Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
53. Motion as the Act of the Able, and Place: The First Senses of 'In'
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[0:00] the first clock at a certain time. Then he walks down the hall and sets another clock at the same time. And he keeps walking. It's just a bad deal. After he does a little later forty-four. Okay. Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds. Ordinal luminous oranges arouse us to consider more correctly.

[0:30] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. And help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So we're in the second reading here, I think.

[0:53] So let's start from the beginning, so we won't be caught up with what we saw last time. Having divided act and ability according to each genus.

[1:09] So in each genus, the ten highest genera—substance, quantity, quality, and so on—you have something in act and something in what ability, right? There's something able to be a substance, and something that is actually a particular substance, right? Something able to be five foot ten, and something that is actually five foot ten, right? And something which is able to be hot, and something that is what actually hot, right?

[1:39] And something that is able to be a grandfather, and that is actually a grandfather. And so on each category, right? So we don't tack on act and ability as if they were another category, another genus, right? But they crisscross, you might say. They divide each genus, huh?

[2:04] Of course, strictly speaking, huh? We don't put God in any genus, huh? Because that would limit Him, right? Among other things. But we do what speak of Him as being pure act, right? So in some way, the distinction between act and ability is of even greater universality than the distinction of the ten genera, because you can divide each genus by act and ability, and then we can also what speak of God in terms of act.

[2:39] Plato in the what dialogue called the Sophist, right? He says gives a kind of definition in quotes here of of being, right? What can act upon something, or what be acted upon, right?

[2:57] So. Aristotle has one of the main divisions of being, right, into act and ability, and a whole book devoted to that in the Metaphysics, the ninth book of Wisdom. So he says, having divided act and ability according to each genus, the act of the able to be, as such, is what motion. Now that definition there has three what parts, right? And the genus is what the act, right?

[3:32] Okay. And then of the able to be, that's the second part. And then the third part is what as such, right? Okay. Now motion here, as we said many times, is a translation of kinesis in Greek there, but sometimes the word motion in English gets too what narrow in our understanding, and we use it just for change of place, right? But he's using it in the broader sense here, such as alteration, which is a change of what qualities, right?

[4:17] As alteration of the alterable, right? It's the act of the alterable. Growing is the act of the what growable, right? And decreasing of the decreasable. I guess you get to be my age to start shrinking, they say, right? Old age, right? Aristotle is always reminding us of that.

[4:43] Generation of the generable and corruption of the corruptible, and in general motion of the what Moveable, right? But notice he's not defining motion as the act of the movable because then he'd be defining it in a way by itself, right? Okay. So he defines it as the act of what is able to be, as such, huh?

[5:09] Now he's starting to manifest that definition in the second paragraph. That this is motion is clear. Thus, for when we say the buildable as such is an act, it is being built, and this is being built, huh? So obviously the word buildable is what taken from the word able, right? It names a certain what thing that is an ability, right? Okay. And when you're building the buildable, that's obviously an act of that ability, right?

[5:40] So he's manifesting that it's an act of some ability, huh? But again, we wouldn't define what being built as the act of the buildable, would we? Okay. He's manifesting that is the act of something, right? Okay.

[5:58] Just as it's true to say, motion is the act of the movable, right? Okay. That's not a definition of motion because you'd be defining motion in a way by itself, right? But it's nevertheless a true statement, right?

[6:15] So you're manifesting in that true statement that motion is the act of something that is what, inability, huh? Okay. Likewise, also learning and rolling and growing and ripening and aging and so on.

[6:36] Okay. Now, since some things are both inability and an act, although not at once or according to the same. For example, something could be hot in act, right? Could be actually hot, but it's able to be cold, right? And something else might be actually cold, but able to be what hot, right?

[7:02] And that way, many things act upon and undergo from what each other, right? Reminds a little bit of what Newton says that for every action, there's an what

[7:16] reaction, yeah. And these are the are the movers that we know first, right? Where they even what act upon each other, right? So you're very far away from the what unmoved mover when you talk about this kind of a mover, huh? Okay. But as every mover of this sort, right, both acts upon things as acted upon.

