Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
8. The Central Question of Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, and Whether the Way We Know Is the Way Things Are
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/008-the-central-question-of-philosophy-plato-aristotle-and-whether/

[0:00] Now, apropos of this, Aristotle touches upon the central question of philosophy. But let's state that central question, and we'll see what he's talking about here. Now,

[0:20] with a title, the central question of philosophy. Now, the word "central" comes from the center of a circle. Now you know in a circle,

[0:43] if you look at the many radii, they all have one point in common, which is center, center of the circle. But the other ends are all different. But they all come together in some way at the center of the circle. So it's by analogy to that aspect of the center of a circle that we speak of the central question of philosophy. It brings together,

[1:13] in some way, we'll see, everything that the philosopher talks about, with the end or purpose that he has in mind. Okay. Now, the end of the philosopher is, of course, truth. To know the truth about these things. And you could sum up what the philosopher talks of in just two phrases.

[1:47] He either talks about the way things are, or he talks about the way we know them. The way we know and the way things are.

[2:19] Now, in if you listen to the philosophers in natural philosophy, we're mainly concerned with the way things are, in particular the way natural things are.

[2:35] If I was teaching political philosophy, we'd be concerned with the way political things are. If I was teaching wisdom, we'd be concerned in some way with the way all things are.

[2:51] But if I was teaching logic, as I do sometimes, they were more concerned with the way we know by defining and reasoning and so on. And we've talked a little bit here about the way we know natural things, but the primary emphasis here would be upon the way things are. Now, logic, of course, the primary emphasis would be upon the way we know.

[3:15] So the central question is going to bring together the way we know and the way things are, and the very end or purpose of the philosophy to know the truth. So how do we put that on one question?

[3:33] Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? That's the central question. Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are?

[4:03] Now I'd say, fellow students I'd say there's two possible answers to that question, which are yes or no. Yeah, because they're buzzing their heads. These are one student in class. Yes or no? Yeah. These are two possible answers: yes and no.

[4:29] Now. We'll be meeting as we go through this course some famous dichotomies in human thought, like we met the one between Aristotle and Descartes about the confused and the distinct. Aristotle says the confused is more known to us and more certain for us, and Descartes is identifying certitude with clarity and distinction. So, very important dichotomy there, a very important diversity of thought there, very basic. Now, perhaps here we can start with these two guys, Plato and Aristotle.

[5:04] But Plato would seem to be answering yes to this question, and Aristotle, no. Now you could go down the history of philosophy, the history of human thought, in a way, after Plato and Aristotle, and see who follows Plato and who follows Aristotle. Now they don't always ask this question explicitly, but they would have implicit an answer to this question. They don't always consider it as carefully as they should.

[5:50] And I would say, if you went down and took, you know, the names that kind of stand out in the history of philosophy and so on, probably you would find more agreeing with Plato than with Aristotle.

[6:07] And you might ask yourself, why would one tend to agree with Plato in regard to this question? At least at first sight, then. Well, because we all have kind of a

[6:28] confused but very basic understanding of truth that would seem to justify the answer yes. We all have some idea, don't we? that truth is the agreement of the mind with things, the harmony of mind with things. So, for example, if you think now that Berkquist is standing, you're thinking truly, aren't you? But if you think that Berkquist is sitting now, you're thinking what? Falsely. If you're thinking Berkquist is not standing, you're thinking what?

[7:07] Falsely. If you think Berkquist is not sitting, you're thinking truly. So, you think now that Berkquist is standing and he's not sitting, you're thinking truly, and your mind seems to be in harmony and agreement with what's out here. When you think now that I am sitting or I'm not standing, then your mind is not in agreement with things; it's not in harmony with things, huh? So, I think we all have that idea of truth, huh?

[7:37] The truth is the agreement of the mind with things, the conformity of the mind to things, huh? And it seems to be what we have in mind. And therefore, it seems at first sight that truth requires that the way we know be the way what? Things are.

[7:59] Now, having answered yes to this question, Plato, and as I say, many thinkers after answering yes, they often reach very different ultimate conclusions because of the other premises that they add to the answer yes. And we can exemplify some of those. But let's look at Plato first.

