Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
21. Anaxagoras' Mind, Hope and Fear, and Heraclitus' Common Ways Forward
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/021-anaxagoras-mind-hope-and-fear-and-heraclitus-common-ways/

[0:00] see, you know, that that the human reason can, to some extent, know God without faith, right? Yeah. Okay, we're all set to go, or what? Yeah, I guess he might be having to work on something. Okay. Name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly.

[0:33] Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, very good for us, and help us to understand all that you have written. Name of the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Before taking up the reading from Aristotle, just a few more words about Anaxagoras and the greater mind and his position on that.

[0:58] One thing that one might want to consider is which is a better guess as to the mover: For love and hate in Empedocles, or the greater mind in what Anaxagoras? Huh? Well,

[1:21] notice love and hate. Hate is what separates things, huh? And love brings them together, huh? Now, which is a better separator, hate or the mind? Which separates things more? Yeah, yeah. And so I always say to the students, you know, was it hate that split the atom? Not the mind that figures out how to separate things.

[1:51] You might hate dirt on your clothes, but the mind figures out how to dry clean something or how to separate the dirt from the material, right? And of course, when you get into logic and you talk about definition and division, distinction, you see the mind is always separating things. When you get to mathematics, you know the mind separates sphere and cube from matter and so on. So it separates much more than the mind than than hate does.

[2:20] So you might say that mind is a better guess as a separator than hate, huh? Okay. Now, as far as bringing things together, one one might argue that love unites things more than hate than mind does. But if you take Empedocles' own position that earth, air, fire, and water come together in different ratios to form flesh and blood and bones, which is more a cause of ratio, mind or or love?

[2:56] Well, of course, the word ratio indicates there's a connection with ratio, huh? So in Latin, the word ratio and the word ratio is the same word, because it's reason that knows the knows ratios. It's reason that knows the order, the relation of one thing to another. And in Greek, you know, Greek word for ratio is logos, huh? The same again as the word for what? Reason, huh?

[3:26] Okay. So it kind of shows that at least as far as bringing things together in some kind of ratio and a fortiori in some kind of order, this would be more what reason would right? And I always take the example there to the guy making a Manhattan, huh? Is it the love of Manhattans that enables him to combine them in a ratio of two to one? No, some people like Manhattans, but they don't make them.

[3:54] They make them they make them already made up, you know, huh? Those bottles you buy already made up. And it's very simple, to make Manhattan really. But the guy doesn't have to love Manhattans to make them, right? All he has to know is what the ratio is, huh? And you know these little books they have on how to make drinks. They call it mixology. But no, it's logos, right?

[4:16] Logos, huh? So as far as bringing things together in ratio and in order, mind would be a better cause than than love, huh? Although love does unite things more than than mind, right?

[4:41] But there may be an element of truth in both, huh? In this respect, that as Socrates and Plato and Aristotle all emphasize very much, there is the same knowledge of opposites,

[4:57] and the same knowledge enables you to do opposites, huh? So for example, if the cook knows how much to cook the meat, he knows what is too much to cook it too, doesn't he? If the doctor knows what normal blood pressure is, he also knows what abnormal blood pressure is. If the moral philosopher knows what virtue is, he also knows what vice is, huh? And if the logician knows how to reason correctly, he knows how to reason incorrectly.

[5:34] And if I know grammar, by grammar I can speak correctly, or I can say, "I use you, professor," and and you are my my students and so on. And so it's the same knowledge of opposites, huh? That's why Socrates at the end of the Symposium is saying to the comic and the tragic poet, Aristophanes and Agathon, that if you knew what you were doing, you could write both tragedy and comedy.

[6:01] That's the same knowledge of opposites, huh? So that's why in the ninth book of Wisdom, Aristotle points out that reason or art, since it's capable of doing contrary things because it knows opposites, it needs the what desire or the will to determine that it does one rather than the what other, right? So the fact that the doctor has a medical art does that mean he's going to cure you and make you well?

[6:37] Well, it's the purpose of the art, but the art also enables him to what to kill you, right? And sometimes doctors have used their art, you know, to kill people, like they do an abortion and so on. So

[6:51] the good use of the medical art depends upon what the will, right? So the mind without the will, where love is in, right, is not sufficient to explain even God's making, right? Because if you just consider the knowledge, well, my knowledge of logic, for example, enabled me to deceive you as well as to teach you, right? See, so unless my will is good and I desire to teach you, I will misuse the art of logic, right, to deceive you.

[7:28] You see that? Yeah. So, although there's no hate in God, there is love. There is will in God, huh? And there has to be right. So the whole truth is not that God is a mind, but he is a mind with what will, right? Yeah.

