Prima Secundae
152. Summa I-II Q.64 a.2–3: The Middle of Reason, Justice, and the Middle of the Intellectual Virtues (Truth, Contraries, and Opposites)
Class of 2014-01-23
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[0:00] 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, do from the lights of our minds, ordain our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us.

[0:31] Help us to understand all that you've written. Amen. So, that's another little text of Thomas there. He says the angels there they enlighten our mind, they purge it, and they perfect it. Okay. So I guess we're in the middle of Article Two there, in Question sixty-four. So.

[1:05] Risk of repeating myself, I shall go over Article Two again. But to the second one goes forward thus. It seems that the middle of moral virtue is not a middle of reason, but a middle of the what thing. Of

[1:24] course, this phrase "middle of reason," Thomas will say, has a couple of senses, right? And this middle of the thing is something that you find in justice.

[1:36] For the good of moral virtue consists in this that it is in the middle. But the good, as is said in the sixth book of metaphysics, is in things themselves.

[1:48] This is the famous text where Aristotle says, in contrast, there that what truth and falsity are primarily in the mind, and good and bad are in things.

[2:02] So that's in accord with the nature of the mind to what try to bring things inside itself, right? So the first act of the mind is sometimes called what simple grasping, right? Well, by likeness to the hand, when I grasp something, it's contained in my hand, and so when the mind grasps something, it's contained in the what mind, and that's the good of the mind that can grasp things, right?

[2:32] Was that the perfection of of the heart to grasp, to be grasping? No. So we say I left my heart in San Francisco, right? Huh? So the love is in the thing what loved that goes out to thing itself, right?

[2:51] So he says, since good and bad then are in things, then the middle of virtue should be a middle of the thing. Well, this is partly involves some confusion as to what middle of reason is. Moreover,

[3:06] reason is a power that is what grasping, huh? Now, how do they translate that in English? Do you have English text there? The power of apprehension. Yeah. See, they don't use the English word. They're afraid, huh? They're afraid of their own language. Yeah. My colleague used to say, "If you use English with them, they don't understand

[3:38] you." That's what Father Owen Bennett used to say about reading translations of St. Thomas. He'd say he'd look at the translation, what? Then he'd go look at the Latin. Sometimes you got to read the Latin to find out what the English means.

[3:47] But moral virtue does not consist in the middle of what apprehensions of graspings, but it's more in the middle of operations or passions, right? Therefore, the middle of moral virtue is not the middle of reason, but the middle of the what thing.

[4:09] Moreover, the middle that is taken according to arithmetical or geometrical proportion is a middle of the what thing. But such is the middle of justice, as is said in the fifth book of the Ethics. Therefore, the middle of moral virtue is not the middle of reason, but of the thing. I guess Thomas is going to admit this, right, in terms of that particular virtue called justice, huh?

[4:35] But against this is what the philosopher says in the second book of the Ethics that moral virtue consists in the middle towards us as determined by what reason, huh? So, how much I eat, right? Well, it depends upon my size, right? What I do for a living, and reason determines. This is too much or too little for me, right?

[5:04] Okay. Answer should be said. He says, Thomas, that the middle of reason can be understood in two ways. I was saying last night that Aristotle is the first man to understand the words we all use, and he understood that the words we all use are the words that are all equivocal by reason, right? And he was able to understand them by distinguishing their senses and also by seeing the order of them, right?

[5:35] So he's the first man that understood the words he uses, and Thomas is like that too, right? He seems to understand these things that the rest of us mix up.

[5:47] That's kind of an actual state of mind is to be mixed up, huh? Confused, huh? In one way, according as the middle exists in the act itself of what reason. As if the act of reason is being led back to a what, a middle in some way. And thus, because moral virtue does not perfect the act of reason, but rather the act of the desiring power, either the will or the what, sense desiring powers, the middle of moral virtue is not a middle of reason in that sense, right?

[6:28] That's the middle of an act of reason, right? Now later on, in the next third article we'll be talking about whether in the intellectual virtues there's a middle, right? But that's another question. He's talking here about the moral virtues. In another way, that can be said to be a middle of reason that is laid down by reason in some what, matter, right?

[6:57] And in this way, every middle of what, moral virtue is a middle of reason, huh? Because as has been said, moral virtue is said to consist in a middle in conformity to what reason, huh? So what did the Greek wise man, the seven wise men, famous for saying? at Delphi They were called Delphi. Nothing too much, right? Nothing too much. Know thyself, and nothing too much. You know, and maybe that's to be understood nothing too little too, but people more often too much than too little, right?

