Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
52. Act and Ability: Being versus Becoming and Aristotle's Definition of Motion
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/052-act-and-ability-being-versus-becoming-and-aristotles-definition/

[0:00] So in the next paragraph, he says there is something in act and something in ability. Now, what word is act and ability first become known to us?

[0:22] What first makes us, in fact, distinguish in some way between act and ability? Huh? What is it? When we see someone or something do something, yeah, and then it's we know it was able to do it, yeah. Or when you see something change, right? Huh? See,

[0:49] I'm actually in this room now, aren't I? Okay. When I was out in the parking lot, there was I, was in this room, but I was able to be in this room, right? Huh? Okay. Yeah. Now, if I have a piece of clay in the shape of a sphere, and I mold it into a cube and other different shapes, right? I begin to see that the clay is able to take on many different shapes, right?

[1:18] And so I start to make that distinction between ability and act there, through motion, right, and through doing, as you say, right? He says there's something an act and something an ability, and now he seems to be subdividing into that an act. One is a this something, another so much, another such, and likewise in the other categories of what is. Now what the hell does that mean?

[1:48] Huh? I say that sometimes in class to surprise the students and try to, you know, speak in their persona, you know. See, yeah. We're

[2:07] referring, you know, back to the book called the Categories, where you first meet these in the study of philosophy. But suppose we had a a man in this room, huh? And a cat, let's say, right? And a tree in this room, right? He said, "What is this? " Or "What is that? " Right? Hoc aliquid, huh? What is this? What is that? Right? Okay. This is a man, huh?

[2:44] That is a cat, huh? That is a what? What is that? That is a what? Tree, right? Okay. So that first category corresponds to the question, "What

[3:03] But this phrase, this something, huh? Which they translate in Latin as hoc aliquid or hoc aliquid, is something. It's referring to an individual substance, huh? Like a man or a dog or a tree, right? Something like that, huh? So it's individual s substance. one you could point out, huh? What is this? This is a man, right? What is this? This is a cat. What is this? This is a tree.

[3:40] What is that? It's a stone, and so on, right? Okay. So this is the the basic kind of thing, a substance, of course. By the question, what is it?

[3:53] Then we might say, how big is it, right? How large is it, right? Okay. And then we're asking how much, how big, how tall. So then we're asking about what the size of the thing, right? It's quantity, right?

[4:18] Okay. We might ask how many men are in this room, right? Okay. This again refers to what quantity, right? Very close to that. And then you might say, how are you today? Still sick, or are you? You feel pretty good. How are you? Right. And there you're asking about what quality, right? Okay.

[4:51] Where are you? Right. Okay. So in a way, you could see different questions corresponding to these different kinds of things, right? Okay. Of course, there's ten of them if you study them in the categories. So we don't go back maybe and rehash the categories here, but this something refers to say to an individual substance, right? Like a man would be the best example of that, right? Or a dog, or a cat, or a horse, right?

[5:25] A tree, and so on. Another so much that refers to the quantity, right? Another such. What does Aristotle say? such as a man is, so does the end appear to him, right? Refers to the quality. Okay. And likewise in the other categories of what is, of being,

[5:49] okay. And then he singles out something about towards another because there's a special connection between this and motion, huh? Now sometimes we use the abstract word what relation, right? But what Aristotle when he names it in Greek, he'll say what pros ti, and when they translate that very literally, Latin they'll say ad aliquid, right? Okay. And if you want to translate in English, you'd say what towards.

[6:28] Towards something, right? Okay. Now, this word "how" is very interesting. Now, if you just say "how," period, you're thinking of the quality of the person, right? Okay.

[6:51] Usually, we're thinking of health, but that's because we're such materialists, right? How are you today? You know, healthy, sick, you know. But I'm sad today, or I'm angry today, right? Or how are the men in this country? You know, are they all villains or something, right? Are they all vicious, right? Or something, you know? Or

[7:14] if you ask how much, you're not asking about a quality, but about a quantity, right? Here, if you want to put a question and say, "How am I towards you?" I'm towards you, a teacher, let's say, okay, or a friend or something, right? How am I towards my wife? Well,I'm,A husband, right? How am I towards my children? I'm a father, right?

[7:39] Okay. And some of these towards something are based on what quantity, right? Like four is double of what two. Four is a half of eight, right? Others are tied up with acting upon and what undergoing, right? So I'm a father because I generated somebody, right? I'm a son because I was generated by my father, and so on, huh?

