Logic (2016)
52. Reason Knowing Itself: The Distinction of Distinction and the Fallacy of 'Simply' and 'Somewhat' (Induction, Rhetoric, Descartes, Hegel, Certainty vs. Dignity of Knowledge)
Class of 2017-09-07
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/052-reason-knowing-itself-the-distinction-of-distinction-and/

[0:00] Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. God, their enlightenment, guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, or illuminate our vision and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:25] It's kind of a conclusion here to our study of logic. There, right now, we're talking about the fallacies, right? Huh? Okay. Well, go back to something here. which is kind of interesting. You know what the seven wise men of Greece put up? The words "Gnothi Sauton Know thyself," right? Now, I often ask students, to whom is that addressed? Know thyself. Hmm.

[1:02] Yeah, it's not addressed to God because God knows Himself naturally, and by knowing Himself, He knows all other things. It's not addressed to the angels because they naturally know themselves first, right? It's not addressed to the dog or the cat because they can't really know themselves, and so on. So it's addressed to man, right? Huh? But now more precisely, right? To what part of man is that addressed?

[1:28] Huh? Can my eye know what an eye is? Can my hand know what a hand is? Was there any part of me that can know itself? Yeah. So reason knows not only many other things, right? But it knows what itself itself, right? Now that is reflected in interesting way in logic and sciences of that sort, right? Because when you study things in logic, like say definition, right?

[2:05] Well, there's not only a definition of square and a definition of the soul and a definition of tragedy, and there's even a definition of definition, right? That's kind of kind of reflecting the fact that reason knows itself, right? Okay. We saw, you know, Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? So reason knows not only what a square is and what tragedy is, and so on, but it knows what reason is, right?

[2:34] Okay. And there's even a what division of division, right? So sometimes we say division is the distinction of the parts of some whole. So we divide division into division of a what composed whole, right? And then division of a universal whole. So that's the division of division, right? Huh? But now more generally, then division definition is distinction, right? So I ask students sometimes, what's the distinction of distinction?

[3:15] Okay. Now, I'm kind of led by the hand there by Thomas Aquinas, huh? Because when Thomas is considering the Trinity, right? He wants to understand the distinction of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. But what are they distinguished, right? And he proceeds in a very logical way, right? With the distinction of distinction. And the basic distinction of distinction is a distinction into what? Material distinction, as it's called, which is the distinction from the division of the continuous, right?

[4:01] So if we have an apple pie here and we cut it into, you know, six slices, right? That's a material distinction, right? From the division of the what? Continuous. Or you divide a circle in half, right? Well, you have two semicircles now, right? That's material division, right? Okay. And then there's the division that's called the formal distinction, which is distinction by opposites, huh? Okay. Now Thomas proceeding a logical way says there can't be a material distinction of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because there's nothing continuous in God.

[4:45] Huh? It's not a body, right? Not something continuous. Um. He's measured not by time, but by eternity, right? There's no. So. But yet there's got to be some distinction between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, because it would be heretical to say that these are merely different names of the same person or different things he does, huh?

[5:15] I could say this philosopher, this grandfather, okay, but there are different things I've done, one and the other. So it must be by a formal distinction that the Father and the Son are distinct, right? Well. Now you go back to the categories in Aristotle, where the second postpredicament is what? Opposition. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you read a lot in commentaries like Albert the Great say or Cajetan or something.

[5:46] When they divide the categories of Aristotle, huh? And they use the word what? Predicament for the word category. they talk about the antepredicaments right? Which are certain distinctions that are necessary to understand the ten. Distinction of ten genera, right? And then you have the ten genera themselves, but mainly substance, quantity, quality, relation are taken up. And then you have the post predicaments, right? And there's six of them, and they're very well ordered, as you may expect.

[6:21] But the first three are what opposites, and then before, and then háma or together, right? Okay. There's three more, right? Okay. But anyway, Thomas goes to the first one, the first post predicament, which is by opposites, and he says, well, there's four kinds of opposites, as Aristotle has pointed out, but it can't be distinction of being and non-being, because God is I am who I am, right?

