Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
51. Can Motion Be Defined? Why Descartes and Locke Say No, and Aristotle's Approach to Definition
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[0:00] So Aristotle distinguishes, let's say, the eight senses of in. He talks about place, huh? But he distinguishes the senses of before in logic, because reason, as you know from Shakespeare, looks before and after. So the science of reason, right, has a special connection with before and after.

[0:36] Hence, it takes place that those defining the continuous use many times the notion of the limited, as the continuous is what is divisible without limit, huh?

[0:50] Now, when Thomas comments on this, Aristotle in the third book, he takes up motion and then the infinite, huh? And then the next things he talks about are place and time. He takes this up in book four, and Thomas speaks of the unlimited or the continuous, which is defined by the limited, as following motion intrinsically, right? It's a continuous thing, right? Why place is something kind of outside of things, right?

[1:21] And time, if you measure, uh. Let's say every motion down here, by the motion of the sun around the earth, or the apparent motion, some people think, of the sun around the earth, right, is a kind of extrinsic measure there. So they follow upon motion extrinsically, says Thomas. So that's this part of the distinction between the third and the fourth book, between the unlimited here and the other.

[1:49] In addition to these, motion is impossible without place and the empty and what time. Now Aristotle doesn't think that motion is impossible without the what and empty. Who thought? What famous philosopher did we read said that atoms and the empty exist? Aren't they real. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And he thought that motion was impossible without the empty. And although Empedocles had denied that there's anything empty, huh? As if it kind of involves a contradiction, of course we're accustomed in modern times to speak of empty space, right?

[2:34] Yeah. But I suppose Empedocles would say, "What do you mean, empty space? Does it have length and width and depth? Oh, yeah. It's vast." And they say, "Well, now, is there something there that has length and width and depth,

[2:53] or is it nothing that has length and width and depth there? Well, how can nothing have anything, including length, width, and depth? That's absurd. And if it what? There's nothing. There is something there that has length and width and depth. Well, then it's not really what empty, right? Okay.

[3:18] Now, Einstein and some of the things I read there, he seems to be denying the empty too, because for Einstein there are what fields everywhere, right? Gravitational fields and things of this sort. And the field is a very subtle medium, but since Faraday, they begin to think that the field is not just a mathematical device, right? But it's in reality, so

[3:47] Einstein is perhaps coming back to Aristotle's ideas. There's nothing empty, right? But the early modern scientists, until Einstein, perhaps were following Democritus, right? Dalton and people like that were, you know, talking about atoms, right? Under the influence of Democritus and his followers might say, "Is Aristotle lying here when he says that? Right? When he's saying what he doesn't think?"

[4:21] He's just taking the common notion, which is what you begin with, or, or what's commonly held. Yeah, yeah. And Thomas mentions in more than one place that Aristotle often, you know, in illustrating something and so on, will speak according to the opinion of his contemporaries until he's comes to the point where it's now time to determine the truth about this matter, and then he'll say what he thinks and give reasons for it, huh?

[4:59] And then the other part that one particular text that I remember, I think I mentioned last time, is that in the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, right? Aristotle begins by pointing out how every action, every choice, and every art and so on seems to aim at some good, right? Hence, they, you know, define the good well. Say the good is what all want, and then he goes on, but.

[5:23] As there are many arts or sciences, there are many different goods, right, corresponding to these arts and sciences. So the end of the medical art is health, and the household art is wealth, and he goes on, right? But then you get to the first book of the Politics. He argues that the end of the household art is not wealth. Wealth is only an instrument of the household.

[5:46] So he's speaking there when Thomas comments on the beginning there of the Nicomachean Ethics. he said Aristotle is speaking according to a what prevalent opinion, right? And when it comes time to take up the household, as he does formally there in the first book of the Politics, then he says this is what the truth is, and this is why it's this way, not that way. What's kind of interesting?

[6:10] He speaks that way, huh? You might you know want to examine why he does that, but I mean as a matter of fact, he does do it, right? And this is this is a good example here in natural philosophy, like when I gave you in in ethics, huh?