[8:09] And so he touches upon that in particular because of the connection between this emotion, the mover and the what movable, right? Huh? So if you take the motion of this glass now, right? The glass is able to what move, right? To undergo motion, and I'm able to what act upon it, right? Okay. So that's connected with motion, huh? And generally says the mover and the movable. For the mover is the mover, the movable, and the movable is movable by the mover.

[8:46] Okay. And these are just some distinctions that he's going to what have in mind when he's going to try to define motion. It's going to be defined basically by ability and act, as we'll see, right? But the different kinds of motion or change are tied up with different what categories, huh? So it might be a change of place, and that would be the category of where. Might be growth, and that would be a change of what size or quantity, right?

[9:18] It might be change of quality, right? Becoming hot or something of this sort, right? Okay. Now what does he mean here when he says "emotion is not beside things"? Huh? What does that mean, huh?

[9:48] Does he say that? Is it the sense of beside, in the sense of motion is not beyond things, in the sense that things are an integral part of motion, or that they're things? Well, in a way, in a way, you could say here you have four kinds of things. Okay. And this is a little bit like this distinction is a little bit like we're talking earlier about the four kinds of causes.

[10:24] Remember, I pointed out that there are four kinds of causes, but these four kinds of causes are also four meanings of the word cause, right? Okay, that's a very subtle thing to see that. Why, if I divided, let's say, the parallelogram into the square, the oblong, the rhombus, the rhomboid, there'd be four kinds of parallelogram, right? But would there be four meanings of parallelogram?

[11:01] Or is the meaning of parallelogram exactly the same when said of each of them? So the logician would say that parallelogram is said univocally of square, oblong, rhombus, and rhomboid. What does that mean? It's said with exactly the same meaning in mind. Okay. If I say number of odd number and even number, right? Odd number and even number are two kinds of number, right? But are the two meanings of the word number?

[11:40] No. Same meaning. No. So you have exactly the same meaning in mind when you call an odd number a number and an even number a number, because an odd number, right,

[11:57] is a multitude composed of units. In the same way, and for the same reason exactly, an even number is a number because it's a multitude composed of units. You see that? And that's very subtle. See that difference? And sometimes, you know, students in own class get kind of mixed up, right? You say to them, you know,

[12:19] is dog and cat different meanings of animal? What would you say? No. No. Dog and cat are two kinds of animals, right? Two different kinds of animals. But when you call a dog an animal and when you call a cat an animal, you have exactly the same meaning in mind in both cases. Or if you said quadruped, right? When I say a dog is a quadruped, and when I say a what dog, I mean a cat is a quadruped, I have exactly the same meaning in mind—a four-footed animal, right?

[13:03] And one is not more a four-footed animal than the other. But if I say this is a square and this is a square, square number, right? Does the word square really mean the same thing?

[13:26] No. Now, perhaps not by chance that we call four a square number, or what? Next square number would be what? Nine. Yeah. See, But we wouldn't call six a square number, would we? See, is there some connection between what a square is here and why we call these square numbers and not that? Okay. I mentioned how when we talk about factors, I guess, of a number, the Greeks sometimes, like Euclid, called the sides a number, right?

[14:03] So if nine is three times three, we'd speak of three as the sides of what? Nine, right? Yeah. And two are the sides of four, but what are the sides of six? Two and three. Yeah. So it's not a square number, but but it's not it's not a square in the same sense as that, right? It's a rectangular number, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

[14:33] Oblong number. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And or if I say square of this, and then I say you know, a square to Euclid, you know, the square is a city, right? Yeah. Not the same meaning exactly, is it?

[14:51] No. But there's this connection between them, right? Okay. Quadrangle plots sometimes. This is a quadrangle in a different sense than the quadrangle on the campus or something like that.

[15:06] Okay. Now suppose I said seeing of the act of the eye and seeing of picturing you here and seeing of understanding, right? Well, maybe you could say those are three kinds of seeing, right?

[15:33] Right. But it's also three meanings of the word to see, isn't it? Mm-hmm. And some connection between the two, right? Okay. That's a very subtle thing, huh? Now, our substance and quantity and quality, and sometimes we say relation here for I don't know, there are four different kinds of things, aren't they?

[16:10] Is is what a thing is the same as its size? Or its quality, its health, right? You could say that what we have here is four kinds of things or four kinds of beings, if you want to, right? Because they all are in some way, aren't they? Hmm. Say. I am a man. I am five foot ten. I am healthy, I think.

[16:53] And I am a father. I am a son. I am a teacher. I'm shorter than Jordan, and so on. Right? You see? I am. These are all different kinds of being, right? Different kinds. But

[17:19] are they also four different meanings of being, or four different meanings of thing? If I say that a man and a dog are two things, you should agree. Yes. Okay. But is a man and his health two things?