[8:30] Now, Plato was influenced by, of course, Socrates most of all, but he's also influenced by the Pythagoreans. And after the death of Socrates, Plato left Athens in disgust, and he went traveling for a while. And he traveled over to the big cities in Italy, and over in southern Italy was where the Pythagoreans had their their seat of power, you might say. And he stayed with the Pythagoreans, and of course, his most famous work on the natural world, the Timaeus, is put in the mouth not of Socrates, but in the mouth of Timaeus, was represented as a Pythagorean.

[9:19] You see that famous picture of the School of Athens. You know, we got the arch there in the center, and and you have Plato and Aristotle walking together, and the Aristotle's carrying a copy of the Nicomachean Ethics, and Plato represents Plato carrying a copy of the represents Plato carrying a copy of the Timaeus. So if you read the Timaeus, Socrates is present, but he sits there and he listens, and Timaeus gives this beautiful discourse on the universe, a kind of a mathematical picture of the world.

[9:51] And Werner Karl Heisenberg says this inspired him now reading the Timaeus to look for mathematical symmetry in his study of atomic physics. During the the revolutions there in Munich after the second first World War, I was up there on the roof there reading the Timaeus in Greek while the war was going on down below. So,

[10:21] so he was convinced that in mathematics, in geometry, science of numbers, that we really knew something that we had what truth. Now, at the same time, he saw what Aristotle saw, that what the mathematician is considering is separated from what the natural world. Now, if you put these two premises together, that truth requires that the way we know will be the way things are, and you add to that these two other premises that we have truth in geometry, and we're knowing what number, or in case of geometry, knowing sphere and cube in separation from the natural world, in separation from the sensible world, in separation from all sensible matter.

[11:19] Well, then it follows as a night the day that what there must truly exist spheres and cubes outside of our mind in separation from the ice cube and the plastic cube. Cube and the glass ball and the snowball and the rubber ball. In other words, in addition to the sensible world, there must be a what? Mathematical world corresponding to mathematics. That's a very strange conclusion, isn't it? But notice how it follows from answering yes to this question, and also thinking that in geometry you do have truth, though, because geometry is so certain.

[12:10] Huh? You're convinced we have truth there, and seeing that in geometry you're not talking about the wooden cube or the plastic cube or the ice cube or any other material cube. So if we're knowing these things in separation, and we're knowing them truly in separation, then that must be the way they are,

[12:37] because he's answered yes to this question. Strange conclusion, but notice, huh? He shares with Aristotle that we know the truth in geometry. He shares with Aristotle that in geometry we know cube in separation from matter, right? But he doesn't share the same answer to this question. So answering yes to this question, he's forced to say that cubes and other mathematical things truly exist outside of our mind in separation from the sensible world.

[13:18] Otherwise, the way we know would not be the way things are. We know them in separation. Therefore, they must exist in separation. Otherwise, we wouldn't have truth. We do have truth in geometry. You see that? Very strange, huh?

[13:37] Now, the other big influence, as we said of course upon him was Socrates himself, and if we read the Phaedo and other dialogues, you see that Socrates was seeing the importance of definition for knowing him. We mentioned before how definition is the foundation of reasoned out now, in Euclid right? Definitions of the fundamental things. Now,

[14:09] Socrates, like in the Phaedo, he was showing that the way to know truth was through definition. And again, Plato was convinced that through definitions we could know what truth, huh? And you know, if we take a statement like "no odd number is even," you can see some truth there. If you understand what an odd number is, a number not divisible into equal parts, and even number is a number divisible into two equal parts, then it's kind of obvious that no odd number can be a what even number, right?

[14:50] So he saw the importance. You can see in Euclid that the definitions are what enables him to get going. to really know things. But now, in a definition, what do you define? Do you define the singular or the universal?

[15:09] When the definition of man is an animal with reason, is Socrates in the definition? Is Berquist in the definition? Is Plato in the definition?

[15:20] No individual is in there, right? So you define the universal in separation from the singulars. Now, if truth requires that the way we know be the way things are, and by definition we know the universal in separation from the singulars,

[15:46] and if you say we're getting truth in this way, then the universal must truly exist outside of our mind in separation from the what singulars. And so that's the world of forms that Plato talked about, which is often mistranslated the world of ideas. But the word idea in English has a different meaning than the Greek word is eidos, and the word eidos could be best translated English as forms.