[7:32] You get in trouble more by too much than you are by doing too little, so we have to emphasize meden agan, nothing too much.

[7:43] But then he brings an interesting point. But sometimes it happens that the middle of reason is also a middle of the thing, right? Okay. Now, so I'm taking the simple example there of eating, right? How much I eat, right? Huh? Well, they're bringing a turkey, right? Huh? Should eat half the turkey? That would be the middle, right? Or if they're bringing a gallon of whiskey, should I drink, you know, half of the gallon?

[8:08] You know, well, it's not a middle of the thing, right? But how much whiskey is you know too much or too little for me, right? Huh? Thomas says one should drink usque ad hilaritatem, right, but not to the point of being but drunk or interfering with one's activities and so on, right? And so it's a middle of what towards us, right? Okay. But sometimes it's the middle of the thing, right?

[8:37] So if you come into my bake my bakery and you're going to buy a loaf of bread, well, what is the going price for a loaf of bread, right? And then I should pay you neither more nor less than that, huh? And it's not how much I love bread or how much you love bread or hate bread or whatever it is, but it's the middle of the of the thing, right?

[8:55] That's the middle for what? Reason, right? But sometimes, quandoque, it happens that the middle of reason is also a middle of the what thing, and then it's necessary that moral virtue, the middle of moral virtue, be a middle of the thing, as is the case in what justice.

[9:24] Sometimes, however, the middle of reason is not a middle of the thing, but is taken in comparison to us, right? And therefore, the middle might not be the same for you and for me, right? And if you give the grandchildren a bit of wine at the table, you don't give them very much, and they don't give women as much, you know, as they give a man when you drink, usually, right?

[9:47] But then there are individual people, right? And if you're an alcoholic, maybe you can't drink at all, right? Maybe you shouldn't touch it at all, right? And so, so on. And thus is the middle in all the other moral virtues except what justice, right? But justice is kind of an unusual thing. So Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics he takes up those moral virtues in three and four, and then five is devoted just to what justice, huh?

[10:20] He says the reason for this is that justice is about what operations which consist in exterior things. I'm going to pay you for painting my house or something, right?

[10:34] In which the right is instituted simply and by itself, right? It's not a question of, you know, I wonder how much you like money or something, you know, and then I'll decide how much I give you. No, no, that's not where you decide those things. And therefore the middle of reason that reason would establish injustice, is the same with the middle of the thing, in so far as justice gives to each one what is owed him, right?

[11:02] And neither more nor what less, huh? Is that what I do at the bottom when I give it to you? Neither more nor less, huh? I see you've had too much, you know. I put the bottle away or something, right?

[11:17] But the other moral virtues consist about the inside, the interior, the inward passions, huh? The emotions, right? In which there is not something right constituted in the same way, on account of the fact that men have themselves diversely to the what passions, huh? And therefore it's necessary that the rightness of reason and the passions be instituted with respect to us, right? Who are affected according to the what passions, huh?

[11:53] And Thomas is very brief about the objections. And to this it is clear the response to the objections for the first two reasons proceed about the middle of reason in the sense that we said was not relevant here, right? The one is found in the act itself of what reason, and the third one deals with that exception in the sense the middle of what justice, huh? Thomas makes those distinctions.

[12:24] Now we get to my virtues, huh? The intellectual virtues here in the third article, huh? To the third, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that intellectual virtues do not consist in the middle.

[12:41] For the moral virtues consist in the middle, in so far as they are conform to the rule of reason. But the intellectual virtues are in reason itself. Thus, they do not seem to have a higher what rule, right? Therefore, the intellectual virtues do not consist in the what middle, right?

[13:11] Moreover, the middle of moral virtue is determined by intellectual virtue, as is said in the second book of the Ethics, that virtue consists in a middle by what determined by reason, in so far as the wise man, right, the virtuous man, determines.

[13:33] If, therefore, intellectual virtue again consists in the middle, it would be necessary that it be determined through a middle for itself through some other virtue, right? And so on, ad infinitum, right? And thus one would go forward forever in the what virtues, huh?

[13:57] Moreover, a middle is properly between what contraries, huh? Like the colors are in between white and black, right? Or lukewarm is in between hot and cold, and so on, right? As is clear through the philosopher in the tenth book of Wisdom, that Aristotle talks about the one and the many, right? That's where the consideration of contraries are. But in the understanding, there does not seem to be any contrariety, since even the contraries themselves, according as they are in the understanding, are not what contraries, huh?