[17:44] What do you say? It's the same man. It's the same subject. Yeah. Well, you just say that Socrates and the health of Socrates are the same thing.

[18:03] You guys were sick today. Unacceptable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you might last week you you had the flu if I can believe you right. You weren't just playing hooky.

[18:15] Okay. So you weren't healthy last week, right? It wasn't safe for you to come up here, right? Playing. So you're but but you're you were there you were here last week, right? You see, but your health wasn't there. So you and your health are not the same thing, are they? Okay. Yeah. Okay. But are you and your health two things in the way that you and orange is it an apple?

[18:42] Are two things. Oh. Okay. You and apple, or you and orange, are two things in this first sense of thing, right? See, but you and your health are not two things in that same sense, are you? And sometimes a person might hesitate to say that the shape of the nose is a thing, like the nose is a thing, right? And sometimes you know we say it's not a thing, but it's something of a thing, right?

[19:12] But it's something, and therefore in some way it's a thing, right? Because something means something, huh? Okay. And and the same with the word being, huh? Instead of these things, huh? And a sign of this is that

[19:32] when I walked into this room, did I come to be? No. And when I walk out of this room, I assume I will. Will I cease to be? I wouldn't speak of it, would you? Say. But nevertheless, when I came into this room, I came to be in this room in that qualified sense, right?

[19:59] When I leave this room, I will cease to be in this room. I have to add that, right? Yeah. And I say, you know, the example I was giving class there. I say, if I say to the student, right, you know, if you leave this room, you will cease to be. Mm-hmm. And he takes me to court. Mm-hmm. And I've been threatening my students, right? Mm-hmm. And I say, well, Your Honor, when I said he would cease to be if he left the room.

[20:30] I meant your honor. He would cease to be in the room. Think the judge let me go? No, nobody understand that by those words, right? Huh? You see the idea? So there you can start to see it. The word "to be" the primary meaning here is what?

[20:53] Life and death, being of a substance, right? Okay. So this guy comes on the stage in this famous play, and what does he say? To be or not to be, that is the question. As he's thinking about, you know, to be married or not to be married to Ophelia, or to be in Denmark or not to be in Denmark, or to be a student or not to be a student, huh?

[21:21] I was thinking of what? Suicide in a way, right? Think of life and death, right? See, so if he doesn't qualify it, and just says "to be or not to be," that is a question. You understand the question to be that it is very substance, right? A question of life and death. So the word "being" is not said equally of these, huh? This is the primary sense here.

[21:49] And even quantity and quality seem to be being in a fuller sense than what? Being towards another, right? Okay. So you can see how if my son grows and gets taller than me, I become what? I was taller than him, and now I'm shorter than him. Happens a lot of times with immigrants, right? But the son is towers over the father. Better diet, whatever it is, right?

[22:23] So by being taller or shorter than my son, that change from being taller than him to being shorter than him seems to have taken place without any real change in me. I haven't shrunk. If I shrunk, that would be one thing, right? But I stayed the same height. You see, five foot ten, but now he's six feet or something, right? Do you see that? So it doesn't seem to be as much in me as my size, does it?

[22:52] Right. It's it's towards him. I'm shorter, right? So you have many senses here. Of you have many kinds of beings or many kinds of things, but there are also different meanings of the word "thing," different meanings of the word "being." Now it's not a word that is equivocal by chance, huh? Because all these meanings are what connected, right? Right. And the substance has a certain size, right?

[23:24] And the qualities exist in the body and. Colors on the surface, you know, and so on. And some relations are based on what quantities like taller and shorter than, right? And some are types of qualities like teacher and student, right? And so on. So they're all connected, right? So it's equivocal, they say, by by reason, right? So here you have four kinds of things,

[23:55] but also four meanings of the word thing. Okay. See the see the difference then, huh? Kind of a subtle thing to see, huh? Right.

[24:09] So sometimes you have many kinds of something, and those many kinds are also many meanings of the same. Other times you have many what kinds of something, but they're not many meanings of the common word, right? It's very it's very important to see. Aristotle saw it very clearly, huh? Amazing, he saw that. Can can repeat those two?

[24:40] Saying sometimes, right? When you distinguish many kinds of something, right? We are at the same time distinguishing many meanings of the same. Okay. But other times when you distinguish many kinds of something, we're not distinguishing many meanings of that something, but only many kinds of it. Yeah. Yeah.

[25:14] In the latter case, the name of what is being divided into many kinds, that name is being said with exactly the same meaning of those many things. It's being said univocally, the logician says, huh? Okay. In other case, the name of what is being divided is being said equivocally. Maybe by by by reason, maybe by chance, but it's being said with more than one meaning, not exactly the same meaning anyway.