[7:43] This something takes up the late last books of the of natural hearing. For all will be at once acting upon and undergoing, right? Notice they act upon something else which is inability for what they actually have. And they're acted upon by something else that has an act, something that they only have in what ability, yeah, yeah. And that you know makes one think a bit of the famous statement that every agent, everything that acts upon something, does so in so far as it's in what act, right?

[8:24] And it's acted upon or is able to be acted upon, right? In so far as it's in what ability, right? Okay. Thus the natural mover. Notice, huh? He calls it the natural mover. What does he mean by the natural mover? Huh? What nature was defined as what

[8:51] beginning and cause of motion, rest, and that which it is first as such not by happening. So he's talking about a mover that is what. Subject to motion itself, right, as opposed to the unmover. Thus, the natural mover is movable for everything such moves being moved itself, right? Okay, and those are the movers that are most what known to us, right? The moved movers. So there's no question that moved movers exist, right, in the world around us.

[9:27] Okay, and hence it seems to some, right, that every mover is moved, right? Okay, but in the seventh and the eighth book of Natural Hearing, he's going to reason out that there's what unmoved mover. Yeah, a mover that moves without being moved itself, right? Okay.

[9:52] But concerning this, it will be clear from other things in what way it is. Okay, he's just kind of what letting you guess what he's going to show later on in books seven and eight. For there is something that moves and is in fact what immovable.

[10:15] Who is it? Is it James or Jude? Always get those guys mixed up. Who says there's no shadow of change in God? It's one of the one of the canonical epistles, huh? Is James or Jude? I can't remember which one it is. James. James. Okay. James. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

[10:39] So he says there is motion whenever the able to be being an act is actualized not as such but as movable. I say as such, and he's going to start to explain that, huh? Okay. And he's really going to really only part to explain that as such here, right, huh? Other places he takes it up again, like in the eleventh book of wisdom, right? He'll sometimes unfold more, like I was doing the other day, huh?

[11:05] Let's see what he says here. I say as such, for bronze is able to be a statue, but motion is not the act of the bronze as bronze.

[11:18] So it's not the act which something already has, right? Okay. He says, for it to be bronze, huh? to be actually bronze, and to be an ability are not the same. Since if they were simply the same by definition, the act of the bronze as bronze would be what motion, right? Okay.

[11:45] They are not the same as has been said, huh? Yeah. So the bronze, or it's wait, won't take the same bronze. The bronze is actually bronze, right? And that act whereby it's actually bronze is not its motion, is it? Okay. But its motion is the act that comes to it insofar as it's able to be something, right? But it isn't yet. He says it is clear in the contraries, huh?

[12:19] The ability to be healthy and the ability to be sick are other. In some ways, got to be other, right? I got to be careful about this, huh? Are the ability to be healthy and the ability to be sick that you seem to have here, right? Yeah. Are they two abilities in the way in which the ability to walk and the ability to talk are two abilities?

[12:45] Like a negative, like to be sick would be a negative as opposed to ability to walk would be a positive thing. Yeah. But notice, I can walk and talk at the same time, right? Hmm. But can I be healthy and sick at the same time? Oh, I see. Okay, see. So if the ability to be sick and the ability to healthy were really two different abilities, in the way the ability to walk and talk are, then I could be healthy and sick at the same time.

[13:16] Why not? Right. But and this is something you'll point out elsewhere, right? That in a way the ability to be healthy and the ability to be sick is the same what? Okay. Ability, right? Okay. Or take a little different example here, right? If you have a piece of clay here, this piece of clay is able to be a sphere and it's able to be a what? Cube.

[13:47] Now are they two different abilities in the clay? Now the ability, say, of the clay to be a sphere and the ability of the clay to be, let's say, cold, right? They might very well be different abilities. They would seem to be so, right? So the clay could become what? A sphere and become cold at the same time, even, right? Okay.

[14:18] But can it become a sphere and a cube at the same time? No. Yet you can distinguish, huh? The ability to be a sphere from the ability to be a cube, because a sphere and a cube are not the same what? Thing, right?

