Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
38. Matter vs. Lack of Form: Heisenberg, Plato's Confusion, and Augustine against the Manichaeans
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/038-matter-vs-lack-of-form-heisenberg-platos-confusion-and-augustine/

[0:00] get to get my my daughter or my wife or or my son-in-law to change the diaper or my son Marcus or somebody. I baby-sat for the

[0:10] neighbors for years. Next door, and I always some Holy Spirit demon, God or enlightenment, guardian angels, bring to the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Help us to understand it. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:36] Just footnote about we were talking about last time. Heisenberg, right? Now, in the very beginning here, he says this solution of the problem of the smallest units of matter is somewhat surprising and paradoxical. It leads to another question which needs careful consideration. In earlier times, the atoms of the chemists or the atomic nuclei were pictured as compound systems consisting of many elementary particles, while the electron or the proton are taken as indivisible units and therefore elementary.

[1:29] In the present situation of the study of elementary particles, such a distinction would be artificial. It would, in fact, scarcely be possible to find a good any good definition which could distinguish an elementary particle from a compound system. Now he gives some interesting examples here. A pion, in case you don't know what a pion is, for example, could be considered as a system consisting of one or several pairs of nucleon and antinucleon.

[2:00] The nucleon could be built from the lambda hyperon and the kappa meson. The photon from the muon and the antimuon, etc. The well-known formula, he says, and he's got in quotes, "Every elementary particle consists of all other elementary particles." End of quote. seems to be a good description, right, of the paradoxical situation with which we are confronting the experiments.

[2:36] Just like any scientist would be speaking, right? And he comes back again. You know, the places in the book here, like he's talking about the mathematical difficulties. The mathematical difficulties which one encounters in the attempt to find solutions of the problem in quantum field theory are very much greater than in quantum mechanics. They arise primarily from the degree of complication, which is an immediate consequence of the experimental fact that, using the well-known paradoxical phrase, again he has in quotes, "Every elementary particle consists of all what other elementary particles, huh?"

[3:20] Okay. Well. In the Gifford lectures, there he's talking about the experiments at the high energy particles, right? At that time, he's writing here. Of course, it's changed since then, but there are 25 different new elementary particles, right? Okay.

[3:59] These results seem at first sight to lead away from the idea of the unity of matter, because you have all these multiplications of elementary particles. Since the number of fundamental units of matter seems to have again increased to values comparable to the number of different chemical elements, but this would not be a proper interpretation. The experiments have at the same time shown that the particles can be created from other particles, or simply from the kinetic energy of such particles. And they can again disintegrate into other particles.

[4:35] Actually, the experiments have shown the complete mutability of matter. What does that mean? There's no form of matter that is what? Unchangeable. Yeah. Yeah.

[4:50] All the elementary particles can, at sufficiently high energies, right, be transmuted into other particles, or they can simply be created from kinetic energy and can be annihilated into energy. Therefore, we have here actually the final proof for the unity of matter. All the elementary particles are made of the same substance, which we may call energy or universal matter. They are just different forms in which matter can what appear.

[5:23] If we compare the situation with the Aristotelian concepts of matter and form, we can see that the matter of Aristotle, which is mere potentia, right, should be compared to our concept of energy, which gets into actuality by means of the form when the elementary particle was created.

[5:43] I think you got to be careful about that comparison between energy and Aristotle's matter, because as he says in the lecture on the first philosophers, our energy is like what? The fire of Heraclitus, which is both the mover and the matter, right? So you have that double aspect there, right? And of course, secondly, because it's the mathematical science of nature and mathematics, there's no matter and therefore no motion.

[6:11] In a way, you're just shadowing these things, right? So you got to be very careful about that comparison, right? But interesting what he says there, right? Yeah.

[6:26] Now, in his lecture, the language of reality, he's talking about the tips of Weizsäcker you know, to have a new logic. You know, where you give up the principle of contradiction and so on. But he doesn't really go along with that himself.