[25:45] In these ones, huh? Yeah. You see that, you know, you talk about the four kinds of causes. You know, you sometimes have a student in class who wants to just call the maker a cause and not the matter, right? See, what's the cause of the chair? Which seems kind of funny to call wood the cause of the chair. It's a carpenter's the cause of the chair, they'll say, right?

[26:09] See, see, but that hesitation is because they're thinking of what one meaning of the word cause, and wood doesn't mean a cause in the way that the carpenter is, huh? Right. See. And that's why they hesitate, right? Okay. See, and some might, you know, say somebody, you know, in the bar, you know, is my nose and my ear the same thing? They say, no, of course not.

[26:41] And they say, now is my nose and the shape of my nose the same thing? It'd be a little bit uneasy to answer, wouldn't they?

[26:53] Because the nose and the ear seem to be able to exist independent of each other, right? I could lose an ear and keep my nose, or vice versa, right? But I can't put my nose here and the shape of my nose there, right? Well, then if the guy says, well, then the shape of my nose is not something, well, then I say, well, that's not something.

[27:22] But the point is, something there, right? It is something in some way, okay? Now, um. Now it's getting difficult now. Because if you ask the man in the street, average person,

[27:50] is growing, right, or walking, or something, right, or falling—is that a thing? What would they say? They probably hesitate to say it's a thing, right? Right. Okay. I believe admit maybe the size or something is something, right? Okay. Now, take it with the word being, where it's even more puzzling, right? Remember when we were studying change there in Aristotle? I think we did study change, and

[28:31] in the twelfth and thirteenth, as opposed to the what tenth and eleventh reading, the tenth eleventh reading, change was so the word up front, right? And we got the twelfth and thirteenth, we start to use the word becoming more, right? Okay. Okay. And Socrates and or Plato, wherever it is, in the dialogues, he's he's very fond of distinguishing between what becoming and being. If you read those dialogues, it's a very important distinction between being and becoming, and sometimes non-being, right?

[29:15] And just to give one example where this is famous in the dialogue called the Protagoras, right? Protagoras is the sophist, right? In fact, as he says one point, you know, Socrates, he says, if I had always fought with the weapons of my opponent, never would I have always won, right? Never would the name of Protagoras have spread throughout the world. And so anyway, he's trying to catch Socrates in a contradiction, right?

[29:47] And Socrates, at one point, is saying that it's what difficult to become good. And then later on, Socrates saying it's not difficult to be good. And there's a apparent contradiction, right?

[30:09] But is Socrates really contradicting himself? No. And kind of the example that we give is it's difficult to to get to the top of the mountain, right? Was it difficult to stand on top of the mountain? No. So it's not the same thing, becoming and being. Okay,

[30:36] you know, I say, I say it's difficult to, it's difficult to be in heaven. No, it's going to be very, very delightful. But it's difficult come to be in heaven, huh? I say, not the same thing, right? Okay. Um. Now

[31:06] sometimes I ask students, I say, do you depend upon your parents for being? Well, we probably say, you know, mother, I wouldn't be without you. Okay. But do we actually depend upon our parents for being? No. Because my parents are are dead, huh? And if I depend upon them for being, I should be dead now too, right? Right. Does that wooden table over there depend upon the carpenter for being?

[31:45] No. See, he might be dead for all we know, right? That one is. Um. As I say, you know, you're going to joke about that. If you're a poor carpenter whose chairs depend upon him for being, right? You have to be holding it together, you know. If he walked away, the thing would fall apart, right? Um. So, maybe strictly speaking, I depend upon my parents for becoming, and not for being, huh?

[32:20] But I depend upon God for being, as we find out when we study God's causality in theology, right? But I don't depend upon my parents for being, but for becoming. See, and the table might depend upon God too. In fact, it does for being, right? But that's kind of hidden to us that dependence, huh? You know, but Saint Francis, you know, he sees he sees God everywhere, right?

[32:45] Okay. Um, he's very much aware of that in heaven that everything here depends upon God for being, huh? Okay. But as far as what we see, the carpenter, the chair depends upon the carpenter for becoming and not for being, huh? That's why the definition of cause, he says, it's what is responsible for the being of becoming of another. We we had that

[33:14] double thing, right? It could be dependent upon for both. Now, why am I doing that, right? Well, obviously, becoming is not being. Okay. But then there can't be any becoming in the world, can there?

[33:38] Never thought of that, did you? It can't be becoming, because whatever can be said to be is a being, and so if becoming could be said to be, it would be a being, and then God is our distinction between being and becoming.

