Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
39. Ability and Lack: Sartre's Freedom, the Meaning of Bad, Fallacies, and the Perfection of Man
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/039-ability-and-lack-sartres-freedom-the-meaning-of-bad-fallacies/

[0:00] Now, we mentioned a bit why Plato might confuse these two, right? It's because when you try to understand matter as something really distinct from form, you think matter is something without form, don't you? And therefore, you think of matter as as being formless, and then you tend to kind of identify matter with its formlessness, huh, or with its being formless. Let me take a a comparison here, using the example I did of the mind before, right?

[0:41] Can you teach God anything? No. Why not? He's perfect. Well, because He knows everything, right? That's why He can't teach me anything, right? Can only teach someone who's ignorant, right? Okay. So it's because you're ignorant that you're teachable, right?

[1:06] It might seem that way, right? See, why aren't you making a similar confusion here, right? You can't teach God because He knows everything, right? Can we teach somebody who's ignorant, right? So it's because you're ignorant that you're teachable. Is that really so? Or Aristotle would say you're confusing the mind, which is the ability to know, right, with ignorance, right? Ignorance, as such, is an unbeing of knowledge, right?

[1:40] The mind, you'd say, as such, is not the unbeing of knowledge. The mind, in some way, is almost knowing because it's the ability to know, but ignorance is in no way knowing, right? Okay. But you want to argue in a way similar to this, you might say, well, let's compare the mind and ignorance to

[2:06] knowledge, right? And let's say that knowledge is something godlike. Okay. Why would you say that knowledge is godlike? God is all knowing. Yeah. So, the extent that we know something, we become in some way like God, right? Okay. And it's something, therefore, good, right, and desirable.

[2:38] Now, when you compare the mind and ignorance to knowledge, if knowledge is something godlike, good, and desirable, then ignorance would seem to be something what? Bad, right? Okay.

[3:00] But the mind would that seem to be something bad? No. It seems to be good because it is capable of what? Knowledge of knowing. They could

[3:18] also say that the mind what desires to know, right? Okay. Meaning that the mind is ordered to knowing, as the ability to know is ordered to what? Actually, knowing, right? So the mind, in that sense, is perfected by knowledge. It would make sense to say that ignorance desires to know.

[3:50] If ignorance were to desire to know, it would desire its own what? Yeah. So if the mind desires to know, but ignorance cannot desire to know, how can the mind and ignorance be the same thing?

[4:08] So you're able to learn because you have a mind, not because you're ignorant, right? But notice, son, before you learn, your mind is what necessarily ignorant, right?

[4:26] And it's kind of a strange, accidental thing to be necessarily there, right? A lot of times you can see if something's accidental because it's not always there, right? But one is always ignorant before he what? Learns, right? Okay. And yet, it's not through being ignorant that he learns. It's through his ability to know, through his mind that he actually learns.

[4:59] You see, somebody can confuse the two, right? Hegel speaks of what the portentous power, the negative. Portentous, you know, very significant, you know. But the power, the negative, right? Well, in a sense, the negative doesn't have any power at all, does it? See, that's a real what? He's kind of universalizing this this mistake, huh?

[5:41] So see, I could argue in a similar way against this confusion, right? As Aristotle reasoned against this confusion of matter and lack of form, right? Okay.

[6:08] Let's take a third thing which is similar to this first two. Jean Paul Sartre, in his work "There Being and Nothingness," he identifies man with his what freedom, right? Okay. There's a tendency for the modern philosophers to identify man with his freedom rather than with what reason, right? Okay. Now of course freedom is something that does characterize man, distinguish man from the other animals and so on.

[6:46] And it's good that the existentialists like Sartre defend the reality of man's freedom, right? Okay. But man wouldn't really be free if he didn't have reason, like Shakespeare says, right? And Hamlet says when he's talking about why he chose, right? Horatio is his friend. He says, "Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could have been distinguished, her election has sealed before herself. " So he had to have his reason, right, before he could what really choose, huh?