[14:37] But the understood together as white and what black, huh? Healthy and what sick, right? So it's the same art of medicine that's about health and about sickness, right? And the doctor says I've got high blood pressure. He must know what what healthy blood pressure would be, right? And one is known to the other, and helps you to know the other, right? So they don't seem to be opposed as they are in the mind.

[15:05] And that instead is one of the arguments they use for the materiality of the mind, right? Health and sickness in matter in the body one excludes the other, right? So if I have high blood pressure, I don't have normal blood pressure or or healthy blood pressure, right? And vice versa, right? But as they are in the mind. One helps the other, right? This is a famous thing you find in Socrates as well as in Plato there in the dialogues that there's the same knowledge of opposites, right?

[15:37] So in logic we study both correct reasoning and what? Fallacious reasoning, right? Aristotle wrote the book on sophistical refutations as well as the prior and the posterior, what? And analytics, right? And so on.

[15:53] So if a middle is in between two contraries, right? Well then you don't have contrariety and reason, well then then you have a middle. Okay. Whereas Thomas will point out he implied this the way that there can be contrariety in the mind, right? We'll see what that is.

[16:19] But against this is that art is intellectual virtue, as is said in the sixth book of the Ethics. On the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics he's referring to here, but that's the book on the intellectual virtues. And Aristotle begins by saying there are five, right? Understanding, episteme, and wisdom, foresight, and art, right? Then he goes into those.

[16:51] So art is one of the five that he mentions there. And nevertheless, of art there is some middle, as is said in the second book of the Ethics.

[17:05] So Mozart complained that the golden mean was no longer observed in music, especially by those romantic composers that came after him, right? But even his own time you could see this, right?

[17:19] So Einstein remarks on the wisdom of Mozart, right? And I think I mentioned how in Aristotle in the earlier books when he talks about virtue consisting in the mean, right? He begins, you know, by pointing out how the good in art depends upon the mean too, right? You cook the meat too much or too little, right? You season something too much or too little, right? You get something what?

[17:47] Bad, right? As if that were kind of more known to us, right? And more admitted, huh? Yeah. That's a supreme gift of the artist, right? Is knowing when to what? Stop, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what Sherlock Holmes says, right? This guy was trying to get even with this woman who had flouted in with something. He was younger and he was trying to make him appear to be guilty of some horrible crime, right?

[18:22] And he. Made it look pretty incriminating, right? So even Sherlock Holmes was a little bit, you know. Then he went went a little too far. And so at the end, when like in some of the stories end up, you know, with Sherlock Holmes and Watson talking about the case of it, you know, you know, he lacked the supreme gift of the artist, knowing when to stop, right?

[18:46] I have a book on you know Italian art there, and the guy's talking about Titian, right? And he agrees Titian is kind of the greatest of the painters, right? But above all, he knew when to stop, right? And people writing on Mozart say he always knew when to stop, you know. These other people don't know when to stop, right?

[19:08] That's part of the idea. Does that mean that? Now, Thomas says, "I answer it should be said that the good of something consists in the middle, according as it is conformed to the rule or the measure, which can be what transcended, gone beyond, or fall short of, right?

[19:44] Now, the intellectual virtue is ordered to the good, just as the moral, right? Huh? Hence, according as the good of moral virtue has itself to a measure, so it has the notion of a middle. Now, the good of the intellectual virtue is what the true, huh? And of the speculative virtue, it's truth, what absolutely, absolutely. But in terms of the what practical virtue, it's truth according to the conformity to rectified appetite, right?

[20:26] And this is true especially about what prudence or foresight, right? You got to have moral virtue before you can have prudence, huh? But you have the the other Mozart, which is talking about representing the anger of Osmin and the Abduction from the Seraglio, right? And of course, he gets very angry, right? And he says, "Well, when a man gets very angry, loses control of himself, right? " So the music has to represent this, right?

[20:55] But he says not in a way that becomes displeasing to the ear, or in other words, cease to be music. You see the rectified appetite, on both sides, right? That's what the end of music is. It's got to please the ear. It's music! It's noise.

[21:15] Just like the the chef might say, "you know, it's it's you know. " gotta be healthy maybe the food, but it's got to please the the the taste. Yeah. A lot of rough music seems to express anger. Yeah. In a way that seems to be music. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's noise. Yeah.

[21:39] Now, what is the measure of the speculative intellect? The truth of what our understanding, absolutely considered, is as something measured by the thing, right? For the thing is the measure of our understanding, as Aristotle says in the tenth book of Wisdom, right, the metaphysics. For from this that a thing is or is not, there is truth, both in the opinion of the mind and in the what speech that signifies that.