[6:42] He's talking about the definition of state there. One sees at once that this use of the word state, especially the term coexistent state, is so different from the usual materialistic ontology that one may doubt whether one is using a convenient terminology. On the other hand, if one considers the word state as describing some potentiality, right, rather than a reality, meaning an actuality, right, one may even simply replace the term state by the term potentiality.

[7:13] Then the concept of coexistent potentialities is quite plausible, right? Since one potentiality may involve or overlap with potentialities. So, a lot of interesting things that Heisenberg has to say, huh?

[7:34] Okay. Now, in every change, in every becoming, three things are found: matter, form, and what? Lack of form, right? So, in order to understand change or becoming distinctly, we have to distinguish those three, and that means distinguish each one from the other. What? Two. Now, the distinction, though, of matter and excuse me, of form and lack of form, is altogether what? Evident. Evident, yeah, because the basis of distinction is really what?

[8:15] Opposition, right? And so, obviously, form and the lack of form are not the same thing. But sometimes people confuse matter with what? Form, right? Act with what? Ability, huh? And that's why I looked at the position of Anaxagoras on matter in detail, right? Because it helps us to distinguish between matter and form, and in a way, between ability and act. And Anaxagoras gets into difficulties because he falsely imagines, right?

[8:49] Everything is in the potentiality of matter to be actually in there, right? Okay. As I was saying with this well-known formula, it's just kind of natural for man to want to speak that way. I try to speak that way, right? To think that what comes out of something must be actually in there, when it may only be in there in some cases, many cases, most cases, only in what?

[9:16] Potentiality. Ability, huh? Some potentiality. Okay. Now we want to look at the distinction, though, between matter and what? Lack of form, right? Which the Platonists and others tend to what? Confuse. This is very important for many other reasons too, as we'll see as we start to go through the 15 reading here in the first book. Okay. Let's look at the text here now. If you have in front of you, 15.

[9:49] 3. Some others, he doesn't mention the Platonists by name, but he has in mind. Some others have touched upon the same meaning upon matter and so on, but not sufficiently. For they agree that something comes to be simply from what is not. Insofar as they think, you might say that Parmenides spoke rightly. Okay. Now let's go a little back to Parmenides. Parmenides said that

[10:26] if what is comes to be, right? It must come to be from what is, or from what is not. Okay. If what is comes to be, or what is didn't come to be, or had come to be, it would have to come to be from what is or what is not. Seems reasonable, right? Okay. They said, "How could what is come to be from what is? " It would be before it came to be, which is laughable, right?

[11:18] Okay. And how could you get what is from what is not? Because then you'd be getting something out of what nothing. So what is does not what come to be, right? Okay. But we knew, we know that things do come to be, right? So the Platonist says, "well, it's got to be one of these two, right? " And obviously, it can't come to be from what is, so it's got to come to be from what is is not, right?

[11:45] Okay. There is some truth to that, right? What is a sphere comes to be from what is not a sphere, right? Okay. But Aristotle is saying there is a distinction there between that non-being and that what matter which is able to become something, huh? Okay.

[12:15] Then it seems to be the same to them that if something is one in number, it is also only one in ability. We'll go back to our simple example, right? The soft butter is put in the refrigerator, and so the butter becomes hard, right? And the soft becomes hard, right? But is the soft really able to be hard? No. It's the butter that's able to be hard, right?

[12:47] So even though we're not talking about two different things becoming hard, the butter and the soft, right? Yet the ability of butter and the soft is not the same thing, is it? Okay.

[13:05] Now, in the second paragraph, Aristotle is pointing out how different is his own thinking from this. But this differs much, he says, huh? For we, and now this is the editorial way, huh? for we Aristotle, right, say that matter and lack, meaning lack of form, are other, right? We say you should distinguish between the matter and the lack of the form, huh?