[6:53] One of them can't be being, one being, non-being, that can't be the basis of distinction. It can't be privation and lack, say, and having, because that's the kind of non-being, a lack. It can't even be what contraries, because that involves some kind of lack of one in the pair from the other, but also a difference in form, which would give you two different gods, right? So it must be by the many one.

[7:22] Relatives. Yeah. And maybe father and son suggests that too, right? So you can see how ordered this Thomas is, right? Okay. So I ask people, what is the distinction of distinction? What's in material and formal distinction, right? And material distinction is touched upon, of course, in the chapter on quantity, right? And then that's by the division of the continuous, right? So even number arises from the division of the continuous.

[7:55] And so you and I are distinct because of the division of the continuous, right? There's enough flesh to go around to make up six bodies, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But then there's what formal distinction, right? So you go into some rigorous science like with mathematics, right? And you have the distinction of odd and even, right? And that's by what contradictories, right?

[8:23] The even number is divided and divisible into two equal parts, right? Yeah. Or you have the other distinction of prime and composite, right? A composite number is measured by another number. Every number is measured by one, which is not really a number, but a constant number is also measured by some other number. And a prime number is not measured by any other number; it's measured only by one.

[8:49] So, in the first antepredicament you had the famous distinction between universal substance and singular accident and universal accident and singular substance and that's by two contradictories right Said of another not said of another exist in another had the famous distinction between universal substance and singular accident, and universal accident and singular substance, and that's by two contradictories, right? Set of another, not set of another, exist in another than the subject does not exist in another is in the subject, right?

[9:15] Okay. So I found it very useful, and Thomas did to go back to the post predicaments, right? So when I was trying to understand Shakespeare's their definition of reason, right? Huh? I was what going back to the second post predicament, which is the distinction of before, right? Okay.

[9:41] But anyway, I've given you a little bit of the distinction of distinction, right? Huh? But now there's a kind of connection between the different kinds of opposites, so you might say, and distinction, huh? Because corresponding to maybe each Kind of opposition, or each kind of mistake, there's a kind of distinction, right? So, for example, the most common mistake is what? Mixing up the senses of words, right?

[10:19] And what corresponds to this? A distinction of the senses of a word, right? Makes sense, right? Let's try with the idea, you know, of

[10:35] do we need words equivocal by reason? I'm sure if Thomas and Aristotle had officially, you know, disputed this question, right? They would have begun, you know, with probably the observation of Aristotle that the most common mistake in thinking is mixing up the senses of a word. And then when the word is equivocal by reason, you're apt to mix them up. then it's equivocal by what? Yeah. I have this student comes to my house on Wednesday night, Richard, and my brother.

[11:08] I have a brother named Richard, and there was this King Richard the First, Richard the Third, Richard the Second, and so on, right? I don't have any problem mixing those guys up, right? Richard Nixon, right? You know, mix them up with my student or with my brother, my brother with his student. But names equivocal by reason, there's a connection among the meetings and similarity between them sometimes and so on, right?

[11:32] I say, well, gee whiz, that's the real problem, right? Do we need that kind of kind of words, right? And so that's probably be the objection. We don't need it. They're the cause of the most common mistake in our thinking. Oh my God! Get rid of those words, right? Let's have only univocal words, right? Simple finding. Yeah, we've got to have equivocal words, it's, just equivocal by chance, but suddenly none of the words you go out and you purposely make the words equivocal by reason, so you can deceive more people, right?

[12:05] And make the help, make them make mistakes, right? So that would be the, you know, counter, right? But if you go back to Shakespeare's definition of reason, that's the ability for discourse, right? Well, we tend to what? There's a natural road in our knowledge, the road from the senses into reason, right? And so we naturally name first things that can be what sensed, right? And as you get further away from the senses, then the more difficult it is to name things and to think about them and talk about them, right?

[12:48] So unless we have some way of bringing you over from the words that name things that you can sense, right, to things you cannot sense. We ain't gonna know none of those things, right? That shows the necessity, right? Of names equivocal by reason, right? Well, and Thomas is explaining, you know, why is the first meaning of in or to be in, right, is to be in this room, right?

[13:19] Why is that? You know, to have the senses the senses, right? Aristotle says the first meaning of act is is motion. Well, Shakespeare reminds us things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs. That's the first sense of act, right? But there'll be other kinds of act like form and so on that are less sensible, right? And we have to what run from the one that is most sensible to one that is less sensible to ones that are not sensible at all, right?