[6:41] But not to give his contemporaries unnecessary impediments until the time comes, right? Right? Yeah, because it's not essential yet, right? So he does take up place first, and then the empty in Book Four, place the empty in time, but in taking up the empty, he he refutes the arguments for the existence of the empty and so on. So

[7:18] kind of motion or change is is change of what place, huh? And as we saw in the great thinkers there, Empedocles and Anaxagoras, explicitly, they seem to say that's the only kind of change in the world, huh? And we mentioned how in the modern natural scientists in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, they begin their study with they study a change of place, and there was that same tendency in modern science to think of this as being the only real what change of place, right?

[7:55] I mean, the only kind of change in the world. Because Aristotle was to challenge that and reject that, but also to show Aristotle was able to show how these other kinds of change are possible, right? But in modern science, the the turning point seems to have come in in quantum theory, and at least in the theories there, Bohr and and and Bohr's what? The electron have different energy levels, right?

[8:32] And when they go from one energy level to another, they have to, say, huh, you know, by maybe emitting energy, right? And this can be studied and had been studied for a cent, you know, for many years before Bohr came his work. What they noticed was that the emission of energy is what, jump-like, right?

[8:55] And so they could no longer imagine the electron is going, right, by change of place from one orbit to another one, right? Because then there would be what, a continuous motion and continuous emission of energy, and that contradicts the the study of the spectrum, the study of the emissions. So, the can't be understood as a change of place.

[9:21] Strange, huh? Yeah. So, I mention that again because if there's any kind of change in the world, it's change of place. And the other kinds of change that Aristotle talks about, they presuppose change place because in order to have a change of quality, I have to, in order to melt the butter, so I have to take it out of the refrigerator and, you know, where put it someplace where it's warmer than the refrigerator, right?

[9:50] And to freeze it, I've got to put it inside the refrigerator. And to get a chemical change of some sort, you got to bring the chemicals together in the same place, right? So you can bring things together maybe the same place without having a chemical change, but you can't have a chemical change without bringing what, things together, right? And then change of quality and even of substance is presupposed to what, growth, right?

[10:17] You've got to be able to change carrots into something more like human flesh or blood or bones, otherwise we'd be a mini patched fool, right, in our appearance. Carrot? Yeah. Wow, I see a broccoli last night. See, yeah, carrot last night, and so on, thing.

[10:44] And that's why Aristotle, when he studies change in particular, he studies change of place first in the four books on the universe. But in some ways, he's still going from the general particular. So you can have what, you know, change of place without chemical change, but not vice versa. And you can have chemical change in the non-living world as well as the living world, right? But growth, in the strict sense, you have only in the living world.

[11:10] So you're still in a way going from the general to the particular. Okay. Now, can you have change of place without place? If any kind of motion, obviously there's change of place, right? And you can say even go back to his predecessors, right? Aristotle agrees on change of place, but disagrees as that being the only kind. But it doesn't be supposed to other kinds. But can you have change of place without place?

[11:47] But would you distinguish? Would you distinguish between a body and its place? Its place? It's because the place where one body is later on, there's another body there, right? That's a good reason to say that the place is not the same as the what? Body. Body, yeah. Say. Yeah. Is is the president and his position the same? Well, it's always the same man occupying the the office.

[12:20] He might have a difficulty distinguishing the two, right? But if one man has his position, then another man has his. Position, well then you know, there's some distinction there, right? Between the office and the man, or the position and the man. But if it's your, in the case, a change of place, huh?

[12:45] Now, as they say, our good friend Democritus thought that you had to have the empty to have change of place, because if there was nothing empty, we'd be all packed tight like sardines in a can, huh? Or like your clothes in your suitcase, and you have to sit in the suitcase and close the suitcase, right? And nothing moves around then, right? As soon as you pack something, you don't want to break, or something, you pack it real tight so it can't move around and so on.

[13:10] Yeah, well, if there's no empty, there'd be no give at all, right? So it'd be, you know. So, although Democritus seems to admit that the empty is nothing, but you got to have the nothing, it's nothing's got to be in order for there to be motion. So I mean, it's another example of a man admitting, in words at least, a contradiction, right? Desperately trying to hold on to the reality of what?

