam scientia, right? As is said in the sixth book of the Ethics, right? But wisdom, therefore, wisdom ought not to be divided against science in the number of the intellectual virtues. So in Greek, you have Sophia for wisdom, right? And episteme for science, right? Aristotle distinguishes between Sophia and episteme, but then in the book on Sophia, he calls Sophia an episteme. hopelessly mixed up the guy, right?

[41:53] And but the same problem we had before, right? About virtue, right? So that's a very common kind of name equivocal by reason, right? But this is going to be a different one because here wisdom gets the new name because it adds something what noteworthy, right? Because science in general is knowing things by their causes, right? But wisdom has something special. It's knowledge of the very first cause of all, right?

[42:21] The cause of the causes, right? So it's got something special in the way of knowing causes. So it gets a special name, Sophia, like my little granddaughter, right? Sophia, wisdom, she says, is the knowledge of God.

[42:40] My wife said, "You taught me that didn't you." See why in the other case, virtue keeps the name virtue, right? Because it has what the common meaning more fully, right?

[43:04] Moreover, in the distinction of powers, habits, and acts, which is made according to objects, right? There is to be noted chiefly the distinction which is according to the what formal notion of objects has been said before, right? What is what the heck does that mean?

[43:30] Let's say you know you're you're seeing all kinds of things around this room, right? Huh? So am I seeing all these books? See that, yeah?

[43:42] What's the formal object of the eyes? It books. No, it's color, right? I'm kind of figuring out that they're books, right? You go to the stores, you know, these they got all these boxes open up. You know, they're going to take a book, you know. You've seen those ones, you know? They made them look like a book on the outside, and you put in your bookcase, and you keep your drinks in there, or you keep your money in there, or something, you know.

[44:05] And some of them really beautiful, you know. I almost want to buy one of them, you know, because it looks like a big, you know, precious-looking value, you know. I see a lot of those in the, you know, places that I like to visit.

[44:27] So I can know the shape of what this table by my eye, and I can know the shape of this with my hand, and not quite as quick, you know. But formally, I know it one through color, the other through hardness or something, right?

[44:46] Okay. Therefore, diverse habits ought not to be distinguished according to material object, but according to the what formal notion of the object, huh? Okay.

[44:59] So I mean, you talk about the senses, right? And you distinguish the sense of of sight and the sense of touch. You don't do so by what knowing tables or knowing books, right? Huh? You put a book in my hand, I'll probably figure out that it's a book without opening my eyes, right? Huh? But you can't distinguish them by that material object, can you? What's the senses that knows the book, right?

[45:22] No, it's going to be by color and hardness or something like that, huh? I might recognize you by your my sight, right? But you know, it's amazing how you kind of recognize somebody's, you know, voice, right? Huh? You know, some you know, I don't even try to do it. I mean, I hear somebody saying something, or you answer the phone, you recognize somebody's voice right away, you know who it is, right?

[45:49] Yeah. But nevertheless, a person is not the formal object of hearing; it's sound, right? Okay. And sight is something else. But the principle of demonstration is the what reason for knowing the what conclusions, right? Therefore, the understanding of beginnings ought not to be laid down to another habit or another virtue from the knowledge of what conclusions, because conclusions are known by the what principles, right? Just like you know them through color by my eye or by sound through my ear, right?

[46:39] Moreover, the understanding power is said to be that which is what rational, essentially, right, as opposed to what the will and the emotions, right, which are rational only by partaking. But reason, even speculative reason, also reasons by syllogizing what, or just as it reasons by syllogizing the demonstrative, so it also reasons by syllogizing what. dialectically. Therefore, just as science, which is caused from the demonstrative syllogism, is laid down to be a speculative intellectual virtue, so also opinion, which is gotten by syllogizing dialectically, right, ought to be that, right, huh?

[47:26] Okay. But against all this is what the philosopher says in the sixth book of ethics. He's got a heck of a lot of confidence in this guy called the philosopher, right? Whoever he is, he lays down only what three intellectual virtues: speculative, to wit, wisdom, reasoned out knowledge, episteme, reasoned out understanding, and natural understanding or nous intellectus Okay, what does Thomas? say, I, answer. It should be said that just as has been said, the speculative intellectual virtue is that through which the what speculative intellect, the looking understanding, is perfected in considering the true, right?

