Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
22. Change by Contraries: Aristotle Becomes Strong in the Common Basis
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[0:00] Now, usually at this point, I stop and I say, "Okay, Aristotle has found what is common to all the Greek philosophers, despite their disagreement. Huh? They're all trying to understand change by contraries, right? Okay.

[0:20] But now I say to them, what civilization was the furthest removed from the Greek civilization in the middle period of world history? Huh? And what the world historian calls the Eurasian cultural balance.

[0:39] Well, there are four major civilizations, right? Greece, and then Rome, right, and then the old Middle East, right, which especially revived in the moment. And then you have the civilization of India, okay, and then the civilization of China. So you had four major civilizations. Sometimes one is expanding more than the others, but no one dominates the whole world the way the Middle East dominated world history up until about 500 BC, in the way the West has dominated world history since the Renaissance, son.

[1:11] Okay. So of those civilizations, which one is furthest from the Greeks with little or maybe no contact that we know of? China. Yeah, yeah. Because Alexander the Great, he got into the Middle East, right, conquering India, and and he got down to the north of India, but he never got to China, right? Didn't even know about China. Okay, I mean there were some more worlds to conquer that he didn't know about.

[1:34] Okay. But unbeknownst to Aristotle at this time, the Chinese what classic book on change is taking form, right? The I Ching, right, the Book of Changes, huh? And Confucius said if he could add ten years to his life, he'd spend it studying the I Ching, right? That's a classic, huh? Well, the I Ching is the Book of Changes, but it's based upon contraries, the yin and the yang, huh?

[2:01] The male and the female principle, and they represent them by what the broken and the unbroken line, huh? The broken line that represents the female, and the and the unbroken the male, right? And they have these combinations of lines. It's kind of not as scientific as the Greeks, right? So unbeknownst to Aristotle, right, this common basis that he's found among all the Greek natural philosophers is shared even by the Chinese at the same time.

[2:31] And then I usually quote Rudyard Kipling's famous remark: "East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet." There's a lot of truth to that. But here they meet. Change is by contraries. Change is between contraries, huh? You see? Okay.

[2:55] And then, you know, I say, okay, so we have a little wider perspective than Aristotle geographically there, right? We can see that China and Greece at the same time had this. But now let's go and look at the moderns, huh? Well, I remember Helmholtz there. He's trying to explain everything by attraction and repulsion. Remember that? Who was that? Helmholtz, the great. I give you the passage. Einstein quotes there, in the one from.

[3:22] uh we have that passage, didn't we From Einstein on that? Yeah, yeah. The name. But He quotes Helmholtz, who wanted to what? Reduce everything to attraction and repulsion. But that sounds like contraries again, doesn't it? Mm See Everybody's heard this ingenious explanation of why the sun goes around, the Earth goes around the sun and doesn't fall into the sun, or shoot off into space, so we don't have a fiery death or a winter death.

[3:57] There's a balance there, they say, of what centrifugal and centripetal forces, right? Okay. Both sounds like contraries, right? Fleeing the center, seeking the center, huh?

[4:14] Everybody's heard of Newton's three laws, one of which says that for every action there's an equal and. Yeah, so he's making use of contraries, huh? And Einstein went so far as to say that matter is condensed energy, and energy is rarefied matter. It sounds familiar, right?

[4:37] And down in the in in the atom there, they say that there is in the center there are these protons, right? And the protons having the same electrical charge would be repelling each other, right? But there are contrary forces, there are nuclear forces that operate over a short distance, huh? So both the the solar system and the what the existence of matter depends upon the balance of what contraries, right?

[5:07] Then there are even more obscure things like matter and antimatter, right? Whatever that means. So it seems East and West, ancient and modern, anybody who thinks about change, they seem to come up with some kind of what contraries, huh? So this is the common basis Aristotle has what discovered, right?

[5:37] And notice, huh, that they agree about the general, because they all use contraries, but they disagree about which particular pair of contraries is the key one. And that's a confirmation of what we learned in the beginning of the book that the general is more known to us than the what particular. And men tend to agree more about the more known, and disagree about the less known, huh?

[6:09] So if I bought in, you know, some dry red wine here and gave you all glass, you know, we tend to agree more that drinking dry red wine than that we're drinking Cabernet Sauvignon. We might agree about that more than we agree about the Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, huh? 1971, okay. You see? Okay.