[13:31] And now he points out two differences, and one of these is none being by happening the matter, but the lack to itself or the lack as such. What does that mean?

[13:56] The matter happens to be not hard. Yeah. But but the soft is itself not hard. Right. Well, the the lack of hardness, right, is as such, right, to itself. You can use either phrase in English, right, to itself or as such. The lack of what

[14:25] hardness as such is the non-being of hardness, right? Okay, but the the butter, let's say, right, is not as such the lack of hardness, is it? Although it could happen to lack hardness, right? Okay, just like if I said, you know, ignorance as such is the what non being of knowledge, right? Is the mind as such the non being of knowledge?

[14:55] Although the mind could happen not to know something, right? In fact, very often our mind happens not to know something, right? But to be a mind that as such to not know something, no. But to not know is something that happens to the mind before it learns, right? But ignorance as such is what without knowledge, right? Do you see that? Ignorance through itself, what does that mean?

[15:22] Ignorance through being ignorance is an unbeing of knowledge, right? But the mind as such, the mind as mind, the mind through itself, the mind through being a mind, is it not have knowledge? Through being a mind,

[15:43] to be a mind as such to not have knowledge. You see the difference? Um, to be empty as such is not to be what? Yeah, yeah. Now my glass could happen to be empty, right? But is my glass as such empty? No, something that happens to it, right? Okay, so to be a glass to be empty, are they the same thing? No, no. You see? Okay. Now notice here you're touching upon the distinction between the as such, right, and the accidental, right, which touches upon the also the first kind of fallacy outside of language, huh?

[16:36] The fallacy, the accidental, which is the first fallacy Aristotle takes up outside of language, and which he says is so difficult that it deceives even the what Wise, huh? Okay. Now, he puts out a second difference, and the one is near and a substance in some way the matter. You can say that matter in some way is substance. It is a substance in ability, right? So in that sense, it's near, right?

[17:06] But the other is in no way what a substance, huh? Okay. Just like if I was to say, you know, the mind is near to knowing. The mind in some way is knowing, huh? The mind is knowing at least in ability, right? The mind is able to know, but ignorance is in no way what. Knowing, right? Huh? It's not close to knowing. Okay. Do you see the two differences he points out then?

[17:40] Huh? He's saying lack of form as such, or through itself, right, is a what? Non-being, right? The non being of something. But matter as such, or through being matter, is not the non being of something. Although it could happen to not have some form, right? Okay. Although he has this has a sentence, and one of these is non-being by happening the matter meaning. Yeah, the matter it can happen to matter not to have a form, right?

[18:17] All right. So that non-being there refers to a form. but... Yeah, yeah, but it's by happening that it's not this, right? All right. So in the in the instance of the butter being hard,

[18:33] it matter has a non-being as in regards to that hardness, which is. Yeah, yeah, it could happen to butter to lack hardness, right? Right, to not have hardness, right? But is butter as such lacking in hardness? No. No, is butter through being butter lacking in hardness? No. But the lack of hardness as such is the non-existence of hardness, right? Okay. Because in another way, saying that then would be that it's it's a separation of that matter from its accident there.

[19:15] Something accidental to it, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it can happen to matter, but it doesn't belong to matter as matter, right? Doesn't belong to matter through being matter, right? Okay. Now I'm thinking a little comparison there to help you there with the mind, right? Huh? I would say the mind can happen to not have some what knowledge, right? Okay. There can not be knowledge of the mind, right?

[19:41] But is the mind as such, through being a mind, not knowing? No, no. And the second thing we would say, the mind in a way is is is near to knowing, isn't it? See, if you have a mind, you are at least able to know, right? Yeah. Okay. Don't necessarily know, but okay. So in some way, to have a mind is to know. To know an ability, right?

[20:10] Yeah. But to be ignorant is that in some way to know? No. No. Because you know your ignorance, even that knowing is not an ignorance, is it? But ignorance itself, right, in no way can can be knowing, right? Okay.