[22:12] Okay. So if I say you guys are what sitting now, right? huh? Then I'm speaking truly, right? If I say you are not sitting, I'm false, right? If I say you are standing now, it's false. I'm conforming to the thing, right? So it's measured by the what thing, right? Aristotle has an example there in the twelfth chapter, the categories, when he's talking about the senses of before and after, right?

[22:44] And he gives the four central senses, and then he says there seems to be another sense. He brings in the sense which causes before an effect, right? And he takes example there of the truth of a statement, right? And how the cause of the truth of statement is the thing itself, and so they're together in time. One is not before the other in time, so it's not the first sense of before, and it's not even the second sense of before, which is if this can be without that, but not vice versa, right?

[23:18] Because as soon as you're sitting, it's true to say you're sitting, right? And whenever it's true to say you're sitting, you must be sitting, right? They're simultaneous, right? And yet one is before the other as the cause is before the what effect, right?

[23:38] Okay. So he says the good then of the speculative intellectual virtue consists in a certain middle, right, by conformity to the thing itself, according as it says that that is that is, right, and that is not that is not, right. So truth is saying what is is, and what is not is not, and falsehood is saying what is is not, or what is not is, right? There's two ways you can say the false, Two ways of truth.

[24:16] And notice that they are going to be in statements as we'll point out, right? The contrariety shows up. Now the excess that is according to a false affirmation, through whom or by whom it is said that something what is that is not, and the defect is taken according to the false negation, to which it is said not to be what is, right? Now, notice what you're saying there, right?

[24:53] I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right? Now who was at the bar at ten o'clock last night, huh? Not me.

[25:08] I wasn't there, Your Honor. Well, suppose John and Thomas were there, right? Huh? And they're my friends, I don't want to get them involved, right? Huh? So I say John and Thomas and what Bill were there, right?

[25:28] But Bill wasn't there, so I'm what? As we're adding to the truth, right? I'm saying that what is not is. So this is a false affirmative statement that Bill was there, right? Okay.

[25:47] Or suppose all three of those guys were there, and I say that, but Jim was not there, or something. You know, one of the guys was not there. Well, then I seem to be what? Subtracting, right? I'm saying that.

[26:06] Is is not. Yeah, yeah. And that's by the false statement, right? Now, when we say I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right? It might seem at first sight, you know, that when you say the whole truth and nothing but the truth, you're just emphasizing again, I couldn't tell the truth. But is that in fact what you're doing? Or are you saying something different?

[26:31] You say, you know, after saying I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right? Tell the whole truth is opposed to what kind of falsity?

[26:43] Giving something up. Yeah. Well, saying falsity of the affirmative or negative statement. False negation. Yeah. See, because when I say that what is is not, right? I seem to be what? Denying something is. Yeah, taking away from it, right? Okay. And then nothing but the truth, right? No, and. Yeah. When I have the what?

[27:08] False affirmation. Yeah. Seem to be adding to it, right? Then. Okay. Okay. Now Shakespeare expresses this in in slightly different languages, but he'll have like

[27:26] in King Lear, right? Huh? King Lear, Kent says, "All my reports go with the modest truth, right? " Because modest truth implies that it's the middle, right? Huh? Nor more, nor clipped, but so.

[27:46] In Shakespeare grammatically, they'll say nor nor for neither nor, right? We'd say neither. Or they say or or for either or, right? Okay. So he says, "All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so. " What is more? What kind of falsity is that? False affirmation. Now he's saying that what is not is. He's saying is we're more than the truth, right?

[28:18] And clipped, you're saying what? Kind of subtracting the truth. You're saying what is is not, right? Huh? So really, those two added phrases there are not simply reiterating what you intend to do to speak the truth, but they're excluding the two ways you might depart from the truth. In one by making affirmative, and the other negative, false statement, right? Okay.

[28:45] Or false Falstaff, and he's practicing one of his, you know, lying things and so on. But he's, but he wants his buddies to back him up, you know, huh? If they say more or less than the truth, he says, huh? They are villains and the sons of darkness, right? Okay. But here you have it turned more or less, right? So when you're saying more than the truth, say, false affirmation.

[29:12] Yeah, you're saying what is not is, right? Huh? When you're saying less than the truth, you're saying what is is not. Okay. So truth is in between, right? Huh? To one which is more than the truth, and the other is less than the truth, right? So those are all different ways of saying it. The courtroom, you know, way of saying it, and the the way that Kent says it, and the way that our friend Falstaff says it, right?