[6:37] Aristotle is going to start to become strong in this common basis, huh? See what he's done? Okay. And that'll be like the cornerstone of our knowledge, huh?

[6:50] He says, in the beginning, the second paragraph, he starts to become strong by giving a reason for what everybody is saying, although without giving a reason. And he says, and this reasonably, okay? Now, the reason, of course, is in the form of a. The reason is given in the form of a syllogism.

[7:19] A syllogism in the first figure, right? Now, what you're looking for here is a reason to unite two things, huh? Aristotle wants to give here a reason why the first

[7:39] pair of contraries, without saying now what in fact is the first pair of contraries. If you take the pair of contraries that comes before all the rest, he wants to give a reason why it makes sense, right? To think that the first pair of contraries are the first beginnings,

[8:11] the first causes of all things, right? Okay. Wants to give a reason for this, huh? Okay. In other words, he's looking for a middle term, right? Something that these are, which is also the first beginnings, huh? Now, what does he take as the middle term? Well, nothing other than a definition of what all of us mean by first beginnings or first causes.

[8:44] And so the connection of the middle term with the major term will be obvious, huh? And therefore, it remains to show the connection of the middle term with the minor term, okay? Now, by the first beginnings are causes of all things. Just those kind of to change. Um,

[9:08] are they from anything else? No, that wouldn't be first. Yeah. Obvious, right? Okay. So, not from anything else. Okay, that's one thing that must be true of the first beginnings, huh? They're not from anything else. And if there's more than one of them. One cannot be reduced to the other, right? Otherwise, that other would be the alone first beginning, right? Okay. So, one not reduce to the other,

[9:55] and three last but not least, everything else is from them. Okay. So this is, as it were, a definition of what we all mean. We stop and think about it about the first beginnings or causes, huh? They're not from anything else, but everything else is from them, right? And you can't reduce one of them to the other. Do you see that?

[10:42] Now, if he can show that those three conditions, you want to call that, of the first beginnings, that they belong to the first pair of contraries, he will have given a reason for what everyone says without giving a reason. Do you see that? That's one way of becoming strong, right? And what everybody is saying without giving a reason. That's the first step he's going to take. Now,

[11:15] this third one was in a way anticipated by his master, who was what Plato, right? Aristotle, as you may know, spent twenty years in the school of the Academy, and he left because Plato died, huh? Okay.

[11:36] Now, Plato or Socrates in the Phaedo, we don't know which one begins and the other leaves off, right? Socrates has a induction in the Phaedo that changes between what contraries, huh? Okay.

[11:57] But that was anticipated by the central thinker here, Heraclitus, huh? We saw some of the fragments of Heraclitus where he talks about change being between what contraries, huh? Yeah. So, as far as this third thing is concerned, one way we can show that is by a induction, following in the lead of Heraclitus himself and of Socrates or Plato in the Phaedo, right?

[12:36] Induction is an argument from many particulars towards the general. So, who is it that becomes sick? Someone who's already sick. No, he may become sicker, but he doesn't become sick. It's someone who's healthy who becomes sick, right?

[12:57] And who becomes healthy? Someone who's sick. Yeah. So, changes from healthy to sick, or from sick to healthy, right? Okay. What is it that dries out? Wet. Yeah. And what is it that's moistened? Dry. Yeah. You don't moisten the ocean, do you? Hmm. You don't moisten the water because it is already wet. It's the dry that is moistened, right? What is it that becomes hard? Something hard.

[13:29] Hmm. Something wet. Hmm. And what is softened? Something hard, right? And what becomes hot? Something cold, and what cools off? Yeah. Yeah. They say, well, sometimes it starts from intermediate, like lukewarm. But lukewarm, the intermediary seems to be a mixture of hot and cold, right? So it all goes back to the contraries, doesn't it? Okay. Um. What is it that's enlightened? Dark. Yeah. What is it that darkened?

[14:13] The light, right? Okay. So inductively, you can see the changes between the contraries, huh? Okay. And in fact, we even say that one contrary becomes the other. The dry becomes wet. The hard becomes soft. The healthy becomes sick, right? And so on, right? So that's one way of showing that. Now I add a couple of ways to this, huh?

[14:40] And the second way I do is I imitate the way Aristotle shows that time is tied up with motion. Remember how he shows that that we never perceive time without perceiving motion of some sort. Okay. Well, I take a very simple way of showing this, huh? I say we don't really perceive change without perceiving opposites, huh? And I give this very simple way of showing it. We're going to do a little detective work here.

