Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
1. Aristotle's Physics: Proemium and the Confused Before the Distinct (Three Kinds of Examples)
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[0:04] That you're learning from nature, you're hearing, listening to nature. Yeah, you're hearing about nature, and you're also listening to nature. Okay. When Immanuel Kant is describing physics in the modern sense, he has interesting proportion, and he says that in physics, in experimental physical sciences, there we learn from nature not in the way that a student learns from his teacher, but in the way that the judge learns from the witness.

[0:51] There's some truth to that, right? Because as a good scientist would tell you, we never perform all the experiments that we could perform, and we just choose to perform this experiment because we have this thing we want to test, and so we hear only what nature says in response to our question. We don't sit down and just listen to nature or whatever she has to say. So the witness uh doesn't get on the stand and just say whatever he wants to say, keeps his mouth shut until we ask him a definite question.

[1:25] But in this book here, we're listening to nature like a student listens to his what teacher. The student listens to all his teacher has to say.

[1:39] Okay, you see the difference there? Interesting proportion there. I don't think Kant realizes that we should listen to nature first as a student listens to his what teacher, right? Later on, we may have to listen to nature in the way that a what the judge, or the lawyer, listens to the witness, huh? Okay. Kant wants to listen to nature only in that second way, but I say we ought to listen to it first as a student listens to his teacher.

[2:11] Of course, hearing is the what the ear is the sense of instruction from another, and we have a fragment of Heraclitus, one of the greatest thinkers, central thinker in human thought. He says, "Wisdom is to speak the truth and to act according to nature, giving ear thereto. That's what Aristotle's doing here, right? He's giving ear thereto, huh? So he's listening to nature in what nature has to say about nature.

[2:44] Okay. At the same time, you'll see that this is fairly close to what we naturally understand. We'll see that when we get further into the book. So in a way, we're listening to nature, the basis of what we naturally understand.

[3:06] So there's a lot of reasons why this book could well be called the book of natural hearing, huh? there are actually eight books, and we're going to be reading just certain parts of these, huh? Okay.

[3:21] Now the reading, the division to readings is the one you find with Thomas, huh? into lectiones huh? and lectio could be translated lecture or reading. I like the word reading, huh? So if you ever look at Thomas's commentary, this would correspond to the first lectio in Thomas' commentary. Okay.

[3:42] Now, I think we've spoken before, haven't we, about the difference between the logical division of a work and the editorial division of the work? Let me speak about that when we talk about the Bible, for example.

[4:03] Yeah. I mean, if you take the Gospel of Saint Matthew, right, the editorial division of the book is into 28 chapters, huh? And the chapters down to verses, and so you can refer to any chapter or verse that you want, right? But now, when Thomas divides the work as a whole, does he divide it into twenty eight parts. No, he says the Gospel of Saint Matthew is emphasizing the humanity of Christ, right?

[4:30] As man, he came into the world. He proceeded through the world, and he left the world. Gospel of Saint Matthew is divided into three parts. Okay. Corresponding to those three. So the logical division, the division that helps you to understand the book, right, is much different than the editorial division. Editorial division is just a convenience for referring to any chapter or any particular passage, huh? Okay. Now, just about every book of Aristotle

[5:10] is divided into two parts at first, and the two parts are proportional to the way we divide Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Now, how would you divide Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?

[5:35] The prologue and the play, right? Okay. Now, not every work of Shakespeare's has a prologue, right? There's a prologue at the end of the Eighth, but in Romeo and Juliet, you have a prologue and a play, right? And the prologue is very small compared to the what play, but it prepares the way for the what play, right? So the prologue to Romeo and Juliet is written in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet,

[6:06] two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we their is seen, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. That first quatrain sets the stage, you know, in the city of Verona, right? Two powerful families are in conflict to the point of shedding blood, right? Then the second quatrain, from forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, whose misadventured piteous overthrows, do with their death bury their parents' strife.

[6:44] So introduce now today, it's going to be a tragedy, right? Something he mentions pity there, right? Whose misadventured piteous overthrows, and then the third quatrain mentions the other emotion that tragedy arouses, fear, the fearful passage of their death-marked love, and the continuance of their parents' rage, which not but their children's end. Now the two hours' traffic of our stage traffic of our stage, and he has a little couplet to which, if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss our toils shall strive to mend.

[7:15] Okay. So the prologue, in a way, is preparing you for the kind of play it is. It's even more clear in Henry the Eighth there when he says, "I come no more to make you laugh," you know, he says, he's going to give you something very tragic and serious, you know, and okay. So Romeo and

[7:35] Juliet then is divided into the prologue, which kind of prepares one for the kind of play it's going to be, and then the play itself, which is a a major part, obviously, right? Okay. Almost every work of Aristotle is divided into what they call the proemium, and

[7:57] sometimes they call the other part the tractatus okay. But the main body of the work, now proemium is a Greek word which could be perhaps translated by the phrase paving the way,

[8:17] and the proemium of course is very short. It occupies usually the beginning of the first book, but not even the whole of the first book. So it's much smaller comparison to the what whole, right? But in some way prepares the way or paves the way.

[8:38] We look at the proemium remember the wisdom, beginning metaphysics, okay. And the most essential thing in a proemium is what is called the skopos, the aim, what you intend in the book, right? But then sometimes you go on and say something about why it's desirable and how we're going to proceed and so on, right? But it prepares the way. huh? Tractatus, you have the Latin they'll use that for the main body, but it means what drawn out.