[7:51] But nevertheless, huh? It seems if you just look at at what they're attributing to the two, that the mind can separate things better than hate, huh? And the mind can bring things together better than love. At least it can bring them together in a certain ratio or in a certain order, huh? And so you're doing what Empedocles takes two causes to do with just one cause, and that's better, right?

[8:19] Fewer causes are better if they are enough, huh? The principle of fewness or simplicity, fewness and truth, as Shakespeare said. But Einstein says that's the underlying principle of all natural philosophy and natural science, from the Greeks all through his own work, huh? Okay.

[8:43] Now a second thing interesting about Anaxagoras's greater mind, the question that arises for us as theologians is. Christians, is this greater mind that he has arrived at? What mind is that? Is that the human mind or the angelic mind or the divine mind? Well, it's obviously not the human mind, right? He's talking about there. Well, which is it—the angelic mind or the divine mind that he's arrived at?

[9:23] Seems like it would be more the angelic, the angelic mind would be the more immediate. of the human nature. And the reason why we say that is that the the divine mind is responsible for the existence of matter, but the greater mind of Anaxagoras is not responsible for the existence of matter, is it? See, but it moves matter by change of place, and that's what the angels can do.

[9:52] See, the angels can move matter in place, but they cannot. Create matter, huh? Okay. So he's arrived then at a mind that is independent of matter, as he points out, and our reasons too, right? A mind that can act upon matter by locomotion, but not a mind that is responsible for the very existence of matter. As far as we can see from the fragments that we have of Anaxagoras, matter and mind are what two independent realities.

[10:29] Mind might be superior insofar as it acts upon matter and orders it, right? But it's not really what responsible for the very existence of matter, is it not? Okay. And you have a somewhat similar position there in the Timaeus of Plato, where the the demiurgos, the greater mind, if you wish, is trying to order matter, which is left to itself kind of chaotic, but he doesn't attribute to the demiurgos the creation of matter.

[11:00] Okay. So he's arrived at more the angelic mind than the divine mind, although he might you know think of it as divine because that's obviously something which he knows nothing greater, really, huh? Um. Now, third thing is apropos of this, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels they make an interesting division of all thinkers, and that division they give is into two. He says there are those who say that matter is the beginning of all things, even of the mind, huh?

[11:39] And then there are those who say that the mind or thought is the beginning of all things, huh? Now the the early Greek philosophers speak of some kind of matter as the beginning of all things, huh? And even think of the mind as something kind of material, right? And many of the modern scientists think this way that matter is the beginning of all things, and of course the Marxists think this too, as Comrade Lenin says, mind is the highest product of matter, he says.

[12:16] Okay. But that's one position, right? That the matter is the beginning of all things, even of mind, right? And they say then the other group of thinkers, whom they call idealists, you know, because Hegel and so on, they think that mind or thought is the beginning of all things, even of what matter, right? So Hegel in his kind of crazy system there shuts off with his so-called logic, right?

[12:41] And all of a sudden, boom! He gets matter out somehow, rather, never he too clear away, right? But he'd be classified in that second group, right? And I suppose Saint John in the beginning of his Gospel, right? In the beginning was the Word, meaning the thought. The thought was before God, and the thought was God, and all things were made through the logos, right? Well, that would be the position that mind or thought is beginning of all things, even of matter.

[13:09] Right? That's very interesting division, right? Okay. But the question I ask students is, from a logical point of view, is this a good division? Right? Does it exhaust all the what? Possibilities, right? See. And then I say, well, where would you put Anaxagoras? Right. Because, in a sense, he's dualist. There, he's got matter and mind, the greater mind, anyway. One independent of the other, as far as their existence is concerned.

[13:44] Even though the greater mind might be superior in since he can act upon matter and so on. No, we're not facing Aristotle. So he's leaving out the middle position, isn't he? And he had that same middle position somewhat in the the Timaeus, huh?

[14:08] And I think there's something diabolical in leaving out the middle position. And that is that reason, starting with the senses, naturally thinks of matter as the beginning of things first, huh? Yeah. And I think it's impossible by reason alone to go from that first position to the position that there's a mind not only independent of matter but responsible just as a matter, right? You'd have to see before you got to that point that mind is something immaterial that's not dependent upon matter, right?

[14:46] And only after you recognize that mind is something immaterial and not dependent upon matter would you ever, you know, go further and find out is there a mind that that only is independent of matter but even responsible just as a matter, right? Yeah. You see. So, in a sense, to eliminate that middle position is to eliminate the bridge from one side of the river to the other, right?

[15:10] Yeah. And there's no way; it's just too too large a jump for mind. So that if you forget about the middle position, whether intentionally or not, I'm sure it's intentional, the devil, but whether Marx and Engels know what they're doing, but then you make it impossible for reason, right, to go from the first position to what in fact is the what truth, huh? Now, Thomas Aquinas thinks that Aristotle's arrived at the idea of creation, you know.

