Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
2. Why the Confused Is Known First: Imperfect Before Perfect, and Descartes Versus Aristotle
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/002-why-the-confused-is-known-first-imperfect-before-perfect/

[0:00] Now what's going to have here is an example of that distinction that we spoke of before, simply in some respect, what is so fully, completely, what is so in some imperfect, diminished way, right? Okay. Aristotle is saying that these are not the same thing. What is more known to us,

[0:25] and what is more known simply? He also uses the phrase "by nature," right? Okay, but doesn't mean that nature knows it, right? It means more known simply. He says these two are not the same thing,

[0:45] and we have to go from what is more known to us towards what is more known simply, as if more known to us means something what imperfect in the way of knowing, huh?

[1:02] Now, what does this mean? Now, the other side of the coin is that what is more known is less known to us, and that what is more known to us is less known.

[1:22] What does that mean? Well, let's give me a glass of red wine, okay? And you say no. Smell, purpose, taste it, okay? What do you have here? Huh? Dry red wine. What kind? What grape? That's great. Cabernet Sauvignon. I'm not too sure about in the Cabernet Sauvignon, right? As I am that it's a dry red wine, right? Now, one north or south of the bay?

[2:11] The more precise, the distinct, I try to be, right? The less sure I am. It's more known to me that this is a dry red wine than that it's a Cabernet Sauvignon and it's more known to me that it's a Cabernet sauvignon, if it's known at all, than that it's one from Napa Valley or something in California, right? Okay. But is the beverage there in the glass more known when it's known to be a dry red wine, or when it's known to be Cabernet sauvignon?

[2:48] It's more fully or perfectly known when it's known to be Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, from this vineyard, and so on, right? But it's less known to me. You see the idea? See That's what he's saying here, right? Now,

[3:14] I guess I'm going to apply that then to confused and distinct, right? But in the Nicomachean Ethics, he applies it to our knowledge of cause and effect, right? Okay.

[3:28] Which is more known to us, day and night, or the cause of day and night? Day and night. Yeah, and we agree with the ancients that there's day and night. We agree about the effect, but we disagree about the cause, maybe, huh? We think that the earth turns on its axis, and they may have thought that the sun goes around the earth, right, huh? Okay. Historians might agree that the French Revolution took place, right?

[3:58] But disagree as to the cause of it, right? So the effect is more known to us than the cause, and a sign of that is a disagreement more about the cause than about the effect, right? Okay. But when is an effect fully or completely known? When is an effect completely or fully understood? When the cause is known. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But we know more, right, the effect by itself, than we know the effect in the light of its cause.

[4:33] There's all kinds of things that we don't know the cause at all, right? Okay. So we know the effect more by itself than in the light of its cause. But where is it fully known? Only in the light of its cause, son. Do you see that?

[4:54] So now, if you see by induction, like from these three kinds of examples, that we in fact know things more in a confused way than distinctly, right? Or you see by induction that we know usually the effect before the cause, and often ignorant of the cause, right? You can see, kind of inductively, there the truth of what Aristotle's saying here, right?

[5:22] Because obviously the effect is fully known, completely known, huh? Perfectly known, right? Is it more fully known or more perfectly known? The effect is more fully known when it's known in the light of its cause, right? But we know the effect more by itself, and are often uncertain and disagreeing about the cause. You see? Or something is known fully and completely, perfectly when it's known distinctly, right?

[5:53] But we know it more in a what? Confused way, right? So what is more known to us? What we're more sure about? I'm more sure I'm drinking dry red wine than that I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, right? And more sure I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon that it's from Napa Valley. Okay. Do you see that? So what is more known to me, and therefore more certain, right? Is actually what is less known.

[6:27] To know something in a confused way is to still be somewhat in the dark, isn't it? As you go from the confused towards the distinct, it's like going from darkness towards light, huh? In the same way, you go from the effect to the cause, you're being illuminated, right? But we know things in a dark way, right? More than clearly in the light, huh? Okay. You see a little bit what he's saying there, huh?

[6:56] Now, what is the basic reason why? You can go back and get a reason for this too, right? Okay. And Thomas touches upon the reason just how it is in the ninth book of Wisdom, huh? That goes back to the very nature of our Our senses and our reason, that they are our senses and our reason are able to know before they actually know, right?

[7:44] So you go from being able to know to actually knowing something. You go from ignorance to complete or perfect knowledge all at once, or do you go through the intermediate step where something is incompletely, imperfectly known? Aristotle compares the human mind beginning to a piece of paper which nothing's written, and you start to take notes or something. The paper doesn't fill all at once, but gradually, right?