[9:12] So the proemium tells you what it's all about in a very what concise way, but a way that prepares you for the work, and the tractatus is drawn out, right?

[9:25] Um, If you look at the Dei Verbum, the Constitution, Divine Revelation, in the Second Vatican Council, if you get the official text, the Latin text, right,

[9:44] is at the very beginning. The proemium is identified as a proemium and it's really a masterful proemium if you study that, magnificent, but in the English translation I have, they call it introduction. What introduction is a what leading in? Two right? See, that's already going into the matter. I say, so it should not be called introduction in the translation, but the translator doesn't know what a proemium is and how proemium differs from a what, from a introduction, right?

[10:16] Okay. If I can give a whole course, let's say, an assumption that might be called introduction to something, right? Okay, very common college introduction to this or that science, right? But you actually go into the ways, right? Proemium is just saying very short at the beginning, which you're aiming at, and maybe something what I'm going to proceed. Okay.

[10:41] So this first reading is Aristotle's proemium to Natural Philosophy. Okay. Now Plato had already spoken a bit about this. You go to the Timaeus, huh? Which is not so much a dialogue, but Timaeus speaking about the what origin, universe, and so, and the cosmos, right? But he has a proemium first, which is magnificent proemium. And Socrates of course just sits and listens. Okay. And when he finishes the proemium, you know Socrates applauds magnificent proemium Yeah.

[11:23] And if you look at the Greek of that proemium and Aristotle's proemium to Nicomachean Ethics, they're very even the words seem very but similar, right? Okay. So Plato saw that need, you know, in a treatise to have a proemium, right? Okay. It's analogous to the what overture in a what symphony, symphony in an opera, sort of. Yeah. Which would be different, right? The overture of Don Giovanni would be different than the overture of Cosi fan tutte, right?

[11:53] And kind of set the mood. But it's most like a prologue in a play, right? Okay. Now, what is Aristotle going to do with this proemium? He's going to do two things, huh? Just two things. One is what we're aiming at, right? Okay. What the scope is. Okay.

[12:24] And secondly, and this takes up most of the thing, he's going to talk about the order in which we should consider these things we're aiming at, right? Okay. So the aim there is in the very first paragraph, and all the rest of it will be about the order there. Okay. So let's look at the first paragraph here.

[12:54] He says, "Since understanding and knowing why in all sciences of which there are beginnings or cause elements come to be from knowing these." For then we, and that's not the editorial we. He means we, the Greek philosophers, right? For then we think we know each thing; we know its first causes and first beginnings, and as far as its what elements, huh? It is clear that in the science of nature, one should first try to determine about the beginnings.

[13:29] Now, those first words in that paragraph, since understanding and knowing why, Thomas in his commentary takes understanding, which is the Greek word "eidenai," there, to refer to knowing what, right? Okay, and knowing what and knowing why are both from knowing what causes, huh? Okay, but uses three words here instead of just the word cause, right? Beginning, causes, elements, huh? Okay, and Thomas points out how Aristotle shows the character of those three words, the meaning of those three words, in the beginning of the fifth book of wisdom.

[14:18] Okay, and then he raises the question of what, how he's using those three words here, right? Now, in the fifth book of wisdom, the first three words are beginning, cause, element, and beginning

[14:40] is more general than the word cause. Every cause is in some way a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause. And the stock example is that of, say, a point. A point, for example, is the beginning of a line, but it's not really. The cause of the line, right? The beginning of the day is not the cause of the day, right? So beginning is more general than what cause.

[15:10] That's very important, incidentally, to talk about God the Father and God the Son, right? Because you really shouldn't say God the Father is the cause of God the Son, then God the Son would be a creature, right? But you can say that the Son proceeds from the Father, right? And so the Father can be said to be a what beginning, right? And sometimes, you know, that's one meaning they give to the words there, John.

[15:37] In the beginning was the Word, the Word was in the Father. Father is in I, and I in the Father. The. Father is the beginning. So beginning is is more general in meaning than what cause, right? Although many of the meanings of beginning refer to causes, huh? And all causes can be called beginnings, huh? So Aristotle is speaking very precisely, huh? In the fifth book of wisdom, when he's really giving his most careful determination, these words, he points out that beginning is what more general meaning than than cause, right?

[16:13] But a lot of times we use beginning and cause almost interchangeably because that's the kind of beginning the philosopher is interested in, because he wonders what and why, and then he's looking for beginnings in the sense of causes, huh? Now element is much more particular than cause. Actually, we'll meet later on in the course that there are four kinds of causes: the matter out of which something is made, right?

[16:41] The form that has shape, ratio, order, it has. Then the mover or the maker of it, and then end or purpose. What element is used just for the matter? The matter, yeah. Is that much more particular, right? Okay. Now, in mentioning these three, there are three words that are very common with the Greeks when they talk about causes. So Aristotle may want to simply what indicate that there are many kinds of causes by using these three words, right?

[17:13] And later on, we'll sort out the different kinds of causes. Or Thomas suggests that you can also what adapt these different kinds of causes. You can adapt element to matter and beginning, especially to the what mover or maker.