[48:18] For this is the good work of it, right? But the true is in two ways able to be considered. In one way, as known what through itself, right? And another way as known through what another?

[48:39] Now, what is known through itself has itself as a what beginning, and is perceived at once by the understanding, like the whole is more than one of its parts. And therefore, the habit perfecting the understanding for the consideration of this kind of truth or true is called what understanding, right? Which is the habit of what beginnings, right? Principles. But the true that is known through another is not at once perceived by the understanding, but through the investigation of what reason.

[49:20] And this has itself in the notion of a what term or a limit, huh? The Greek word episteme means coming to a halt or a stop, right? That you've reached your goal. Which can be of two kinds. In one way, that it be the last in some what particular genus. In another way, that it be what is last with respect to the what whole of human knowledge, right?

[49:52] And because those things which are what afterwards known by us are before and more known by nature, as Aristotle says in the first reading of the Physics, right? The premium. Therefore, that which is last with respect to all of human knowledge is that which is first and most knowable according to nature. So, in some sense, God is most knowable. but not to us.

[50:27] And about this is wisdom, which considers the highest causes, as is said in the first book of the metaphysics, right? Now, incidentally, notice that term "altissimas causas," right? So the Greeks imagine the cause to be above the what effect, right? So that the what effect, is, hanging from the cause, it depends upon, right? A woman they call pendant, right? Gets something hanging from the ear, I guess.

[51:03] But in English, we use the word what? The native word is "ground" for cause, right? And so we speak of the underlying cause, right? Which sometimes the Latins fall into too, right? And therefore, the word "understanding," right? To understand the effect means to know what stands under it. Shakespeare and the Two Gentlemen of Verona, right? There's a there's a exchange between the two what servants of the two gentlemen of Verona, right?

[51:35] And one of them is what? Say, I don't understand you. He says, "What's the matter with you?" Even my staff understands. me that pun, you know, it's kind of kind of a lousy pun in a sense, but it makes you stop and think, you know. right? To understand, you stand under it is all the same thing, right? And it's because we imagine the cause to be underlying the what effect, right?

[51:58] So it's kind of interesting to see that difference here, because that's kind of just the way you you name the thing, the way the word arose, right? But that's when they say "altissimas causas," right? Whence

[52:22] suitably wisdom, huh? Judges and orders about what? All things, right? Why? Because perfect judgment and universal judgment cannot be had except by resolution to the what first causes, right?

[52:41] But to that which is last in this or in that genus of what Knowables. science perfects the what understanding, right? And therefore, according to diverse genera of noble things, there are diverse habits of science, huh? When wisdom is not except what one, right? So notice when you divide these speculative virtues into understanding, science, and wisdom, right?

[53:18] Two of those three are lowest what species, and one of them is what? No, it's a genus. So there is only one natural understanding. There is only one wisdom, right? But there are many what forms of reasoned out knowledge. Geometry is one. Maybe arithmetic is another one. Natural philosophy, another one, right? You see, and that's not impossible that in one division, right, you have some species that are lowest species and one that is not, right?

[53:57] I can take some example from geometry. You know, Euclid divides triangle into equilateral, isosceles, and scalene, right? Well, all equilateral triangles have the same what? Yeah, but in the case of isosceles, you know, you could have what many different kinds of angles, right, and so on, right? And you could have the you know the equal sides be twice as big as the remaining one, or they could be three times as big or something, you know.

[54:29] And so it's kind of different shapes of what triangle that are what isosceles, right, or maybe you know, but but not different ones that are what equilateral. They're all the same, yeah. The same way square, you know, all squares have the same shape, right? But do all oblongs have the same? No, so one might be you know one might be you know so on, right? And so you have one that is a lowest species and one that is what not.