[8:15] Okay. If you're filling your glass with beer or something, right? Huh? You don't go from empty to full at once, right? But to partially full, right? Before it's really full, right? So for man, both his senses and his reason, you go from ignorance to imperfect knowledge towards perfect knowledge, right? So imperfect knowledge naturally comes for us before what perfect knowledge, and what corresponds to imperfect knowledge is imperfectly known.

[8:47] What corresponds to perfect knowledge? What is completely or fully or perfectly known? Okay. You see that? Now, to some extent, that's true of every kind of education. Something analogous or proportional that, because any kind of education, you are developing something, right? And therefore, you're going from the imperfect towards the perfect, right? So in any kind of education, what is imperfect comes before what is what perfect. Take for example physical education, right?

[9:27] When I was in Canada, we used to get the 5BX plan, Royal Canadian Air Force, huh? Exercise book, right? Now, what you see in these books is you have a what series of what exercises, and they're graded, right? Okay. Now, the exercises that you can perform at first are they as productive of strength as when you perform later on? No. Maybe at the beginning you're doing five push-ups, right?

[9:54] Okay. Maybe at the top of the chart you're doing 50 push-ups, right? Okay. Now, is doing five push-ups as productive of strength as doing 50? No. But for me, in the beginning, to do 50 would be what? Impossible, right? I might even physically what harm myself, right? I have to build up to that gradually, right? So doing five push-ups is more productive of strength for me than doing fifty, right?

[10:31] But doing fifty push-ups is more productive of strength than doing five. You see? So what is more productive of strength for me is less productive of strength, right? Because I'm starting out with something imperfect and building up to something more perfect, right? You see how it's analogous to this?

[10:52] Okay. In the same way, in the education of taste, which is going to strike the imagination of the child more: Little Red Riding Hood or King Lear by William Shakespeare? Yeah, the fairy tale is going to strike his imagination, right? But is there as much for the imagination in the fairy tale as there is in Shakespeare? Well, eventually you exhaust, right, the fairy tale, right? But people are never what exhaust Shakespeare as far as imagination is concerned, okay?

[11:30] So Shakespeare's plays are more imaginable than the fairy tale, but the fairy tale in the beginning is more imaginable for us, you see? Because imagination has to what develop, right?

[11:47] The child might appreciate what the plain food, the hot dog, or something, right, more than that Marchand de Vin wine sauce, right? But there's more to taste than that, right? When I was a little boy, I thought my father a very foolish man. Did he not fill the refrigerator with soda pop? You know, now with his money, he could have orange and grape and root beer and all the rest of it.

[12:10] soda pops, and he could drink soda pop all day long, and you know. But now, the first time somebody tries. The dry red wine, they probably, oh, this is bitter, you know. That's why they call it dry rather than bitter. But there's as much to taste in that soda pop as there is in the dry red wine and the Cabernet? You know, the dry red wine you want, you know, to be refrigerated, huh?

[12:37] Because you won't be able to taste it, right? But if you have Coke come down to more like room temperature or cellar temperature, you spit it out. No taste to it, right? You see.

[12:50] So notice the sense of taste there. What is more tasty, more tastable, is less tastable by us at first, huh? What is more tasty is less tasty to us, right? And so, in graduate, the child's sense of taste develops, huh?

[13:11] Now, the same thing true about music, huh? When I was a little boy, I was always trying to find a march on the air radio. Turn the dial to find a march. We're up against the 36th Second World War, huh? Because I want to hear a march, huh? I still like marches, but I don't think there's as much to hear in a march as there is in a Mozart symphony or a Mozart what?

[13:37] The magic flute or something, right? Okay, there's more in the ear, more to be heard. You see? But less heard by me, right? Everybody loves a parade, right? Yeah. Everybody loves opera or Mozart opera.

[13:59] As Virginia Woolf said there about seeing performance of hearing performance of the notion to figure out it's a vindication of opera. Well, sorry. But I remember, my brothers bringing home the magic flute, you know, and I was—I'm a docile person, you know—and I listened to the whole magic flute, but I didn't think I heard anything. But as I kept hearing Mozart more, I realized more and more to be heard here, right?

[14:28] Very interesting, huh? Now, and now I I play Mozart almost exclusively, you know. As much to be heard in Mozart, but at first I couldn't hear it. You see? So in

[14:43] the education of taste, the child might like the little drawing in his little book, you know, more than the great painting in the museum. But the great painting museum, you can go back and look at it again and again and again, right? And see more in it, huh?

[14:59] So the education of taste, whether it be the tongue and food or the eye and painting or the ear and music, what is more tastable is less tastable to us in the beginning, right? Now, it's the same thing true about the education of love.