[29:42] I started. reading the Merry Wives of Windsor, right? Huh? And Falstaff there exemplifies what Tom says, you know, that he says if you commit adultery for the sake of robbing somebody, you are formally a what? Robber. Yeah, see, only materially an adulterer. Well, that's actually what Falstaff is, right? Because he's making proposals to the Merry Wives of Windsor, Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford, right? Huh? In order to get to their what?

[30:13] Their money, right? Because he's short of funds, right? So he's formally a thief, right? And materially trying to be an adulterer, right? Of course, the two men, you know, one of them has no suspicions of his wife at all, Mr. Page, and the other one, of course, has he's given to what jealousy, right? Huh? This is true this way. People are some people, you know, are very hard to have their jealousy aroused and I looked at the guy, you know, where his wife was insanely jealous, right?

[30:46] He was scared stiff, you know, that he feared You know, I like I told you the story but Charlie and I. you know, the the uh the uh we work in the packet store together, and the woman come over from the bank and they get their soda pop, you know, you know, their break, and so he makes conversation with them, you know, and he said, "Where you going on vacation this summer?"

[31:08] They're talking about summertime, you know, and it seems they're going to vacation the same place where Charlie and his wife are going to go on vacation. He said, for heaven's sake, if you see me? Don't say hello. But he's serious about this, you know. They'll set her off, you know. Who is that, you know? You know, some strange woman says hello to you, and.

[31:31] So this is the way Mr. Mr. Ford is, right? And so, because he makes a fool of himself in the course of the what of the play, among other things. But when I talk about the four kinds of plays of Shakespeare, right? I take at least one play from each of the four kinds, dealing with the same situation where a man is what jealous of his wife, right?

[32:00] And in the case of *Merry Wives of Windsor*, it's recognized as what laughable, right? Now, right at the other end, you've got you know *Othello*, where the man kills his wife, and you know. And then in between, you have ones where he doesn't kill his wife, but there's you know serious problems, and eventually there's forgiveness and so on, you know. But it's you kind of see the character of the four kinds of plays just to that same kind of scene, right?

[32:28] The way it's handled each of the plays. So, doesn't go on forever then this business about what the measure, right? It's if one virtue is measuring another virtue, another virtue is coming to measure that one, and so on, right? You're measured by the what, the thing, right?

[32:57] Now the truth, he says, of a what practical, practical moral virtue, or intellectual virtue rather, compared to the thing, has the aspect of a what? Thing measured. Of a measured, yeah.

[33:16] In the same way, one takes the middle in comparison to the thing in the practical intellectual virtues, as an expectative one. But with respect to the appetite, it has the notion of a what? Rule and measure, right? Whence, the same middle, which is of moral virtue, is also that of what? Prudence, huh?

[33:44] directed to the rectitude of reason, but it's of prudence as ruling and measuring this middle, right? It's of a moral virtue as measured and what? Ruled, right, huh? So prudence says, "I've had enough to eat, right? This is enough for me today, right? It's enough for this meal."

[34:06] Now they say that the restaurant owners know that they try to overfeed you, right? Making us fat, I guess. And I guess the reason is that if you go away from a restaurant and you're and you're still hungry, you're not going to go back again. They figure you see, so they got to stuff you enough. So they're actually trying to make you, in a sense, vicious, right?

[34:27] Eat more than you should eat, right? And there's no problem in the practical order, right, huh? Okay. But sometimes you get a woman there too, you know, who's trying to overfeed you too, right? Yeah. And there, you know, if you don't eat generously, you know, you're insulted, right? Insulted, yeah. Yeah. So these problems that happen in the practical order, but fortunately, we

[34:57] won't have to worry about that after the resurrection. Yeah, yeah. But again, practical reason might say that on Thanksgiving Day you eat more than you normally would eat, right? Especially if grandma's gone to a lot of work, right, huh? Got to do justice to the meal. Get a crust of bread. I've had enough, grandma.

[35:21] I remember when my my paternal grandmother was staying with us, you know, in the last part of her life there, and because she's having you know losing her appetite so much, you know, and. But she had been brought up and said that she always cleaned the plate, right? So a real prompt for her soul. Yeah, standing with it. Any time she could finish, she just put on my plate and ate it up.

[35:39] Yeah. As a kid, I was, you know. Yeah. Yeah. The afternoon. So I was just thankful that would, you know, then she'd have to be embarrassed by leaving a plate with something, you know. So we had no understanding, we had no understanding mutual understanding

[36:05] Okay. Now, to the first it should be said that intellectual virtue also has right its own what measure, right? And by conformity to that, it is what takes its middle, right? And that's in conformity ultimately to the thing, right? Okay. To the second, it should be said that it is not necessary to proceed forever among the virtues, because the measured rule of intellectual virtue is not some other genus of virtue, right?