[17:37] So we say God is the beginning and the end of all things. Using the word beginning there to mean the the maker of all things, huh? And then cause for those two kinds of causes: form and end. huh?

[17:54] But not every science would use all these four kinds of causes, huh? Natural philosophy uses all four, but not everyone does. So. If you want to be very strict in the use of these words, beginning is more general than cause, right? Cause is more general than element, right? But you could also use them almost synonymously. Just like Aristotle, remember, in the metaphysics, used art or science for a knowledge that's universal without distinction between art or science, And he referred you to the ethics, where he distinguishes them carefully, right?

[18:30] Okay. Well, here you can refer back to the metaphysics if you want to use the words very precisely. But you use them more loosely, right? To name many kinds of causes, huh? Maybe to hint that there being different kinds of causes, huh? Do you see that?

[18:48] And especially element there in terms of matter, because Aristotle doesn't emphasize it here when he says, and as far as its elements, huh? He's hinting at the idea that natural philosophy goes what down into matter as it goes on, right? And it actually does that twice. We'll see in the whole of natural philosophy. Okay. When you go from the eight books of natural hearing to the book on the universe, and then to the books on generation and corruption, you're going down towards matter.

[19:27] And then again, when you start the three books about the soul, and you go down to studying later on the body more in detail, you're going down towards what matter, which is just the reverse of what you do in wisdom. In wisdom, you go towards the what immaterial. Natural philosophy go towards matter. It's just the opposite direction, huh? Okay. And when Aristotle says that we should first try to determine about the beginnings, I don't think he means means that what we know first, or will know first, is the beginnings are causes, right?

[20:06] But it's first in our intention what we're aiming at, right? We're aiming at knowing natural things by their causes, right? We're aiming at knowing natural things in the light of their causes, huh? We're aiming at knowing what natural things are and why they are the way they are, right? And both what and why is explained in the Posterior Analytics are answered by knowing the what, cause, huh?

[20:31] Okay. So Thomas refers back to the Posterior Analytics in explaining understanding and knowing why, right? And he takes it referring to what Aristotle talks about in the second book of the Posterior Analytics, understanding what and knowing why, but they're both through knowing causes. Okay. Did I just that, or they too fast? Okay. So that's the first paragraph, huh? What we're aiming at, huh? Okay. We're aiming at knowing natural things in the light of their causes, huh?

[21:06] Okay. We're aiming at knowing what and why natural things are as they are, right? It's another way of saying we're aiming at knowing their causes, because knowing what and knowing why is through knowing the cause. Okay. Now, the rest of the first reading is concerned with the order in which we should consider natural things and their causes. Okay. And the main thing Aristotle is going to say is that we should consider natural things and their causes in general before in what Or in particular.

[21:52] Okay. Now, basically, what he's going to do there is to give a reason why we should do that, and everything else is related to that reason. And we can state the reason in various forms. I often stated in the form of an if-then syllogism. Okay. And this is the if-then syllogism.

[22:24] If the confused is before the distinct in our knowledge, then the general is before the particular in our knowledge. Yeah. So if the confused is before the distinct in our knowledge, then the general is before the particular in our knowledge. And then, but

[23:12] the confused, in fact, is before the distinct in our knowledge. Now, if you lay down those two statements, what follows necessarily? The general is before the particular. Okay.

[23:43] Therefore, the general is before the particular in our knowledge. That's going to be the central argument of the whole rest of this first reading, right?

[24:11] And everything else that he says is to back up something in that argument. Now, very often you find now that one, and sometimes both, premises in a syllogism have to be backed up, right? But sometimes one of the premises is already known, or it's kind of obvious, right? Okay. Now, of these two here, look at the first one here.

[24:42] If you know what we mean by confused and distinct, confused here now is not being used in the sense of being mixed up or mistaken, right? But confused in the sense of being what? Indistinct, right? Okay. I mean, separate those two senses. If I think that a dog is a cat, I'm mixed up, right? I'm mistaken, right? Okay.

[25:14] If I think a dog is an animal, am I mistaken? No. But in thinking that a dog is an animal, do I distinguish between a dog and a cat? No.

[25:27] So knowing that a dog is an animal is not to be mistaken, but it's not to have an altogether distinct knowledge of the dog, somewhat confused and determined, right? By to say that a dog is a cat is to actually what be mistaken, okay? So he says the confused before distinct, he means the indistinct, right? Not the mistaken, okay? Now, isn't the general to the particular like the confused is to the distinct?

[26:03] If I know in general you're something, oh no, you're a human being, right? Okay, you're a male human being, right? Okay, as I just said, you know, from something to an animal to a human being, you're a male, and so on. I'm coming to know you more and more what distinctly, aren't I? Okay. I don't identify the meaning of general in particular with confused and distinct. Confused and distinct is more general than general in particular.

[26:38] General and particular are merely one what kind of confused and distinct. So if it's true that we know things in a confused way before we know them distinctly, and the general is to the particular as the confused is to the distinct, right? Right. To know something in general is not to know something as distinct as knowing it in particular, right? To know that a cat is an animal is not as distinct as knowing it's a four-footed animal.

[27:09] That's not as distinct as knowing it's a four-footed animal with paws and so on, right? Okay. Um. Okay, so you see the truth of the first premise there, right? If then one. Okay.