[15:21] What is more loved by us in the beginning? Well, it's the sensible good, right? Rather than the understandable good, right? Spiritual good, huh? Which is more loved by us in the beginning? The private good, and the common good, huh? See, well, in the beginning, the private good is more lovable by us than the common good. The sensible good, right, is more lovable by us than the understandable, spiritual good, huh?

[15:53] And so, the education consists in leading people from those things, right, which are more lovable to them, to the things which are more lovable, the things which are better, more good,

[16:08] huh? After the Second World War, when Eisenhower was still in Berlin, he'd have meetings with the Russian General Zhukov, right? And they'd talk about the American way of life and the Russian, you know. And Zhukov would say to Eisenhower, "You know, ah, you guys, you know, you work for your own profit, you know, huh? Over in Russia, we expect people to work for the common good of the economic good of the country.

[16:31] Isn't that much more noble than working for your own profit?" Eisenhower said, "I didn't know how to answer that exactly. Well, you can't answer it by saying that the private good is better than the common good. Obviously, the economic common good of the country is a greater thing than the private good, your profit, right? But the point is, you have to be led from what is more what loved by you, maybe the private good, to the common good, right?

[16:58] When you come back, the Russians were doing that too, right? Because they were giving the award of Lenin, you know, people who produce a lot and people who squandered things, they were punishing by death and so on. So in fact, they were appealing to the private good and the private evil people to get them to pursue the economic. good. Common good. Well, we just do it better. The profit is better than than this way that they have doing.

[17:23] You see, I mean, so propriety would have been not to say that that the or to deny that the common economic good of the country is a greater good than the profit of this man, right? But you got to be led from your private good to the common good, huh? See the connection between the two, huh? I see that sometimes in businessmen, right? A businessman might go and become, you know, remember the Chamber of Commerce, right?

[17:49] And he might do things for the business community as a whole, or even things for the good of the city, right? And this makes him what more known in the city, right? It helps his own company and business, right? And becomes a respected businessman, right? But after a while, you see these men, they get to get a certain love of what the good of the city apart from their own benefit, right?

[18:10] And even after they're retired, sometimes in their company, and they're not, you know, directly related at all, they still try to do things for the city, right? So they've been educated, right? They've been led from the private good to the common good, huh?

[18:27] In that formula, you know, the act of contrition. And I learned as a child, right? I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because of offending Thee my God. It goes from your private good, right, private evil, to what the common good, which is God Himself, right? But you have to be led from what is more lovable to us in the beginning to what is really more what lovable, right?

[18:58] You read the the life there of Saint Rose of Lima, right? Young man came interested in her. She's a good looking woman, apparently Saint Rose of Lima, right? But it was dangerous to tell her she was good looking because she'd go off and disfigure herself, you know. But anyway, young man was attracted first, you might say, to the outside of Saint Rose of Lima, right? Okay, is this what was most lovable?

[19:22] Huh? It was Lima? No. It's it's the inward things are more lovable in her, but the outward things are more lovable by us in the beginning, right? But then she got to know Rose of Lima, she became like, you know, his spiritual director in a sense, right? His spiritual guide, right? So he became holy, right, in his own right, huh? But he was first attracted to the what the outward beauty of Saint Rose of Lima, huh?

[19:54] I think you find that sometimes. You know, they always first remark about Socrates, right? Socrates has reputation of being the ugliest man in Athens. And you read the Symposium there, you know, and Alcibiades praises him, right, huh? On the outside, he's an ugly man, right? The inside, there's this, you know. Virtue and wisdom and so on, right? Huh? So he's kinda transformed into the handsomest man in Athens, huh?

[20:19] But the outside is nothing, right? See, some of these stories, like Beauty and the Beast and so on, right? Where you have to, in a sense, you know, know the personality before you can know them. Their outward beauty, right? Kind of lesson there, right? Because we're normally attracted to the outside at first, right? And then, when you graduate, you see something else is more lovable.

[20:45] Belmont is a lady richly left right No she's talking about her. She's wealthy, right? And she is fair, and fairer than that fair of wondrous virtue, right? See, was she most lovable for her wealth? No, we mentioned that first, right? Then her what? Bodily beauty, right? Then last, her virtue, right? No. And Belmont is a lady richly left, and she is fair, and fairer than that fair of wondrous virtue, right?

[21:20] But notice it built up there, right? But fairer than that fair, right? The beauty of the soul is more than the beauty of the body, right? Huh? But the beauty of the body is loved by us before, right? So in the symposium, the ascent, you know, and beauty starts out from what? The love of beautiful bodies, right? The love of all beautiful bodies, right? Then you get up to the love of the what?