[15:38] Well, it's not, you know, it's spelled out with us. Some people might like it to be spelled out, right? But there is evidence that Aristotle's arrived at that, but maybe not Plato, right? But that's after Anaxagoras and after Plato and so on had seen that mind is something understanding mind in the sense of the ability to understand universal, right? That's something independent of matter, not something material.

[16:04] You have to see it first of all in the case of your own understanding, and then they open the door to the angels, and then eventually to to God.

[16:15] Okay. So I remember De Koninck one time in passing that it's easier to know the existence of angels than of God, and he never unfolded what he meant by that or why he meant that. But in thinking about this, angels, right, you can kind of see, right, some reason for saying that. Okay. Yeah. So I've I've heard people say, even Catholics, that you can't prove the existence of angels.

[16:48] That's just a matter of faith. Yeah. Yeah. Have you come to it first? See. Yeah. Yeah. I was in class one time, and there was a actually an assumptionist seminarian at the time, you know, and and these people are really confused about angels, right? Oh. But just one day in class, you know, I must have made some allusion to angels in the class every once. And he comes and comes.

[17:13] I was like, no. Do angels really exist? He says, you know, something like that. And I tell him I said, they're more real than you are. Yeah.

[17:25] They are. They're much more actual, right? Casirer used to say, you know, when when you call your guardian angel after death, you know, he's going to say, "This is God," you know. This would be something. I mean, what could be greater than this? You know, and your guardian angel say, "No, no, I'm God." You'd be like, they want to make Saint Paul, you know, a god there, and the fusion.

[17:45] No, no, he's tearing his hair out, almost, you know. About God, I mean, God. The angel would have to have the hair to tear out, but he goes, "No, no, but he's you know shocked that I was you know about the worship given by as my God." But there's something, right? You know. If you take all all the human minds that have ever been, you know, except Christ's obviously and roll them into one mind, you know, you wouldn't have the equal of an angel.

[18:11] It's all in mind. Casirer used to say, "The angel watching you make a decision, like you're watching an eagle, and decide where to go." Pretty much awareness of the situation.

[18:26] So let's come back now to the readings. You had the reading from Aristotle here, and I think we looked already at reading two, right? Did we? Yes. Aristotle makes a division, kind of a logical division of those who said that there was, or what his predecessors said. Some said there was one matter. Some said there was many. That's a disagreement. Those who said there was one thing, some said it was mobile.

[18:54] Some said it was immobile. They can't agree, right? Those who said it was. Immobile, like Parmenides and Melissus, one had it finite, and the other had it infinite. They couldn't agree. Those who said it was one, but mobile. One guy said water, the guy said air, another guy said fire, and so on. They couldn't agree, right? Those who said it was many, some made it infinite, and some made it what?

[19:21] Finite, right? So they couldn't agree. And those who made it infinite, some made it all the same kind, and some different kind. They couldn't agree, right? So you got all these boxes, positions, and one thinker in each box, and no two thinkers having the same thought, right? And this is not an uncommon situation, human thinking, right? That everybody disagrees, and as many thinkers, as many opinions, they say, huh?

[19:54] Tout, you know, I forget the exact thing. So many philosophers, so many, you know, opinions, right? Okay. Now let's stop in that situation, right? And we say, now this is first of all a sign of the extreme weakness of the human mind,

[20:18] because maybe all these men are mistaken, and there could possibly be more than one man who's right, because they're all opposed, right? Nobody has the same position, right? So

[20:36] it shows, secondly, that the to be mistaken is the usual state of the human mind. I think I mentioned how Aristotle, in the second book about the soul, when he's discussing the opinions of his predecessors, he said they tried to assign the cause for knowledge, man and the other animals. What was the cause of our knowing? But they didn't assign the cause of our being deceived and mistaken.

[21:09] And he says we're going to talk about what takes place in man and other animals. You ought to talk about that because that's more common.

[21:18] So now this can have the effect of obviously discouraging somebody, right? And it can actually what people can fall into a kind of despair about the human mind, and think that it's unable to know the what truth, right?

[21:45] So we could probably assume that most of our opinions are fall are wrong. Something like that, yeah, yeah, yeah. And one time I I took my sabbatical and I used it just to talk about error, right? You know, investigate the cause of error. And I compare myself to this one guy. who got a medical degree, they went to psychiatry, right? Of course, when they study all these mental ailments, right, and they come back among us normal people, and they think, you know, you know, just about everybody out there is about ready to go off, you know, and that's the impression they have, right?

[22:27] You know, they're so sensitive, right, to to all these, you know, mental schizophrenia or whatever it might be, that they see everybody, you know, just kind of you know tottering, you know.