[20:30] Ignorance as such. Ignorance through being ignorance is the non-being of knowledge, right? The mind as such, as mind, or through being a mind, is not the non-existence of knowledge, is it? Now, in some way, it almost is knowing, right? It's knowing an ability. It's close to it, right? In some way, it is, right? So you are making that same distinction regard to matter and lack of form.

[20:57] Talking about the first matter again, right? That the first matter, as such, is not the non-being of form. See, that's why Aristotle says you should identify matter with lack of form. The one as such is a non-being, right? The other as such is not a non-being; it's being in potency, being an ability. And the one is what almost a substance in some way it is, right? Substance an ability, but the other is in no way a substance.

[21:30] Okay. And I can see something similar as I say about the mind, right? I can say you shouldn't identify the mind with its ignorance. Although to be ignorant to not know can happen to the mind, right? It doesn't belong to mind as such to not know. You'd be in really bad shape with that, or so, right? Damn a mind as such as to not know. As long as that one mind, I'll never know, right?

[21:58] See, but something happens to my mind to not know, right? But does it happen to ignorance that it lacks knowledge? Doesn't have knowledge? No, that's what it is as such, right?

[22:13] So in a way, if you confuse the two, you are making the fallacy of the accidental, aren't you? Yeah. Okay. Now, yeah. Could we backtrack to the first paragraph again? Would you mind? The first one or the first paragraph? Yeah. It says now Parmenides' basic thing ended up to be no change because he couldn't. He couldn't. You have the two options, but then it's both more absurd, right?

[22:41] Yeah. Yeah. Now, what does it mean here when it says? It seems like he says in the second sentence that that the second one is okay. He says for for they agree that something comes to be simply from what is not, which would be the second, which would contradict Parmenides, right? Yeah, yeah. there was there was Plato's like Sherlock Holmes right? Sherlock Holmes says when all the possibilities but one have been eliminated, the one that remains, however strange it is, must be the one, right?

[23:12] See, well, in a sense, to him, it looks more absurd to say that what is comes to be from what is, because then it would already what. Being. B, right? Right. And it makes more sense to say a sphere comes to be from what is not a sphere. Okay. To be the change there, right? But how can sphere come be from sphere?

[23:37] How can Duane Berquist come to be from Duane Berquist Yeah? So he would be before he came to be, right? So this seems to be the the worst alternative in a sense, more absurd, right? So this one he takes he being Plato, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Aristotle says, "What in saying that in a way, you're you realize there's something in between being and non-being, which is being an ability, right?

[24:07] Okay, and this being an ability, although it can happen not to be right, something an act, it's not as such the non-actuality of something, right? See, but the lack of form is as such the non-being of form.

[24:28] Okay, when he. says then Okay Yeah Why why don't why does he say inasmuch as Parmenides spoke rightly? Well, I mean, if he thinks that Parmenides is speaking rightly, right, in giving this alternative, right, and actually Parmenides is leaving out the third possibility, right, that it comes to be from what is only and what. Because Parmenides asserts both, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Plato would disagree with them by accepting.

[25:03] He's kind of taking the either or. though. It's got to be one or the other, right? So if you say that we know that things do come to be, right, then it's got to be one of these two. Yeah. And this is more reasonable than that, right? Okay. Therefore. And Aristotle is saying, well,

[25:25] you know, if we discuss this Parmenides, he'll point out something besides these two, right? Okay. Doesn't the first one violate principle contradiction? The second one doesn't. Is that true? What is cannot be from what is. Well, yeah. The theory here is that if what is came to be from what is, then you would be what. Contradict. Then you say that something would already be before it came to be, right?

[25:51] Okay. So it makes more sense to say that before something comes to be, it isn't, right? Okay. But the fact that it isn't is not what enables it to come to be. But there's something which is what able to be, right? It comes to be, right? It is made actual. But what is not the non-being is not made actual. See. Just like my mind, when my mind comes to know something, right?