[13:52] That's one sense of the word sensible, right? Not nonsense. Yeah, but our mind naturally does this, right? See, I always told how my my mother, when I was a little boy, you know, my mother would say, "I see said the blind man, but he couldn't see at all." She thought it was very clever. My mother never went to college, but she thought it was very clever. She used to say that, "I don't know why," but she heard somewhere or something.

[14:20] I don't know. But we naturally, you know, carry words over, right, by a certain connection between them, right? And so it's according to the nature of our reason, right? It's kind of going from the more known to the what less known, right? And that's natural for our reason to what? That's what discourse means most of all, right? To come to know what you don't know to what you do know, or come to know what's less known to by what is more known, right?

[14:51] And so we really need these kind of words, right? Now, in Shakespeare's definition of of reason, there's basically five words, and they're all equivocal by reason. Can't avoid this, right? It's natural. It's to be very in your nature as a in your ability for discourse, huh?

[15:15] So if you see people making the mistake of mixing up senses of words, right, that makes you aware of the importance of what the distinguishing senses of a word, right? And vice versa, understanding the distinguishing senses of a word will help you to understand this kind of what mistake, right? Okay. Now I'm going to pick out one of the mistakes not from words, but from what things, right?

[15:47] Huh? And this one is called in Latin, huh, mistake of mixing up the what. Some pejorative, right? So you find Thomas Aquinas referring to this a lot, right? Distinction between simpliciter and secundum quid. Now, what the hell does that mean, right? Okay. Well, I was playing around with translating this and say, you can say, simply, okay, capital sin in Greek, I guess it is, simply, and what, somewhat, okay.

[16:43] And something is said simply, and something was said only somewhat, in some what incomplete or imperfect way, right? Okay. I know a young lady who was named what? Not Anne, but Annette.

[17:06] And as she got older, she felt kind of what? compromised by the name Annette because it means little Anne. The addition there is a diminutive, right? Huh? Okay. And she wanted to be called Anne, so we all started calling her Anne rather than Annette, huh? Okay. So very often we add something, right? Okay. Now, I'm going to go through some examples here from the different parts of philosophy and so on,

[17:42] where if you understand this distinction, you can understand the mistake that is made when you mix up the two, right? And vice versa, when you see how people make this mistake of mixing up those two and how serious it can be, then you can see the importance of that distinction.

[18:16] Let's take an example here from logic. Logic, right? In logic, Aristotle distinguishes, basically, he says, there's two kinds of argument, and they are what? Syllogism and induction, right?

[18:37] Induction is an argument from many what? Singulars to universal. Right. Syllogism is an argument in which some statements laid down, another follows necessarily because of those what? Laid down. Now, in the case of the induction, does a conclusion follow necessarily?

[19:03] Does it follow at all? Yeah. So it follows somewhat, doesn't it? Yeah. But doesn't follow necessarily, does it? See now, I like cats a lot, but every cat I've seen is four-legged unless he's been injured, right?

[19:28] So does it follow necessarily because every cat I've seen is four-legged that all cats are four-legged? Follows, doesn't it? Does it follow necessarily? If I was a little black boy born darkest Africa, every man I had seen in my life was what? Black. Um, I would conclude that all men are what? Black, right? and now, using my mother's authority here, she always tells me the story of. The mother came down to a little boy from the little town of Watertown, Minnesota, which apparently there's no blacks in town.

[20:09] And he was walking down the sidewalk with his mummy, and then along comes up the other way a little black boy, and he says, "Go home and wash your face."

[20:21] And it's kind of very funny, right? But why was the little boy saying that? He wasn't a racist or something, right? Yeah, he had never seen a black boy, right? Never seen a black man. So he had concluded, right, something that wasn't necessarily so, and in fact is not necessarily so, right? Yeah, yeah. So you could say that in a syllogism the conclusion follows necessarily, right? And in that way it's what necessary, right?

[20:57] Inductions that follow more or less, but you know, have a little bit of caution there, a little bit of, you know. I always like to say, you know, how many instances do you have to give for it to to conclude, right? Well, you know, I maintain that every number is odd, right? Three is odd, five is odd, seven is odd, nine is odd, eleven. I can go on.