[27:26] Now we'll make other examples, other kinds of confused and distinct knowledge, right? In the same reading, right? But I mentioned here off the bat that these don't mean the same thing as those two, right? Okay. Confused and distinct is more general than general in particular. Okay. Do you see that? Okay. So Aristotle doesn't really try to manifest much this if then statement, huh? Okay. If you understand what you mean by confused and distinct, what you mean by general in particular.

[28:02] You can see the general is to particular as the confused is the distinct, right? Similar, like if I said four is to six is two is to three. If two is before three, then four is before six, right? Four and six are not the same thing as two and three, right? But if four is to six is two is to three, and two is before three, four must be before six, right?

[28:28] Okay. So if the general is to the particular as the confused is the distinct, if that proportion is correct, right? Then if the confused is before the distinct, the general must be before the particular. You see, of course, the argument Do you see the force of the argument Or force of, the statement, right? It's based upon seeing a proportion, right? The way I stated it, okay. It also states something a little bit different.

[28:52] to say that general in particular are one form of a confused and distinct, right? But you can argue again from the second premise. Now, the rest of what he says is really devoted to this second premise.

[29:10] He's going to give a reason why we know the confused before the distinct, right? Okay. And this reason is very difficult to understand at first. It's a very profound reason, okay?

[29:29] He's going to do that in that second paragraph, huh? Okay. In the second paragraph, he's going to be giving the reason why we know things in confused way before distinctly. But then, in the last three paragraphs, he's going to give three kinds of example to show that, in fact, we know the confused before the distinct, okay. Three kinds of example

[30:10] to show that, not why, but to show that we know the confused before the distinct. Okay. And we will be identifying those three kinds of examples, and under each kind, we can get an infinity of examples to confirm Aristotle's saying. Right.

[30:41] Now, usually, I talk about the three kinds of examples because it's easier for people to see, and then we'll come back to this most difficult reason that he gives, why. Okay. I think I mentioned how people write whole doctoral theses on this one page, right? Especially that reason why involves so much labor, right? Okay. So let's look at the easier thing: the three kinds of examples first to manifest that, in fact, we do know things in a confused way before distinctly.

[31:13] Okay. So I'm going to erase this here because, but you should have in mind how it revolves around this argument here, right? And the reason for the second premise, the manifestation of the proof of the second premise here, are three kinds of examples, huh?

[31:46] Now, the first kind of example that Aristotle gives is from the sensible composed whole. Now, composed whole is the ordinary sense of whole. Composed means what? Put together, right? Okay. So it's a whole put together from its parts, as opposed to universal whole, which is not put together from its parts, but instead of them. Okay. We touched upon that when we talked about division, if you remember.

[32:24] But he takes one that the senses know, right? A sensible composed whole, right? He's going to exemplify in sensible composed whole that we know such a whole in a confused way first, and later on more distinctly. We don't distinguish, in other words, the parts at first, right? But as time goes on, we start to do that. Okay. Now, let's take some example of that. Let's start with the sense of taste, right?

[32:58] Let's take taste and smell. Let me take all kinds of examples. Let's take a salad dressing, right? Now, sometimes people go to somebody's house and they serve a salad and they taste the salad dressing. Mmm, this is good, you know. Or you go to a restaurant and you have a kind of unusual salad dressing and you ask your hostess or waiter, "What do you use in your salad dressing?

[33:31] This is very good." You know, I heard people say it, haven't you? You said sometime, right? Okay. Now, what does that show about your knowledge

[33:41] of the salad dressing? It came to the senses. Huh? And it came to the senses. Yeah. What kind of knowledge do you have of the salad dressing that you just enjoyed? You say, "What do you use in there?" Taste. You don't know the parts of it, how it was made. Yeah, you can't distinguish the parts, right? See, you have an indistinct knowledge of it, huh? Okay. I have a friend who's a kind of a wine connoisseur, you know, and cook and chef and so on.

[34:15] So he goes to Paris, right? He goes to one of these fancy restaurants and they serve you this piece of meat with a wine sauce on it. Delicious, but what do they use? Won't do any good to ask them because that's a secret of the house, right? That's their two star or three star, whatever it is, and they don't want you to be a spy for the opposition, right?

[34:37] So he tastes it and tries to pick out what it was. He goes back to his apartment and tries to figure out the sauce. He gets something that resembles it, but not exactly the same, right? Then he had enough money to go back and order the exact same meal. Yeah. Then go back to his thing. What does that show about this guy? Even though he's got a wonderful. Sense of taste that he's got

[35:04] takes him time, right? To pick out what's being used in that sauce, huh? One time I had a recipe for a Marchand de vin sauce, right? So we're going to try this Marchand de vin sauce from France. So there's three of us in the kitchen, huh? My mother and my sister-in-law, Dolores, and myself. And my sister-in-law and myself are making the sauce, and mother's doing everything else.

[35:30] So it's complicated, right? Not very good, though, right? See, but a lot of ingredients there, right? And it takes time to be able to pick them up. Take a few examples in the sense of taste or smell. In California, if you have the name of the grape on the bottom of the wine, right? The law specifies the percentage of that grape that has to have in it.

[35:57] It's almost all a target grape, huh? It has a name on it. But then, if they have a generic name like Burgundy, right? That doesn't have to have any particular grape in it. And so the different vineyards will use what a mixture of different grapes in the bottle labeled Burgundy or Claret or something. And it'll be unique to each house, right? Depending on what grapes they have and what combination they think tastes good, and so on.