[7:23] But leave that aside. Now, when Sartre tries to understand man's freedom, he identifies man's freedom with non-being, with nothingness. Yeah. Now, why would a man do that? Well, when I explain this to my students, kind of lead them into thinking the way Sartre does at first, you know, I say, when I go into the restaurant, and they hand me a menu, right? If I'm really free to choose between steak and chicken and these other things, right?

[8:04] Then before I choose chicken, let's say, as opposed to steak, or vice versa, is my will determined to choose chicken? Before I choose? No. If I was determined to choose chicken, would I really be free? I go in the restaurant. I couldn't help but choose chicken, right? Huh? Okay. So if I'm really free to choose, huh, chicken or steak or not to have these, we have something else, then before I choose, my will is undetermined, right?

[8:43] So it's that indetermination of my will that makes me free, right? Yeah. And the indetermination is a kind of non-being, isn't it? Hmm. And so you know, have the magnification of words, right? So man is free because of non-being, because of nothingness, right? Hmm. And Sartre says man is the one by whom non-being came into the world, right? Hmm. With his freedom, right? Hmm. Okay.

[9:21] Now, is that true? No. No. What is he confusing here? When I get the students like that to say, "Yeah, yeah, you're free because you're undetermined. " As if your determination is really the essence of your what freedom. It's the determination of man that makes him free.

[9:45] What is he confusing there? The ability to choose. Yeah, he's confusing the ability to choose with the lack of choice before I choose, right? Okay. Now he's identifying those two, isn't he? But now, if you compare them to a third thing, into choice, you could say that the ability to choose is for the sake of choosing, right?

[10:25] So choice is the fulfillment of this ability, right? But is it the fulfillment of the lack of choice? No, it's the elimination of that indetermination, right? So how can these two be the same thing when one is for the sake of this third thing, right? And the other is opposed to that third thing, right? When the one is perfected by this third thing, and the other is what eliminated, right?

[10:54] When I first present that to the students, they tend to agree with Sartre, right? That one is free because of that indetermination in his will.

[11:06] And you can say before I choose necessarily there is an indetermination in my will. That's not my freedom. But this is something that necessarily happens to the ability to choose before you choose, just as ignorance necessarily happens to the mind before it learns, right?

[11:36] Because it necessarily happens, I think that's the reason why people will tend to be what to identify the two, right? I had a relative, right? lived out in Twin Cities.

[11:59] So he comes down to St. Paul to visit, and one of the relatives dies. I run into him at the funeral home. A few weeks later, he comes down again to visit. Another relative dies. I meet him at the funeral home. He says to me, "I don't think I'll come down anymore. " Somebody seems to die. And now, to the best of my knowledge, this was purely what accidental, right?

[12:27] But suppose nobody ever died until after this guy came to town. You probably what ask him to stay away, wouldn't you? Right. But notice, one never learns without being first what ignorant, right? Before one chooses, right? There's always this indetermination in the will. So if A always comes before B, you might think that A is in some way a what a cause, huh? But it's not really a cause as such of what comes to be in these cases, is it?

[13:05] Even though it necessarily goes before. Now, my little addition to Aristotle's remark there on the fallacy of the accident, when he says that it deceives even the wise, right? I think that it especially deceives the wise when it's what necessarily found there, right? Because then it doesn't seem doesn't seem to be accidental, does it? See what I mean? It seems to be as such.

[13:37] See, the ancients thought that swamp air caused malaria, right? And the reason to think so is that people who were in the swamp air is the ones who got malaria. If you weren't in the swamp air, you didn't get malaria. Okay. But then someone, you know, slept in the swamp air with a mosquito net over him. He didn't get malaria. So was it the swamp air as such that was causing malaria?

[14:04] No, it was the mosquito. Well, maybe it's not even the mosquito as such, but the germ or whatever it is that's the mosquito or some mosquitoes are carrier, right?