[13:42] The the the greatest, the most difficult, let's say, anyway, thing in motion, the most difficult apparent contradiction in motion, is the one that comes up in Book Six when we take up the continuous, huh? And this is the one that Aristotle solves in Book Six, huh? But it plagues the human mind all the way down to the Middle Ages, and it plagues him into modern times, huh?

[14:11] And Hegel, not being able to solve it, he admits a contradiction in change, and the Marxists follow him and say, you know, dialectics is a study of the contradictions in the very essence of things. But it had tremendous, you know, difficulty for the theologians too, and Thomas, knowing Aristotle, was able to solve the whole problem. But we'll see that apparent contradiction later on. We look at Book Six.

[14:43] My teacher De Koninck has an interesting article on that, Le Vol Théologique et Philosophique. It's in French. Some of his articles are in French, some in English. There, Paradox de Devenir Paradox de Contradiction I'll just give you a little hint of what the parent contradiction says. Yeah, please. Suppose you have what is not a circle, not a sphere, becoming a circle or sphere, right? Okay, take something very precise like that.

[15:14] So there's a time in which it is not a sphere, and then a time in which it is a sphere, right? Okay. Now. Represent the time which is not a sphere by this line here, and the time which it is a sphere by this time. Is there any time between the end of the time it's not a sphere and the time it is a sphere? Is there any time in between those two?

[15:50] Well, if you said there was some time in between the two, I'd say in that in-between time, is it or is it not a sphere? It's got to be one or the what other? Like Hamlet says, "To be or not to be, that is the question." Right? It's a question because you can't both be and not be, and you must either be or not be. Okay. So that middle time, I must either be what a sphere or not a sphere.

[16:25] And if it's a sphere, well then it belongs to the time that ends. If it's not, right? Then it belongs to this time here. So you end up by saying, huh? There can't be any time between the time which is not a sphere and the time you are a sphere.

[16:48] But now, if you take the last instant in which it is not a sphere and the first instant in which it is a sphere, are they the same instant? See. I

[17:01] see. This time in which is not a sphere comes to an end, right? So it seems there's got to be a last instant in which it's not a sphere, and this time which is a sphere as a beginning, so there's got to be a first instant in which is a sphere. Well, now, are they the same instant or not? Well, if you say they are the same instant, that instant it both is and is not a sphere, and now you have a contradiction, and and Hegel goes along with that, right?

[17:30] Okay. If you say they're not the same instant, well, when you study the continuous, you'll see that two instances always have a what time between them? Two instances not touch any more than two points can touch without becoming what one. One, yeah. See, so just that between two points that don't coincide is always a line between them, right? So between two instances, the indivisible in time, right?

[18:01] There's always a time in between them. Then we're back saying, well, what are you in that middle time, right? Yeah. Okay. So you can't have any time between the time which is not a sphere and the sphere. Therefore, it seems that the last instant you both are not a sphere and a sphere. Yeah. Okay. Now, this was a terrible problem in the Middle Ages because when they started to study the great mysterium fidei, the Eucharist, right?

[18:30] We'd say that under the Appearances, right? The accidents of bread and wine. You have at first what bread and wine, right? And then later you have the body and blood of our Lord, right? Okay. So there is a time in which there is bread and wine under those accidents, and there is a later time which is the body and blood of our Lord, right? And is any time between those two?

[18:58] No. Now that would seem to mean then that the last instant in which it is bread and wine is also the first instant in which it is what the body and blood of our Lord. And now you have this heresy, I guess it's Ulfrid or somebody revived, right? Where you have the bread and the wine existing along with the thing, and of course it involves other kinds of problems.

[19:25] How does the body and blood of our Lord get there if the bread and wine is still there, right? Not been transubstantiated into his body and blood. So they had to solve that problem, right? But it bothered theologians, right? Well, Aristotle solved this problem in book six of the physics, right? So it's going to have tremendous problems for the theologian if he can't solve it, right? But it's originally a philosophical problem.