[26:20] Before it comes to know, it's able to know, right? But ignorance, right? Even though I'm ignorant before I come to know, is ignorance able to know?

[26:39] Like Shakespeare says, dull, barren, unfeeling ignorance. But he calls ignorance barren, Right? It doesn't have any ability to produce anything. Right. If I know the length and the width of this table, but I haven't multiplied them yet, right? I don't actually know the table, do I? Right? The area of the table, but I'm able to know it, right? Now I'm ignorant of the area before I multiply those two, but do I come to know the area of the table through my ignorance of it?

[27:19] See. No, I come to know it through my knowledge of the length and the width, right? Okay. Likewise, my mind is ignorant of something before it comes to know it, right? Does it come to know it through its ignorance? No, Well, it through its ability to know, right? Right. Yeah. If you can't distinguish from ability and act, then you're going to try to end up what confusing, right?

[27:54] Ability with non-being, huh? Okay. In last sentence, paragraph, then it seems to be the same that if something is one in number, it is also only one in ability. Yeah. So when I say when I say that the when I put the soft butter in the refrigerator, right? And I speak about what takes place, the soft becomes hard, or I might say the butter becomes hard. Can see the one, right?

[28:22] Am I talking about two things becoming hard? No, it's one of the same thing, so it's one in number, right? Oh, okay. See. Uh huh. Uh huh. And then only one. But yet, but yet to be soft and to be butter are not the same in what ability, right? Yeah. Because butter is able to be hard, and soft as such, right, is not able to be hard, right?

[28:50] Yeah. Yeah. So there's a real difference there between the two, huh? Yeah. Only one. Okay. Yeah. Mm. Good. Yeah. Now, in that third paragraph, Plato sometimes would speak of these three things. He would speak of form, and then in the side of matter, he would speak of the large and the small. Okay. So he had three things here, right? Just like Aristotle has three things, huh? Aristotle has form,

[29:32] and then he has what matter and lack of form. But are these three things the same as those three things? No, because one of these is not matter, and the other what lack of form, right? So Aristotle's just pointing out that when Plato distinguishes these three, he's not making the same distinction that we make, huh? Okay. The Plato sees quantity on the side of matter, which makes sense.

[30:01] Hmm. It's kind of strange that Plato speaks there because large and small really what relations? He should make relations the substance of something, huh?

[30:15] Okay. So some likewise make none-being the large and the small either together or each apart. So this kind of triad, this kind of three, is wholly other than that, huh?

[30:32] For they got this far that some nature should underlie, or they see distinction in a way between matter and what form, right? Okay. But they make this one, and even if someone makes a duality, calling it the large and the small, nevertheless he does the same. For he overlooks the other; he doesn't distinguish between matter and what lack of form. Okay.

[30:58] Now, Aristotle is going to say Plato should distinguish between these two, the Platonists should. I say this this confusion runs down to the Platonists. If you look at Plotinus, say, right, many centuries later, right, he's got that same confusion, right? Okay. Of matter and lack. And lack of form, yeah, yeah. Now, at this point, Aristotle is going to start to force Plato or the Platonists to distinguish between matter and lack of form.

[31:35] But again, he's going to follow the in a way the principle of Heraclitus, right? But those who speak with understanding must be what strong, and what is common to all, right? And therefore, we have to follow what is common, and so on. Aristotle is going to take a common basis shared by himself and Plato, a common basis, a common understanding of what form, and it's extremely profound this common understanding of form.

[32:10] So, Plato and Aristotle, their common understanding of form. Now, what is this common understanding they have of form? Form is something godlike, good, and what desirable, right?