[14:41] Okay. And so if the sphere, if the clay was becoming a what? Sphere, right? That'd be an act of its ability to be a sphere, not an act of its ability to be a what? Cube, right? Even though they might, in some way, be the same what? Ability, right? Okay. Or you're becoming healthy. Take your word for it. You're becoming healthy is an act of your ability to be healthy, right?

[15:14] It's not an act of your ability to be what? Sick, right? Okay. So even if they might be the same ability of the thing in a way, they're not defined in the same way, are they? There's some distinction there. Okay. And so it's all being brought out by the word qua as such, right?

[15:40] The ability to be healthy and the ability to be sick in some way or other, but not as other as the ability to walk and talk are, right? For to be sick and to be for otherwise, right? If they were the same ability, there's no distinction at all. Then to be sick and to be healthy would be what? The same thing, right?

[16:01] But the subject able to be healthy and sick, whether moisture or blood or wherever it is, is one and the what? Same, right? Since they are not the same, just as neither color nor visible are the same, it is clear that the act of the able as able is what? Motion, right? Okay.

[16:24] Now, as I say, as a little addition there, and I think it comes out more when Aristotle gives the definition of motion again in the eleventh book of wisdom.

[16:38] If you're going to separate the act which is motion from every other act, what do you have to understand maybe in that third part of the definition?

[16:51] Well, the imperfectness. Yeah, yeah. That's the act of what is able to be, insofar as it's still able to be, right? Insofar as there's an ability there that has not yet been what? Fully actualized, right? Okay.

[17:11] And maybe something else you have to understand in there. What is that? That it's ordered to a further act. Yeah, yeah. Per se. And it's not. We're not going to go further. It's not on the way to something further, right? Then it's not motion either, right? Okay. So go back to my you know simple example there. I said I'm out in the hall. I'm actually a man out there.

[17:40] I'm actually a philosopher out there, in case you didn't know. But I'm not actually in the room, right? Okay. But I'm able to be in the room, right? So the one out there who's actually a philosopher and actually a man, he's what? Able to be in the room, right? Now is this motion of coming into the room? Is that the act which he has whereby he's a man?

[18:07] Say. Or the act whereby he's what? Actually a philosopher? No. It's the act of him insofar as he's what? Able to be in the room, right? Okay. Now is it a complete act of that ability to be in the room? Say. Is his fully being in the room like I am now? Is that my coming into the room? No, no. So my ability to be in the room is still what?

[18:37] Not fully actual. It's still just only ability there to be what? Fully realized, right? Okay. So it's the act of what is able to be, not insofar as it's now actual, because that would be my being in the room, right? But it's the act of my ability to be in the room insofar as I'm still in ability to be in the room. Okay. So that shows it's it's not what pure ability and it's not pure act, right?

[19:05] It's something in between there, right? Okay. And that might seem to be enough to to define motion, but then someone says, "Yeah, but what about the man who who stands in the doorway, right? See, his ability to be in the room has been partly actualized, right? Okay. But is standing in the doorway coming into the room? Is standing motion? That'd be a contradiction, right? Well, then you see that it's accidental to standing in the doorway that you ever come in more.

[19:45] And one might stand in the doorway, you know, to check, you know, they're talking about checking everybody out the airport and so on. I might stand in the doorway just to check people, you know, just let nobody in who doesn't have the proper credentials, right? Okay, I have no intention of going in further, right? I'm not invited to the party. I'm just there to check everybody who's trying to get into the place, huh?

[20:09] You see the idea? Well, when I'm coming through the doorway, as long as I'm still coming through the doorway, I'm going to be in more, right? Otherwise, I stop coming in.

[20:22] So it's an act of this ability on the way to a further act of this ability. huh. So maybe you have to understand all three of those things finally in the last what part of the definition, huh?

[20:44] So does the able to be include lack? No. In some sense, you have to say it, yeah. But it was more than one meaning too.

[21:10] Yeah, that's what I was wondering. So, the definition of motion—it's the difference that sometimes includes lack. You're able to be, but you're not. I see what you're saying, but I want to be careful about that.

[21:32] Okay. It's certainly an imperfect act, but I don't know if I put lack in there in the definitions, strictly speaking, but certainly involved it. Yeah.