[19:53] It's kind of amazing Aristotle solves the problem, and Hegel doesn't seem to be even aware of the fact that he solved it, and now he's making the same what mistake again, huh?

[20:08] So this is just one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, example of how people trying to understand change don't see, in many cases, how to hold on to the reality of change without admitting a what contradiction in things, but that's something impossible, as Parmenides first you know recognized, huh? No, we saw a bit of that with Heraclitus, huh? With one opposite becoming the other, but that's relatively easier to answer than this one here.

[20:49] So anyway, that's kind of a aside right now, but the empty, the the existence of what is not, he thought he had to admit that what is not is namely the empty, right? In order to hold on to reality of change. Of course, as Shakespeare says, or Ulysses says in his Shakespeare's play, "Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs," huh? So motion is what really grabs the attention of our eyes and our senses, and since our knowledge starts with our senses, we are very much apt to want to hold on to the reality of change, and it is a reality.

[21:32] But then, when we try to understand change, we tend to fall into these seeming contradictions, huh? And that goes right down through history, huh? Quantum theory, Heisenberg said, began with the strange apparent contradictions between the experiments. But the way the mind goes forward is not to accept that contradiction, but to find a what? Solution. Yeah, yeah. And the untying of that contradiction not only enables the mind to move forward, but the untying of the contradictions itself a what?

[22:08] Discovery, huh? That's why you know if you look at Thomas's earlier work, there these sentences, which is like the Summa, I mean, in the sense of the you know objections and so on. But what we call the body, the article, of the Summa, it's usually called there in the sentences the solucio the untying. Okay. And CS

[22:33] Lewis, in one of his works there. He's he's raising a problem. You know, a knot really, and he says, "Now we got to find the loose end, right?" And so then you can start to unravel it when you find the loose end.

[22:46] When Sherlock Holmes is stumped temporarily, of course, you know he's never stumped entirely, but you know I can make neither head nor tail of it, right? He can't find any the loose end, right? It's like you have a you know tangled thing, you know, the captain playing with or something. You can't find the loose end, right? How can you begin to unravel it?

[23:09] Now motion also seems to take what time, right? Okay. So that's again something that follows upon motion, huh? Now he has given one reason for taking up what place and the empty and time, and the continuous that they're all connected either intrinsically or extrinsically with motion, right? And motion is in the definition of nature, huh? Well, we also learned in the beginning reading there how we should consider natural things in general before in particular, right?

[23:51] And we're now studying natural things in general, right? And these seem to be common to all things, huh? It is clear then he says that an account of these things, and because they are common to all and universal,

[24:08] of course, Aristotle takes up place, huh? He says he quotes a common opinion of the Greeks. Whatever exists must be somewhere. If it isn't somewhere, it what doesn't exist, right? That's what you're saying there. You're saying whatever is is contained in some place, right? And if it isn't contained in some place, it isn't. That's really a property of bodies to be what in a place, right? So you're thinking that what is basically and bodies are the same thing.

[24:44] And our imagination can't transcend the continuous, huh? We never imagine without the continuous and time, for that matter, too, at least in the second act of reason.

[25:04] And so we tend to, you know, imagine the soul to be a continuous air-like thing in the shape of of a man, right? And that's the way Homer represents him, even the way Dante represents him, right? But the soul is not a continuous thing in the shape of a man, huh? You know Dr. Kasurik used to joke. How do I recognize your soul, right? Because I can't recognize it like Dante recognizes the souls of those people he meets in purgatory elsewhere, right?

[25:34] By their shape, huh? The way he has signs in one of these Hollywood movies, right? There's somebody's, you know, thing, but he has the same shape, right? The ghost of, you know, I says, well, some guys, he says, they all they approach a philosophical problem all screwed up there, you know, in their minds, you know. That's how to recognize this guy because he approaches subjects in such a crazy way, you know.

[25:57] But it's going to just a question: How do I recognize your soul, right? Remember my cousin Donald, who was philosophically trained, and he's trying to explain to his mother, who's a good Catholic, you know, that God and His divine nature has no body, right? And she just can't understand this, right? I said, what does this mean?