[32:46] Form is godlike, good, and desirable. You see, this starts into this fourth paragraph. For there being something divine, meaning not of the divine nature, but godlike, and that's why I translate a little differently there. Divine and good and desirable—that's meaning reference to what form, right? So Aristotle is going to reason from this common

[33:25] understanding of form that he and Plato share to say you must distinguish then between what matter and lack of form. From this, he's going to reason, right, that matter and lack of form must be what distinct, right? Okay. Let's look at this common basis because it shows something very profound, and it's very good to Plato and Aristotle's understanding.

[33:51] But why would Plato and Aristotle think that form is something godlike, or why would this be reasonable to think of as being godlike? In

[34:01] the sense, like it creates. Well, go back to the contrast that we had in the previous reading between form and matter, right? The act. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. When you study God in theology, you'll find out that God is pure act. Okay. That's one of the main things we learn about God. That God is pure act. So form is a what, an act, right? Therefore, it is what, like God, who is pure act, rather than matter, which at first sight doesn't seem to be like God, right?

[34:47] Because it's only what, able to be actual, right? But by itself, it's not actual, right? So it doesn't seem to be like God, who is what, pure act, okay? That's a very profound thing there, right? That form is God-like.

[35:08] Now, why good and desirable, right? Well, one little term you could use there is you can see that the act of the thing is its what, perfection or its what, completion, right? The thing is actualized, and the perfection of a thing is its what, good, and therefore what, desirable form. okay? So form is something God-like, good, and what, desirable, right? It's God-like because it's an act, and God is pure act.

[35:50] So in some ways, like God, and because act is the what, completion and the perfection of something, an ability is not what, completed or or perfect until it's been actualized. And perfection of a thing is the good of that thing, right? Form is also something good. If it's good, it's therefore something what, desirable.

[36:27] Now, if you compare matter now and lack of form to form as thus understood in common, matter would seem to what, desire form, as he says, huh? Meaning that matter is what, ordered to form as its perfection, just as ability is for the sake of what, some act, right? Okay.

[36:55] But lack of form would seem to be something what, bad, Bad, because it's opposed to form, isn't it? So if form is something good, then lack of form would seem to be something bad, right? But matter, being capable of form, right? Therefore, being capable of the good would seem to be good in some way too, although in a secondary way, okay?

[37:29] But he goes on to say, but if lack of form were to desire form. Would it be desired for its own good? Its own elimination, right? Its own destruction, right? Okay.

[37:46] Sometimes I like to pun on the word. The two meanings of the word "end," you know. My students are always confusing them. You know the classical syllogism. Happiness is the end of human life. The end of human life is death. Never happiness is death, you know. Um, I told you one time on the final exam, a student was arguing. You know, against the proposition that nature acts for an end, right?

[38:18] If nature acted for an end, all things would come to an end. But all things have not come to an end, therefore. And I had, I had, and I can't repeat what one of the girls' papers is this this last semester there. When I take up the question whether nature acts for an end, I talk about the importance of this question, why it's so important for knowing natural philosophy for all of our life.

[38:42] And she was saying, "Well, if nature acted for an end, it'd all be about you know death, right? This would be very gloomy, and

[38:56] um Actually, if nature acted for an end, right? That man has no end, and so on. So they tend to confuse those two, but you can say that in one sense, the end, right? Form is the end of matter, right? It's the purpose of matter, just as ability is for the sake of what of act, right? The ability to see is for the sake of seeing, right?

[39:21] The ability to be formed is for the sake of being formed. So matter, in a way, is for the sake of form, but in another sense, form is the end of what lack of form, The elimination, of it, right? Okay. So the way Aristotle has

[39:44] two ways, here maybe, of distinguishing between matter and lack of form in comparison to form, right? What is that matter desires form. Now that's a concrete way of speaking, there, right, doesn't mean that matter has a will, or that matter has, you know, even sense desire, right? Um, or even that it has the kind of desire that we speak of in a plant, right? Sometimes you do buy a plant, you know, they'll say to you it wants a lot of sunlight, right?