[21:49] Seems like a thing of semantics there. Like I'm in the room. I'm able to be in the room, or I'm not able to be in the room. Yeah. Because I am in the room, I can't be able to be in the room. That's so. But I've been some. Use the language there. Yeah.

[22:09] But see, but I think what he's saying there is that it's not the act of what is actually in the room. Okay. It's not the act of the actual. Okay. Because that's more what we call form or something that's sort, but not motion. That's form or being, if you wish. The act of the actual.

[22:40] Could you define motion by first defining coming to be as not necessarily involving motion? That is, I'm able to be it now. I'm actually it, but there wasn't necessarily a motion there. But so the motion would be the act of what is able to be, insofar as it's still able to be. I mean, able to be, I mean, able to become. Sorry. It's what what is able to come to.

[23:14] You're talking about you're talking about coming. That's that's between contradictories. You mean or something or what? Well, coming to be isn't necessarily motion. Yeah. Yeah.

[23:34] So then the motion would be the act of what is able to come to be, insofar as it's still able to come to be.

[23:49] I don't know if I get you exactly. But it's able. So the the if the coming to be, um, what you're saying here, I think, is is there a becoming that's not all that's all at once? Is that what you mean, or what? Time that kind of becoming? Yeah, if there's a becoming that's all at once, yeah, that'd be something different than this. It seems right.

[24:29] What he's defining here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It won't. Yeah. Okay, but let's wait on that. You know, that's more difficult. Okay. Now, we're going to go from here to to time, but maybe we should stop and just say a few things about place, right? Okay.

[24:59] Um. Now, what he what he does, of course, in the second part of Book Three, is to talk about the infinite. But really, consideration he has of the infinite in Book Three is more fully made in the next books on the universe, the De Caelo et Mundo as they call it in Latin. But the kind of infinity that you have in every motion is really taken up in the what sixth book, which we're going to look at later on.

[25:29] Okay. But now in the fourth book, he takes up place first, right, and then time, right? And we're not going to be looking at place at least this time around. Motion or time is more important for our purposes, but not to leave you entirely ignorant of place, huh? Let's just say a few things about place, right? And

[25:58] now, what would lead us to distinguish between the place of a body and the body itself? What would lead us to distinguish between those two?

[26:17] Well, we say the body, one body, leave that place, another body come into the same place. yeah. If there's no locomotion, no change of place, you probably would not distinguish between place and what the body in the place, right? Okay.

[26:38] Now, what is this place, huh? That bodies are in, but this place is not the body itself. What is this place, huh? Let's not look at all the possibilities, right? But take the more common possibilities. Okay. Um. A lot of people identify place with some dimensions, right? Okay. And this is a very common thing in modern science. They tend to use the word space instead of place, right?

[27:31] Okay. But they think of place as being the dimensions that a body occupies, right? Dimensions that the body occupies, and these dimensions more or less equal to the body, right? Huh? Okay. Is that what you think place is, or what? It's the wide everything. How to spell? What location? What location? Why are you standing so occupied? Yeah.

[28:25] Um. Do you think that's what place is? Is the dimensions that? What are you going to say? Well, it's like another meaning, location. Yeah, location means what? The word for place, isn't it? Huh? Yeah. Yeah, locus is the word for place, so you see location sometimes, right, for place. But what is this? This place, this location. What is it? Is it the dimensions that you occupy?

[28:51] It's where something is. Yeah. Okay, that's the interrogatory, right? Yeah. Where? Where am I? Right. Okay. But since to be where is not so much place as what to be in place, right? Okay. Where am I? I am in this room, right? Okay. I am in Peterstown, right? Okay. So, is this what place is—the dimensions that my body occupies? Huh? Dimensions somehow stay there when I go away.

[29:34] Is that that what place is? Or not? I think a lot of people think of it as being that, don't they? Yeah. Probably the most common thing, you know. Would that then restrict it?

[29:47] Such that, like Father Anthony said, if the thing—if a thing that's in that place moves, and if that space was that same dimension, then Something else can only be in that place if it fills that same dimension. Okay. So you couldn't really say something of a smaller size is in the same place. Well, okay, maybe part of the place, right? Something else could come in there and occupy some of those dimensions, right?