[16:15] So now Plato has kind of like this three-deck universe. You've got the sensible world that we know through our senses to some extent, but he saw difficulties in knowing it because these things are always changing, so on. Then there's the mathematical world corresponding to the mathematical sciences, and then the world of forms. Corresponding to the universal definitions that Socrates was urging us to develop.

[16:45] So notice now, Plato arrives at that conclusion by answering yes to this question, and then by adding those premises that we do know through definition. Truly, we do know through geometry. Truly, but in both of these, we know in separation, and having answered yes to this, then they must truly exist in separation.

[17:11] So that's a very strange position, Aristotle. Very strange too. Yeah. So you're saying he thought that these things had a concrete existence. Yeah, an existence outside our mind in separation, but that we couldn't detect. Only. Well, you see, this gives Plato kind of a a different way of knowing. Aristotle, things that knowledge starts with our senses, and through what you sense, you can think about what you sense and understand them, and perhaps through them you can understand other things through them.

[17:45] But for Plato, I think in public when he talks about it, one has to try to turn the soul around or away from the material world, and Plato kind of describes it as, I say, I'm looking at the material world, and then I start to look at the mathematical world, and then finally turn the sow all around and I'm looking at the immaterial world. You can see why Plato was of interest to the church fathers, because in a way, they're mortifying their flesh and so on, and going to the dark night of the soul, maybe eventually, right?

[18:30] And they're kind of being turned around to receive something directly from God rather than through the senses. So Plato has some of that same idea that we could turn the soul around to face immaterial things.

[18:47] Now, Aristotle is saying, just a minute now. Apart from the arguments you give against this mathematical world or against this world of forms, so that you meet them in metaphysics, he sees a basic difficulty here in answering yes to this question. Now, this is only one aspect of that. And that's when he talks about it here. Wherefore he, meaning the mathematician, he separates from the natural world, for they are separated in thought from motion, and it makes no difference.

[19:32] Nor does a falsehood come to be in those separating. So Aristotle is saying you can know sphere and cube in separation from matter because it is knowable and understandable apart from it, even though it doesn't really exist in separation. And there's no falsity in knowing in separation things that are knowable one apart from the other. The falsity would come if you said they exist in separation. Okay.

[20:00] But then he goes on to to speak about the forms. We've been talking about mathematics here just now, so he talks about that first. It escapes those doing this in speaking of forms, for they separate natural things like there's the universal man and the universal dog itself. But man, in his very definition, requires matter, and therefore it's going to have to be in reality a singular, which are less separated, he says, than mathematical things.

[20:30] Now, now when Thomas Aquinas explains this, he starts with something easier to see. He takes things that are accidentally joined, and I'll exemplify it with myself here in the way Thomas proceeds. Someone who has me as their teacher in class, they might know that I am a philosopher,

[21:00] leaving out of their picture of me that I am a grandfather. Okay. Now the nurse who's seen me at the hospital there when some of my grandchildren are being born, she knows me to be the grandfather, but knows nothing about my being a philosopher.

[21:22] But in reality, I'm both a grandfather and a philosopher. But now, is the student or the nurse mistaken in knowing one of? These without the other,

[21:40] because but they don't exist in separation one from the other, do they? I'm both of these, but my being a philosopher is knowable without my being a grandfather, and vice versa. In this case, the reverse is true. My being a grandfather is knowable without my being a what philosopher?

[22:06] No, you could say that if somebody knows that I'm a philosopher and leaves out that I'm a grandfather, you could say his knowledge of me is incomplete. But that's not the same thing as being mistaken, is it? Now, if he said this philosopher is not a grandfather, then he would be mistaken, or if the nurse said this grandfather is not a philosopher, then she'd be mistaken. But to say this man is a philosopher, leaving out anything about his being a grandfather, is to know in separation things that don't exist in separation.

[22:50] But does it involve any falsity? The same way Aristotle says you've got a wooden cube here and an ice cube here, and then my plastic cube from my desk and so on. And the shape of cube is knowable without wood or without plastic or without. So there's no falsity in understanding what a cube is, what that shape is, without wood or without plastic or without wood, huh?