[22:40] Well, I wasn't in that position exactly, but I mean, when you see how many causes and how many ways men can make a mistake, you know, then you're kind of almost you know thinking you're living in a very fragile mental world, huh?

[22:57] So I think we mentioned last time how many people what despair, right? And that goes against our what natural desire to know, okay? But nevertheless, many people have gone to the point of despairing, and either giving up there for altogether the life of the mind, right? Or just playing games, as we say, for the rest of their so-called academic career, like the thinkers at Columbia, whom Whittaker Chambers, right, when he went back there, said they regard ideas as what ping pong balls.

[23:40] You know, Whittaker Chambers was a famous communist, right? You know, you hear about him, and if you ever read his book, "Witness," very interesting book, "Witness." He's the guy who put the Alger Hiss, huh? And

[24:04] very interesting. He wrote a letter to his children at the beginning of the witness. I guess when he finished his education at Columbia, he saw there was only two alternatives: one was to commit suicide, and the other was to become a communist. His brother committed suicide; he became a communist. Okay, but because you got to think a guy is very serious about things, right? I mean, and then he came back, you know, to convince his friends to join the communist party.

[24:29] He realized they werent serious about ideas that they treated ideas like ping pong balls, right? Okay, so but whether you despair and simply and then give up and don't pursue the academic life anymore, or you just play with ideas for the rest of your life, but don't take them too seriously, either case this goes against our natural desire to know. And so it's not enough for the philosopher to have a desire to know the truth to some extent that's natural to all of us, but he has to have that hope of what overcoming the difficulties, right?

[25:13] He has to have that perseverance in the pursuit of truth. And that's why as I was mentioning in the Phaedo, right, Socrates leads them out of their discouragement, their kind of despair, and gives them enough encouragement to to go on, right? Okay.

[25:33] Now the second reaction is the one that we find in Descartes, where Descartes, as I say, he first fell into a kind of despair if you read his biographical sketch in the Discourse on Method, and it's because of all the disagreement among those he read, huh? But then his desire to know. Was not crushed and revived, you might say. He says, "Well, if they can't agree, they must not have found the truth.

[26:02] If they had found the truth, they would have agreed. So let's set them aside, and I'll do it myself, right? Okay. Now, is there something wrong about that? Well, that's not opposed really to the desire to know or the hope of knowing the truth, but maybe it's opposed to something else you need, and that is the what humility. Yeah, and the fear of what being wrong yourself.

[26:30] Yeah, and of making another mistake, huh? And that you might just do nothing other than add another opinion to an already overlong list. In other words, this kind of audacity or boldness there, huh? Which precedes from a lack of that fear that Socrates is talking about. I think I mentioned how Warren Murray said, Monsignor Dionne's principle of passion is fear." And so he came up with a new idea.

[27:09] His first reaction was to reject it, right? And you'd have to really, you know, was kind of good in that respect, right? You couldn't pull anything over on the man, really. And

[27:25] I mentioned how, in the Phaedo, then after Socrates revises them and they take up the objections of Simmias and Cebes, he disposes of Simmias fairly quickly, right? Bang, bang, bang—three arguments, three strikes, you're out. And then they start to get kind of what bold, right? Okay. I think I mentioned that same thing in the history of quantum theory. You know, it's very hard to try to understand these things, and Heisenberg describes how he'd go through these long conversations with Bohr, trying to understand quantum phenomena, and they end almost in despair.

[28:04] He'd go off for a walk in the park. How can nature be as absurd as it seems to us in these experiments? And then all of a sudden, they had a what a breakthrough, right? Huh? And Heisenberg came through with his solution to the problem, right? And then all things started to fall into place, right? And then, in fact, they're going to go in and what clear up biology now on the basis of quantum physics and so on.

[28:30] They're getting kind of bold, right? Huh? So our mind tends to go sometimes from a kind of despair to a kind of what boldness, huh? You know, and it may be even the same thinker sometimes. Other times, it's in one thinker and then another thinker. You go from Kant to Hegel. You have to tie that up. It's Kant. You can't know things in themselves at all. And by Hegel, you know, he's going to you know know everything, right?

[29:00] Everything's opened up to the Hegelian mind. So what you need in the life of the mind then is hope and fear. The hope of knowing the truth, the hope of overcoming the difficulties. I mean, it's very great to knowing the truth, but the fear of being mistaken or of making a mistake.

[29:31] And of course, it's it's hard to have a good balance of those two. But if you have a master like like Socrates, right? Maybe he can encourage you when you need to be encouraged, right? And whoa, caution you when you need to be slowed down.