[14:18] So you might think, you know, that the the malaria as such, right, is the cause of. I mean, swamp air as such is a cause of malaria. But you can, you know, separate those, right? But where the accidental was necessarily found there, it's hard to separate them. Okay. Give you another example from the modern sense, a little different, entirely different matter, you know.

[14:51] But the way a little bit of Berkeley proceeds a bit. Okay. Now, does your mind know something if that thing is not in your mind?

[15:10] No. No. So all you know is what is in your mind, right? Nothing outside your mind, right? Right. Okay. In a particular way See

[15:31] In other words everything that I know is necessarily true that's known by me, right? It's known by me insofar as it's in my mind, right? Therefore, everything I know is only in my mind, right? I have no knowledge of the. It's a common thing among all the modern philosophers and such, but but you see in Berkeley and so on. See. What are you going to say about that?

[16:01] They would continue that line of thought, thinking, "Well, I don't have anything in mind right now, so I know nothing." Yeah, I mean, the person going to say you don't know the, you know, you're not on the same thing, right? I don't know what's in my mind. I don't know what's in your mind.

[16:15] You know. But but notice, say, if I know what a square is, right? Um. Is square being in my mind accidental or necessary? What is it to my knowing what a square is?

[16:38] It's necessary. Yeah. See. So I know what a square is. Square is necessarily in my mind, right? Oh yeah. Okay. But when I define square, do I say it's an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral in the mind in the mind. See, even though when I understand that definition of square that Euclid has, it's necessary in my mind, right? But it's in the mind, in my mind, is not part of the definition of a square.

[17:13] It's accidental, right? To what a square is that it be in the mind of me. It's accidental to be a square that's in your mind, right? So here is something necessarily there, right? But notice if in the mind, in my mind was in was in the definition of everything I define, and in your mind was the definition of everything you define, we'd never have the same definition, would we?

[17:39] Because your mind is not my mind, right? See, but that's really accidental to what I know, even though I necessarily have it in mind when I know it. See how easy every person gets confused about that, right? So I think men are are deceived by the accidental when it's necessarily what present, present, yeah, yeah.

[18:07] In a way, as I say, Hegel understands universalizes this speaks of the power of the negative, right? Well, is that because we have a misunderstanding of the word accidental? We take it as being that which is not necessary.

[18:25] Well, part of it, maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah. But if something is necessarily there, it seems to be as such, right? I can only teach the ignorant, right? Yeah.

[18:38] So it seems that it's through your ignorance that you are teachable, right? But I think in Sartre it's especially deceptive, right? It's an indetermination. It's especially deceptive there, right? It's that indetermination in my will is my freedom. You think so? It's my ability to choose, right?

[19:04] So I wouldn't be free if I didn't have that indetermination of my will before I choose. If I was already determined to choose chicken once I walked in there, I wouldn't be able to choose among the items on the menu. Do you see that? Yeah. But that indetermination is not really my freedom. It's not really my ability to choose. See, just as the formlessness of matter is not really its ability to be formed, is it?

[19:37] You can only form the formless, right? Is it the will that is our ability then? Yeah, but the will is not the indetermination of the will. The will is the ability to what? To choose. But the ability to choose is not the same as a lack of choice, huh? Of course, if Sartre wasn't just doing this in theory, he actually went into a restaurant determined to have chicken.

[20:05] He brought it out raw. I bet you he would have changed his mind. Yeah. So now this text today mentioned a little before. It's a very important text for understanding what what badness, is, okay. Now,

[20:36] what Aristotle's testifying here is that the first meaning of bad is always that of a what lack, okay? The word bad actually has many meanings. It's equivocal word. So the word has many meaning, but it's equivocal by what reason, huh? Not by chance, huh? What does that mean? You see a word is equivocal by reason, but means that there's an order among the meanings, right, huh? Now the basic meaning of bad here is is that of lack, and then the second meaning of bad is what has a lack, right?

[21:23] You can see that we have to have a lack, or lack something, right? And then the third meaning of bad is what causes or produces a lack.