[55:02] So here you have example of that too, right? Well, if you divide, you know, animal into beast and man, well, we all read the same species, you know, whether white or black or yellow or something, but not all beasts are the same species, right? So that's not to be

[55:25] doubted, right? That can be possible, right? Now the first objection, of course, is based upon that what word problem there, right? But I often ask people, you know, can you think without words? I don't even know what to say exactly, right?

[55:45] But you can't certainly say to somebody else what you think without using words, right? But can you even you know know yourself what you think if you can't say it in words? You know what do I think? You know, I don't know what I think.

[55:57] I don't know what to think. And you know the fact that the most common mistake in thinking is from the equivocation of words, right? And this this objection

[56:15] and the the first objection here and the third objection in the previous article, right, are both based upon an equivocation in the word, right? But does get people hung up, right? They don't understand words equivocal by what. Reason, huh?

[56:32] To the first, therefore, it should be said that wisdom is a certain what? Science, right? In so far as it has that which is common to all sciences, that demonstrates conclusions from what? From beginnings, right? But because it has something its own, right? It's appropriate means, right? It's something its own, above all the sciences. In so far as it judges about all things, right? Huh? That's another way of of pointing out it's what certain excellence, right?

[57:04] It's something worthwhile, don't it? And not only as regards conclusion, but also as regards the first what? Beginnings, right? Aristotle defends the principle of contradiction, right? As well as other ones, right? Now, same with Berkus, you know, and Berkus is taking his poor students and saying, you know, it's the whole always more than its parts, right? And I told you how I did that, huh? Is it? Universal. No I I said you know, my mother didn't.

[57:33] I always tell the story. My mother didn't like when I called man an animal, and I'd say, "Well, mother, he's not just an animal. He's an animal that has reason." My mother said, "Well, that's better, Dwight." So, animal is only a part of what man is. So they all agreed to that, right? But animal includes besides man, dog, cat, horse, elephant, and so on. So, some is a part includes more than the whole.

[57:54] Oh yeah, yeah, they're all convinced, right? But in sense, I have to defend now that axiom, right? And I do so by going to the fifth book of wisdom, right, where Aristotle distinguishes between the composed whole that's put together from its parts and the universal whole, which is set of its parts, right? I've mixed up two kinds of whole here, right? So I say animal includes more than man.

[58:21] I'm talking about animal's universal whole, right? Not as a what? Yeah, but I'm talking about animal as a composing part of the definition of man. It's only one of the parts, and there's other parts like my mother wanted me to say, namely that he has reason, right? Huh? Or two footed, right? Two footed animal has reason, John. But I'll

[58:47] cover. Yeah. Yeah. So, and therefore it has the notion of a more perfect virtue than science, right? Okay. But another way of saying that would be the reason I gave that deals with the very first clause, right? Okay.

[59:11] Do I have some particular excellence there, right? That you just pull upon a new name, right? So even English, if we use the word knowledge, say wisdom, right? We could say wisdom is what is a form of knowledge, right?

[59:29] But you might divide what wisdom against knowledge and say that people have a lot of knowledge these days, but they don't have much wisdom, right? And so I'm not dividing wisdom against knowledge. Well, you said the wisdom was, you know, well, the word is equivocal, right? But what kind of equivocal? It's a kind of equivocal where one that has something in common something else has also, in addition, something that makes it stand out, right?

[59:56] And you get say what? A new name, right? Okay. So careful, Thomas is here, huh? Because you gotta you gotta know these words and understand these words that are equivocal by reason. Otherwise, you're going to be deceived and you get all mixed up and you don't know what to say.

[1:00:19] We always say that, you know, the priest is always saying you got to treat the girl like a person and not like a thing. Well, she's. not a person, She's not a thing. She's nothing. You know, I mean, they'll confuse it all. You know, you know, because there's a tendency, you know, as as Monsignor Dionne said there's, a tendency to want to make things equivocal, right? Simplify things, right?

[1:00:41] And and you can't get anywhere in the life of the mind. De Koninck used to say, you know, Charles De Koninck, you know, that every respectable word in philosophy is equivocal.

[1:00:54] I like that. But only a mind that depends upon words in some way for its thinking, right, and upon the senses, could be followed up all the time by this equivocation of words, right? We just can't.