[30:15] Right. But that would suggest that there wasn't any place before the body was there. Well, you're saying that these dimensions that the body occupies are something other than dimensions of the body itself, right? Because you're making a distinction due to the fact of change of place, right? The fact that one body is where another body was earlier, right? As a sign that, where the early body was was not the same as that body, right?

[30:55] Okay. Okay. So. You've got the dimensions of the body and the dimensions of the place, presumably, right? Okay. Okay. Is that what people think place is? More like not the volume of it or the dimension of it, but just

[31:18] the without the height, you know, more like the length and the width. Oh, you know, an x y coordinate. Of course, we don't want to do that. See, if I'm taking up too much room, you know, is that my my dimensions right, or filling too much of the available place or space?

[31:46] This is the way we're kind of accustomed to think of it from Newton, you know, and people like that, right? Okay. Because people think of space as kind of going every direction, infinite space, right? That you can be located here or there in this dimensional thing. Well,

[32:17] a couple of things makes one wonder about this a little bit, and one is, what are those dimensions, right? You know, is there something there going back to the idea of the empty, Is there something there that has length and width and depth

[32:40] apart from the bodies? Sometimes we define a body as something you know that has length and width and depth, right? So if place has length and width and depth, then it's in a body. Is it in a body, right? Two bodies here together, right? Okay. Occupying the same space. Yeah. But one is supposed to be space, right? Right. But they're kind of interpenetrating each other, right? Right.

[33:12] You know. Okay. But no, that's one thing. Now, what are those dimensions? We saw before, I think, when we read Empedocles, right? But he denies the existence of the empty, right? And the empty is what? Nothing really, unless you say there's something there, then it's not empty. Okay.

[33:43] And how can you say if you say there's something there that has length and width and depth, then you've got another body there, a very fine and and subtle body, but a very much a body, huh? If you have nothing there. That has length and width and depth. How can nothing have length and width and depth, right?

[34:06] So there's something, you know, something questionable about those dimensions being something real, okay? But another thing, even if you take them as being real, which has difficulties, why say that the body is in the place rather than the place is in the body? I mean, they're kind of what

[34:36] simultaneous, interpenetrating each other, right? Why is one? Why would one be said to be in the other more than more than the reverse, right? Well, don't we a lot of times think of place as really like a location of another body? So, for instance, we think of the Earth here. Yeah. There on the road, there is a place out there. Yeah. By the road, well, it's this place that's really on a body, you know, which is the Earth, which something else, a particular volume of a can be filled by.

[35:19] The parking lot there, I got a place for my car, right? Huh? Mm-hmm. And it's got to be big enough for my car, right? Mm-hmm. So isn't the place that my car occupies there, isn't that in a way equal to my car?

[35:38] Okay. But now, if that's so, if you see the the dimensions of the place, someone was saying, you know, well, they're they're in the same place. They want another place to put the two in, right? But there, that that thought is because you kind of see them as kind of equal, right? Mm-hmm. Why is why would you say that one is in the other rather than they interpenetrate each other or something like that?

[36:05] Sorry. Well, the body moves out of the place; it leaves it, but the place doesn't leave the body. Okay. Okay. But again, is that a a good reason for saying that one is in the other? We take the first theorem of Euclid there, you know, where you have straight line and you draw a circle, right? You draw another circle, and then you know it goes right. Mm-hmm.

[36:48] And now these part of this circle and part of this circle, they what? Coincide, right? Okay. Now, would you say that this circle is inside of that circle, or you say that this circle here is inside of that one? It seems to be arbitrary to say one is in the other, you know. Okay.

[37:13] Even if I imagine one of these circles, eventually being pulled away, right? So, yeah. And and why couldn't you know if there's something here with length and with the depth, why couldn't you know move it around too, right? So the place would have to be just a little bit bigger than the body. So the body inside.

[37:40] So place and body really they coincide. No. So why say really that one is in the other, right? That's just the way of speaking there.

[37:53] Well, yeah, because the first meaning of in is in the place. So, Aristotle doesn't think that this is what place is, right? I just give you a little bit of the, you know, question marks about this, right? Okay. He thinks place is more like a jar or a vase, right? Okay. And the what inner dimensions of the vase, right? Yeah. Okay. So in this glass here, right, you could fill this up to the top here with water, right?