[29:53] And uh like I mentioned that you know, Kasurik's with Dionne one time. Did I mention that one time? last? time What's that Kasurik with Dionne one time where Kasurik was in class right and Dion had given the class and then Kasurik had some questions about these things he went to the office to see Dion after class and Dion talked much differently in the office right yeah and Kasurik just kind of puzzled why you speak the other way in class and why says the duty of the teacher to encourage a student but here he had a student who was not in need of being encouraged a student to in need of, but, yeah yeah I told you to tell him about my outline for my doctoral thesis that

[30:39] he suggested a change and I oh yeah it's not the way it is evidence and the face is like shocked I agree with it so quickly you know like you know I mean obviously what he said it you know that this was it you know and we have the evidence it's kind of funny I might say but but then as I mentioned in other life this is important I think in the life of the Christian for example it's another hope and another fear but you need the hope of the divine mercy otherwise you would despair of your own salvation but you need the fear of the divine justice otherwise you become presumptuous right and Thomas I think it's maybe Psalm thirty two but I'm not

[31:25] sure In the commentary on the Psalms there, you know hope and fear are mentioned in the same Psalm and that's where Thomas you know is the occasion for Thomas to illuminate that right he says hope without what fear becomes presumptuous and seems proud and fear he says without hope would lead to what despair and so but again he's in need of a master there like like a confessor right who knows when when the penitent needs to be encouraged right and I always take the example there you know when was had an abortion right I mean when she finally realizes what she's done this could lead to despair it seems to me you know so she might be in need to be encouraged and to rely

[32:12] upon the divine mercy but then on the other hand there's probably people out there who need to be straightened out a bit right and and who hear nothing but you know God loves you the way you are you know you got to be kind of careful about that that is no truth you know and you know if you look warm he's going to spit you out right he's kind of tough about some of those things so and I was mentioning you know the when you read I read kind of the autobiography of Saint Gertrude you know the great and then you read the autobiography of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and and with Saint Gertrude you get you know very much a sense of the sweetness

[32:59] of the Lord and the mercy of the Lord and so on. But St. Margaret Mary Alacoque had a sense of his severity and it kind of frightened him, you know. But you kind of need a sense balance of these two, you see. And again, if you had a spiritual director, you know, professor, then he can maybe to some extent balance these things, and he can see where you need to be to rely on the divine mercy, and where you need to be be frightened a bit.

[33:32] Okay, but then in other aspects of life, this is true too. I was mentioning the politician, right? The politician didn't have hope of getting elected. He's not going to run a good campaign. But if he doesn't run a bit scare, he's going to run a bad campaign too. And sometimes he needs more one than the other, but you know, the the elder Bush might have lost the last election because he thought he was kind of a shoo-in after the great success of the Gulf War, right?

[33:58] But then, you know, the other guy was making progress with, you know, economy being slow or something, right? You know, and he seemed to be kind of neglecting, you know, the the economy and so on, and people, you know, eventually they're turning their attention to that, and all of a sudden you've got this bad situation. You get this. Incomplete election.

[34:21] It's only that. Okay. Um. So. Now, is there another way of going forward? Is a way of going forward that doesn't have that presumption of Descartes, that audacity of Descartes, okay, but still going forward and not despairing and giving up, like the first group of people who are reacting to this and saying, "Well, men can't know the truth, right? " I mean, I mean, you know, we'll always disagree, and that sort of thing, right?

[35:04] And people can very easily get in that position of saying that, huh? I think I mentioned that there are two fragments, one of the great Empedocles, and the other of the great Heraclitus, that suggest two possible ways out of this terrible dilemma,

[35:27] and. Empedocles points out that men don't live very long, and they've seen a part of life, but they boast of having seen the whole.

[35:46] So out of pride, they think that they understood the whole when they've only understood a part, and a lot of the disagreement among people arises because people what each of them seizes upon some part of the truth. And they insist upon this being the whole thing, right? And they can't see the element of truth in what the other person says. And and that's the commentator on the the pseudo Thomas.

[36:17] There's a commentary attributed to Thomas, but nobody thinks it by him now. But on on the the Consolation of Philosophy, right? And grief is represented. Lady Wisdom is coming in kind of torn garments, right? And the symbolism of that is that in grabbing for wisdom or truth, people have what torn it and dismembered it, huh? Say. So one way of going forward, not by yourself, but going forward with the help of these who disagree, would be to try to gather the what points that are divided amongst them.

[36:53] And in order to do this, you have to you know compare them and and let them clash to some extent, because the stronger points on each side will what emerge in that way, and the weaker ones will go down. And I compared it to the Greek army, the Achaean army, and the Trojan army meeting, right? Where in the first clash of the two armies, it's the weak guys that go down, right?

[37:20] The guy who's opposite Hector, he goes down. The guy who's opposite Achilles, he's going down, and so on. But you could say, "Okay, now stop. Let's gather up the guys who remain and make one army that had both Hector and Achilles in it, and Ajax, and so on. " That would be the invincible army, right? You see. So that's one way of going forward, right? Now the other way is suggested by some fragments, which I call sometimes the royal fragments of Heraclitus.