[15:12] And I say at ten o'clock, huh? X is cold. We're told that at ten o'clock, X is cold, right? We're told that at eleven o'clock, X is soft. Okay, that's all we're told. Now, on the basis of that information alone, that X is cold at ten o'clock and at eleven o'clock X is soft, can you say that a change is taking place?

[15:43] No. Why not? Because the same thing could be cold and soft, like let's say ice cream might be cold and soft, right? So it could be cold at ten o'clock and soft at eleven o'clock without any change at all. Okay. And I take the second example. I say maybe we're told that X is hard at ten o'clock and at eleven o'clock X is hot. On the basis of that information alone, could Sherlock Holmes say that a change is taking place?

[16:26] No. Because the same thing could be hard and hot, like a hot stone, let's say. Right. But if you're told that at ten o'clock X is cold and at eleven o'clock X is hot.

[16:42] Then you could say that a change had taken place, right? Or if X is hard at ten o'clock and at eleven o'clock X is soft, then you say that a change had taken place, right? Why? Because they're contraries, they're opposites, right? And one cannot be the other, right? Therefore, if it's one at one time and the other at the other time, there must have been a change, right?

[17:12] So this is my second way of showing. Just kind of adding to Aristotle there, right? The change is between the contraries. You don't really recognize change until you see opposites there, either.

[17:29] Now the third way I show it is by kind of the definition, in a loose sense, of change. And I say to the students now, is change

[17:44] staying the same or becoming different? What do you think change is? Well, they all say it's becoming different, right? It's not remaining the same; it's becoming other, right? But difference or other implies some kind of opposition or contrariety.

[18:03] Do you see that? That's what otherness means, huh? Difference. Now, one not reduced to the other, right? Well, the fact that they are contraries would lend weight to that. That was the problem, you remember, before. If you took something that had a definite quality and made that the matter of which all things are made, like if sugar, for example, was the beginning of all things, everything would be sweet.

[18:39] So how could you get the bitter, right? Made out of the sweet, okay? Or if fire was the beginning of all things, how would you get anything cold and wet and so on? So from the fact that the first pair of contraries are contraries, it seems you can't simply reduce one to the other. You see that? Okay.

[19:01] Now that means the first condition there, not anything else, to be satisfied, right? Okay. And that's the reason why we have to take not just any pair of contraries, but the first pair of contraries, huh? Because we learned in our study of the great Empedocles that one pair of contraries seems to be a cause of another pair of contraries. And so we took the example of how hot and cold seems to be causes of black and white, and causes of what hard and soft, right?

[19:40] Or we saw that wet and dry, with a sponge, for example, can make it hard or I mean, hard or soft right. So, since one pair of contraries does give rise to another pair of contraries, you can't take any pair of contraries to satisfy that condition, but the very fundamental pair, right? Okay, which maybe some of the students might is a fundamental pair, but if you do take the most fundamental one, then you will satisfy all three what conditions, right?

[20:18] So that's basically what Aristotle is doing, right? On the the rest of page two there, in the top of page three, it's a little easier to follow from the text of Aristotle, but that's basically the reason he's giving there, right? You see him stating the reason there in the middle, in the first, in the second paragraph here, right? Okay,

[20:43] for it's necessary that the beginnings be neither from each other nor from other things, and all things from them, right? And these belong to the first contraries, right? Okay, and he goes on to show that, right? Okay,

[21:01] so that's the first step that Aristotle takes in becoming strong, right? Okay, now in the second paragraph of page three there, he takes his second step, huh? Okay, and he says almost all the others then have followed as far as up to this, as we have said before, for all, although laying it down without a reason, he's just given a reason, right? Nevertheless, say that the elements of what are called beginnings by them are contraries, as if being forced by the truth itself, huh?

[21:39] Okay, now this is the second thing he's pointing out, right? That this common thought that they have, that changes by contraries, changes from contraries, it doesn't seem to be what an hypothesis, right? But it seems to be something forced on their mind by the truth itself.

[22:06] Now, sometimes I like to contrast this with a phrase of Albert Einstein. Einstein is perhaps the most famous scientist of the 20th century, but in 1905,

[22:32] Einstein published three papers, huh? All three. Now being considered worthy of the Nobel Prize, huh? Okay. One was the explanation of Brownian movement, huh?