[23:19] Now, if I said that that shaped cube exists outside my mind but not in any matter, then I think I'd be mistaken. But there's no falsity in knowing in separation because it's knowable in separation.

[23:37] Likewise with the universe and singular. When I see you know many individual men and I compare them and I see they're all two-footed, supposedly rational animals,

[23:53] I can separate out what you have in common, leaving aside your individual differences. Because that's knowable apart from your individual differences. But that's not to say that what's common to you exists in separation from you outside my mind. But I can know what you have in common, leaving aside your differences. The same way, more generally, I can take a dog and a cat and a horse, and separate out what they have in common, namely animal, and understand a living body with sensation.

[24:35] Leaving aside the differences between cat and dog and horse, not that an animal exists without those individual differences or those specific differences between these, but it's knowable without them. Aristotle says there's no falsity in understanding and separation things that don't exist in separation. If they are knowable, one independently of the other, the falsity would come if you said that because we know them in separation, and we really do know them in separation, therefore they really don't exist in separation.

[25:13] The error comes in when you answer what yes to this question. Now, if you go to some of the modern thinkers, William of Ockham,

[25:40] for example, in the 14th century, William of Ockham, he was answering yes to this question, but he agreed with Aristotle that universals don't exist in separation from the what singular, but because he answered yes to this question, he had to conclude that we don't know anything. See, because he saw that in all of our sciences, we're knowing the universal in separation from the singulars,

[26:16] but the universal doesn't exist in separation from the singulars. There's only singulars out there. Therefore, you know science is the way we know the way things are. Therefore, we know nothing, and this spread to the universities. They say the 14th. So people went to the universities to learn nothing. Yeah.

[26:46] And notice, son, he answered yes, like Plato, but his other premises are different. Having answered yes, and then, but but Plato seeing that there really is not a universal existing in separation from the singulars outside the mind, outside the mind is only singulars. Then he said, "Well, then the way we know and all the science is not the way things are. " He said, "We don't have any truth.

[27:26] " So as you go down the history of thought, those who answer yes to this question, sometimes they have premises whereby they arrive at very strange conclusions. Because they what take the way we know to be the way things are,

[27:50] and they think they know something here, right? And therefore, these must be the same. Others answer yes to this question, but they see that these things aren't the same, and therefore they tend to deny that we know anything. So with Kant, Kant is a little bit more like like like Aquinas for Kant. The way we know is not the way things are. Therefore, we don't know anything.

[28:22] The thing in itself, the noumena, is unknown. Okay. While Hegel is a little bit more like Plato. Hegel is convinced he knows, huh? And therefore, the way he knows must be the way things are.

[28:38] And you go to Marx, huh? For Marx, huh? The only way we know is by making. After the only thing, way things that we know are the things we made. So we're the beginning, the end of all we've made. huh? Now,

[29:04] let's exemplify this particular thing again here in a little different way. Sugar, sugar is white and sweet, huh? Now, if I taste it with my tongue, I taste the sweetness of the sugar, without the what? Whiteness, yeah. Is my tongue false? In knowing the sweetness of the sugar without its color, you can see its knowledge of the sugar is incomplete.

[29:41] But it's not saying that the sweet is not white; huh? It knows nothing about the white. Now, vice versa, if I look at sugar with my eyes, I see the whiteness of the sugar, but I don't see the sweetness of it. Is my eyes false, knowing one in separation without the other?

[30:02] You can see the eyes' knowledge of the sugar is incomplete. It knows only the color of the sugar and nothing of its sweetness. Is it false? So you can see there that the sweetness of the sugar is knowable without the color, and the color is also knowable without the sweetness. So though these two exist together, they're knowable in separation, with no falsity.

[30:37] The falsity would come if you said that because my sense of taste knows the sweetness of the sugar without white, then the sweetness of the sugar really exists without the color. Or if the eye, you say the eye truly knows the color of the sugar, without what sweetness, therefore must truly be white without sweetness. Then you would say you'd be saying that the way we know is the way things are.