[21:46] A virtue, and the soul, and so on, right? Up to the beautiful itself, is God. Okay. So what is more loved by us at first is less lovable. What's more lovable to us is less lovable. What is more lovable is less lovable to us in the beginning, at least, right? Okay. So you have an education of love, an education of the heart, and an education of taste. Right, and in the education of, taste, in all the senses of taste, in the education of the body, physical education, in all of these, you're going from the imperfect towards the perfect, right?

[22:32] So what comes before for us is always something imperfect, huh? Okay. So what is more knowable to us is less knowable. God is the most knowable thing there is. He's the most actual thing there is, but he's least knowable to us, right?

[23:01] So this is the reason then, that Aristotle gives why we know things in a confused way before we know them distinctly. Because What is more known to us is less what known, and what is less known to us is is the more known, right? Or you can stay with the other word, knowable. What is more knowable by us is less knowable. and what is less knowable by us is more knowable See what people write on doctoral thesis on that, right?

[23:33] Well, it's a very, very profound thing that he has there. The first sentence already says that the road is inborn. Yeah, it's a natural road, huh? Natural. We've talked here before about the natural first road, right? I'll give you. I think of it next time, a kind of a summary of the natural road, huh? Because this idea of the confused before the distinct is one aspect of the natural road, right?

[24:04] And the one he's emphasizing right here, but kind of give you kind of a complete picture of the natural road. I'll give you something next time, okay?

[24:15] Now, at this point, huh? I'm going to give you something here on confused and distinct. Here, got some more time here. Let's pass these around here. Yeah, yeah. Anyone? You want to need one of these two? Then you're

[24:55] from last time. You said you need ten copies, right? So what? Yeah. Okay. So thanks. Now we're going to make kind of an excursion here, right? Okay. Make another one. There you go. Aristotle comes at the end of the so-called golden age of Greek philosophy, and the golden age of Greek philosophy begins around 600 BC. And it comes to an end with the death of Aristotle in 322 B.

[25:27] C. M. Okay, and you see what he said here about the confused and the distinct, right? That the confused is more known to us, and therefore we're more sure or more certain about it. Now, Descartes, who is sometimes called the father of modern philosophy, Descartes dates are roughly what 1596 to 1650, right? So roughly the first half of the 17th century. But Descartes is often called the father of modern philosophy, and in his one of his most famous works, the Discourse of Method, he seems to be saying just the opposite of what Aristotle said.

[26:05] Okay, this is a very striking dichotomy, right? And in this Discourse of Method, Descartes gives a number of rules. He's going to forget about logic and that's too, messy, you know. But he's going to go down to four little rules that he gives there, and he says the first of these was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so. That is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation prejudice, and judgments, and to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it.

[26:46] Okay, well there Descartes seems to be saying that the distinct is more what more known to us, right? We're more sure of that, right? So Descartes, in a way, is identifying certitude with clarity and distinction,

[27:08] and Aristotle is doing just the reverse, right? He's identifying certitude more with the confused or indistinct. This is a very fundamental disagreement about something very fundamental, and the question is who's correct.

[27:30] Now, the reason that Aristotle gives is pretty clear. In fact, we put Aristotle's reason in the form of a syllogism. What is more known to us

[27:55] is more what certain for us. and the confused is more known to us than the distinct. Therefore, the confused is more certain, right? Okay, that's Aristotle's reason.

[28:26] Now Descartes doesn't give clearly a reason, right, for what he's saying, but he is if you read the whole Discourse of the Method, he wants to proceed everywhere like he do in mathematics, right? And basically, I think the reason behind Descartes is what we would call a third figure enthymeme, and be that mathematics

[29:00] is more distinct than the other sciences, and mathematics is more certain. So he takes mathematics as a sign that the more distinct is more what certain, right? And even you know, Plato and Aristotle would agree, and Thomas would agree, that mathematics is the most certain of the sciences for us, right? Geometry, arithmetic,

[29:35] and likewise it seems clear that mathematics is more distinct. Isn't what a triangle is more distinct to you than what love is, what friendship is, or what the soul is? All right. Okay. So mathematics is a sign that certitude and distinction go together, right? Right. Okay.

[30:03] Of course, he may also partly be influenced by a bad argument, which would be that the word "confused" is equivocal, right? And confused can mean what mixed up, mistaken, right? And if Aristotle meant by confused, mixed up mistaken, it would be stupid to say that we know more of what we're mixed up and don't know, right? But as he pointed out, that's the most common kind of mistake in thinking, right?

[30:32] Now, if you go down Main Street and you ask somebody on Main Street who's never studied philosophy, are we more sure in our confused knowledge when we're confused, or when we're clear and distinct and, precise? What are they going to say? You are clear and distinct and precise, right? Okay, Now, they possibly you know thinking of confused in the bad sense, right? Okay. And now, to come back to these fundamental arguments, you can see that Aristotle's argument is much stronger.