[37:54] And as a group of those, sometimes I begin with this fragment. He says, "We should not act and speak like those asleep. " When you first hear that fragment, does it seem, on the surface, something kind of reasonable? We should not act and speak like those asleep. Of course, you know many times St. Paul speaks of this or that person as being asleep. Right now's the time to wake up.

[38:26] So in daily life, we often use something like that, huh? But now, if you look at the statement, "We should not act and speak like those asleep, " look at it in kind of a narrow way.

[38:41] What is the condition of those who are asleep? Well, first of all, they're cut off from their what senses, right? Maybe that affects their thinking because they're cut off from their senses.

[38:58] So that would be a first very particular meaning to see in that particular phrase, huh? We should not act and speak like those without senses. Those who follow their what

[39:12] imagination rather than the what senses, huh? Of course, this can also be applied even to daily situations. They say that when an accident takes place and there are witnesses to it. To get what the witnesses saw on paper as soon as possible, because they'll have more agreement in what they saw than a month later if you have them write down what they saw to be more disagreement.

[39:41] That seems to be a fact of life that they discovered. What means a month later, your imagination is starting to what? Add things or take things out. Yeah, yeah, and and you're falsifying, right? The thing, right? Okay.

[39:59] But then, in a subsequent fragment, Heraclitus says, "For the waking, he says, there is one world, and it is common. But when they fall asleep, each one retires into his own what? Private world, huh? "

[40:27] As contrasting the one common world that they have when they're awake with the many what private worlds, huh? That they have when they fall asleep,

[40:44] and that one common world is the true world, isn't it? And the many private ones are all what false worlds, huh? Okay. So this is kind of hinting at the idea that the true is something one and common, but the false can be many and private, huh?

[41:21] So two plus two is what? Four. Everybody who knows the truth would have one answer to what two plus two is. It'd be common to all those who know the truth about two plus two, right? If I want to imagine my own answer to it, well, I'll say five, and you can imagine yours six, and you take seven, you take eight, right? Imagine that falsehood is what many, right, and private, and truth is something one and common.

[41:52] But I get you there. And he goes on to another fragment. Therefore, we ought to follow what is common, he says. But the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.

[42:34] Now, sometimes he develops this idea of the common, using just the word common. Other times he seems to touch upon something that is commoner.

[42:50] Now there's a fragment that I use a lot to indicate what Aristotle is doing here, where Heraclitus says, "Those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all.

[43:11] As much he says as a city is strong in its law. And then he says, and even more so, because the law of the city is fed by what one divine law that is more than sufficient for all. Okay.

[43:35] Now I think it's kind of interesting comparison between the life of the mind and the life of the city. The life of the city is not possible, and you can't live the life of the city well without a common law that you follow, right?

[43:53] And I always take the example there of the common law here is to drive on the right side of the street. I wouldn't want to go out there, with, someone else following his own law, which side of the street he drives on, huh? Okay.

[44:13] But no, sometimes the law of the city is contradicted by the law of another city, and sometimes something different matters, you know, driving the right or the left. Maybe with the Nazis, maybe there's something we think, you know, Intrinsically wrong with our laws, right? But can we say the laws of Nazi Germany are bad because they don't agree with the laws of United States of America? And not to repeat the the thing and say, well, your laws are not good because they don't agree with our laws.

[44:45] So the only way you can resolve that is to go back to something like a divine law or a natural law, right? And then we can judge right whether the laws of United States, the laws of Nazi Germany, are more in harmony with the what natural law, but that's even more common, huh?

[45:07] Okay. Likewise, then we say in the life of the mind, if you and I disagree, and I say you're wrong on the basis of what we disagree about, and what we disagree about, and then you could just return the same observation, right, or the same thing and say the same thing about me. We have to really go back to something we both have in common, huh?

[45:38] And then we can try to use that to decide between us where we disagree. You see that? And so I mentioned how two scientists, we have different hypotheses. They might try to think of an experiment where their two hypotheses would predict different consequences, right? And an experiment they could both perform or both observe that would decide then between them. huh?

[46:11] Okay. But but even when one man is teaching another man, he's helping the other man to come to see something that the teacher knows that the student doesn't know, but he's helping the student. to. Come to know it through things the student knows already, and so the teacher has to know those things right himself. Okay. So if you follow, you know Euclid logically, step by step, you come to a new theorem, right?

[46:44] It's going to lead you to something you didn't know before, but he makes use of things you know already. Which He has to know himself, right, in order to lead you from them, right? So it's not really possible to have the life of the mind between the teacher and the student without some kind of common what basis, right? Which the teacher uses to lead the student to something that the teacher sees doesn't yet see.