[31:02] You'd be making a mistake about the sugar. Because the student truly knows me to be a philosopher without being a grandfather, then I truly am a philosopher without being a grandfather. Or because the nurse truly knows me to be a grandfather without being a philosopher, that therefore I truly am. You see.

[31:31] Now this is only one aspect of knowing things the way we know. Things being other than the way they are, we can know things in separation that don't what exist in separation without being mistaken. Let's see a little bit of the truth of what Aristotle is saying there.

[31:52] Now, we'll go on to something else that he doesn't talk about here explicitly, but take a second thing. Take now instead of separation, take order, right?

[32:08] Can I know things truly in a different order than they come? Okay. Now, the example I often give in class, I say to the students, "I know you before your parents." Now, am I false in knowing you before your parents?

[32:35] But your parents came before you. In reality, your parents came before you. Am I false in knowing you before them? And I might know them before I know your grandparents.

[32:51] But your grandparents came before your parents. So the order in which I am knowing you, your parents, and maybe your grandparents, is just the reverse of the order in which they come in reality. Is my mind false in doing that? The falsity would would be if I said what the way the order in which I know in this case is the order in which things come, because I knew you before your parents, and therefore you had to come before your parents.

[33:27] You see the idea? Now that's very important when you talk about cause and effect, because in reality the cause gives rise to the effect, but in our knowledge it's usually what

[33:45] effect before the cause. Now, is my mind false in knowing the effect before the cause? No, in that case, the order, though in my knowing, is exactly the contrary. And so Aristotle saw, and the great Sherlock Holmes saw this too. So Sherlock Holmes says in one of the stories to his friend Doctor Watson, "I am going to have to reason backwards," he says. And Watson says, "What do you mean?

[34:19] We're going to have to reason from the effect back to the what cause? Is our mind false in doing that? Then that'd be the best way to know things. God always starts, you know. I mean, you say God, God knows Himself primarily, right? And He's the first cause, but." We we tend to note the first effect, and we have to reason our way back to the cause.

[34:42] Who done it, huh? Who done it? You know the effect, and you kind of find the cause. So this is a beautiful example of how the order in our knowing is different from the order of things, without really there being falsity to that.

[35:03] Now, take a famous modern philosopher, the rationalists huh? Now Descartes, in a way, almost anticipates this, but it becomes full blown in Spinoza who's Spinoza, huh? Spinoza. Now Spinoza, if you read his major work, there the Ethica more Geometrical Demonstrata, Spinoza says that the order in ideas and the order in things is the same.

[35:39] Well, notice, huh? The the the rationalists they tend to what think that they really do know something, right? But because they're answering yes to this question, then the order in our ideas must be the order in what things, huh? Okay. Now Hegel, who's kind of the the the the most full blown rationalist in some way, if you can say anybody's more full blown than Spinoza, Hegel, huh?

[36:13] He makes his you know system the most general and the most confused idea of the human mind. He makes that correspond to the beginning of reality. He takes the being, the being, right? The being which is said of all things, huh? Because everything that is, in some ways, a being, right? He takes the being which is said of all things, and he explicitly identifies that with the one who says, "I am who am."

[36:48] He looked at Hegel to explicitly. Now, I think I mentioned before how, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you know, Thomas actually shows that God is "I am who am" and so on. He has a whole chapter devoted just to showing that he's not the same thing. That the being which is said of all is not the being which is God. There's many reasons for that. But notice now, Hegel, in a sense, is following in the footsteps of Spinoza that the order in our ideas is the order in things.

[37:26] Now, since, as you know, we know things in a confused way before distinctly, then the most confused idea of our mind corresponds to the beginning of all things.

[37:41] Isn't that a outrageous conclusion? But it follows from what? Saying that we're truly knowing in the way we know, and saying what? That when we truly know, these are the same. Well, then the order in ideas has to be the order in things, as Spinoza said, huh? And then the first what? Thought in our mind has to correspond to the first thing in reality. So the being said of all things, the most confused and imperfect notion, some way in our mind, corresponds to what?