[40:27] Okay, but it means simply that matter is what ordered to form as it's what end, right? And sometimes we see that too, like we're trying to put a screw on something that doesn't fit right, or in a hole it doesn't fit, huh? See, it doesn't what want it to go, right? It's not made for that, right? It doesn't fit that part, right? So in this sense, we speak of matter's desire for form.

[40:53] Matter is ordered to form as its what, yeah, as its perfection, right? Okay, it's its fulfillment, right? Okay. But in a sense, using a reduction to absurd, he says, "But if lack of form were to desire form, right, it would not be desiring its own good, but its own what? Destruction, right? Okay. So how can matter and lack of form be the same thing if the one desires form while the other couldn't really desire form?

[41:29] To make it a little more, I know I'm saying that. If form is a perfection of matter, but the destruction of lack of form, right? How can matter and lack of form be the same thing?

[41:47] Certainly, the perfection of something is not the same thing as its destruction, isn't it? Right. So form is the destruction or the elimination of lack of form, right? But the perfection of form, how can matter and lack of form be the same thing, right? Okay.

[42:09] So we kind of get into the form of reduction to absurd. If lack of form were to desire form, it would desire its own destruction. Let's

[42:36] see. Involved in that distinction there is the fact that that form is a perfection of matter, but the destruction, elimination of lack of form. Okay. So in a way, Aristotle has seen that you must distinguish between matter and lack of form by comparing them to what a third thing, right? If you're shorter than me and he's taller than me, or vice versa, you two guys can't be the same thing, right?

[43:04] If one of you is taller than me and one of you is shorter than me, right? So if if you compare matter and lack of form to form, and you see that one is perfected by form, in that sense it can be said to desire form, right? It's ordered to form as perfection, while the other is eliminated or destroyed, right? By form, right? So it could not be desired.

[43:32] It must be something different, right? I can also argue that lack of form is bad because it is opposed to form. But matter would seem to be something good because it's what capable of form, right? Matter is good because Matter is good because capable of form. The first sentence of that staying under nature. Yeah, that's the matter, right? Okay. The staying under nature, the underlying matter, in other words, is a cause with the form of what comes to be, and using a comparison that Plato makes in the what, in the Timaeus, right?

[44:51] Okay. That goes back the comparison between mother and what, matter, right? Huh? But the other part of the contrariety would seem to be to one applying his mind to be harmful to the same and not to be at all. For there being something divine and good and desirable, namely form, one of them we say is contrary to this, namely the lack of form, right? And therefore bad.

[45:15] So, but the other part of the contrariety, that's the lack of form. Yeah. The other, however, the matter, however, is apt to desire and want this according to its nature, right? But to some it would happen that the contrary desires its own corruption, right? If you don't make a distinction, right? You're going to say it's desiring its non-being, you know, it's so.

[45:38] But truly, the form is not such as itself to desire itself, because it's not needy, nor the contrary, for the contraries preclude each other. But this is the matter, right? Okay. As if the woman, the man, and the ugly and the beautiful. I think the example there is the ugly and the beautiful. I say to students sometimes, do the ugly want to be beautiful?

[46:05] Of course, they first say, yeah, the ugly want to be beautiful, right? I say, just a minute now. Um, is ugliness and the body the same thing? Say.

[46:21] Now the body, you could say, wants to be beautiful, because to be beautiful is a perfection of the body, right? But does ugliness want beauty? It's not a perfection of that that, right? So, though we can say that the ugly want to be beautiful, right? Say. Is it? I was speaking per se as such to itself. No, it's not the ugly as such that wants to be beautiful.

[46:52] It's the body as such that wants to be beautiful. Okay. And if beauty is something good, right? Then ugliness is something bad, right? Huh? But the body, being capable of beauty, is, in that sense, good, but not as good as being actually beautiful. In the same way, you could ask the student, you know, do the sick want to be healthy?

[47:18] Does the sick want to be healthy? Of course, yeah, yeah. Just a minute now, see. See. The sickness is going to be what? Eliminated, right? See.