[21:54] Now, what is is lack, huh? What is lack, huh? Well, get careful. Lack is a non-being, but it's not just a non-being. Okay. Lack is the non-being of something one is able to have, right? Okay. And in the strict sense, now what is able to have and should have, right? A non-being of something one is able to have and should have, right? Okay.

[22:44] So take an example of that, right? Blindness, right? Okay. Blindness is a non-being of something one is able to have, namely sight, right? And should have, right? Huh? So the chair is not strictly speaking blind. You can say the chair doesn't see, right? But it's not blind, right? The blindness is not simply the non-being of sight, but the non-being of sight in a subject like a man or a dog that's able to have sight, right?

[23:22] And that should have sight, right? Huh? Okay. So this is the basic, the first meaning of bad, huh? It's a non being of something one is able to have and should have, okay. And when one should have it, bad, but okay, right? Okay. So blindness is is something bad, right? Okay. And then to be a blind man is not what, good, right? Okay. But the blind man is not simply the lack, but he's what he he has the lack, right?

[23:58] Okay. And then what blind you is something what, bad, right? Okay. So blindness is something bad, and therefore it's bad for you to be blind, right? Therefore, it's bad for you to poke out your eye or something, right? Okay. But the original meaning of bad is is blindness, right? Because blindness is bad, then it's bad for you to what have blindness in this condition, right? And then it's bad for me to what do something that causes this condition in you, right?

[24:36] But the basic meaning of bad is that of a lack. Now when Augustine talks about sin, he says sometimes sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing, right? But he's emphasizing the idea that badness there is ultimately a kind of what, Unbeing, right? Okay. This kind of unbeing we would call a lack, right? Okay.

[25:05] Now, when you talk in ethics, say about a a bad act, right? Okay. We're now back in now the second sense here, right? Okay. Now, a good act is a reasonable act.

[25:33] A good human act, that's to say. But a bad human act is a what? Unreasonable act, right? Okay. An unreasonable act is an act that is lacking something. It's a human act that's lacking something it should have, okay. Now, reason, as you know, it orders and measures things, right? Okay. So an unreasonable act is a disordered act or a what? Unmeasured act, right? Okay. So if I eat more than I should, right?

[26:18] Okay. Or I drink before I operate on you, and so on, okay. So maybe the doctor said, "I'd drink after he. Operates to relax, right? But not before, right? Okay.

[26:34] So the root of the badness there is it's lacking something it should have. It's a disordered act. It's lacking the order that reason should have given it, right? Or it's lacking the measure that reason should have imposed upon it, huh?

[26:58] I know. So blindness is not a moral evil. I mean, you know, some people are born blind, right? Beyond their, you know, control, they become blind, right? But it's a form of badness, everyone's saying. Kind of badness. huh? So this is kind of this text here is kind of a key text to begin to understand the bad, right? See, the word "bad" they say is equivocal, right?

[27:28] But the first meaning of bad is this meaning we meet here. It's always a lack. It's a non being of something you're able to have and should have, right? That's very important later on. We try to understand, you know, again going back to the Manichaeans, you know, they had two first causes, you know, the good God and the bad God, right? And the bad God would be what totally bad, right?

[27:53] Could there be something totally bad? No. No. Now, if you understand what badness really is, it's always going to be a subject that is able to have, right? Something, but doesn't have what it should have. But that ability to have something is not bad. That's good, right?

[28:13] It's good to be able to have sight, right? What's bad is not to have sight or able to have and you should have it, right? You see.

[28:24] So in that sense, the subject of bad is something good. And notice this paradox. You know, I mentioned how you know when Christ talks to St. Catherine of Siena he says, "Remember just two things. " He says, "I am who am, and you are she who is not. " Okay, but when you study God, you're going to find out the meaning of this. "I am who am," right?

[28:57] This name of God. They told Moses, right? But notice, God is entirely good, right? Okay. So if God is "I am who am, " can being as such be bad?