[36:26] But from the same house, it'll cost less than one with the name of the grape on it. Okay. So my brother Mark is a great wine connoisseur, you know. He's in a lot of tasting one of these wines, and he says, "What are you using there? " The guy's being kind of cagey and won't tell my brother Mark what he's using. So Mark is, you know, Oh, he starts to tell the guy what's in there.

[36:50] And pretty soon the guy says, Come on in the back room, he says, "Taste some of these combinations and see which one you think is the best." You see? But my brother Mark said he couldn't do that. He first went out to California, right? He couldn't pick up a glass and just tell the ingredients, You heard that story of Ron McCarthy? there. he had a dinner, I guess, and he had a different wine in some kind of fancy bottle.

[37:12] Nobody knew it, but my brother Mark, oh, Mark said this is not this. It's going to deceive me and everybody else, you know. Okay. Now let's take another sense: take the ear.

[37:27] When you first hear the symphony playing as a whole, right? This is pleasing to the ear, but does your ear pick out all the different instruments? Huh? No.

[37:40] There's a famous piece by a British composer in the 20th century, there. Benjamin Britten. It's called Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. You've probably heard that. He starts out in the orchestra, plays this magnificent theme from Purcell, and then he breaks it down. The strings play all by themselves, and then the Woodwinds play by themselves,

[38:03] and the musicians by themselves, and so on. at the end he combines it all, and so you have what? Young Person's, Christian's guide to the orchestra. He said he's doing. He's giving you a more distinct knowledge of the instruments playing together. Okay.

[38:21] I've noticed with the Mozart Aria, right? My ear is naturally drawn to the human voice singing, and I have to train my ear to listen to the musical accompaniment because of the nice combination there to get the full effect of it, right?

[38:41] But I was, you know, I liked very much. as Aria heard years ago non più di fiori from Clemenza di Tito, and only recently I found out that the musical accompaniment is using the basset horn. Oh. Because I got some pieces of music by Mozart written for the basset horn, and it's kind of unusual instrument that was kind of fashionable in those days, but it's very interesting sound.

[39:04] And ah, that's what he uses inside. Oh my goodness, you know. So I was a great discovery for me. You see, took me years to to sort this out a bit, right? This interesting kind of pointed out to me. You see that? So what are you hearing at first? You are hearing the whole all the sounds going in your ear, but you are not really picking out the instruments.

[39:29] My first was hearing Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, right, his last Symphony. My musically educated friend says, "You know what he does at the end of the fourth movement?" I said, "Well, what does he do?" Exactly what he do. He combines five melodies together. I said, "He does not." How many times I heard it, right? But he goes through these different melodies, and then at the end, right, he combines them, you know, and he gives us a way, you know.

[39:58] Wow, I didn't know that, see. I didn't know that. Or Don Giovanni, the ballroom scene, you know, you've got two different kinds of dances, right? All of a sudden, we'll just combine them without any, without any conflict. Kind of amazing thing, right? See? So when I hear these things, what am I hearing? I'm hearing it indistinctly at first, aren't I? I'm not distinguishing the various what? instruments or the various things that are being combined together.

[40:26] You see that? Okay. Now the same thing is true for the eyes, isn't it? You know, you go into the museum there and you see this beautiful painting on the wall. You stand back, you know, you come in, you see the whole painting at once. But do you notice all the details at first? No. And remember, I had a painting. when I first came to Worcester. Just got down for a dollar.

[40:52] on these prints you know of a canal scene, right? And I used to, you know, get dressed in one side of the room, you know, and I kind of look at the picture, looking down the canal. One day I'm on the other side of the room, you know, I look at the thing. I'm still looking down the canal.

[41:07] And it just seems to follow you, right around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are paintings, where the eyes of the painting seem to follow you as you move along. You think the painting is almost alive.

[41:19] But I remember when I was a freshman in college, in kind of an English class, and one day the professor came in and he had a reproduction of a famous painting. And I was a blessed Virgin, but anyway, he put it on the easel right here, in front of the blackboard, in front of the class. He says, "Okay, take out a piece of paper. You've got 50 minutes to describe that painting.

[41:41] Saw the blue, right? Oh, some guy can. Looking. I just sat there and studied the painting for about 20 minutes. Without writing a single word, nothing. But as I studied the painting, I noticed the way the painter had done the lips of the woman, right? And how revealing this was of her character. See? Epistemeus and so on, right? How revealing the lips are, right, the way the painter does them.

[42:14] So I, you know, I noticed these subtle things. I got an A for my paper, saying, "What was the mistake of trying to write about that painting the first time you see it? " You're not looking at it. Oh, it's got a good shawl on. You know, big deal, you know. See? And he was struck by my, you know, you know, what I said about the lips, and how it's revealed the character of the woman being portrayed.

[42:37] You see? But I couldn't notice that detail unless I had studied it without writing for about half of the time I had to write. You see that? So

[42:53] you can multiply these examples more and more if you want to, but you see the idea now, right? Okay. Here you have a whole that is known by the eye or by the ear, by taste or smell. But when you first know it, you don't distinguish the parts, right? As time goes on, you start to distinguish and notice the parts one by one, right? Okay. So this is the first kind of example he uses to show that we know things, in fact, in a confused way before distinctly, huh?