[36:43] But the yeah. Now, when you go to Nicomachean Ethics, right? You you've been told in the definition of moral virtue that it's a what habit with choice existing in the middle towards us is determined of the right reason, but you don't know exactly what right reason is until you get to the sixth book, right? And so you might look for something, you know, another kind of virtue to regulate right reason, right?

[37:11] But no, it's the thing is you know regulating it. at least the moral virtues. I mean the speculative virtues. So the measure and the rule of intellectual virtue is not some other genus of virtue, right? To some third genus and a fourth one and so on forever, right? But ipsa res the thing itself, okay.

[37:39] So Niels Bohr was always saying, right? Measured by the thing, you know. To work out your theories and correspondence with things. What about this interesting objection here from contrariety? Well, one way there is, another way there is not contrariety in the intellect. To third, it should be said that contrary things themselves do not have contrariety in the soul, right? Huh? So health and say sickness, right? Huh?

[38:19] Or virtue and vice, right? Ah, they don't have contrariety in the soul because one is the reason for what knowing the other, right? It was a famous statement that opposites alongside each other are more what? Clear right, so you have what black and white right, Two for the senses a bit, huh? And but what about the second act of reason where you affirm or deny one of these simple things right, huh?

[38:52] Then you can have contrariety, huh? Okay. But nevertheless, he says in the understanding there is a contrariety of affirmation and negation, right? Which are contraries, as Aristotle says in the end of the book Peri Hermeneias, right? What's the second book in logic that's come down to us from Aristotle, right? And the first book was the Categories, right? And but the second book Peri Hermeneias is about the is about statements, huh?

[39:28] And is an affirmative and and a negative statement about the same subject and predicate? Are they contrary? They're both what statements, right, huh? And one is true and the other is what false, huh? They're contraries, huh?

[39:53] Although to be and not to be are not what contraries, but they're opposed what contradictory, huh? What's the difference between contradiction and contrariety? And then what's the kind of opposition that is in between those two?

[40:16] Contradictory one has to be true and the other has to be false. Well, it's just going back more generally though. You talk about Aristotle distinguishes opposites. He does so in the Categories, right? Before he takes up before and after, right? And this is significant, right? He does the same thing in metaphysics in the fifth book where he takes up before again, right? Before and after again, but he takes up opposition before, right?

[40:43] And Aristotle is the only philosopher I know and the ones who follow Aristotle who distinguishes carefully the kinds of opposites, right? I think I mentioned how when I was a student at Laval there you go in the library sometimes and they had bound copies of doctoral theses that had been passed and so on before you. We'd sometimes go in there and read one of these theses, right?

[41:08] If we were interested in the topic of the doctoral thesis, and sometimes get an idea of how to write a doctoral thesis and some you know itty bitty stuff together. But there was one doctoral thesis on Marxism, right, huh? I can mention this before, right? And Marxism is always talking about opposites, right? Dialectical materialism, right? Saying that matter develops by what? Opposites, borrow the word dialectical there, right, from the Greeks.

[41:40] Because in dialectical reasoning you reason what, from probable opinions to opposite conclusions, right? So this is central to Marxism, right? Opposition, right? Class warfare and all the rest of it. But nor does Marx distinguish the kinds of opposites, right? He doesn't understand the words. He's using all the time, right? And

[42:04] so when Aristotle distinguishes the opposites, he does so before he takes up before, because opposition is the basis of what we call formal distinction, huh? Between things, huh? But how many kinds of opposites does Aristotle distinguish?

[42:24] Boy distinguishes contradiction, right, and contrariety, and what? Privation or lack and having, and then relatives, right? Okay. Well, if you distinguish these four, of course the mind couldn't possibly understand a distinction of four, right? Now, Aristotle sometimes, you know, comments on it, you'll distinguish relatives from the other what? Three, right? Because the other three, one opposite eliminates the other opposite, right? But in the case of relatives, double doesn't eliminate half.

[43:04] Suppose. Yeah, yeah. So it's a different kind of thing, right? So set that aside, that kind of opposition, and that's the kind of formal distinction you have in the trinity, right? The father and the son, right?

[43:21] But then, how are the other three distinguished, right? Huh? Contradiction and contrariety, and having and lack, right? Huh? I'm just going to take a guess. One's maybe kind of absolute. The contradiction is is not. Okay. Now, does being and non-being, or man and not man, ah, do they have anything in common?