[34:17] Now, if you want to stretch and say that becoming is, in some sense of the word, being, it's going to be much less in the sense even which quantity and quality and relation were a being, huh? And you have a bunch of problem in saying that quantity or my knowledge as being, right? When suddenly becoming is being, that's really what kind of strange, isn't it? Huh? Really, you're really what stretching the meaning of the word being, right?

[34:53] Okay. But normally we distinguish between these two because this is such a what diminished sense of becoming, huh? Do you see that? In case that isn't bad enough, right? You know, can you be blind? There's a

[35:20] hole in the donut. Is there a hole in the donut? Yes. Well, it is there. You see. Now, is to be blind is that to be in some way? Is it? To be ignorant is that to be or not to be? Either one or the other, say we say, right?

[35:55] Isn't being blind not to be? And yet you'll find sometimes we say that he is blind, right? He is ignorant, right? In fact, you can even say that nothing is nothing, right? That's true, right? You can't deny that nothing is nothing, right? So it is something, namely nothing, right? Well, this is this is the last sentence. Where even non-being is said to be. But it's only in our mind.

[36:33] Our mind speaks of what is in reality a non-being, as if it were what being something, right? Okay. See how strange it is. Now,

[36:58] they say being and thing or something, right, are equally universal, right? We have a similar thing, but it's easier to see the problem here with the word being and becoming the distinction.

[37:14] Now, Aristotle here uses the word things, and motion or becoming, you could say, is not beside things. What does that mean? Say. Well, he's thinking here of being or thing. According to the what ten categories, huh? Substance We just talked about the fundamental ones: substance, quantity, quality, relation. These are the words that the main four kinds of things, but which are also four meanings of the word thing or being, right?

[37:53] Be thinking of those, right? And becoming is not like a what another thing in the way these are different things, right? But becoming is the coming to be of one of these, huh? Do you see that? So birth or better generation is the coming to be of a substance, right? Growing is the coming to be of a what a certain quantity or size, right? Becoming hot, right, is the coming to be of what a quality, right, huh?

[38:27] Strictly speaking, relation—you don't really change there; something else is changing, right? Maybe something outside of you. So I'm changing from being taller to being shorter than my son, but only because he's been what growing, right? The change is really in in quantity, right? Okay.

[38:49] So he says that's what he means. And motion, or we can use the word becoming there, is not beside things; it's not something like what entirely another thing, right? For the changing always changes either according to substance, or according to quantity, or according to quality, or according to place. Those are the four that Aristotle distinguishes, and more explicitly in the fifth book, right? Change of

[39:20] change of change of quality, change of quality, change of quantity or growth. Sometimes change of quality is called what alteration, right? Sometimes change of place is called locomotion, or sometimes use the word motion just for change of place. Okay. And then generation would be change according to substance, or even the opposite of generation, right? Corruption of a thing. But nothing common to these can be taken. What does he mean by that?

[39:53] We had we saw the word being or thing was common to them, but there's nothing what univocal really common to them, right? As we say, which is neither this meaning what substance, right? Nor so much quantity, nor such quality, nor any other of the categories, right? Okay.

[40:15] Thus there will be neither motion or change besides the aforesaid. There being nothing besides the aforesaid, okay. What he's seeing here is that motion or change is coming to be of something in one of these categories, right?

[40:38] Okay. Of course, he's not going to say that there's change in all of these categories, right? And he'll take up this question, you know, which ones that really are, you know, change as such, in Book Five, right? But basically, he sees it as being in what substance, second generation, quantity as in growth, alteration and sensible quality, right? And then locomotion or change of place in the category of where, okay?

[41:14] But not in the other categories, right? Okay. We're not to determine here now. I mean, explicitly in which categories there are, right? He just mentioned the ones that he's going to show more explicitly in Book Five, right? Okay. But but the point he wants to make here is that becoming is not like

[41:36] entirely distinct, another kind of thing apart from these ones we've met so far, right? It's in one of these what ten, in one or more of these ten, right? Okay. If you go back to the to the categories, the book called the categories, he distinguishes the ten, right? And then in Latin they call it the predicaments when he distinguishes the ten and goes through the ten, mainly the first four though he spends time on.

[42:04] But then there's the antipredicaments to help you understand what's going to come up, and then the postpredicaments, right? And the postpredicaments among them are motion, right? And these four kinds of motion, right? See? But they're not like something what of an entirely different kind of thing, right? See? I mean, growing, in other words, is not distinct from quantity in the way that quality is distinct from quantity, right?