[31:05] Because Aristotle's argument is a what syllogism in the first figure, there, right? Okay. Descartes' argument, as far as he has it, is at best a what a third figure enthymeme. Aristotle takes up the third figure enthymeme. He says, "Socrates is just. Socrates is a philosopher. Philosophers, therefore, are just, right? Berquist is Swedish. Berquist is a philosopher, therefore, philosophers are Swedish, right?

[31:40] It's not a very strong argument. The third figure, what enthymeme, right? Okay. But notice, even in mathematics, although it's more certain than the sciences, am I more sure, for example, that twenty-eight is a number, or that 28 is a perfect number? Number, number, yeah. Even there, I am sure. Confused,

[32:03] um. But stop and think. See, I just say to my students, I say, "How old am I? " None. I say I'm over twenty. They say yeah, you're over twenty. You're sure about that? I'm over thirty, right? We expect to go through the decades, right? But the more precise we get, the less what? Certain. Certain they are, right? Is that? If I'm drinking that glass of dry red wine, right?

[32:38] I'm more sure it's dry red wine than that it's what, Cabernet, right? And more sure that it's what, Cabernet maybe than that it's what, from Napa Valley, right? Okay. Now, take a simple example. Usually, I'm in a classroom, right? For, well, use the board here. Which is longer, the horizontal here or the vertical side? You know, sure about that? Okay. Now, let's be more precise. How much longer is the board on top than the one on the side here?

[33:16] Third one. Huh? A third. Yeah, you're sure about that, though, are you? See, how many inches longer is that one on top? One foot. You're more sure that it's longer than that it's a foot and one inch longer or something, right? Okay. Now, somebody say, let's be scientific. Let's get a ruler out, right? So we get out and we measure that. We measure this, right? Okay. And we find out this one foot one inch longer.

[33:47] Let's say the one on top, right? Okay. Now, maybe if two of us measured the same thing, we wouldn't get the same thing. I might get one foot two inches, right? Okay. Or one foot one and a half inches or something, right? People, in fact, would not necessarily get the same if they measure the same thing, right? Okay.

[34:13] Um. So, are you more sure that it's one foot one inch longer after you measure than that it's longer? No. As a matter of fact, your ruler, when it goes down to a certain what? Size, right? And maybe it's actually one foot one inch and one hundredth of an inch. Yeah. Right. Could be, right? Which case this is strictly speaking incorrect, isn't it? It's not one foot one inch longer.

[34:44] It's one foot one inch and one one hundredth of an inch, or one one thousandth of an inch, one one millionth of an inch, right? Right. Or it's shorter one inch by one millionth of an inch, right? Is it? So you're still not more sure that it's what? One foot one inch longer than that's longer, right? Is it? The same with my example there. I say, um, what do I weigh, right?

[35:12] So you weigh more than a hundred pounds, you say? Okay. Weigh more than three hundred pounds? No. But now, as you start to narrow this down, right? Are going to become more sure or less sure?

[35:23] Less sure, aren't you? Right? Okay. I say, let's be scientific. Let's put you on a weighing machine, right? But maybe one weighing machine might say I weigh one hundred ninety-five. Another machine say I weigh one hundred ninety-six, right? So which is more sure? That I weigh one ninety-five or that I weigh between one ninety and two hundred? Which is more sure? Between measures. See, one ninety-five might be correct.

[35:48] It might be one ninety-six. It might be one ninety-five and and a fourth, right? Of a pound, right? Do you see that? See, less sure of the precise, huh? Even you use these instruments, right? How old am I, right? Do they always get the wrong age for me? I've been younger than I am. Okay. I say now. Suppose let's be scientific. Let's go and get the birth certificate, right?

[36:12] But aren't there mistakes made sometimes in birth certificates? Huh? The guy had something to drink, or he was distracted, right? Huh? I know when my father died, there was two dates for his birth. Oh. Two years, right? Some of the documents, right? And I don't know has to do with insurance. I don't know how old he was, but I mean there were actually two dates, right? Well, one was eighteen ninety-two.

[36:35] That was eighteen ninety-three or something, you know. And so, but you know, so are you more sure he was born eighteen ninety-two or he was born in the last century? You know, a decade of the last century, right? More sure that, right? See, they make mistakes, right? People sometimes falsify records too, right? For one reason or another, right?

[36:58] So the more precise you get, the less what certain you are, huh? So Descartes made a very fundamental mistake here, and ah. This identification of certitude with clarity and distinction gives you, for one mistake, two other kinds of mistakes that follow from that.