[21:26] Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's pretty impressive. You know, that's a large discourse, right? A large induction, as they would say. Yeah, yeah. And still, it doesn't follow, does it, that all numbers are are odd, right? So here we have the distinction, it seems to me, between simply and what somewhat, right? It doesn't mean induction is a bad argument, right? But it kind of inclines the mind.

[21:57] The more you have of these, right, without any exception, but it's still a little distinction there, right? Well, then when Aristotle gets into rhetoric, on rhetoric he says this is the art of what persuasion, huh? And tradition says that Plato said, you know, Aristotle did some work here on the nature of rhetoric, right? So Aristotle was obeying his master, huh? And so he came to realize that rhetoric is the art of persuasion.

[22:30] And then he thought out a distinction, right, that there were three means of what persuasion, huh? One is the image you project of yourself, what's the guy who knows what he's talking about, huh? And then the second way of persuasion is the way he moves your emotions and your prejudices and so on, right? And then the third and least important is the arguments or apparent arguments that he gives.

[22:57] Okay. But now the rhetorician Aristotle says has got two kinds of arguments, huh? And they're called enthymeme and what? Example, right? The example now is a word equivocal by reason, right? It? Doesn't mean example of a singular to illustrate the universal, but it means what? An argument from one singular to another singular, of the same kind. Aristotle said, well, basically an argument is either a syllogism or induction.

[23:28] So what are these? Well, the enthymeme is sort of like a syllogism, right? And the argument for example, right, is like induction, right? But he calls the enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism, and the example argument, right, a rhetorical induction, right? And that's a diminutive, right? Okay. So I guess when Napoleon was going, when when Hitler was going to invade Russia, I'm sure these generals and other people, Hitler must have known about Napoleon, right?

[24:05] You better watch what you're doing here, right? Okay. Now an enthymeme is defined as an argument from what? Likelihood or from what signs? But likelihood is a statement of what is true for the most part of human affairs. Boys will be boys, right? But sometimes a boy surprises you, and that's what you'd expect from a man, right? And most signs are not what

[24:36] necessary. And so my wife works with brain injured people, right? And some of these guys they walk around like they were drunk, you know, but they're not drunk, right? But sometimes a policeman gets the wrong ideas about the condition is, right? So if someone comes, you know, staggering out of the

[25:01] bar. You may think he's what drunk, right? That's a sign that he's had too much, you know, that he's not walking too steadily. But it might be because of old age, it might be because of some kind of illness, right? And so these signs are not what necessary, right? So the but nevertheless the enthymeme is more like a syllogism, right, than induction because you're dealing with something that is with what's called likelihood, right?

[25:30] Something that's true for the most part, right? The man who's staggering, you know, is maybe drinking, right, for the most part. So here you had that distinction between what what is simply a syllogism and what is somewhat a syllogism, right? Something like a syllogism, but something. Lacking the full strength, right? Okay. And this is an induction, and then the rhetorical induction, rhetorical example, okay? Something. Or this thing here we're saying about in a distinction between syllogism and induction, right?

[26:18] In an argument, something's got to follow, right? Was anything follow induction? Yeah. But that's not necessarily. I don't think they're necessary, right? You know, this little boy, you know, that said go and wash your face. The little black boy. He had not. Did it follow that all men are white, from what he had seen? One would be inclined to think so, right? But that's because. Chris Trigg

[26:54] used to give this example in class. Sometimes he'd say, if a man goes up to the moon or some planet, and he says, "Hey, you know, the snow up there is green." You know, you'd be surprised, wouldn't you? Would you say that's impossible? I don't know why snow couldn't be green. do you? If he went up there and said, you know, part of a stone is as big as a whole stone, you've been influenced by.

[27:20] By. Anti gravity or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Space travel and all. Okay. He found Al's oasis between here and the moon, or something. Now let's take a little more difficult example here. This, not really limited to logic or general methods.

[27:49] In the beginning of the the physics of Aristotle, right, in his *proemium right, he points out a distinction between what is more known simply, or by nature, as he says, and what is more known what. To us. To us, yeah.