[22:50] Another was the explanation of the photoelectric effect, and that's what he received the Nobel Prize for. The third was the special theory of relativity. It took them so long to absorb it. The scientists throughout the same time they were.

[23:07] Yeah, I mean, yeah, it took so long, right? Okay. But notice, huh? Einstein is the only scientist who, in one year, has come up with three hypotheses, right, worthy of the Nobel Prize. I mean, it's unusual for a scientist to have an idea worthy of the Nobel Prize to begin with, right? For one man, one year to come up with three. Has ever done before, right? Okay.

[23:33] So I take that as a sign that Einstein must have some. Awareness of how these things take place, right? Einstein has a phrase. He says that the hypothesis, the hypothesis, he says, is freely imagined. Is no logical act, and so on. It's freely imagined. That's his phrase.

[24:03] So I like to contrast that wonderful phrase of Einstein there, freely imagined, with the phrase here, forced by the truth itself. Okay. Aristotle is aware of this kind of thing called an hypothesis, huh? And he talks about it most explicitly in the next book on the universe, right? Where he's getting into what we would call experimental science, and that's the famous text there where Aristotle is criticizing the Pythagoreans who are looking for the same kind of principles as they had in geometry.

[24:46] And where Aristotle says, you know, then geometry, the principles, right, justify the conclusion, right? But here in the book on the universe, the conclusion has to justify the principles. Well, of course, that's because you're now dealing with what we call hypotheses, huh? And because an hypothesis, as Einstein says, is freely imagined, it has to be tested, right? And you test it by its what? Conclusion, right? And would the conclusions of the hypothesis agree with experiment or observation?

[25:27] You see. So Aristotle's aware of that, but the only guy, then I think, that's aware of distinction between this and what he has here, which, besides Aristotle, that I've seen, is the famous scientist Huygens, huh? And Huygens, if you look at his treatise on light, he's a contemporary almost of Newton, right? The kind of famous dichotomy because Newton says light is a shower of particles, and Huygens says it's wave like.

[25:58] In the 19th century, they seemed to decide in favor of Huygens, but then when Einstein got to the photoelectric effect, sometimes light behaves like particles. So is it a particle or wave? That's the famous dichotomy, right? How do you reconcile the wave and the particle? But the Huygens, you know, he compares what he's doing and he contrasts with geometry. And he doesn't refer to Aristotle, but he might have, you know, seen Aristotle first, huh?

[26:25] But he says in geometry, the principle justifies the conclusion. But here, it has to be the reverse: the conclusion justifies the what principle, right? Okay. Because in geometry, the principle is seen to be true. And therefore, whatever you can deduce from that principle will have to be true. You deduce it, you know, rigorously by syllogism, huh? Like Euclid does. But here, the beginning is what an hypothesis.

[26:53] So it has no justification in itself, right? But you have to deduce the consequences, and then you accept it if it agrees, huh? So I have to contrast this, especially the word "free" with the word "forced," right?

[27:14] Force on the mind by truth itself makes a nice opposites alongside each other are more clear. So I have to contrast the two. Okay. Now, why does it make sense to say that this thought that change is by contraries, change is between contraries, right? Why does it make sense to say that that's not an idea freely imagined, but that it's an idea forced? It seems on the mind by truth itself.

[27:52] Because it fits with our natural inclination, you are inclined to believe that. Yeah, but even more than that, you could say anybody who thinks about change, and we could say even more broadly, Aristotle, East or West, ancient or modern, they come up with some pair of contraries, right? Now, is something we freely imagine? As you know, imagination, gives rise to diversity. If you imagine my house, say you've never seen my house, well, you might imagine it different than he does, right?

[28:23] And and of course, freedom, as you know, what, gives rise to all kinds of diversity. You know, you heard that famous exchange between the American diplomat and the Russian diplomat back in the time he was still in power. Did you ever hear that one? That's one of these cocktail parties, you know, at diplomatic functions, and the Americans talking about the variety of goods we have over here, right?

[28:48] We didn't have it over in Russia, right? And they consumer things. He's kind of putting the Russian on the spot. Well, the Russian said, "True," he says, "We don't have six colors of toilet paper." He says, "Like you do," he says. But then he says, "We have other priorities." That's pretty good reply, you know, by the Russian. But that's what freedom gives rise to, right? Everybody wants a different colored toilet paper to match their bathroom, you know, and maybe you know frivolous, but it does give rise to diversity, right?