[26:33] But it's very hard for people, right? You know, to transcend their imagination. That's why the study of immaterial things really belongs to the latter part of life and the latter part of your studies, right? Where you're you're above this, huh? You can transcend the imagination.

[27:00] That's why logic and sense, even as a science, helps one to do theology, because in logic, the basic thing is Albert the Great teaches us: the first thing you consider in logic is universal. And can you imagine the universal?

[27:18] No. And in the dialogue, the Parmenides, there Socrates is represents a young man, right? He's trying to understand the universal, and he imagines it to be a sail that's over everybody, covering everybody, but he's resolving to the what imagination. Or the modern logicians, you know, they want to have a class, you know, because you can imagine a class, but universal is something you have to understand. So logic and wisdom have to resolve to to reason, not to the imagination.

[27:52] But in geometry, you can resolve to the imagination. So plain geometry is plain to us in more than one way. So Aristotle, you know, says if that's what place, if

[28:16] it seemed to be the first of all things, right? Because place can be without the body in the place, right? But the body can't be without a place, huh? He quotes Hesiod, you know. Hesiod said, First of all, there's a yawning gap, you know, and then there was, you know, broad bosom earth and love and so on." But if there had to be a place for things before you could, right?

[28:37] Right. Yeah. So you can't come into this world until there's a place for you. There's no place for you, you couldn't come into this world. But nothing else could could be in this world, right? To have a place according to that opinion, right? Well, then it seems that place is before everything else in the second sense of before. In that sense in which this can be without the others, but they can't be without it, right?

[29:04] So then, place seems to be something almost divine, right? The first of all things, huh? But later on, we come to realize that not all things are in place.

[29:23] Remember when the communists just don't power in Moscow and they sent some rocket up into the sky, you know, and they read it back. to us, no God up here. So naive in a sense, you know. I think Thomas and Albert the Great would be laughing about that, you know. But you know, you know, those people that make some sense, right? There's no God up here.

[29:52] He's not in place. So that's the second reason we're taking them up, right? They're common to all, and everything again seems to be what in time, huh? And it's very hard, you know, for students to understand eternity, right? And to understand the fact that God is not in time, huh? They can't understand that, right? Everything's got to be somewhere and got to be in time, huh?

[30:36] And so he calls the principle for the consideration of the private or the particular is after that of the what common, huh? We saw that in the beginning, first reading, right? She considered things in general before in what particular. I remember a talk of Paul VI, huh? When he was pope, he was saying, you know, just talking about general before the particular, kind of the common rule of all learning.

[31:06] He says He wasn't referring to our style, but I mean, I wish I had, you know, jotted down where he said that, but I remember, you know, being so familiar with this, you know, it struck that he should come out and say that, huh?

[31:20] Okay, and first, as we have said about motion, right? Because motion is in the very definition of what nature, right? You don't put place or time in the definition of nature, but it's connected with it through motion, huh? So motion would be the first thing to take up after nature in the second book, right? Okay.

[31:45] Now he's going to start to approach this, and he's going to try to define motion. And I think I mentioned last time, you know, that Descartes, the so-called father of modern philosophy, denies that motion can be what defined, right? And John Locke, one of the principal empiricists, the other line of philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries, right, also makes the same denial, huh? And the other moderns just seem to neglect altogether, right?

[32:26] Okay. But those who talk about defining motion in modern times say you can't define it. And as I mentioned before, Aristotle thinks there are things we we know without definition, but and that we can't know by definition. And if you look at the ninth book of wisdom, you'll see him saying that explicitly about act, right? We should not try to you know define everything, right? There are some things are known without definition, huh?

[32:59] And but I think Aristotle knew where the defining stopped, right? But Descartes and Locke thinks motion is one of those things where it stops, right? Okay. And I think we spoke a bit about why they did, huh? So

[33:22] with the case of Descartes, it perhaps is connected with his his confusion about the certitude, the confused, and the distinct. He thinks that if he's sure about motion existing as we are, he must know clearly and distinctly what it is. Just as if I think and therefore I am, I must know clearly what thinking is and what a thought is. But it's not so clear. Descartes talks about those things, huh?