[42:35] Okay. And being so big and being somewhere are different kinds of being, right? Huh? But coming to be somewhere is not another kind of thing, like being somewhere is different from being five foot ten or something, right? Right. Or being wise or being healthy or something, right? Okay.

[43:20] Okay. So maybe the word becoming is helpful there, right? Huh? Then each of these kinds of motion, you are really talking about the what coming to be or the ceasing to be of something in one of the what categories, right? One of these other things, right? Okay. And that's again the reason why this or how becoming uh is in a way a sense of being, right? Because it's the coming to be of some being, right?

[43:51] So it has some relation to being. So you can relate it to it in some way, right? Okay. Just as logic is called a philosophy, why? Because it's the tool for acquiring philosophy, right? It's not philosophy in the fundamental meaning of philosophy, but it's connected with that because it's a tool for acquiring philosophy, right? Okay. So motion is connected with these kinds of beings, right? Or becoming to actions, right?

[44:25] It's connected with being because becoming is the coming to be of one of these, right? Do you see that? Yeah. What about the categories of

[44:42] doing and suffering or undergoing? Okay, that's a special problem that Thomas, you know, takes up in the commentary. But do you want to take it up yet? Okay. You could take it up, you know. Very difficult thing, huh? To understand. Okay. So each belongs in two ways to all. What is he talking about in this last paragraph? As in this, for one is form and the other lack, and according to such, for the one is white and the other black, and according to how much, for the one is perfect and the other imperfect, and likewise according to change of place.

[45:25] What is he talking about there? Going back to things we met in the first books of Natural Hearing, right? The distinction between form and lack of form, right? And the fact that even of contraries, one seems to be lacking in comparison to the other. Like black seems to be lacking, right? And black almost seems to be the absence of color, right?

[46:02] And so the idea of the perfect and the imperfect, right? And this is going to be related to motion because motion is going to be an imperfect act in one of these categories, right? And can be reduced to that in a way, like the imperfect is reduced to the what perfect, right? But it's not the same thing. But you might connected with that.

[46:28] Yeah. Each means each of the categories here that we're talking about. Each belongs in two ways. to all. What is the each here? Well, he's thinking, I guess, of

[46:47] how in each category you have something more perfect and something imperfect, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Or on each pair of contraries, especially, right? Yeah. You know, if you go back to to the what tenth reading there in the first book, where he's talking about how they all use contraries, right? Mm-hmm. But when you look at the pair of contraries, one seems to be lacking something. So the full and the empty, obviously, empty is lacking something compared to the full.

[47:18] But even the the what the dense and the rare, right? So if I give you a glass of yellow beer and him a glass of beer foam, and charge the same price, he can rightly complain, right, that he's not getting what I filled your glass, you know, but but the rare has less matter in the same volume, right? So the dense is to the rare something like what form to lack.

[47:41] There's something lacking there. And then the the mixed and the what segregated, right? You mix things together and you get something that new kind of right. So something in the mix that is not found in the what segregated, right? Okay.

[48:07] So if you divide genera as you often do by contraries, and one is lacking something, right? This is kind of a background for understanding that motion is going to be something not the same as lack, but it's going to involve what an imperfect act, right? Okay. So when I'm coming into the room, I'm what

[48:30] imperfectly in the room, right? Okay. Now, in beginning the second reading, now he's going to work out the definition, right? Now, having divided act and ability according to each genus, huh? Now, when you if you ever study wisdom, right, and you talk about being, which is the subject of wisdom, we divide being not only as we did here, substance, quantity, quality, relation, etc., but we also divide it into act and ability, right?

[49:15] But you could kind of crisscross these, huh? Because in every genus you can speak of what Act and ability, right? What is able to be five foot ten was actually five foot ten, right? What is able to be a man was actually a man, right? What is able to be healthy was actually healthy, right? So you wouldn't tack on act and ability here, but it would what crisscross that, right?

[49:41] Okay. So they divide every genus in a sense. And the fact that act and ability here according to each genus means that you can bring out something, right, common to all these motions, right? And now he does it. The act of the able to be as such is motion. Now, what the hell does that mean? Okay. Such as alteration is the act of the alterable as such, growing of the growable, decreasing the increaseable, and so on, right?

[50:15] Okay. Now let's just again stop in that definition. What the act of the able to be as such, huh? Now there are three parts to the definition, right?

[50:32] The act able to be, or you can say the act is able to be, and you can say, as he does say there, as such, right? Or you could make it more explicit if you want to, in so far as it's able to be, right? Okay. Spell it out. In so far as it is able to be. Okay. Now,

[51:10] you see, in every genus there is ability an act, right? And motion is the act of what is able to be, and then he adds a third part. Okay. What is that third part bringing out?