[29:24] So the fact that hypothesis is freely imagined, you wouldn't expect everybody, East and West, ancient and modern, to what? You know, freely imagine the same thing, huh? But everybody, it seems, who turns his attention to to change, whether he's a Greek natural philosopher or a Chinese. A thinker or a modern natural scientist—they seem to come up with some pair of contraries. They can't avoid that.

[29:52] Okay. It seems like the idea, you know, like a whole is more than a part. Everybody, east or west, ancient or modern, seems to have that idea. And so it's forced on your mind by truth itself, huh? If somebody says, "I don't know the whole is more than the part," well, we'll give you part of your salary this week, huh? We'll give you part of the car you bought, part of the book you bought, etc.

[30:17] Etc. Because you don't see any difference. Because he really does know this, right? He's just you know being a jerk, denying that he knows what he does know. Okay.

[30:31] So that's the second step Aristotle takes to become strong, right? Okay. He first gives a reason for what everybody is saying without giving a reason. That's one step, right? Secondly, he realizes the kind of beginning this is, right? But it's without speaking too precisely. It's more something forced on the mind by truth itself than something freely what imagined, huh? Okay. And that you can see the solidity here, right, of following the advice of Heraclitus here, huh?

[31:07] Which we're beginning with, huh? I might mention that it's a beautiful text there in Huygens, huh? But you see, if you go back to Aristotle when he first makes the distinction in the third book, I think it is of the book on the universe, the Pythagoreans are badly influenced by customs, eh? Because they're coming into experimental science from geometry, and so they're accustomed to the kind of beginning that is forced on the mind by truth itself.

[31:45] The kind of beginning, therefore, that justifies whatever you can deduce from it with necessity. And when they get into experimental science, they look for the same kind of beginning as to which they are accustomed, and that's a mistake, huh? Okay. Now,

[32:06] we moderns, huh, are in the reverse situation. We're accustomed to experimental science, right? And therefore, to this kind of beginning, that is freely imagined. To this kind of beginning that in no way justifies what follows from it, but this kind of beginning that is tested by, what follows from it, huh? And so we tend to what come into geometry and into even these first parts of philosophy and think, well, every beginning here must be the same as the beginning we're accustomed to.

[32:41] It must be something what. Freely imagine, right? You know, and that's to what? Make the same mistake because of custom, huh? That's an extremely serious thing, huh? And I think I mentioned before, didn't I? I mentioned Claude Bernard. I was talking about him before, Did I mention Claude Bernard? Yeah, Claude Bernard. yeah, I talked about the principle of determinism, right? Yeah. Claude Bernard is a very, you know, very reputable father of modern physiology, right?

[33:15] And has a good understanding of the experimental method. When he comes to talk about philosophy and theology, it's ridiculous, right? You know what he the way he describes the three? The theologian has an idea, but he never what deduces anything from it. The philosopher has an idea, and he deduces all kinds of things from it, but he never goes out and sees whether they're So or not?

[33:38] The scientist has the idea, he deduces the consequences, he goes out, you know. So he has the complete method, which involves three things, right? The hypothesis, the deduction from it, and then examining whether what is deduced or predicted, in fact, is so or not, huh? Okay. You take off that that last part, you get the philosopher. Take off the deduction, the theologian.

[34:02] Well, the point is that the the beginning in philosophy here, in the beginning experimental science, and the beginning in theology, all three beginnings are different. See, the beginning here, the hypothesis, is something free to imagine, huh? The beginning here is forced in the mind by truth itself, huh? The beginning in theology is known by what? Faith, right? And as Augustine says, no one what believes unless he wills he wills to believe, right?

[34:38] Okay. So that's why why belief is meritorious because it's free, huh? Okay. But notice it's not free to imagine, right? You're freely assenting to the word of God. So the beginning in theology

[34:57] resembles that insofar as there's freedom there, right? But resembles this in terms of its what certitude, right, or greater certitude, huh? Okay. So all three beginnings. So it's a mistake to look for the same beginning in theology and in philosophy here and in what experimental science, huh?

[35:22] So you can see that when you read Claude Bernard, for him there's only one kind of beginning, right? And therefore the philosopher and a fortiori the theologian are not doing all they should with their beginning. It's a different kind of beginning, huh?