[43:56] One just negates what the other one is saying, right? But now you get to lack and what having, right? Huh? Are they as opposed? Do they, or do they have something in common? Something in common. Yeah. So to be blind and to to have sight, right? Huh? This is an opposition of having and lacking, right? But they have something in common, right? Huh? So is is this thing here blind?

[44:27] Huh? See. This neither has sight nor is it what blind. Huh? Is this here have sight? No. But is it blind? No. But if you take contradictories, you got to be one or the other, right? Either you see or you don't see, right? Huh? Okay. Um. Is this thing ignorant? No. Doesn't know.

[44:59] Well, ignorance is really the non-being of knowledge and something able to what to know, right? Huh? Okay. So lack and having are not what as opposed as contradictories. Now, in the case of contraries, right? You have even more in common, right? Because they're both something what? Not one is not simply the non-being of another in the same subject, right? But it's a Another species, right? In that same, right?

[45:33] But the one that's furthest apart, right? Okay. So you take virtue and vice. Well, is vice just the non-being of virtue, and something that could have virtue, or is it a real habit?

[45:54] Yeah, yeah. It's a disordered habit, right? A bad habit, right? Why virtue is a good habit, right? So in that sense, contraries are the least opposed, right? Those three, right? Okay. But nevertheless, if I have virtue, I can't have the opposite vice, or if I have the opposite vice, I can't have virtue, right? If I am blind, I can't have sight. When I am blind, right? Okay.

[46:20] So t here is real opposition between these things, right? Okay. Well, if I say you know two is half of four, and two is not half of four, right? Huh? Well, those are opposed, aren't they? Right? Huh? If I say two is half of four, and you say two is is not half of four, we we are we think differently, don't we? And so some opposition, right?

[46:49] Huh? Okay. But what opposition is it? Is this contradiction? Well, if you are talking about the statements, right? You know, the statement that two is half of four, that's a statement, right? And two is not half of four, that's a statement too, right? Huh? So you have two positive things, right? Two statements, right? Okay. So they're more like what? Contraries, right?

[47:24] Contrary, contradictory. Contraries. Now we we call them contradictory, right? Because you are affirming one thing that I deny, but if you take the statement, then they're both what? See, when Socrates asked the slave boy, right? Huh? How do you double a square? And the slave boy says you double the side, right? Huh? Well, the slave boy is he just ignorant, or is he what mistaken? Yeah. Yeah.

[47:58] He really thinks something that is what false, right? Huh? Okay. Well, if the slave boy said said I don't know, then he'd simply have been what ignorant, right? But everybody who's ignorant is not what mistaken, right? But everybody who's mistaken is what ignorant, right? Huh? Okay. So to be mistaken is not simply what

[48:29] lacking, right? But it's having something that's in the same genus, right? Huh? So they are contraries, right? Huh? Even though we call those statements sometimes what contradictory, but you got to that's what you're doing there, right? The opposition of being and non-being is contradiction, right? Huh? But the statement whereby I say this is, and you say it is not, they are contrary because they're both in the genus of what?

[48:57] Yeah, yeah. Oh, so it's very subtle there. Yeah, yeah. That is very subtle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's kind of interesting. Aristotle will distinguish these kinds of opposites, right? Huh? And you know, you're in the first book of the Physics there, huh? And they're talking about contraries and so on. And Aristotle says, well, change always between contraries, right? And maybe sometimes just between what the lack and the having, right?

[49:27] Okay. So I used to always talk about, you know, is it easier to convince somebody who's ignorant or someone who's mistaken? Yeah, because the man is mistaken is going to, you know, oppose you in a way that the man who's yeah, yeah. So I see. You know, if you're trying to, you know, win votes for the let's say Republican candidate, right? And I go to him and say, "No, you're voting Republican, Democrat, " and he says, "I haven't made up my mind yet.

[49:57] " And he said, "I'm voting Democrat. " Well, maybe I should work on this guy here because he's going to resist me less than the mistaken Democrat, right? And it's going to, you know, waste time maybe in trying to convince him, right? I can maybe convince two or three you guys, you know, of your mind. You know, informed voters. They're calm now. No one's fully informed. Yeah, yeah.

[50:21] Low information. No information. Yeah. And so, this is what we learn in epistemology: the only thing worse than ignorance is error. Another word for it. Okay. So notice

[50:42] in the simple things like what virtue and vice, they are not what in the mind the understanding one is not what contrary to the other, right? Huh? When you have affirmation-negation, where one is affirming what the other one negating, right? Of the same thing, well, then you can have contradiction, right?