[33:50] In the case of of Locke, as you mentioned before, he seems to have been influenced by his distinction between simple and composed ideas, right? And the composed ideas are defined by the simple ones, but the simple ones can't be defined. And motion is a what simple thing, right? As a matter of fact, it's divisible forever. But nevertheless, you could say the fact is divisible forever doesn't really help you to define it, huh?

[34:30] Because just as we divide a straight line forever, what do you get? A lot of straight lines. Yeah, so you can't really define a line by the parts that you get by dividing it, huh? Okay. But what about the parts of a definition, right? You break up

[34:52] motion into what a definition, right? That's the question, right? And and the other question is: Is there some multiplicity, right, in the reality of what motion is, that could be the proximate foundation for the diversity of parts in a definition? Okay.

[35:21] And I was comparing it a bit to: Can you, in some way, define point, huh? And perhaps, perhaps the point is like an accident. It doesn't exist really by itself, huh? And I know when when students sometimes, you know, in class sometimes, when we talk about the point, we have a student sometimes who will say, "Do points really exist?" Okay? And they'll deny maybe that points exist, huh?

[35:55] So how do you convince them that there exist points? Well, what you have to do is go back to the fact that bodies exist, right?

[36:09] Okay? And there exists finite bodies. bodies that don't go on forever. Like your body or my body didn't go on forever, right? The body here, the chair, or the table didn't go on forever, right? So there is an end to the table, right? There's an end to to a sphere, right? Doesn't go on forever. But what's the end of a body? It's a what? Surface. Surface, yeah.

[36:36] Okay. Now the surface has length and width, but does the surface have depth? See, if you gave the surface any depth, you haven't really come to the end of the body, have you? So the end of the body, and the body does, if it's a finite body, it does come to an end. It does have an end, therefore, right? But the end can't have any depth, but only what?

[37:06] Length and width. But the surface is not something you could cut off, right? If you're going to cut off something, you'd have to go down into some depth, right? Okay. So the surface is not something that can be separated from the body, like a different, like a nut from a bolt or something, right? Okay. It's not a body. It's not a substance in that sense. It seems like an accident, right?

[37:33] But there still is a surface, right? Because it doesn't go on forever. Okay. Now you got something with length and width, but no depth. Okay. So this this doesn't go up and up and up and up. There's a surface here, right? And has neither has length and width, but no depth. But now does this surface go on forever? No, it must come to an end, therefore, right?

[37:54] Now is the end of the surface got any width? Then you haven't really come to the end, have you? If you take a little and draw a little line here, you know, eighth of an inch or a seventh of an inch, then that's not all at the end, is it? No. So there's an end to the surface. So now you got length without what? Width. Now does that line go on forever?

[38:22] No. So it has an end. And that end is what we call a point. But the point now has no length or width or what? Depth, right?

[38:36] So maybe a point is really the end of a line. Maybe that's what it is. It's not something that what exists by itself. So even though the point is something indivisible, as the great Euclid says, a point is that which has no parts, but it does have position, right? But the point has no parts, but there is some multiplicity that you can conserve as a basis for the multiplicity of parts in a definition.

[39:07] A definition is never just one name, right? A definition always has to have many names, each of which has some meaning by itself, and the meaning of the whole definition is, in a way, depends upon the meaning of the parts, right? That's why a definition is more distinct or more explicit than a name. So if I say, square is an equilateral and a right-angled quadrilateral. That means the same thing as square, but it says it much more distinctly because it has parts that signify something by themselves: quadrilateral, equilateral, right-angled, right.

[39:50] So if it's the very nature of a point, despite being indivisible, to be the limit of a line, now I have a multiplicity, don't I? Limit means one thing, and line means something else, and put these together and say the point is the limit of a line. A line is the limit of a surface. A surface is the limit of a what? Body, right?

[40:19] So motion, of course, is not as simple as a point, but if even the point can be defined, right? If there's a multiplicity, because the point is something of another, right? So you can say what that other is, and what it's something of that other, right? Okay. Just like we might define health as a good condition of the body, right? Okay. Well, the point is the limit of a line.