[37:32] See, sometimes when he's very sure about something, he thinks he knows it clearly and distinctly, because certitude and clarity and distinction go along. Other times, because something is very clear and distinct, it must be so. Okay. So, in Descartes, for example, when he talks about the soul or he talks about about thought, everybody knows Descartes' famous thing there: "I think, therefore I am." Right. Okay. Which you know, doesn't used against academics before anyway, but he's very sure he's thinking, right?

[38:08] And therefore, he must know clearly and distinctly what thinking is. Does that follow? See. Okay. I'm very sure I'm alive. Does that mean that therefore I know clearly and distinctly what life is?

[38:25] Doesn't. So Descartes makes that kind of mistake, right? He doesn't want to define motion because he knows clearly and distinctly what motion is. Why? He's so sure about motion, right? Shakespeare said, "Things in motion sooner catch the eye or but not stir." Everybody knows what motion is, right? Yeah. But the fact that you're sure about it is not a sign that it's what known clearly and distinctly, unless those two go together, right?

[38:55] But they don't. It's reverse. But vice versa, when he gets into his mathematical picture of the world, things are so clear and distinct, they must be what? Must be true. Sure. Surely something so clear and distinct must be true. See. See,

[39:17] in making that fundamental mistake of identifying certitude for us with clarity and distinction, he can make two kinds of mistakes from that. Where he's sure about something or certain about it, he thinks he must therefore know it clearly and distinctly. And vice versa, where he's clear and distinct in something, it must should it be so. Two kinds of mistakes from from one. But I think, to some extent, this thinking of Descartes kind of dominates the modern world for a lot of reasons, huh?

[39:49] And it's very important when you talk about general and particular knowledge because particular knowledge is more distinct than general knowledge, right? If it were also more certain, then you could forget about general knowledge, couldn't you? But if the general is more confused and therefore more certain, you don't replace the more certain with the less certain, do you?

[40:18] So if I know I'm drinking Cabernet Sauvignon. I don't cease to know by that fact I'm drinking dry red wine, right? In fact, it's more, I'm more sure I'm drinking dry red wine, the Cabernet Sauvignon.

[40:34] Okay, but if the more precise was more certain, then the particular would simply replace the general. So the moderns have a kind of tendency to jump into the particular all at once, neglecting the general, right? Now, if the particular was not only more distinct but also more certain, then they'd have their cake and eat it, right? As a matter of fact, and not the same.

[41:08] Now, it's not really until the dawn of the 20th century that some of the physicists and then those who partook of the great developments in quantum theory and relativity theory that they begin to return to Aristotle's position. But I think without thinking of Aristotle, right, on their own. And what I've attached here is first a couple of passages from Pierre Duhem, right. Now, Pierre Duhem actually wrote the aim and structure of physical theory around the turn of the century.

[41:40] I think 1903 was it. But this particular edition, which I have in my office, 50 years later, still being reprinted, right? Kind of a classic work in the philosophy of science, and you can see it's got Princeton University Press there, but more than Princeton University Press, the preface to it to this edition is by none other than the father of wave mechanics, Louis de Broglie, the greatest French physicist of the 20th century, the father of wave mechanics.

[42:09] And in his description of Duhem, Duhem was first of all physicist, right? He was working mainly in thermodynamics, and he made important. Contributions to that part of physics, but secondly, he's very famous as an historian of science. And then, on the basis of his experience in physics and his knowledge of the history of science, he wrote something on the nature of physical theory. Okay, but he sees the point that Aristotle's made.

[42:38] He makes an observation to Aristotle. He sees it from his own experience, right? Notice what he says here in this first passage. The initiated believe. that should be uninitiated. I think. I think there's a mistake there. The uninitiated believe that the result of a scientific experiment is distinguished from ordinary observation by a higher degree of certainty. They are mistaken. For the account of an experiment in physics does not have the immediate certainty, relatively easy to check that ordinary non-scientific testimony has.

[43:14] Though less certain than the latter, physical experiment is ahead of it in the number and precision of the details it causes us to know. Therein lies its true and essential superiority. See, in its precision, but not in its what? Certitude, huh? Ordinary testimony, which reports a fact established by the procedures of common sense and unscientific methods, can be certain only at the expense of not being detailed or minute.

[43:46] With rare exceptions, ordinary testimony offers assurance only to the extent that it is less precise, less analytic, and sticks to the grossest and most obvious considerations.

[44:02] Quite different is the account of a physical experiment. It Is not content with letting us know a gross phenomenon the last paragraph there, therefore, a theoretical interpretation removes from the results of physical experiment the immediate certainty, right, that the data of ordinary observation possess. On the other hand, it is theoretical interpretation which permits scientific experiment to penetrate much further than common sense into the detailed analysis of phenomena, and to give a description of them whose precision exceeds by far the accuracy of current language.