[28:27] It's actually a definition of more known, right? Well, what kind of distinction is that he's making between these two? He also calls what is more known by nature, right? Instead, they don't use the word "apples" there, either.

[28:49] Well, let's read a little question here, right? Is a thing more known when it's known in a confused way, or when it's known distinctly?

[29:12] Yeah. But now, if you give me a glass of dry red wine, don't show me the bottle like that. Just give me a glass here. Let me taste and so on. And say, what is that, Mister Berquist? I said, that's a dry red wine.

[29:33] He said could you be a little more precise, Mister Berquist is this a Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir? You know. And they say in these the best of the competitions here in California, they have to pass a test, right? If I don't know, I'm picking Cabernet Sauvignon rather than Pinot Noir or

[29:54] whatever it may be. Am I really in a position to be judging? Which is the best of the Pinot Noirs, you know, submitted this year? Not yet. You know, so you might not ask that test, right? And say, "Dude, you can't be a judge this year.

[30:15] You're defective. You're deficient. Yeah, deficient. Sense of taste and smell. Okay. So when I, now my brother Marcus, you can't fool that guy, right? Not anymore.

[30:36] I told you the famous time when Ron MacArthur the president of TAC had a dinner for a faculty, and he put a different wine in bottles that he had saved, right, and so on. And no one knew that this was so, except my brother Marcus. That's not. That's not.

[30:55] It's a run. He's the only guy that wasn't deceived, right? Okay. But which is more known to us? Do we think know things more that this is a dry red wine, or that it's Cabernet Sauvignon? Dry red wine. Yeah, yeah. So what is more known to us is less known simply, or less known by nature, because it's not fully known when it's known in a in distinct way, right?

[31:32] When it's known distinctly, it's more known what? Simply, yeah, yeah. But not to us. So I always give the example of this famous tasting of Cabernet Sauvignons and at Cambridge, Massachusetts, among very distinguished professors, et cetera, et cetera. And they were tasting Cabernet Sauvignons all evening, right? And then finally at the end of the evening, they had the what? Hidden bottle, right? You know, it's covered up there, and so on, and everybody's given, you know, the taste of this last Cabernet Sauvignon of the evening, and they're asked to compare with the ones, and so on.

[32:13] Some liked it very much, and so on. And then they revealed it. It was dry blueberry wine. That tasted been. Yeah, and this dry blueberry wine is pretty good. I mean, even Warren Murray, I mean, the great wine connoisseur, likes dry blueberry wine. And but here, here's people who've been tasting Cabernet Sauvignons all evening, and and they don't realize. Giving him ideas.

[32:42] Yeah. And so, what's more known to them, right? So. Now, who was deceived about these matters? What's the famous modern philosopher who was deceived about this? Yeah, and he's often given the title the father of modern philosophy, right? Huh? One of my professors to joke about that doesn't have any sons because they all disagree with each other. philosophers. But in some ways he started things going, right?

[33:21] Huh? Okay. But when you read Descartes and the Discourse and Method, right? Huh? He's talking about only accepting those things that are so distinct, right, that he can't doubt them, right? Huh? So he's saying that the distinct is more what certain, right? For us, right? For him, right? Descartes. Well, he's mixing up the two, isn't he? See, the distinct is more known simply than the confused, right?

[33:54] But the confused is more known to us, right? I am more sure than drinking dry red wine than that I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon. When I was drinking Cabernet Sauvignon with my brother Marcus in California, I guess I could tell the difference between north and south of the bay, right? You know, I don't think I do that anymore.

[34:17] And I was joking there because one of the wines out there they use the term private selection, you know? It's not expensive wine, but it's this private selection, you know? Yeah. I said, I like to tell people this is really something good. This is private selection. This is what he uses for his friends, you know, and so on. But the confused is more known to me, right?

[34:47] Aristotle is concluding from this that we have to consider things in natural philosophy in general before in what particular, right? So in natural philosophy or natural science for Aristotle, the first book is the what we call the physics today, but the Greek title is Natural Hearing, right? And it's talking about motion and change and natural things in general, right? And then there follows the books on change of place in particular, the book on the universe, and then change of quality leading to substantial change, the book on reminiscence, I mean, coming to be and passing away, and then the ones dealing with what growth and what's found in living things, right?