[38:16] To the to God. Horrible confusion, huh? Okay. This is the pantheism that runs through German thought. As Hegel, as as Alexis de Tocqueville says, now you can see pantheism all the way through German philosophy. If you look at the Enchiridion Symbolorum, you know the official pronouncements of the church and so on. All through the 19th century, they're always correcting some professor, even some Catholic professor, from the German universities for his pantheism, huh?

[38:46] Just like you know, Kuhn in the 20th century has certain aspects of pantheism, and even Karl Rahner had that, huh? It kind of dominates the modern thought.

[38:59] You see what he's doing there, right, huh? And this is the most confused notion in our mind. In fact, in Hegel's system, being passes over to what non-being, right? Because it has no determination. And yet, becoming you know in the Hegelian system, so that's the most confused notion of our mind, the most indistinct, huh? Is identical to God.

[39:28] But because it takes order from Spinoza, that the order in our ideas is the order in what? Things. When we truly know, and he does things, he truly knows, huh? so you get these extremely strange conclusions in in Hegel and Spinoza and other people, and Hegel himself,

[39:52] because they they are convinced they truly know something, and they do truly know something, but they think that in truly knowing something, these have to be the same, that produces strange conclusions. Then you have all these other thinkers who are who what realize there's something wrong here, right? That things are not really the way we know them, but because they implicitly answer yes, then they say, we don't know anything.

[40:19] And that's people like Kant, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and so on, and Frege. So it's quite a quite a history, and they reach quite different final conclusions because of the different premises, right? But they're all followed up in one way or another because they answered yes to this what question. Aristotle kind of stands like the lone admiral there. He says, "Just a minute now. We can know things in a different way than they are without being false.

[40:57] It's what we say about things that has to agree with them, huh? But if I understand in separation things that can be understood in separation, even though they don't exist in separation, I'm not false. The falsity would come if I say that because I truly understand them in separation, therefore they truly exist in separation. I can truly know things even in the contrary order in which they came.

[41:23] I can truly know you in some way before I know your parents, but I'm not what mistaken in doing that, huh? Mistake would come as if I said, 'Hey, because I truly knew you. before I know your parents. For your parents, then you must truly have come before your parents. That there really is some really strange, strange conclusions, huh? You see, or someone else would say, you know, hey, really, their parents came before them, and you know that.

[41:56] So you're not really knowing the way you know is not really the way things are. If you don't really know either, them or their parents, right? Yeah, very strange conclusion.

[42:11] For me to truly know you and your parents, I have to know you and your parents in the way you are, in the order in which you are. So I have to really know your parents before you. Otherwise, I wouldn't truly know you or your parents. So as long as I'm knowing you before your parents, I know neither you nor your parents. And the other guy is saying, "Hey, no, you obviously came before because I truly know you.

[42:33] If I truly know your parents, therefore you truly did come before your parents. Strange as it may seem, we're forced to say that because I truly do know you. I truly do know your parents, And I truly know you before your parents in the way we know has to be the way things are. Another two fundamental things there that we talk about, huh? You can truly know things in separation that don't exist in separation.

[43:00] Aristotle is saying you can truly know things in a different order that they come. That being false. No, see, when when Descartes says the famous thing, "I think, therefore I am," it's not original with him, by the way. You find it in St Augustine too. Thinking there is coming before being, right? But in reality, being is before thinking. Is he false? No, no, no. He can truly come to know that if something is thinking, it must be right.

[43:40] There's nothing wrong with that way of reasoning, huh? But because thinking is known before the being, therefore the thinking is in reality before the being. No, no.

[44:05] So I think that little simple example is, kind of interesting. Sometimes we talk about the past, right? You might meet an old buddy that you went to high school with, or something, and so you talk about the past, and now the past is what present to you again in your memory. Now, is any falsity in the past being present to you in your memory?

[44:37] But I mean, the past can't be, you know, present. But notice, the fallacy comes because I remember the past now, than to think that the past is now. But I can remember the past now. Is there any falsity in remembering the past now?

[45:00] But it is not now. But I remember it now. See that? Now, one of the first great thinkers who followed Aristotle stands on my mind is Boethius, huh? Okay. Now, if you read the great work of Boethius, one of the great works, the Consolation of Philosophy, huh?