[51:29] Well, Aristotle is not always as explicit as he could be, you know, Thomas, huh? and but in various places there's really three things they point out about that third part of the definition. Okay.

[51:44] Now, take the first thing there, right? When I'm out in the hall there, right? Standing out there in the snow, okay. Um. I am actually a man on the hall there, right? I'm actually a philosopher, right? I'm many things actually, right?

[52:13] Okay. And but I'm also able to be in this room, right? Okay. So what does it mean to say that my coming into the room is the act of me?

[52:31] Was it the act of me in so far as I'm actually a man? Is it the act of me, or why I'm actually a philosopher? No, it's the act of me in so far as I'm able to be in the room, right? Okay. It's not the act I already have, Right? It's what it's able to be could have some act, right? What is able to be in the room could actually be a man and a philosopher and a father and other things, right?

[53:06] Okay. So it's not the act that I have in so far as I'm an act, but the act that I have in so far as I am what? Able to be, right? In this case, able to be in the room, right? Okay. Likewise, if I put the water on the stove in the morning to make my tea, huh?

[53:29] The water is able to be hot, right? But the water is actually water, right? And the becoming hot is the act of the water,

[53:43] insofar as it's actually water. No, it's the act of the water insofar as it's able to be hot, right? Okay. That makes that is that necessary to say? Well, it's necessary to say in a sense, right? Because

[54:02] what is able to be can have many acts, right? That don't belong to it insofar as it's able to be. Why motion is the act that belongs to it precisely insofar as it's able to be something, right? Okay. Do you see that? Okay. That's the first reason. Sometimes Thomas, you know, gives that and doesn't go on, explicitly to give the other meanings, right? Okay. How would you kind of put that in a nutshell?

[54:33] Well, I'm saying what is able to be could have some act, right? Okay. But the act that it has in the way is accidental to

[54:51] the act which is motion, right? The act which it already has is not really motion, huh? Okay. Where motion is an act that belongs to it, not insofar as it's an act, but insofar as it's able to be, right? An act. Okay. You gotta see the meaning of that, right? I'll take a very simple example. But I'm saying

[55:17] I'm standing on the hall there, and I'm able to be in the room, but I'm actually a man. I'm actually a philosopher. I'm actually a father, et cetera, et cetera, right? Say, but it's not those acts that is my motion of coming into the room, is it? Say, those are acts that I have insofar as I'm actual, right? Say, but motion is an act that I have insofar as I'm able to be, right?

[55:47] Insofar, it's an act that comes to me insofar as I'm able to be in the room, right? Or becoming hot is an act that belongs to the water, not insofar as it's actually water, right? But insofar as it's able to be what hot, right? Okay.

[56:08] That's kind of obvious in some ways, but you can say that third part is making that explicit, right? You're not talking about any act, right, of what is able to be, right? Because it might have many acts, right? But you're talking about an act that it has insofar as it's able to be, not insofar as it's already actually something. You see that? Okay. Now,

[56:38] that's one meaning, huh? Okay. One reason why you add that part. But now there's a second reason, right? Because you want to bring out that that ability to be is not perfectly or completely or fully actualized by the motion. Okay. So I'm coming into the room. Let's say from this room here. I'm coming into the room. My ability to be in the room is somewhat actualized, right?

[57:16] In fact, I'm partly in the room, as you can see. But it's not fully realized, right? Once I'm fully in the room, I can walk around the room. But can I come into the room? No. The only way I can come in the room now is to. Go out and lose, right? Okay, you see that? Okay. So that's the second thing you want to bring out, right? That it's an imperfect, right?

[57:42] An incomplete act. Okay. You see that? Mm-hmm. See? Because my being in the room is the complete act, right? But now I don't really have this ability to be in the room, right? You see? As such, but I'm what? Pulling the room, up.

[58:18] But then there's a third thing, right? Is coming into the room the same thing as standing in the doorway? Well, standing is not motion at all. Okay. Is becoming hot the same thing as being warm?

[58:39] No. What's the difference between coming into the room, where you're partly in the room already, right? And standing in the doorway, where you're partly in the room too, right? What's the difference between the two? Because one is not the same as the other, right? Standing is not the same thing as as motion, is it?

[59:17] Well, again, what? You said as such, right? To go back to Aristotle's words. As such is always opposed or usually opposed to what? By happening, right? Okay. And if I'm standing in the doorway, it's accidental to standing in the doorway that I ever come in more. Maybe I'm checking IDs. Okay. I have no intention of coming further in the room, right?