[35:41] So when you have a beginning that's forced in the mind by truth itself, then this beginning tends to justify what you can deduce from it, huh? Just the opposite of what you have in experimental science, where the hypothesis in no way justifies what you deduce from it, but they are used to judge it. Okay. But in theology you have what belief seeking understanding, huh?

[36:11] So the understanding we're seeking is is not to to to test the belief, right? But it's to understand so far as we can as a kind of consolation, right? We're not fully understanding it, huh?

[36:27] To me, that's an extremely important thing to see that the beginning in theology, the beginning in philosophy here, and the beginning in experimental science are three different kinds of beginnings. And you see, if you are accustomed to one, then you may try to what seek that kind of a way everywhere.

[36:54] I'm struck by a passage in Albert the Great, in Albert the Great's logical works. When he gets, I think it's when he's talking about Porphyry's work or something, but

[37:13] there's a part of logic dealing with these things, and one of the objections to it being such a part of logic is that Aristotle didn't write a new book on this, okay? And Albert doesn't take that argument too seriously. He says Aristotle might have written something that was lost, right? We don't have all his works, or he might not have got around it. He might, like like any man, not around everything, you know?

[37:37] So that's to be no argument to be no argument at all for him, right? You say, isn't that kind of a strange argument, right? There can't be any such part of logic because there's no what on that, right? See, in other words, there was that kind of a tendency in the Middle Ages to imitate, you might say, the method of theology, right? And to find some author or authors, right, that were to other disciplines, right, like the Bible is to what theology.

[38:07] So in medicine, you might take Galen or somebody like that, right, or Avicenna or somebody, right? And so he followed Galen, even though the corpse doesn't seem to be the way Galen described it, right? See, okay, and then logic we what Aristotle was the Bible there, you see, okay? But the point is, there is no book which is to philosophy as the Bible is to theology, really.

[38:38] But I mentioned that, huh? Because you can see that the Albert the Great mind there is rising above, right, the influence of custom there, huh? But most people are swept away with that custom, huh? But we we got different customs, so we what make different mistakes, huh? Let's quickly review again the beginnings for the three experimental science, philosophy, theology. Okay, there's a beginning here, which is forced in the mind by truth itself.

[39:09] Okay. Then there's this beginning freely imagined. Obviously, those two are not the same, right? Because in the one case, the mind is forced, right, by the truth itself. In the other case, it's free imagination, okay? So whatever is forced in the mind by truth itself is a foundation that you can build upon. But what is freely imagined is not a foundation you can build on. It's something to subject to a test, right?

[39:44] And to hold on to it so long as the consequences of it still agree with observation or experiment, right? But you never get certitude there, right? Okay. Now, what's the starting point in theology? See, well, there what you are doing is freely assenting to the divine truth. You are freely assenting to the Word of God. Okay,

[40:13] so you share in the in the certitude of the Word of God. So it's unlike that, right? Which is something freely imagined. But you are not forced to believe. God doesn't force the mind to believe.

[40:31] See, so reason can't really doubt that the whole is more than a part, right? But the reason can doubt, right? the belief, the temptations anyway, to doubt these things, right? Okay, because they're not forced to the mind,

[40:58] and that's why why believing is considered meritorious, huh? Thinking that a whole is greater than a part, I don't have any getting merit for that. I can't help to think that. Take my favorite example: there before and after? Nothing is before or after itself. I can't think otherwise, really myself. See,

[41:22] but in believing the Word of God, right? Augustine is very clear that believing is what a free act. Okay, so it's an entirely different beginning from either beginning in philosophy or the beginning in experimental science. But I mentioned the case of Claude Bernard, who's an eminent scientist, an eminent biologist, a physiologist. But for him, the kind of beginning that he's experienced as a biologist, as an experimental scientist, is the only kind of beginning there is, right?

[41:58] You know. Well, then the philosophers seem to be what just deducing conclusions from whatever they miss. A good description of modern philosophy. That's not the Greeks, right? They're not simply, you know, freely imagining something and then deducing the consequence of it, and then accepting whatever consequences follow from their freely imagined thing. I mean, that's not at all what they're doing, right? You see, and a fortiori the theologian that's freely imagining whatever he wants to, and not even deducing from it.