[47:32] So if the sick wanted to be healthy, did he want their own elimination, right? So it's really the body, as such, that wants to be healthy. Healthy, health is a perfection of the body. But health is not a perfection of sickness. Nothing completes the elimination of it. See the way he's arguing there, right? So in a sense, the distinction here, of the as such, you know, the accidental.

[48:03] The such by happening, right? The through itself and the through happening. You can speak both ways in English, right? Was being made, right? In a sense, in in confusing

[48:18] matter with lack of form, he's confusing what as such wants form and what cannot as such, right? But notice when you think of, you try to think about matter in distinction from form, which Plato was trying to do. If you think of matter in distinction from form, then you think almost naturally of matter as being something what? As formless, yeah, yeah. But to be matter and to be formless are not really the same, are they?

[48:52] Even though matter may be formless or may lack that particular form. Now, little comparison here between Aristotle and what? And Saint Augustine, right? Because if you confuse matter with lack of form, the lack of form is something bad, right? So if you don't separate or distinguish matter from lack of form, your tendency to think the matter is something bad, right? And you see that a little bit in Plato, but you see it even more explicitly Plotinus, right?

[49:39] He's a famous Neoplatonist. Where matter is something bad, and of course this became the what? One of the pillars of what? Manichaeism, right? As you know from the life of Augustine, he became a what? Manichean, right? Okay. But eventually, through his mother's prayers and the words of Ambrose the Ciceronian words of Ambrose, he worked his way out of this, right? And then he wrote many works against the what?

[50:13] Manichaeans. And his most definitive work against the Manichaeans is called De Natura Boni contra Manichaeos, right? The nature of the good against the Manichaeans.

[50:39] Okay, but in that work, Augustine gives this argument against the Manichaeans. He says, matter being capable of form is something good. So he's giving essentially the argument that Aristotle gives against Plato, right? He's giving that same argument against the Manichaeans, right? But the sense the Manichaeans have a similar what mistake here, and Plato does a good run together with the Manichaeans in this thinking that matter is something bad, right?

[51:11] Now, as far as we know, Augustine didn't have Aristotle's life, but we're reading here, right? He had the categories, but we don't know if anything else he had. So it seems that Augustine arrived independently of Aristotle at the same argument against the Manichaeans or against the same error, really, as Aristotle did. It's kind of interesting to see these two great minds: Aristotle, perhaps the greatest of the philosophers, and Augustine, perhaps the greatest of the Church Fathers, right?

[51:42] They both what come up with substantially the same argument against the same error, right? But as far as we can see, independently, But Thomas and Pontus had the advantage of being able to read both Aristotle and Augustine, right? So Thomas wrote the definitive work, the Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo, right? But you know the famous time when Thomas is at the King of France's table there, and in the middle of the dinner, he just slammed the table and said, this is the Manichaeans," Then he realized he was at the, you know, table with the king, but of course the king was to say himself, Louis the Ninth, so he said, "Quickly, someone get something written down with Thomas's thought," but he didn't think it there, you

[52:34] know, the Manichaeans. But no, Thomas had the advantage of both Augustine and Aristotle, right? Those two great minds are kind of independently arriving at the same argument against the same mistake. This is very important for the Manichean thing. The Dominicans, of course, were founded originally to fight the revival of Manichean heresy in the south of France, the Albigensian heresy. Saint

[53:06] Dominic was going through that area and he stopped one night at the inn. He got talking to the innkeeper and he found out he was picked up the heresy, the Albigensian heresy. So rather than go to bed and get his rest, he stayed up all night talking with the man. By morning, he convinced him, you know, his errors. So the Dominican order was originally founded, right, to fight by words the Albigensian heresy by dispute.

[53:32] So the Dominicans go in and debate these guys. So you see a lot of that reflected in Thomas there, in the De Malo and in the Summa Contra Gentiles, and so on.

[53:49] This is very fundamental.