[47:08] Is that possible for us to have a conversation more or less equals without going back to something common? Because when you disagree, what do we do? Okay.

[47:22] Now Heraclitus sometimes will say is wise listening not to me but to reason, right? To agree that all things are one, right? So he says listen not to me but to reason, and we say what does that mean? To listen to reason. What reason is there besides your reason, my reason, the next man's reason? What does it mean to listen to reason? What means to listen to what is common to your reason, my reason, and the next man's reason?

[47:51] That's what it means. And that's what reason naturally knows, huh? Then we have another fragment of of the great Heraclitus where he says, wisdom is to speak the truth and to act in accord with nature, giving ear thereto. What the natural is what is common, huh?

[48:27] So those are all connected. Those fragments, huh? To listen to reason, to listen to nature, and to follow what is common, huh? They all fit together. With the truth, all things harmonize, as Aristotle says in Nicomachean Ethics.

[48:50] So we could go into those fragments more, but but Aristotle, the other way you could proceed here with the many is to see is there something which is common to all their thinking,

[49:03] and then become strong in that common element, huh? Okay. I think we got so far last time to say which should you do first of those two? Should you try to gather the parts of truth that might be scattered amongst the many, or should you try to see if there's something they all have in common despite the disagreement and become strong in that? What should you do first?

[49:31] The second. Yeah. Now, why the second before the first? Because one reason is the common is more known. Yeah, yeah. It's something that all men, in some way, see, right? That would tend to be something more known to us, huh? Right. Why, if there's a part of the truth that I see that other people don't see, and they see something I don't see, that would be something less well obvious, right?

[50:06] Huh? So, going back to that inborn road, that natural road that we talked about in the beginning of the first book of Natural Hearing, the first reading, that's inborn to to go from what is more known to us, right, towards what is less known to us, to start with what is more known to us, then it makes sense to begin with what Heraclitus, right? Okay.

[50:42] That's what Aristotle does now in reading eight and reading what ten, right? Okay, and eleven. He's going to find the common basis among all of them, and then he's going to start to become what strong in that common basis, huh?

[51:05] Okay. Now, before we start to look at how he does that, just look at the last paragraph in reading two. After he's divided up them logically, right?

[51:16] Okay. He says, "Those seeking how many are the things that are also sought in the same way. They sought from what first are the things that are whether one or many, if many, limit or unlimited, and so on. So, notice that the investigation of natural things and the investigation of of the things that are was the same for the early Greeks, huh? He's pointing out there, right?

[51:46] And you'll see that if you look at the fourth book of Natural Hearing, Aristotle takes a place and he quotes the common opinion of his predecessors. Whatever exists must be somewhere. It isn't somewhere; it doesn't exist. But to be somewhere, to be in some place, is to is really a property of bodies, right? So, identifying what is with bodies, huh?

[52:15] Okay. It's not really until Plato and Aristotle that what is substance, basically, is not identified with bodies alone, but the only one kind of substance, kind of substance that may be most known to us, but not the only kind of substance.

[52:39] That's why you can't begin with metaphysics, right? In the beginning, our mind is is tied down here, right? Okay, whatever it is, must be somewhere. It's a common opinion even today, right? And we never think without imagining something, and so you think everything's a body.

[53:00] Okay. And even some Catholics, you know, they can't, you know, they kind of imagine God. They have a body, even though they're kind of told that he doesn't have a body. They just, you know, they they can't rise above it, right? You see. Yeah. But if, it's really someone who didn't have the faith at all and had no knowledge of God or the angels or the soul by faith, he would have a very hard time separating being from material being, huh?

[53:35] And sometimes, you know, when Thomas says being is the first thing understood by our mind, it's not the being of the wise man, huh? It's being considered in material things, as he says in one text, or as Cajetan says in his scholastic jargon, it's ens concretum in quidditate sensibili, but it's being concrete in a sensible what nature, right? Whatever it is, must be somewhere. Then somewhere it doesn't exist.

[54:03] Okay. So you can't start with the most universal. You have to start here, where we are. Now Aristotle doesn't, in one step, going from reading two to reading ten, he doesn't find a common basis among them in one step. But in reading eight, he finds a common basis among those who say there is one matter, and a common basis among those who say there are many matters.

[54:38] And then he what in the tenth reading will find a common basis among all of them, right? Okay. So he's sitting aside, Parmenides and Melissus as not being natural philosophers because they don't admit change or anything like that. But He says, but as the natural philosophers speak, the ways are two. For those making one the underlying body, either one of the three, like water, or air, or fire, or something other denser than air, fire, but more rare than air, they generate other things by what condensation and rarefaction, making many things.