[35:35] But he argues that we should start from what is more known to us. What is more known to us is the what indistinct and the distinct and the general is not as distinct as the what particular. So we should consider these things in general first. And Descartes doesn't do that It jumps into the particular right away, right?

[35:57] And that's the big mistake, right? Order, order is a sign of intelligence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's a mistake, but what? Simply, and and somewhat. Okay. Do you see that? And so the whole order in which you study these things is is fouled up, you might say, right? That's a tremendous mistake, right? But now you realize the importance of that kind of distinction, right? By the danger of this kind of mistake, right?

[36:34] But understand that kind of distinction is what helps you to understand this kind of mistake, right? Okay. You see that? That's what you see. One of these. Okay.

[37:18] When do you know an effect fully? When is an effect most fully known? Yeah, in the light of its cause, right? Now is an effect most known to us in the light of its cause?

[37:39] No, because every time we ask, "Why is this so? " Why was there that eclipse of the sun? Yeah, yeah. But if I used to come in, I say, you know, which is more known to us? That there is day and night on this earth, or that day and night is an effect of the Earth turning on its axis. I thought it was because the sun's going around the earth, right?

[38:10] And I said, you know, what's this nonsense about the Earth turning on its axis? I'd say to my students, you know, if you take a clump of dirt and make a ball out of it, does it start rotating like that? Why would the Earth be, you know, doing like that? Earth doesn't do that, huh? You know, you need to go up a clump of dirt. What's going straight in a straight line?

[38:29] It doesn't start rotating, you know. You know, it's a lot of nonsense, right? And they can't defend, you know, that that the idea that the Earth is turning its axis and should be so a regular thing. We set our clocks by it. Our clocks are based upon how long it takes for the you know Earth to rotate, you know.

[38:52] So is day and night fully known without knowing its cause? It's more fully known when you know it in the light of its cause. Why, why there is day and night in this earth, right? But which is more known to us—that there is day and night, or that there is day and night because the earth is turning on its axis? somebody says. Some believers. Yeah.

[39:30] So does Aristotle try to know first the mover or motion? Motion. Yeah. And he's going to try to reason from motion huh? to there being a mover, and the mover is a move mover to there being a what Unmoved mover, right? huh? But he's going to start with what is what more known to us, Not what is more known what Simply, yeah, Yeah. It's kind of amusing, you know, with with Hegel, right?

[40:11] Because Hegel and his system, what they call, what does he where does he begin? Well, he begins with what is said of all, right? Being, right? And then he tries to generate the whole universe out of what the most vague, but

[40:38] notion that we have, most general notion we have, right? The most confused, indistinct notion we have. That's going the other direction, right? As if what is more known to us is more known simply, right? Explains everything else.

[40:59] Hegel, of course, also gets involved in the fallacy that Aristotle says deceives even the wise. The fallacy of the what accidental, right? I was saying to Joshua last night. You know, only the ignorant can can what learn. And of course, Hegel talks about the tremendous power of the negative.

[41:22] See, only the ignorant. Ignorance is a kind of non-being, isn't it? See, it's not knowing, right? And only the ignorant can learn. Even God himself cannot learn, right? Then. Must be, really. Yeah, yeah. I say, yeah, yeah. So tremendous power of the negative. Only the ignorant can learn.

[41:50] Well, what mistake is that? That's the fallacy of accident. Yeah. Yeah. So that learning. Yeah, yeah. Ignorance is not your ability to learn, right?

[42:06] If I'm ignorant of a theorem in geometry, I have to learn it from the statements that are what per se known, right? Or the theorems have been proved through them already. I got to use these to come to know some theorem I don't know, right? Eventually, the Pythagorean theorem, which is the end of the first book of Euclid. You say, well,

[42:30] ignorance is accidental to my learning, right? Even though it's necessarily there, right? I think something that's accidental, that's necessarily there, before I learn, is more apt to deceive one than something that, you know. You can learn if you're a black man but you don't have to be a black man to learn right a black man, but you don't have to be a black man to learn, right?

[42:55] But you got to be ignorant to learn. If you know everything, if you know it all, you can't learn anything. Okay. But okay. Now let's take another little example here.