[59:52] I may come in further, I may not, right? But it doesn't belong to standing in the doorway as such to go any further, right? Does it belong to being warm to become any warmer or any hotter. The mother might want the milk to be warm, but not hot, right? So the baby can drink it in comfort, right? Okay.

[1:00:21] Do you see that? So, but is it accidental to coming through the doorway? So long as I'm still coming through the doorway, is it accidental that I come in more? No, no. If you take away coming in more, right?

[1:00:45] That order to a further right act, then I stop coming in, okay? And so long as the water is becoming hot, it's going to be what hotter, right? Right. Okay.

[1:01:03] So that's the third thing, right? That this is bringing out, right? That this imperfect act is in order to a further act, right? Or on the way, you might say, to a further act.

[1:01:24] Otherwise, you stop it, right? I'm just trying to see more clearly how that is expressed by Aristotle's words, insofar as it is able to be,

[1:01:53] in so far as it's still going to be. Is that the sense? More. Yeah, it's not the act that already has. You know, the full act that it already has, like by being a man or maybe being a philosopher or something.

[1:02:13] Yeah. Okay. So that that last part then it's really kind of equivocal. It means a number of different things. Yeah. But it's in a way covering all three of these things, huh? Otherwise, it's not really separating right motion from everything else.

[1:02:47] You see, I'm making a comparison here to something maybe easier to see, right? What is the difference between learning, which is like a motion, and knowing something imperfectly?

[1:03:07] Or take these three things: knowing fully something, right? And knowing it imperfectly, right? And then learning, right? Are they the same thing, the three?

[1:03:24] Well, you can say the man who knows something imperfectly doesn't know it fully or perfectly, right? Right. The man who's learning something doesn't know it fully or perfectly, right? Right. Okay. So obviously, in that sense, learning and And imperfectly knowing something are both distinct from knowing something fully or perfectly, right? But is there a difference between knowing something imperfectly and and to be learning it?

[1:03:58] And notice the man who imperfectly knows something, he may be fed up with the subject, right? I'm not going to study that. You know, we we all have our our enemies, right? And so you may have no intention, right, of ever learning the subject more, right? I took the course because it was a requirement for graduation, right, or something that sort of. I had to take a course in this course or a course in this area or something, right?

[1:04:30] You know, so this ill-disposed student has no intention of ever what going further, right? You see, okay. So it's accidental, you could say, right, to imperfect knowing that you ever know the subject more, right? Right. But so long as you're still learning, right, you're going to know it more, aren't you? Right. Yeah. So, you could

[1:05:00] say learning is an act of the ability to know on the way to what knowing more, right? Imperfect knowing a thing is an incomplete knowing of it, but not on the way to any further knowing.

[1:05:20] You see. Now, Monsignor Dionne would come down, right, and used to pay his way down from Quebec there to Saint Paul, right, the old former students of Dion, right. And Dion said each time he'd come down, he'd see that my old teacher Kasurik, was wiser than the last time he saw him, right. And the other guys, they seemed to be the same.

[1:05:46] So Kasurik was always what? He was still learning. Yeah, yeah, and I suppose the teacher should be that way, really, because I mean, right. But some people they just kind of what level off, right, at where they're you know their formal training, you know. And then they just kind of feed themselves the rest of their life, right? And you know, but there's a real difference between that, right?

[1:06:14] You see, and that's why each time you saw Kasurik, he seemed to know something more, right? You see, the others seemed to be just where left them, you know. That's what he said. Just calling Monsignor, right? But there's a real difference there between Kasurik and the rest, huh? You know. Kasurik could always be coming down, you know. In college, we had these little things, or you know, you could put your books and so on.

[1:06:41] I kept a little, you know, thing, and I'd be, you know, there putting my books or my hat or my coat in there or something, you know. Kasurik, I'm like, wait! You know, what? He saw something, you know, He's got to tell me right now before he goes, you know, any further, you know.

[1:06:57] And so, that's learning. Well they say it though in the What do they say though? In the spiritual writers they say, you know, if you're not going forward, you're going backwards. That applies to knowing too. I don't know, but it's supposed to apply to the spiritual life, right? You know, if you're

[1:07:30] You're not getting better. Probably not staying the same. you're Probably getting worse. So maybe memory eventually starts to you know. Boulet used to always talk about that, right? Now, all this stuff goes away from you if you don't keep on what thinking about it, huh?

[1:07:58] So, so I guess we should stop here about five, right? Okay. So we'll finish up the second reading at least of motion, and then we're going to look at at time, right? Huh? Time is in some ways more important for theology because then we can talk about eternity, right? Mm. So and okay. Right. He's going to set up more individually. So he sets