[51:10] So he says, although to be and not to be are not contraries, right? But contradictorily opposed, right? Huh? If one considers the thing signified, insofar as there are things, right?

[51:26] Because the one is a being, and the other is pure what non-being, right? He says pure, because there's there's nothing, no subject in common, right? Let alone no genus in common, right? Huh? Okay. But nevertheless, if they refer to an act of the soul, affirming or denying, both lay down something, right? In both cases, I think something, right? Huh? Okay. I think that two is half of four, and you think that two is not half of four, right?

[51:55] So we're both thinking something, right? We're both making a statement, right? So that's very subtle, right? You know, when they talk about God, you know, and the substance of God, and one of the five things that are said of the substance of God is that he's what? He's simple. He's what? One. Well, what's the ordinal? He's simple. He's perfect, right? Good is attached to that. And then the third is what?

[52:28] He's unlimited or infinite. Infinite. And then the fourth is Unchanging Summa Theologia Unchanging. Yeah. And then he's one That That's the order of Summa Theologia It's a little different than Summa Contra Gentiles and I discuss that sometimes. But Thomas says, when you say God is unlimited. What kind of is that a what? Negation or lack. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, it's going to be what? Negation. Yeah. See, well, use the word unlimited like the Greeks are talking about bodies being unlimited, right?

[53:05] Then it was a what Black, right? So, you know, if you had a line going on forever, that would be unlimited in the sense that it doesn't have what a line could have, maybe should have, at least in order to think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this, unlimited said of God is a pure what? Negation, right? Pure nothingness, right? So you see, I'm always knowing God.

[53:35] I'm perfectly knowing God, right? But it's better nothing, huh? Okay. Okay. One guy knew several professors. He don't know nothing. He said. No, sé nada. That's what they say in Spanish in Portuguese. No, sé nada. Whence essay and non-essay are contradictory, right? But the opinion by which we opine that the good is good, right, is contrary to the opinion, right, by which we think that the good is not good, right.

[54:20] And in between these contraries is the middle of what intellectual virtue, right? Okay. You can kind of see this, you know, in the two greatest mysteries of the faith are the Trinity, right, and the what incarnation, right. So the Trinity, the truth is what that there are one nature and three what persons. And then you have one heresy that says because there are three persons, there are three natures, like the Arians were saying, right.

[54:54] And then what's the other error? There's one nature, there's one person. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the guy who says that there's what three natures and three persons, he's saying that what is not those extra two natures is right. But man who says that there's one

[55:15] nature as is as there's I mean as one person as the one nature, he's saying that what is is not right. But the two ways you can make an error, right? Okay. Well, the truth lies in in the mean, saying that there's one nature and three persons, right? Now in the Trinity it's reversed, right? In the Trinity there is one person, I mean, excuse me, the incarnation.

[55:42] There's one person and human and the. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about communion time today, and I said, "it'd be Interesting to talk to a man who's God, right? "

[55:56] He'd be extremely interested to talk to, I would think. You know, yeah, he's here. You know, it'd even be better to listen to him.

[56:09] But there are those who said that there are two what? Persons. As there are two what? Natures. And so they're saying that what. Is not is. Yeah, yeah, and then there are others, Eutychus or somebody, right, who said that there's one person, there's got to be one nature, called Monophysites, huh? Means one, physis one nature, right? Then he's saying that what is the second nature is not, right?

[56:37] So truth lies in between those two. So Thomas speaks of following the right tramite thereof truth, you know, in between two what? Yeah, yeah. Saint Vincent of Lérins put that very succinctly in Latin. in divinitas, in divinitate, alius atque alius, not alius atque alius. In Salvatore,

[57:06] alius atque alius, not alius atque alius. It's, very well expressed. For alius is the nature, right? Yeah, alius is the nature. Alius is the person. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Thomas gets into those discussions. Right, so it

[57:19] was kind of this metaphor, you know, where um Goethe you know, speaks of the wise men, you know, as part of, them, you know, truth from falsehood, right? You know, and as he swims on, they slow back together again.

[57:41] There's a statement that uh the problem of modern intellectuals is they tend to get, but they tend to prefer the mean between the extremes of right and wrong. As Brian Kimball heads up the New Criterion Journal on Arts and Culture. Yeah. It's very, very fine. I think he may be Catholic, but certainly very Catholic friendly. He has all sorts of great statements like that in some of his books, just like Robert Frost had said, "Coming, you hear about the middle of the road?

[58:15] " Robert Frost said, Middle of the road, where they paint the line, worst place to drive. " Mediocrity.