[29:15] No, is being as such is to be like God, right? Whose goodness itself, right? Now, if if evil were really a kind of being, it's basically a kind of non-being, right? Then you'd have a real contradiction, wouldn't you?

[29:37] Because if being a kind of being, we would be like God, who's good. You see what I mean? So this helps us to understand why there can't be a something that's purely bad, right? And why the subject of the bad is always something good, right? So we see the nature of the the nature of the devil doubles doubles, right? The nature is good, right? Okay, but but there's a disorder there.

[30:11] But it's always in some subject that is good you find the bad. But also, you see, there's no contradiction then between God being I and who am, right? You can say that that being as such is good, right? Now, being you know, you have being an act which is most good. Right, but being in the sense of ability is good too, because it's capable of good, right? Desires the good, as Aristotle says, there right?

[30:44] So, it desires the good is is good, right? And and matter as such desires the good. If if if lack of form as such could desire form, it would be good too. But obviously it. can't. It desire its own elimination. Okay.

[31:07] So being as such is good. Well, if being as such is good. How can there be badness, right? Huh? Well, strictly speaking, it's a what? Not a being, right? But an unbeing, right? But sometimes we, you know, extend the word "being" even to those things, and we say he is blind, right? We use the verb to be, right? Okay, but then reason is taking what? What is really a non-being?

[31:40] as if it were a what? Something, right? You know, that's like when I say you know you have a lot of ignorance, right? You know,

[31:55] to be ignorant is that to be in some way? I mean, if you look at it strictly speaking, to be ignorant is is not to be, right? It's not to to be knowing, right? Okay. You see

[32:09] what I mean? But we have some fun with that. if you don't understand that. huh? At least that little thing, you know, the other joke was: is the whole of the donut a lack or privation? right. You shouldn't have something there. It seems to be a donut. Yeah. Yeah. You're supposed to have it in there, right? Be a bun. There's also this thing with uh, with handicapped.

[32:54] I remember for a while back there was a saying, I'm not handicapped. I'm handicapable. Well, that's turning it on its head. Handicapable. You don't have the ability.

[33:09] And then also the same kind of thing, you know, going to get away from it, understanding it as an imperfection. Just because I don't have an arm doesn't mean it's imperfection.

[33:25] So we consider being blind as a kind of being it is only a being of reason, right? In reality, it's an unbeing. So, emphasizing that Augustine, you know, says in Thomas often, quote him," you know, "sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes what nothing, right?"

[34:08] So, a reasonable act that is an act that lacks the order or lacks the measure of reason, right? The reason should tell me that I drank enough, right? You know, I should stop now, right?

[34:30] I'm going to operate on you today. I shouldn't drink before I go and operate on you, right? It's out of order, right? I tell the students premarital sex is out of order. Should be after, not before. Preposterous.

[34:55] I mean, kind of, you know, in general, you realize that in any bad human act, t here is some kind of a disorder, right? Some kind of a lack of measure, right? Makes it bad, right?

[35:10] So, in one sense, you say, you know, evil is weak, right? If you go back to the root of meaning of evil, it is it doesn't have any power at all. It's powerless, right? Okay. So, what about Hitler and so on, yeah, and so on, yeah. See, but but the the evil there was the what the lack of order, right? huh?

[35:39] Not that strength as such is bad, right? huh? But it's that order to the right end, and so on, right? We apply more strength than is appropriate.

[36:02] So, a lot of times, I did the ninth book of wisdom when Aristotle's talking about ability and act and talking about good and bad. There, I come all the way back to this text, right? Because in some ways, he's more explicit here than even the book of wisdom.

[36:34] What kind of mistake was was? our other friend making, not not him, Anaxagoras Yeah, unlimited. Yeah, I mean when he's making, what is only in the ability of matter to be actually in there, right? Instead of inability. Yeah, you can't get something out of nothing. They say right now, and then they, you know, think it's got to be actually in there, right? What kind of mistake is that involving?