[44:41] Notice the contrast he's making there between an ordinary observation as being more certain and the scientific one as being more precise. It's Just the opposite of what Descartes was saying, huh? And what Aristotle was saying.

[44:57] Now, the same way when he talks here about the laws and so on, he goes through describing that, right? He talks about how the laws of physics are provisional and so on. But look at the bottom of page two in particular. The problem of the validity of the laws of physics hence poses itself in an entirely different manner. Infinitely more complicated and delicate than the problems of the laws of common sense.

[45:25] A law of physics possesses a certainty much less immediate and much more difficult to estimate than a law of common sense. But it surpasses the latter by the minute and detailed precision of its predictions. Again, that contrast, right?

[45:42] The laws of physics can acquire this minuteness of detail only by sacrificing something of the fixed and absolute certainty of common sense laws. Precision doesn't go together with that. Now, he takes the example of balance here, right? And I think this is a marvelous image he has very well in his thinking here.

[46:04] There is a sort of balance between precision and certainty. One cannot be increased except to the detriment of the other. He's thinking of a balance here in physics, right? And one you have precision, distinction, and then certitude over here. As one goes up, the other goes down, right? What are you thinking, Mister Burquist? A liquid. You'd be a more precise. Yeah, it's a red liquid, right? It's a wine.

[46:36] Yeah, okay. What kind of wine, right? As I start to get more and more precise, I get less and less sweat. Sure, right? See, I see the students. How do I? You're over 20. Sure about that? Yeah. Over 30? Yeah. Over 40? Yeah. Over 50? Yeah. Over 60? Something like that. I'm over 60. See, see. And as I get them to be more and more precise, the less sweat.

[47:05] Sure, they are, right? See, see that? How much do I weigh? You know, they try to narrow it down, right? The more precise you try to state my weight, huh? You're saying between a hundred and 300 pounds. Pretty sure about that, right? Okay, maybe between 150 and 250. Okay, pretty sure about that, right? And get down to the decade of my poundage. You know, a little more sure about that than am I exactly 196 or 197 or 193, right?

[47:36] You know, do you see that? So, kind of a balance there, right? As one goes up, the other goes down. So, we have a

[47:48] you can't have your cake and eat it, you might say here, right? You know, we want both what certitude and precision. But the more we have of one, the less we have of the other. That's kind of the defect of man's knowledge, right? But he sees that very clearly, right? Aristotle saw it very clearly, you know. And Pierre Duhem is a first, you know, major name, especially in the history of science and so on.

[48:14] Who sees this very clearly? But as I say, the original edition goes back to the turn of the century, so it's really before the developments of the physics of the 20th century. Okay. Now, the rest of the selections are from physicists who took part in the changes that took place in the 20th century.

[48:42] And Louis de Broglie was talking about how some of the physicists in thermodynamics didn't want to go beyond this because of the incertitude of being more precise, huh? Okay. Ah, look at the third paragraph there on that first reading here. Precisely because thermodynamics pictures only bulk appearances, without wishing to enter into the details of the elementary processes, it does not run the risk of the errors which necessarily affect the more audacious theories that pretend to enter into description these processes.

[49:18] So, a great number of physicists were of the opinion 40 years ago that it was preferable to be satisfied with these thermodynamic propositions without making appeal to more precise but more hazardous conceptions, right? But they're more precise, but also more hazardous. They're less what? Certain, yeah. Okay. Now he goes on to say in the next paragraph, of course, that our mind wants to go on to that more precise thing, right?

[49:45] I want to know if I'm drinking Cabernet or Pinot Noir while I'm drinking, right? But I know I'm going to be less sure when I try to be particular, right? And the more particular and precise I try to be, the less sure I'll be, right? It doesn't stop me from trying to recognize the kind of grape I'm drinking and so on, where it came from. But I have to realize I'm going to be more hazardous, huh?

[50:05] And my answer is, right? Do you see that? So he sees that, right? Now, in the second selection, Louis de Broglie. He realizes, and this is something that everybody who's spoken about these things—the great scientists, Einstein, Niels Bohr, Heisenberg, and so on—they all realize that in modern physics, the precision comes from something they call idealization.

[50:35] And because idealization, as Heisenberg will explain, involves a departure from reality, give a very simple example of that. Einstein, the evolution of physics, right? He says you've got a part out here, right? And you give it a push, right? And it rolls for a while, then it stops. Then you get out. You say you oil the wheels here, right? Okay. Give it the same push, and it rolls even further before it stops.