[43:26] And he starts with this example because our knowledge starts with our what? Senses, right? Okay. This is the kind of whole that the senses know.

[43:39] Now the second kind of example he takes is also a composed whole, but But, as Thomas says, an understandable composed whole. He's thinking now the definition of the thing, right? The definition is something the reason or the understanding knows. The senses don't define things.

[44:11] And he's comparing the knowledge we have when we can name something to the knowledge we have when we can what? Define it, right? Okay. He takes the example there of the circle, right? Okay. And you know when someone can identify it as a circle, like the clock is circular, the child might say, right? But the child would not be able to what? Define the circle as a plane figure contained by one line, every point of which is equidistant point interior called the center.

[44:43] Okay. Now my children, when they went to grade school, they all came back one day with a piece of paper that had a circle on it, a triangle on it, a square, and oblong, and so on. And they said, Daddy, Mama, that's a circle, that's a triangle, that's a square, da da da, right? But if you ask them what is a circle? That's a circle. That's a circle.

[45:03] You know, they don't come out with a definition, do they? And would take some time before one could actually what spell it out with a definition. That's square. But they don't come out, you know, and say, What's a square? That's square. They don't come out and say what they you know quadrilateral, equilateral right angled, quadrilateral. No. You see. So the child, in some confused way, knows what a circle is and a triangle and a square because he can identify these, right?

[45:36] But he can't spell it out the way a definition does, huh? You read 150 sonnets right? These are sonnets, but it takes a while to think about the definition of sonnet, huh? It's a likeness of thought and feeling, right? In 14 lines of iambic pentameter, divided into three quatrains with alternate rhyming and completed by a rhyming couplet. That's what it is. But you could read, you know, 150 sonnets without being able to define it, right?

[46:10] Recognize it. If you ask a little child, "What is a nose? " He says, "That's a nose. That's a nose. " You point to it, right? You won't say, you know, it's an organ, you know, with two nostrils

[46:24] and all this, right? And also, as a child you went to your father and mother, maybe you ran across a word you didn't understand. And maybe your mother and father used that word correctly, so they had some understanding of it. But you're asked to define it. Your father or mother has to kind of what scratch their head, right? In the love and friendship course, I asked in the beginning, "What is love?

[46:46] " Someone says, "It's the feeling. " Well, so is anger. So is fear. But even a chair, you know, what is a chair? What is a chair? You know, something to sit on. Yeah, but not everything you sit on is a chair. Not everything is made to sit on is a chair. So you have to stop and think out carefully what a definition of a chair is, huh?

[47:13] There's a bench or a sofa. It's not a chair, but it's something to sit on, right? Yeah. So notice, son, we have the second kind of example, but it's less known to us than the first kind. The first kind is the whole that senses know, right? Second kind is the kind that only reason knows, son. Okay. But notice it's similar in that it's composed of parts, right?

[47:46] It's put together from its parts, son. So if you multiply these examples, son, a circle like Aristotle does, or square, or nose, or chair, any right? So we name things, as we said, in, logic usually before we can define them. Okay, and when we ask for the definition, we use the name, so we have some understanding, but not the distinct understanding we seek through the definition.

[48:26] Now, the third kind of example is the one which is most like, in some ways, what he wants to show here—that we know the general before the particular. There's something like that in the senses, huh? And Thomas will call it the more universal sensible, or a general sensible, huh?

[48:58] And in the commentary, he'll say you can take this in place or in distance and in time. And Aristotle gives an example in time.

[49:12] Let's take the example in place. You're with Christopher Columbus, right? And you're sailing in the ocean, right? And you're looking for what? Land, right? And Columbus had actually a reward for first man to see land, right? So everybody is what? You know, apart from the reward, they're very anxious to find land, right? And you see something off in the horizon. Someone says, "Land!" And it turned out to be what?

[49:45] A whale. A cloud coming up, right? Okay. Or sometimes there's vegetation floating on the surface of the water, right? But not solid land, right? Okay.

[49:59] What are you seeing at first then, right? Are you seeing an island? Are you seeing a cloud? Are you seeing something floating in the water? What is it?

[50:11] It's not distinct, is it? Or in the old days, you know, you've probably seen this in the old movies. There, you're out at sea, you see a ship on something in the horizon. It's a ship. Now is it a friendly ship or a pirate ship, right? And if the flag goes up, you know, with the cross balloons and so on, flag goes up with the enemy country or something, right?

[50:32] What are you seeing? You see a pirate ship at first, or is it a friendly ship or an enemy ship, right? You see something on the horizon, right? Okay. And this is a bit like going from the general particular. There's something on the horizon. It's a ship. It's a pirate ship. It's Captain Kidd's ship, right? Do you see that? Or I see it way out there on the, you know, in the western movies there.

[50:59] You know, you see something on the hill on the cliff over there, right? There's something up there, yeah. Yeah, it seems to be moving, yeah. Yeah. It's a dog, yeah. Oh, it's Joe's dog. Or Joe's horse, or whatever it is, right? There's something. Yeah, something moving. It's a dog, right? It's Joe's dog. It's like very much like going from the general to particular, isn't it? Do you see that?