[37:12] Right equivocation. Well, equivocation, yeah, that's always interesting to do it, But is there also a fallacy on the side of things? What's the second kind of fallacy outside of things? In

[37:30] a certain respect. Yeah, simply in some respect, right? So if I say you can't get something out of nothing, that's true. And therefore, you say, well, therefore, if I get chairs out of trees, there must be what? Chairs and trees. Yeah, but they must be in there. what? Actually. Well, if you don't qualify it, then you think of it being actually in there, right? Right. Okay. But in some respect, right?

[38:01] In some way, they are in there, right? Right. But you have to qualify it, right? They're in there in ability. So what is in there in ability? You're saying is in there without qualification. It's in there actual. So you're making a fallacy as simply and in some respect, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the first two fallacies in language are equivocation

[38:27] and amphiboly, right? Now, this between equivocation and amphiboly is that in equivocation you have one word with many meanings, right? And you mix up these meanings, right? With amphiboly, you have one what? Speech with many meanings, right? Okay. Now, I gave you a simple example of that. I said,

[39:00] happiness is the end of human life, right? The end of human life is death. Therefore, happiness is death, right? Right. If nature acted for an end. All things would come to an end, right? You're mixing up two different senses of the word "end," right? Okay. Which Aristotle, you know, points out the difference there. Now, in amphiboly, amphiboly, amphiboly,

[39:30] you have a speech that has two meanings, right? Like I took an example there earlier, I think, in the course of the Word of God, right? The Bible is the Word of God. The Word of God is the Son of God. Therefore, the Bible is the Son of God. Is that true? No. But the phrase "Son of God" has two meanings, right? Okay.

[39:58] Knowledge of wisdom is a knowledge of God in both senses of knowledge of God. Knowledge that God has. Yeah. Knowledge about God. Yeah. Or you can take the phrase. You know, Shakespeare calls the philosophy of nature the wisdom of nature, right? And I said, well, the wisdom of nature, meaning the philosophy of nature, the wisdom of nature is about the wisdom of nature, right? Just as the Word of God is about the Word of God. The word of God, one sense, right?

[40:38] In the Bible, is about the word of God in sense of the word of God. Okay. Now, the knowledge of reason is the knowledge of reason. A knowledge of reason?

[40:57] Some of it. In one sense, it's all that is in another sense, So the knowledge of reason could mean like the definition of reason that Shakespeare has, right? If you understand the definition of reason that Shakespeare gives us, you have a knowledge of reason, right? Meaning what? You know what reason is, okay? But geometry is a knowledge of reason too. Oh no, it's not a knowledge of reason because you can study geometry and not know what reason is, right?

[41:29] So how can it be a knowledge of reason? So geometry is a knowledge of reason or not? Knowledge, that reason has. Yeah, if by knowledge of reason you mean the knowledge of reason has, then geometry is a knowledge of reason, right? But if you mean by knowledge of reason a knowledge that tells you what reason is, right? Then it's not a knowledge of reason, is it?

[42:01] Is this a knowledge of the soul? The philosophy of nature. I have to go to the three books of the soul to get a knowledge of the soul, huh? Is geometry a knowledge of the soul?

[42:18] Yes. Yeah, you mean the soul has that knowledge, right? Yeah, but it's not a knowledge of the soul in another sense, right? Okay. So in these two ones here, these ways to come first because in these two you have an actual what many meanings, right? In one case for a name, in another case for a what? A speech, right? The old textbook example was Aristotle's book, right?

[42:53] The book of Aristotle. What does that mean? Could be the book that Aristotle owned, right? Or the book that Aristotle wrote. Right. Wrote, yeah. And so you mix up those different senses, right? Okay. Then you have other fallacies of language, where the the phrase is what has many meanings potentially, but not actually.

[43:18] And then you have one fallacy where it has many meanings only, imaginatively speaking, right? But reality doesn't have. Anyway, we can go through them. Just I'm trying to remember all of them. Just remember these first two, you know. Yeah. They're very interesting, right? As I often say, you know, about Shakespeare's age, bad as it may have been, in some ways, with using the pun all the time, right?