[43:21] In the beginning of the De Anima, there, Aristotle wants to whet our knowledge, or whet our desire to know about the soul, and so he begins by pointing out that all knowledge is such as what good, huh? But one knowledge is better than another because it's what A better thing? Yeah, or because it's more what certain, right? And he goes on to say that in both ways, the knowledge of the soul seems to be better than most other knowledges, huh?

[43:55] Because the soul is better than anything else in the material world that we're familiar with, huh? And in some way, we're very sure about our having a soul because we know our inward experience of being alive, huh?

[44:13] But now, in another place, in the beginning of the, I think the Parts of Animals, there in the Poemium, Aristotle comes back to these two criteria, right? And it's possible, right, that say that my knowledge of geometry is more certain than my knowledge of the soul,

[44:36] but knowledge of the soul is a better knowledge of a better thing than knowledge of the triangle and the square, right? So which is better, then geometry or

[44:56] the knowledge of the soul? Yeah, Aristotle says it's better to know a better thing, even if it's imperfectly known, right? And to know a lesser thing, right? Yeah. I can know the number of chairs in this room, counting them with more certitude than I can know what the soul is maybe, right? But it's better to know the soul even perfectly than to know exactly how many chairs are in this room, right?

[45:26] That's no big deal, right, huh? Aristotle is a beautiful example for there. You know, he says as a glimpse of someone we love, right, means more to us than what?

[45:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, yeah. You turn my example I used to give, you know, you see the boss all day long, you know. But some of you might see every day, like your neighbor walking out of his house and things like that, you know. He's got a picture, a new picture of one potential and things like that. You know, oh, you know, a glimpse of this, right?

[46:01] So there's a distinction in knowledge between what you know and how you know it, right? And which is more essential to knowledge? What? What you know, right? Then how you know it, right? So the criterion that knowledge is a better thing is greater than. How well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always say I used to use example in the light. Rather hear Mozart on an even imperfect recording machine, right?

[46:34] Some of this junk, you know. You know, the most perfect instrument, right? Because you'd rather hear something better than what hearing it better, hearing something better. It's kind of an equivocation there, right? Hearing something better. No, now

[47:06] down for the what was it? I think it was down in Washington there, at the Seton School, right? They had their graduation there down there, in your old alma mater I guess, right? Oh is that where they do? it now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they had a you know thing about that school too. But anyway,

[47:28] talking in very Catholic idiom down there, right? Or talking to people, you know, and people studying in kind of you know more public university or second university, right? The the people got the idea, you know, that mathematics is everything, right?

[47:45] Well, maybe they have more certitude in mathematics than in any other knowledge, right? Therefore, this is the best knowledge, right? Well, is that true? Because what?

[48:05] That's taking the criterion of how you know it rather than what you what you know, right? So they'd rather study mathematics than study say theology or study the soul or something like that because they don't have the same certitude maybe when they study the soul or God or something of that sort, right? Or ethics even, right? Huh? You know. And so they want to do something that is what better to study mathematics.

[48:36] Yeah, but it seems they're making a fallacy, right? It's better to study mathematics than to study the soul. That they're concluding right? To make this kind of mistake, right? Okay.

[48:52] Mixing up what is better in some way with what is better what simply. So in some way, mathematics is better than the knowledge of the soul. It's more certain. But simply speaking, knowledge of the soul is better than what mathematics.

[49:17] So your whole course of studying what you want to pursue, right, might be vitiated, right, by by this kind of a what mistake, right? You find this kind of in the moderns, right? Where the mathematics has that respect for its certitude, right? And therefore, you want to go into that. right Put all your eggs in that basket yeah Yeah. Yeah.

[49:49] That's what something like that that started this mistake, but it reminds me of Saint Alphonsus's conversion experience when he was a lawyer. you know he Built a huge. case Yeah. And um, and he was flawless except for one mistake in the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he just he made his whole case brilliant, wonderful, and then his opponent just pointed out this small mistake in the beginning.

[50:17] The whole thing was not a house of cards, and that was yeah, yeah, he knew that, yeah, yeah, yeah. To his conversion, yeah. That's what

[50:27] I was saying. He was a lawyer before he was converted. Yeah. Okay. I know, so that might determine your whole course of study, right?