[42:30] See, a superficial understanding he has of philosophy, but you know, I contrasted with the Pythagoreans and Aristotle's critique of them because they're coming. From geometry and from thoughts and beginnings that are forced on the mind by truth itself into experimental science, so they try to carry the kind of beginning that they're experienced with in geometry into experimental science, and that's a mistake. We're making the reverse mistake because we're accustomed.

[43:02] The modern world is dominated by experimental science, and so we're accustomed to that kind of beginning. It's an hypothesis, and then we try to say, "Well, everything's an hypothesis, right?" You know, the whole is more than the part. That's an hypothesis. You know, I mean, these are hypotheses. You know, anything could be. You know, who knows what's going to show up? You know, in our experiments, right?

[43:23] See, but notice, huh? You know, when they test an hypothesis, they do so by deducing the consequences, and then seeing if the consequences are in agreement with experiment observation. If they're contradicted by that, then they what? Either reject or have to modify their hypothesis. But the principle of contradiction there, right? Something cannot be and not be. That's presupposed to what they're doing, and they can't possibly test that, like to an hypothesis, because then they'd be what assuming the very thing they're trying to test.

[44:05] Let's see if the principle of contradiction is contradicted by anything. If it is, we'll reject it. We'll reject it because we accept it, right? Well, that's that's obviously absurd, right? So their method of testing hypothesis presupposes a beginning that is not an hypothesis, which is the axiom about contradiction. As Aristotle points out, that's the natural beginning of all the axioms. To to to you know deny that a whole is more than a part is going to be gentle contradiction.

[44:40] You're going to say that the whole, which has parts, doesn't have parts. It's no more than one of its parts, right? That's all it is, one of its parts. You see?

[44:54] So if you want to try to lead a man like Bernard out, the force of custom is is stronger than argument with these people. Aristotle was. When I teach the when I teach the apology, I always make this point, right? That Socrates is more concerned with his anonymous accusers than with the ones who are trying to prove in court that he's guilty, right? He's more concerned about the influence of what?

[45:21] Custom upon the minds of the jury. They're accustomed to hear that Socrates is a bad man, right? Then any proof that the prosecutors can present in court. So I usually stop on that, and I say to students, "Which is stronger, for the most part, in our thinking? Custom or argument? " Yeah, custom. Yeah, and and a sign of that is that people who live in different ages and different come from different views, right?

[45:48] They have a certain common thinking, right? That's obviously explained by custom and not by what? By reason, huh? And you know, when you go back and read people and what they're like in other ages, you know, I always take the example of the Paston letters there from the 14th century. The Paston wanted to marry one of their daughters off to some rich old money bag, you know, because a good alliance, and she didn't want to marry this rich old money bag, Want to marry that young man.

[46:21] so of course they were beating her every day, right, until she agreed to marry the rich old money bags. But as the historian explained, you shouldn't think that they're cruel parents. I mean, anybody would do that. I mean, obviously, your daughter to marry the man you wanted. You know, there's things that that we would you know be kind of shocked by, or you know,

[46:40] they take for granted, right? I mean, what else would you do, right? And so then you see the force of custom, see? So I always quote Max Planck. Max Planck says we never convince the older generation of physicists of the new ideas, even though there's evidence from them in experiments. But because they're contrary to the ideas they grew up on, they won't accept it. What happens is, he says they they get old and die out, and then the new physicists come in and taught the new ideas at the beginning of their things, and they accept them because they don't have that impediment of custom.

[47:15] I say, if even the scientists were supposed to be trained about all the evidence, that's about them. And Max Planck is a pretty darn good, you know.

[47:26] witness to this, right? Then what about the rest of us mortals, though? Augustine says on that our entire way of living, with respect to marriage, banquet, clothing, and other necessities and customs of human life, might seem shameful among other peoples at other times. He goes into a whole big thing on this about the body. Sure, sure, sure. I mean, you

[47:58] know, I read these new Hudson Shakespeare's, you know, which are old now, and they're written for the high schools, but they're very good. I like them very much. But you know, in their introduction, they'll say the you know occasional lines left off that they thought was a little too bawdy for the for the high school thing, you know. But I mean, they just kind of take for granted.

[48:17] You know, you don't anything like this. You wouldn't think of this. We have plays obviously in high school, you know. Those lines left out, right? Of course, they can see the kind of things that the high school kids are exposed to now. I mean, Shakespeare there's no reason to censor Shakespeare now I can't put things on TV or anywhere else, and you know.