[51:28] Okay. Now Aristotle takes the example here, which might be even more clear in his the Greek household. In the Greek household, there are many men, right? In the nobility, right? And many women, right? And the man or the woman that attends to you might not even be your what? Your father, right? Or your what? Mother, right? So the children call all men father, right? And all women mother, but afterwards what?

[52:05] Separate each of these, huh? Okay. When I was first teaching this at Saint Mary's College there in California, I went to supermarket in the afternoon, right? And this mother comes by with her little kid in the grocery cart, like they have a little seat there in the grocery cart, and then she goes by and the little kid says, "Daddy!" So I started laughing, and the mother started laughing a little bit, and so she says something about my resemblance to the father, right?

[52:38] But that kid was confused, right? It wasn't in a courtroom or something or a paternity suit see? But she says that a kid rumped you in a crowd, right? And they're frightened and looking for their mother or father, you know, and they rumpety like you were their daddy, right? See, so temporarily, right? They think you're their daddy, and they're what? Mistake, right?

[53:09] You can see this with with twins. When I was in grade school, we had two girls who were twins, Judy and Mary Jane Van Valkenberg. And those of us who were, say, in the first grade with Judy and Mary Jane could easily tell them apart, right? Always, you know, it's not Judy; she's better looking than Mary Jane. But when they got to the next grade, the sister teacher could not tell Judy and Mary Jane apart.

[53:40] And so she'd have a you know seating chart, and you were assigned a seat. Yet always sit in the same seat. And so she put Judy over here and Mary Jane over here, and Judy Mary Jane with what? Six seats We thought we'd avoid putting something on the sisters of St. Joseph. But but you see, those of us who had been that year before, right, could easily tell the two apart, right?

[54:07] But the new teacher could not tell them apart. What does that show? You're annoying them in a confused way at first, right? Maybe the family resemblance, but not the other, right? And sometimes, you know, I've complimented one sister, but the other sister's performance was because they looked so alike, and I just don't know them very well. So that was a wonderful performance, you know. That was my sister.

[54:33] Kind of embarrassed, you know, because of this. But you can't tell them what apart. Sometimes sisters who very look look alike very much when they're having their first couple dates with a couple guys, they sometimes switch dates. they've been known to do that, right? And the guys don't know it, right? Huh? Say, I'll take your boyfriend tonight, and he takes mine. And I assume by the time that they're they know these girls well enough to get married, they can tell them apart. But when they first go out, they can't tell them apart, huh?

[55:07] When I was a little boy, there we had a you know kind of a neighborhood grocery store had been started by a man from France actually, and when he died, his two daughters took over the store and ran it. And my mother was always sending me down to get a quart of milk or something, and suddenly she'd call, up, you know, and and talk to one of the sisters and tell her what to give me when I get to the store, right?

[55:28] And so she said to me, "Now, when you go to the store, you know, go to Jermaine and she'll have it, right? " Well, I couldn't tell the two apart, but my mother could see because she had been doing business with these two sisters for some time, right? So what am I seeing when I see these two sisters, huh? What was the teacher seeing when she saw Judy or Mary Jane?

[55:49] Something in a way more general, right? You know, Van Valkenburg girl, let's say, right? But not Judy or Mary Jane, right, in particular, huh? One couple we know in the parish there, they have twin twin boys, you know, and I can't tell them apart. One day after Mass, my wife grabbed the two of them and said, "Okay, you're standing up." And she studied them, right, so she could.

[56:11] Well, yeah, you have to study them, right, to see, so you can tell them apart, students. But their parents have no difficulty in telling them apart, huh? But to me, it's a pretty mystery, Who's who, right? See, I have to really study them, right? You see that? Yeah.

[56:30] So my brother Mark was was a student in Quebec. You did one time with a French family, family that came from Paris. That old man introduced him to Charley, right? You know Charley. Anyway, the little boy, and one time there, there was looking at magazine there and saw the little boy's kind of still looking on it, and finally come to a picture of Audrey Hepburn. Oh. Here, crying, my brother Mark says to the boy, "Who's that?

[56:57] " He says, "Mama. " See, well, my brother and sister, you know, not to mention it, right? The little boy says, Mama. " What is he saying?

[57:14] He's confused, right? He's something like the reason knowing the general, right? He's very much like what the reason does, huh? Now going back to the first kind of example Aristotle gives there, right? Aristotle shows you two ways of proceeding from this. The fact that the whole is more known by sense than the parts exemplifies that we know things in a confused way before distinctly, right? And that's going to be the reason why we should go from the general to the particular, right?

[57:51] Okay. But then he makes a direct comparison between the two in the second sentence, right? And the general is a kind of whole. Since the general takes in many things as parts, and that's what he's doing there,

[58:07] he's using this not only to exemplify the general proposition that the confused is more known to us than the distinct, which would be the reason for saying that we should know something in general or do know in general before in particular. But he'll say that the general is to the particulars, something like a whole is to like, parts, okay?

[58:39] And sometimes they call the general the universal whole, right, as opposed to the composed whole, right? But notice how the word particular is taken from the word what part. That's kind of a sign that it's the parts, right? Okay. And in Greek, the Greek word for general here is katholou. We get the word catholic, by the way. Okay. But katholou is put together from together two words in Greek: kata and holos, according to the whole, right?