[45:30] In the beginning of the Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius says that he's a member of the Academy, huh, of the school of Plato. And his reasoning, certainly in the first books, is somewhat Platonic, huh, the way he reasons. Um. Now, um, he's trying to understand what's happened to him. How a just man has been imprisoned and so on, falsely and so on. He's trying to understand, you know, evil and divine providence and so on.

[46:02] In fact, the definition of divine providence comes from from Boethius. But he's also trying to understand God's knowledge of the world. And of course, God's knowledge is eternal. There's no past and no future in God's knowledge; it's all at once. And God knows the past and the future, in the eternal now. So the past, you could say, is present to God, and the future is also present to God. This is very hard to understand, huh?

[46:39] And it's in that fifth book that the great Boethius works out the definition of eternity, which we'll look at later on in the course after we look at the definition of time. The definition of eternity in the Summa Theologiae is Boethius's definition, and Thomas, you know, spends some time there defending the definition of it. But what's interesting is that in order to understand, so far as we can, the divine knowledge, you have to realize that the way he knows and the way things are are not the same.

[47:13] He knows what eternally, past, present, future. His knowledge is not in time, and so it's an amazing thing to think that the future is present to God in his knowledge, with no falsity. But if truth required that the way we know be the way things are, then this couldn't be possible, huh? See, so as Boethius is is trying to understand the eternal knowledge of the future and the past and so on, huh?

[47:51] In that fifth book, well, the fifth book, if you read the dialogue, it's written in the form of a dialogue, as you expect of Plato's to do, huh? But in the in the dialogue, it's the dialogue between Boethius, who's in prison, falsely accused, and Lady Wisdom. She comes down to console him, and Sapientia is feminine, right, in Latin. So Lady Wisdom comes down to console him, and she, you know, argues him out of his despair and out of his, you know, chagrin and so on.

[48:23] But when you get to the fifth book, Lady Wisdom announces Aristotle as her true follower, and I think it's kind of subtle because Boethius's citizens are going to now follow what Aristotle and not Plato. He has to; he can't understand the divine eternity. And so Boethius is probably one of the, you know, man who stands out in my mind as the first very great thinker to follow what Aristotle.

[48:54] Now, of course, Thomas Aquinas has the benefit of both Aristotle and what Boethius, huh? So Thomas Aquinas then follows these two great thinkers. It's kind of beautiful to see Boethius do that.

[49:18] There is in in some of those in the printed edition, I think it is that Thomas's works of commentary on the Consolation of Philosophy, but nobody thinks it's authentic Thomas, but it's it's rather a good commentary, huh? I read the thing sometimes. My brother Mark always thought it was a good commentary too, I don't know if it's Biden. There's a guy known as Thomas the Englishman, Thomas Anglicus who's always been confused with Thomas Aquinas, huh Thomas Anglicus or something like that.

[49:49] But it's kind of good commentary. But but there's so many things in the consolation of philosophy that become proverbial almost in medieval philosophy. They're quoted and quoted again and again and again. Really kind of a marvelous work. You know, the first the first few books are more concerned with with happiness, what true happiness is and false happiness is. And Boethius wants to talk about true happiness and false happiness, but he's going to talk about false happiness first because that's more known to us.

[50:24] And then he works away from false happiness into what true happiness is. Pretty, pretty, quite beautiful. He does that. But then he gets into these other things about, well, you know, what about evil in the world and God and so on. Then he gets into these questions about divine providence and the problem of evil and God's knowledge of the world and so on. And that's where he gets into defining providence and defining eternity.

[50:46] But then he gets into this problem, huh? So have to admire Boethius in that work. Consolation of Philosophy as they say, you know, used to teach a lot the the that's other work of Boethius, the De Trinitate, which Thomas commented on. I think I mentioned what he said. You know, they say it's the same guy. You know, they wrote the commentaries on logic, but I don't think so.

[51:08] This is just not really seriously. I think doubted it was the same man. I just, you know, somehow the talking about these great things, you know, summons all the powers of Boethius. It's really quite a. I think Boethius is really the greatest mind that there is in the church between Augustine and Thomas. Augustine and Thomas are probably the greatest minds, but but in between those two, you know, it's Boethius.

[51:35] But anyway.