[55:24] Now this is made more clear to Aristotle than to us because we don't have as much of the fragments, right? If you have only one matter. Like water, say, these are one matter. What can you do with it? You can condense it or spread it out. That's all you can do with it, right? Okay. And so when water turns into steam, it's what being rarefied, and when it gets what

[55:47] condenses back into water, right? Then it's coming dense, right? That's why you heat the water; it expands, right? Because it's same matter but spread out. Okay. And to music students, I sometimes add my opinion that beer is the beginning of all things, right? Okay. But even Berkus likes to play with his beer, and he pours it from up high. He gets a nice beer foam almost fills the whole glass, and that's what rarefaction.

[56:18] And then as it starts to settle down into yellow beer, it becomes dense, right? So even Burkus, with his crazy opinion, that, beer is the beginning of all things. Shares the idea of condensation or affection, right? So I share with the guy who says water is the beginning of all things the idea of condensed or rare. So,

[56:40] okay. Now we don't have to, you know, dwell too much on what Plato said there right now, but we'll come back to that later on.

[56:52] Now, in the second paragraph, he finds a common basis among people like Empedocles and Anaxagoras to take the people that we have a lot of fragments from, and also Democritus and so on, and perhaps anaximander. If you read, was thinking along the same lines. But let's take Empedocles and Anaxagoras. We have enough fragments from, right? Okay. Now, at first sight, when you look at the thinking of Empedocles and Anaxagoras, all you see is difference, right?

[57:29] Empedocles says here the four roots of all things: earth, air, fire, water. Right. So he has four elements, right? Anaxagoras, there's an infinity of infinitely small pieces of everything inside everything. Nothing in common to you. Quite different thinking, right? Okay. Now they come to the mover: love and hate, this greater mind. Nothing common to you, right? But now, as you think more about the fragments, in Empedocles, love mixes together earth, air, fire, and water, and hate segregates them, right?

[58:08] Sometimes they say separation, but segregation is a more accurate word because that implies there are different kinds of things that are being separated, right? Okay. Now with Anaxagoras, everything is mixed together in the beginning, right? So nothing is clear, and then the greater mind begins to segregate them out. So what they have in common is mixture and what segregation, right? Although for Empedocles there's a cycle of mixture and segregation, and for Anaxagoras there's a kind of straight line motion from mixture to more and more segregation, but they never get completely segregated.

[58:47] Okay. Now, at this point, if one wanted to follow the advice of Empedocles, right? You see. No, is mixture and segregation universe in a cycle, or is it in a straight line? What would you say?

[59:10] A cycle. Well, if you ask me, I'd say, in the basis of modern science anyway, there may be an element of truth in both, right? Because we're always recycling things down here, and nature's doing it apart from us. So there's truth in what Empedocles said, right? But since they saw the universe was expanding, right? And maybe start with the Big Bang and they talk about and so on, right?

[59:36] And not sure, but as far as they can see, there doesn't seem to be enough force to make the what universe contract. And so things are being what segregated more and more and more and more, and that'll go on. But there won't be any what mixture anymore. So if you look at the universe as a whole, Anaxagoras is correct. You look at it in the smaller scale, in the earth here, than Empedocles is, right?

[1:00:06] So there's an element of truth in both, right? But now we don't care about the element of truth in both, right? Now we're merely concerned with the fact: what do they have in common? They both make use of mixture and segregation. And apparently

[1:00:25] that was in the fragments of Democritus. We don't, you know, in the works of Democritus, we don't have it explicitly. But the atoms, right, get mixed together, right, and they get separated and knocked apart and so on, right? So they'd have mixture and what segregation, right? Okay.

[1:00:42] Now what does dense and rare, or use the abstract words, condensation, rarefaction, and mixed and segregated, or use the abstract words mixture, segregation, what do they have in common?

[1:00:58] Well, that's the first sentence of the tenth reading, right? All make the beginnings contraries, huh? Okay. Now, now if they all make the beginnings contraries, because they seem to share either the dense and the rare, or the mixed and the segregated, right? They share one of those two pairs of contraries, huh? Okay. But then as he goes on to explain, they often bring in other pairs of contraries besides one of those two.

[1:01:33] Like even Parmenides, when he condescends to talk about the natural world, which is an illusion, of course, he talks about the hot and the cold, huh? We talked about that. We talked about earth, air, fire, and water too, didn't we? And Democritus talks about the full and empty,

[1:01:53] okay? And Empedocles, I mean, Democritus also had contraries in position, figure, and order: before and behind, and so on. Okay, above and below, before and behind, straight and angular, and so on, right? And you can go on, you know. But the Pythagoreans talked about odd and even, right? And the Pythagoreans have this whole world is based on contraries for them, you know, and one column is good, one is bad, right?

[1:02:30] You have the male, in the good column the female in the bad column. But you know, you know, odd and even, right, and all these different contraries. So the whole thought seems to be dominated that change is by contraries, huh? Or change is from contraries, right? Okay.