[40:51] Well, is motion something of another? I mean, the great Galileo studied the what? Free fall of bodies to the earth, a naturally accelerated motion, he calls it. But is it the falling that falls to the ground? Just as some some falling there falling?

[41:22] My stock example in class is you go bowling, huh? Is it the rolling that goes rolling down the lane? And you go for a walk? Is it walking that goes for a walk? Or is it always something other than the motion that is in motion, and the motion can't be without that? what? Yeah, yeah. So when he hits the ball, the ballpark. There's something going out of the ballpark, right?

[41:53] It's not the motion that's going out of the ballpark, is it? Or if it is, it's going out of the ballpark because it's in the thing that's really going out of the ballpark. It's really the ball that's going out of the ballpark, isn't it? Or is it the the motion of the ball is going out of the ballpark? I think it makes more sense. to say the ball that's going out of the ballpark, right?

[42:14] And if the motion of the ball is going out of the ballpark, it's because the motion is in the ball, right? So you see the ball moving along outside the ballpark for a while. Okay, do you see that? They don't think very deeply, these guys, huh? I discovered, you know, that that these definitions, these definitions in philosophy, they're they're hard to understand, even if if somebody like Aristotle has already thought out the definition, it takes us a long time to absorb it, right?

[42:45] But even for Aristotle, if you try to think out a definition yourself, you know, I spent a long time trying to think out the definition of comedy, because that part on comedy is lost in Aristotle, and a lot of help from Aristotle, right? And the English comic muse, which was my my experience for it, but it takes a long time to think that out, right? And it took me a long time for I recognized that Shakespeare was defining reason so well.

[43:10] See, but to really understand that definition, um, so the definition is kind of a major work, and you see, you know, how Thomas say when he takes up say these great definitions, like the definition of eternity by Boethius, huh? You know, how Thomas says he has objections, you know, in the Summa, and he has an objection to each part of the definition, and then he explains the definition, right, and defend it, and then he answers each objection, right?

[43:43] They kind of focus your mind, but in when he's defining law, like say in the prima secundae right? There's a kind of four parts to the definition of law.

[44:00] You know, it's an ordering by reason, you know, for the common good, you know, properly promulgated and so on. But he has, like, if I remember right, the like one article for each part of the definition. You see what I mean? So I mean, it's it's a major thing to understand well one of these what definitions, like the definition of law, the definition of eternity, or you know, the definition of virtue and the moral virtue there in the second book of Nicomachean Ethics, huh?

[44:31] And it's a major thing to understand the definition of of motion or place or time, right? And we're going to be looking at the definition of motion and the definition of time, huh? But even after someone like Aristotle succeeded in defining it, you have these nitwits or dimwits afterwards who can't grasp that, you know? I like to ask my colleagues sometimes, you know, I tell you that, you know, I said, "What is reasoning?

[45:02] " You know, they can't define reasoning. I said, "Don't you do any reasoning in your class? What are you doing? You're teaching your students to reason? Well, everybody knows what reasoning is? Do you do? What is it?

[45:17] What is reasoning? You know? What's reasoning? Do you have a reason? What is it? Yes. No, no. So you try to define. You're looking for a speech as opposed to a name, right? Reasoning is a name, but you're looking for a speech composed of many names, right? They'll make more distinct, huh? What the thing is, right? Any kind of definition is trying to do that, huh? So what?

[45:48] What is reasoning? Coming to know, I guess. Yeah. Statement. Yeah. Through other statements already known or accepted. Okay. I'm still going to have to pull my legs off, right? Someone tells that. Yeah, I know, I know. I can tell it's coming. But, but I mean, you know, you know, the guys were, you know, teaching philosophy, right? They don't have any definition. What they're doing, see? You know, it escapes easily, right?

[46:32] And definitions are so hard to understand. Sometimes two people say, you know, well, you know, you know, it must be more real to me when you give me an example. Of course it is, because example is something your senses can get at, right? But you don't understand it fully until you can, until you can define it, right?

[46:58] Maybe before we define other things, we should define definition. Well, they can't define definition. I was saying to a student the other day, what is understanding? You try to understand things, and you know, maybe you got to understand what understanding is before you try to understand other things. I don't know what understanding is. What is understanding? You know.