[43:46] The pun, at least, was a very intellectual thing, right? To make them very much aware of the different one meaning, so they work, right? And it's very important to be able to distinguish them, right? But I think the epiphany is very interesting too.

[44:05] So that the word of God is about the word of God. It has the connection between the two, right? Of course, you know Second Vatican Council it compares the Bible to Christ insofar as each is the Word made flesh, right? The Bible is the Word of God, the thought of God, so to speak. You know, put into human language, right? And then you have the Word of God, the second person, the coming man, right?

[44:33] It's a real likeness of the two, right? But also there's the fact that one is about the other. It's chiefly about the Son of God, right? Bible.

[44:45] And the wisdom of nature, right? I mean, the philosophy of nature is about the wisdom of nature. Kind of like Shakespeare's name, right? This is why they call it the philosophy of nature He calls it the wisdom of nature.

[45:04] Now the first two fallacies outside of language are the fallacy of the accident or the accidental, and then the fallacy of what simply in some respect.

[45:32] And those are very common. These two. So they tell the students. Often do we do something bad because it's good in some way, or not do something good because in some way it's bad, right? So you don't get up to go to church on Sunday, which is a good idea, good thing to do, because it prevents you from not what sleeping all Sunday morning, right?

[46:13] Okay. Or you would murder somebody because he what? He's an annoyance. So the elimination of an. Annoyance in your life is good, right? In some way it is good, Right? So you're robbing the bank, right? In some way, it's good, right? Pieces of money in your pocket, you don't get caught anyway, right? So we choose what is bad because in some way it's good, right? In some very diminished sense, it's good, right?

[46:48] Or we, you know, avoid what is good because in some way it's what bad, right? So I tell students: studying, good or bad? You should have stayed last night. You didn't. Why not? Well, I could go to the party. I was tired or something, right? So the studying, could what? In some way, be considered as bad, right? But as such, studying is really good, right?

[47:21] So these two, but in a way, when a man confuses what act and ability or matter and form, he's making this fallacy of simply in some respect, right? He also sees making a fallacy of equivocation because he senses it to be right. There is also, in reality, difference between what is so simply and what is so in some respect. What is so simply is fully and completely so, right?

[47:50] And what is so in some respect is in some what diminished way. But the man is confusing in a way the freedom of man with the indetermination of his will is making the fallacy of the what of the accident, right?

[48:13] I can mention that you know when you get into to Marx's view, you know he sees man's ultimate perfection to be achieved by making it. And for in order to say that he's got to say that making perfects the what maker, right? Was that so? Was

[48:37] it accidental? Now, same way with teaching, right? Is is teaching perfect the teacher? No, the student. No, no. Even though most teachers might say, if the teacher is something you know profound like this, that every time they teach it, they learn something, right? Or they see something they didn't see before, right? But still, it's accidental to teach it. I don't teach insofar as I'm ignorant of something, right?

[49:08] The famous you know professor did a course. You know, if I had known as much at the beginning of the course as I know now, I would have taught the whole thing differently. You're going to have to say this, right? Well, obviously, insofar as ignorant, you know. You know, you're not a teacher, right? But it might be that that most people who teach learn when they teach, right?

[49:31] They try to explain to somebody else, right? You know, a lot of times we we like to bounce if we're thinking something out. We like to bounce it off somebody too, right? You know, so it might be true that most of the time the teacher learns something, right? But it's still what accidental to teaching, you know? But you know, you probably have somebody in the academic world who think that's, you know, you're not really teaching without learning yourself.

[49:58] Well, you know, there's elements of truth there, but I mean, they're really confusing the what, the as such and the accidental, right? You know, otherwise you have to say you know, but was Christ say you know don't want to be teacher, right? You know, there's only one teacher, you know, Christ, right? In a sense, there is only one teacher, right? But he's not ignorant of anything, right?