[51:07] Then you get out and you make the road as smooth as you can, right? Basically smooth, right? Classy. You give it a little more oil, and so on. You give it the same push; it goes even further without stopping, right? Now he says you go into your imagination. Suppose we could eliminate all of that friction in the wheels, right, and in the road, and so on. Then you get that same push, and what happened?

[51:32] It'd go forever. But Einstein says there's not one example of a body in the absence of external forces. See, I've gone into imagination. See, I've made this more precise, right? That more smooth that road, that it really is ever going to be in reality, right? Okay. And I imagine what would happen, but I'm imagining now. I'm departing from reality. See. Well, Heisenberg realizes this. Louis de Broglie realizes this.

[52:00] Louis de Broglie is the father of wave mechanics. Heisenberg, the quantum mechanics, right? Okay. And that's what Louis de Broglie says in this book. We also could examine whether all idealizations are not that much less applicable to reality when they become more complete. Now, though we have little inclination to be paradoxical, we could hold, contrary to Descartes, that nothing is more misleading than a clear and distinct idea.

[52:28] You see how far he's moved there, right? Louis de Broglie, of course, is a Frenchman, right? He's the greatest French physicist of the 20th century, huh? And he's talking about his French patriotism. Descartes, in several centuries, I mean, that's strong, huh? What he's saying there.

[52:52] Now, Heisenberg, huh, is the father of of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg, of course, is responsible for many things in modern physics. He's the first man to say that the nucleus of the atom is composed of protons and neutrons, right? In 1932, after that's the discovery of the neutron, right? He figured out what was in the nucleus. But then he formulated quantum mechanics, and he actually formulated the greatest change in physics since Newton: the principle of indeterminism.

[53:28] We'll talk about that later on, of course. Notice what he's saying here. These are really based on his Gifford. these are his Gifford lectures. They published under the title "Physics and Philosophy," but it says Gifford lectures, basically. Furthermore, one of the most important features of the development and analysis of modern physics, and by modern physics he means the physics of the 20th century, is the experience that the concepts of natural language, vaguely defined as they are, seem to be more stable in the expansion of knowledge than the precise terms of scientific language, huh?

[54:06] So he's saying that the vague is more what? Stable, which means more certain, right? Thomas often said in Latin stabiliora certiora, or stable and certain, right? Than the precise terms of scientific language, huh? And he's hinting at the reason there: derived as an idealization from only limited groups of phenomena. Now, he gives a reason to be clear to science because of the idealization that Louis de Broglie spoke of.

[54:33] This is, in fact, not surprising, since the concepts of natural language, ordinary speech, are formed by the immediate connection to reality; they represent reality. On the other hand, the scientific concepts are idealizations. They are derived from experience obtained by refined experimental tools and are precisely defined through axioms and definitions. Only through these precise definitions is it possible to connect the concepts with a mathematical scheme and to derive mathematically the infinite variety of possible phenomena in this field.

[55:04] But through this process of idealization and precise definition, the immediate connection to reality is lost, and therefore you lose certainty, right? Okay. Now, in the bottom of this page, Heisenberg sees that you know this is important for talking about God too. Later on, keeping in mind the intrinsic stability of the concepts of natural language in the process of scientific development, one sees that after the experience of modern physics, our attitude towards concepts like mind or the human soul or life or God will be different from that of the 19th century, because these concepts belong to the natural language and have therefore immediate connection with reality.

[55:50] The general trend of human thinking in the 19th century had been toward an increasing confidence in the scientific method and in precise rational terms, and it led to a general skepticism with regard to those concepts of natural language which do not fit into the closed frame of scientific thought. Modern physics has, in many ways, increased skepticism, but it has at the same time turned it against the overestimation of precise scientific concepts.

[56:26] The skepticism against precise scientific concept does not mean that there should be a definite limitation for the application of rational thinking. On the contrary, one may say that the human ability to understand may be, in a certain sense, unlimited. When you look at the fragment of "an Exegesis of the Mind," that's the first thing he says about the mind: it's unlimited. Talk about that. Whenever we proceed from the known to the unknown, we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time in the meaning of the word understanding.

[56:55] We'll come back to that when we look at the second page in our reading here. You know. Now the third one is taken from Bertrand Russell, whom I don't often have nice things to say about, but. notice what he says here about his own philosophical method. This is concerned with my method. My method invariably. To start from something vague but puzzling, something which seems indubitable, but which I cannot specify with precision.

[57:30] They seem to see somewhat there that he has what something certain, right? But not very what precise, right? A little bit of let's see a little bit of what Aristotle. said. So there are some thinkers, I think, mainly the great scientists of the 20th century, who, from their experience of physics, have come back to Aristotle's understanding that the confused is more uncertain, right? Than the distinct, huh?