[59:14] So the Greek word for general is taken from the Greek word for whole, just like the English word particular is taken from the English word for part, right? And so we call this sometimes the universal whole. The universal whole is set of its parts, but not put together from them. The composed whole is put together from its parts, but not set of them, right? Okay.

[59:44] But the general is to the particulars, something like the whole is to the parts, right? So if we know the whole before we distinguish the parts, then we would know the general before we distinguish the what particulars, huh? Okay. So. He shows you two ways to proceed from the sensible composed whole to this thing we want reason out, right? That the general is before the particular. One is by this comparison.

[1:00:15] that we just explained to you right? The reasons directly, you might say, from the whole being known before the parts, to the general being known before the particulars, right? As analogous, right? Or he uses this to manifest the confused is before the distinct, right? Which is the general reason for the general before the particular, right? So,

[1:00:43] see that? So it's very, it's very, very concrete. These examples that Aristotle is giving, right? The example of the circle. I mean, I always think of my children coming home from the kindergarten with that circled up piece of paper, right? And you ask, they tell you this is a circle. They recognize it, but they can't define it. You see, that's common, huh? There used to be an old saying there that every Chinaman looks the same, but vice versa, we look all the same to them, right?

[1:01:22] You know, so you don't know a particular race of people very much. They all look the same, more or less, and you can't tell them apart, right? But they are as distinct to each other as we are to each other, right? Maybe Father Francis, will, tell, he can tell the difference between the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese by the slant in their eyes. Yeah. I am completely lost.

[1:01:52] I to me, they are all Oriental. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They all look the same to me. I can't tell any. I'll see somebody in church on Sunday with a little girl, a very cute little girl. Little, I know it's either Chinese or Japanese, you know. She's adopted. I can tell that. You know, her mother is not Oriental, but I don't know whether she's Chinese or Japanese or Korean or which she is, you know.

[1:02:17] But you know, sweet little thing. Okay, so you see the three kinds of examples then, right? So on exam, I tell the students, I might ask you, what are the three kinds of examples that he uses to show this, and you got to identify the kind of example, but also be able to give examples underneath that kind, right? Okay. But in Aristotle's very briefly, you could go on giving as many examples you want together under each kind, right?

[1:02:50] Okay. Any questions then about that? Now, Monsignor Dionne needs to point out. He begins with the sensible whole because that's where knowledge begins with the senses. Then he goes to the understandable, right, composed whole, which is less known to us. He ends up with this more general sensible because that's very much like what he's ultimately interested in. He's leading up to the idea we should therefore know natural things in general before in particular, right?

[1:03:21] You hear this? It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Superman. You hear that? See, Now when the person says it's a bird, it's a plane. No, it's Superman. What are they seeing? Are they seeing Superman at first? No, they're seeing something flying or going through the sky. Whether it's a bird or an airplane, their hesitation there shows that they don't yet know distinctly what it is going through the sky.

[1:03:50] You see that? Yeah, and that's example of the more general sensible in distance or in place, right? As opposed to in time, but it's similar. Would that be sensible? but it's really something in your imagination that is being developed. Well, I mean, we're talking about the senses there. we're. Talking about when I see up in the sky going through, like you know, sometimes I'm pretty sure it's up there in the sky.

[1:04:23] Sometimes, you know, is it an airplane or something else? Right. You know, sometimes you kind of you know bird. What is up there? Right. See, so you're seeing it in a confused way. You're not seeing it distinctly as

[1:04:39] a satellite or a plane or something else. I was thinking of examples like the sisters or something. My eyes, or yeah, but again, I don't see the distinction, you know, between the two sisters, huh?

[1:04:58] I just see the family resemblance there. So I'm not really seeing Judy Van Valkenberg. I'm seeing the Van Valkenberg, maybe family, in some way, but not her. indistinctly.

[1:05:14] I say that new teacher couldn't tell them apart the poor poor woman? So they could switch. See? Or like the girls, they say you know switching their dates or something like that, right? The guys have one or two dates with these girls. They don't. They can't tell them apart. See? Eventually, they would be able to, right? But it takes time before they have that distinct knowledge, huh?

[1:05:41] Okay. You're puzzling about her. I'm just trying to figure out what it seems that it's not your eyes really that is getting anything more. It's more something in your. Well, no, I have to use my eyes. to kind of study their faces more. See? Like I said about my wife when she grabs those two twins after mass, during you know, stand it down, you know, you know, what's your name?

[1:06:08] What's your name? You know, and then you know you notice little things on their face that are different, right? You see, no markings or something, something different. You'll see, right? But you would notice that I can't tell them apart. I can, you know, grab them like that if you're first. You know. I just like to say that one has a freckle or something. It's not like your eye didn't see that freckle, but you just didn't notice it with your.

[1:06:35] Yeah. Well, it was last year. I had two girls who are, I guess, the kind of twins, really. And I had one the first semester, one the second semester, right? And then when I walk in campus, and the one says hello, and I don't know which one it is, you know, I say hello I mean, like that, you know. But they had, you know, different semesters, you know, I didn't really, you know, yes, you know, got to know them that distinctly, so you know, I know it's one of the two, but which one I did, I don't know.

[1:07:04] You see? Okay. Yeah, this college tells the story. This girl came up to me and says, "Are you you or your brother? " Okay. Now let's go back to the reasoning here in the second paragraph.