[50:23] You see, you see, but he's a teacher more so than anybody else, right? You know. He doesn't know. Don't learn anything, he teaches, right? Right? Yeah. In A for sure, you know, you know, God. he speaks of God as a teacher in a sense, huh?

[50:49] But if you take your own experience of being a teacher, then you say, "Well, yeah, it was, yeah." You know, you seem to be learning something as you teach, right?

[51:01] And the same thing could be said about the maker, right? Is the maker, as such, perfecting himself? No. But I heard, you know, a carpenter saying he's working with somebody you know who's more experienced, right? And he learns, right? He's learning, right? But insofar as he's learning how to make things, he doesn't what? Accidental. He's having a maker to not know how to make the thing, right?

[51:35] You know, you're making. You know, the chef learns by making, let's say, right? Okay. But if he's learning how to make something, he's making it. He doesn't really know how to make it. isn't that really, not really a master chef yet? I think you're getting me. You see? Okay. But it might be, you know, that a man, you know, doesn't just repeat himself all the time in the kitchen, right?

[52:01] He's going to be always what learning something, right? Huh? Was accidental. So in a sense, Marx is making what man is going to be perfected by making, right? He's making in a sense what is accidental be what essential, right?

[52:27] Why understanding God and loving God as such is a perfection of you and me, right? You see. Making a chair as such is not perfecting of me at all. It's a perfecting of the chair. So how can my ultimate end, which is my perfection, right, going to involve my perfection? How could that be in making?

[52:54] But Marx is trying to do that, huh? You read Marx, huh? So to get the fallacy of the accident, huh? What Aristotle is saying when he takes up the happiness of man in the Nicomachean Ethics is there's got to be an activity of some sort. We're agreed upon that, right? You know, There's got to be an activity that is a what

[53:21] perfecting of the doer, right? As such. You see that? Yeah. So, so, so, my ultimate end cannot be be teaching, right? Because teaching, as such, is not a perfecting of me, but of those whom I am teaching, right? Okay. So, then there's got to be something like understanding, right? Myself, understanding is a perfecting of me. Understanding ultimately, God.

[54:12] You see that? Understanding God is, as such, a perfecting of the one who understands God. But making the chair, as such, is not a perfecting of the one making the chair, but of the chair.

[54:45] Teaching, as such, is not a perfecting of the one teaching, even though he may happen to be perfected by his teaching, right? By be growing in knowledge and understanding. You see,

[55:07] understanding of God is, as such, a perfecting of the one making the understanding. No, no, the one understanding. One understanding. One. So, understanding God,

[55:22] its activity remains within the the reason, right? And it's a perfection of the reason, huh? But teaching or making or something of that sort, right, is essentially the perfecting of another.

[55:44] So, making the universe was God perfecting by making the universe? No. So the understanding of God is a perfection of reason. Yeah. The perfection of reason.

[56:16] You see, in general, when we say understanding the cause, right? You have a more perfect understanding of something. You know why it is so, right? If the cause has a cause, then understand the cause of the cause. Why did he hit me? He's angry with me. But why was he angry? Right. You know, so you're working your way back towards the first cause. So the ultimate perfection of the mind is to understand the first cause.

[56:48] You could also reason out that understanding the best thing is the ultimate end of the human mind. But the first cause and the best thing are the same, then you have no problem.

[57:04] But that's a problem with the moderns, I'll see, because they think of the first cause sometimes, like the early Greeks, as being some kind of matter, right? Now, matter is imperfect in comparison to what? Form, right? So if the first cause were matter, then the best thing would not be the first cause. And therefore, it would be the end of man to know the best thing or to know the first cause.

[57:26] You have two different ends, and you'd have a, you know, schizophrenia situation, right? You know, when you study, you know, the fourteen books of wisdom, of Aristotle, it arrives very naturally that the first cause is the best thing. And when you understand the causes, you'll see that to some extent. And so,

[57:53] with the truth, as Aristotle says, all things harmonize; they all fit