[47:37] Now, maybe it's not definition in the strict sense, but there is a speech making known what understanding is that is more distinct than the word understanding, huh?

[47:52] And that speech is suggested by the what etymology of the word understand, right? Understanding means what? Knowing what is said to stand under something,

[48:11] or knowing something through what is said to stand under it, huh? It's no more distinct than just the word understanding, isn't it? So, what does it mean to understand an effect?

[48:37] To know the cause. Yeah, but we speak of its underlying cause, right? To know its underlying cause is if the cause is supporting the effect, right? And in English, of course, the English word for cause is ground. Okay.

[48:58] What does it mean to understand a word? To know its meaning or definition. Yeah, to know the meaning or the thing, right, that is said to stand under it, huh? And it's because we imagine that the name is placed upon the thing. So in Latin, Thomas is always speaking of the what? Impositio nominis, right? The placing upon of the name, right? And the Greek philosophers before him spoke of the placing of a name upon something, put a label upon it, right?

[49:41] He said, right? Yeah, as if the thing named is under the what? Name, huh? Okay. Um. Was a character in Mr. Ford there, right? In Merry Wives of Windsor, right? He doesn't want to stand under the name cuckold, right? That's worse than be called a devil, his mind, right? He thinks his wife's been unfaithful, right? They're playing a joke on on Falstaff, you know, the famous comedy, right?

[50:12] You know, but he gets all his friends, you know, together to march up to the house to surprise his wife with Falstaff, and Falstaff isn't there, of course. He looked ridiculous all the time, right? But but you have to be in the play, you know, to see it. But he doesn't want to stand under this name cuckold, which means a guy whose husband is his wife is, you know, unfaithful, right?

[50:33] That's worse than being, you know, the devil doesn't have as bad a name as that. But he actually speaks of standing under the name, right? You know, being under the name.

[50:43] Okay. What does it mean to to understand a methodos I don't know. To know the before and after of the things. Yeah, to know to know its subject and its road, right? What does the word subject mean, as well? Under and and methodos means over a road, so the road is said to be under the thing, right? So to know it's subject to road, that's it means, is it?

[51:39] So I sense this is more distinct when you understand that to understand means to know what is said to stand under something. Doesn't have to be standing under in the original sense. The word standing under, right? But what is said to stand under something, right? Or to know something by knowing what stands under it, huh?

[52:05] There's a connection between understanding and substance, huh? Substance. It's the understanding that with no substance. The senses don't. Okay. when you study the great dialogue there, of Plato the Meno, and Meno wants to know whether virtue can be taught, right? And Socrates says, "Oh, I don't know. Furthermore, I don't know what virtue is. Furthermore, I never met a man who knew what virtue is."

[52:53] And Meno says, "Oh, well, I know." And Socrates says, "Well, what is it?" And Meno gives a bunch of examples, and Socrates has to point out that examples are not a definition. And then finally, he tries to come out the definition, but it doesn't seem to separate the good man from the bad man, and so on. Meno can't define virtue. Then later on in the dialogue, Meno wants to know whether virtue can be taught, but this is before it's been defined, right?

[53:29] Socrates says, "Well, I told you. I mean, you can't really know well whether virtue can be taught before you know what virtue is. Yeah, but I don't want to know that. I want to know whether virtue can be taught." So Socrates reasons, right, that virtue can be taught and that virtue cannot be taught in the last part of the dialogue. But obviously, that's an imperfect reasoning because it doesn't decide which it is, right?

[53:57] See, so you can what reason imperfectly before defining a thing, can reason about a thing imperfectly, but you can't reason perfectly about a thing before you've defined it.

[54:13] That's what happens to the moderns. There's a there's a almost universal failure to define the things they're talking about. And you can, as I say, reason about things you haven't defined, but if they can be defined, you can reason perfectly about them after you define them. And of course, you can, to some extent, reason your way towards a definition too. Maybe you can reason out a definition to some extent.

[54:43] Okay. But so Aristotle is trying to define motion here.