[38:36] And you could pour the water out and fill it up with wine or beer or milk or something else, right? Okay. And so I was thinking of place as not being the dimensions inside the glass, right? But the inner surface of the glass, huh? Okay. Which is together with the outer surface of the liquid that is in there, right?

[39:08] Now it makes sense to speak of the water as being in the glass rather than the glass in the what water, right? Okay. You see, the water is contained by the what inner surface of the glass, right? Okay. And there's all, you know, we add other things to that, right? Huh? But that's the beginning to see what place is, huh? Rather than it's these what dimensions that what coincide coincide, right?

[39:45] Huh? See. Because then you have a problem with what what are those dimensions, right? Is there really something there that's length, width, and depth? If there is, then you have a body there, don't you? However fine and subtle the body may be. If there's nothing there that is length, width, and depth, how can you have length, width, and depth there, right?

[40:09] So how do you make a distinction here, right? Between the dimensions—a real distinction between the dimensions of the body and the dimensions of the so-called what place, right? But here I can make a distinction, a real distinction, because I can say the outer surface of the water in here and the inner surface of the glass, although they're together, they're not the same surface, really. And place is not the outer surface of the water that's contained in that, right?

[40:42] But the inner surface of the what? Containing body. Yeah, yeah. That makes more sense with our original. Confused insight that bodies are in place, right?

[41:05] Not that they are with place, but they are in place, right? Aristotle will go on and add things because he'll say you have to consider that inner surface in order to the what the whole universe in some way, huh? Because take the stock example. If you've got, let's say, a river that's flowing along here, right? And we've got a post here in the river, right? Well, the water that's flowing around the post, as Heraclitus said, is always different water, right?

[41:47] So the surface containing the what the inner surface of the water containing the post, right, is always a surface of different water, right? Okay. Yet you don't want to say that the post here is changing its place, do we? No. But whatever that inner surface, whatever water that is the inner surface of, it has the same what relation to the shores, right? Okay. So something in that way immobile, unchangeable about the inner surface, huh?

[42:25] Not that it's always the same body, right? That is containing that post that's at rest there, but the inner surface of the body containing it always has the same order to the bank and maybe to a larger picture, right? So it's

[42:48] a little bit of a place there for you, okay? If you took the dimension theory, wouldn't you end up saying that its place really doesn't exist? It's probably something in your mind. If dimensions mean yeah, yeah, in a way, this is what Kant does eventually, right? And Einstein eventually rejects the space of Newton, right? It's been figment of his imagination. But I mean, it's something the imagination so easily gets into, right?

[43:22] And it's kind of funny, you know, an assumption there. I have a philosophy nature course which we always had, but one time I tried to have a second philosophy nature course so we could do some of these little books, you know. And so I submitted the course and so on and got approved. And the name of the course was Motion, Place, Time. See. And came out on the schedule course is Space, Time, Motion.

[43:53] But somebody just did it without thinking, you know. They just, you know, things like a modern, right? But kind of imagination there is. You have to. To go in that way, huh? Okay. Now,

[44:11] Aristotle, you know, takes very seriously that word "in." Huh? It's a very important word, the word "in," or the phrase "to be in," right? And he distinguishes in the treatise on place place eight different senses of the word "in" or "to be in," huh? Okay. But he doesn't order the eight senses, huh? Okay. And Thomas Aquinas, in his exposition there of the fourth book, he says, "Well, we're going to see the order of these meanings now, in the way that Aristotle sees the order of the meanings of beginning, let's say, in the fifth book of wisdom, right?

[44:52] Okay. Now, this doesn't mean that Aristotle undoubtedly knew the order of these meanings, but he doesn't happen to give it there, right? We have. So Thomas figures out, thinks out the order of the eight meanings in the same way that Aristotle thinks out the order of the meanings of beginning or the meanings of the word "end" or "limit" in the fifth book, huh? Now, this is one of those words where we name something that can be sensed, and then we carry over to things that are less sensed or can't be sensed at all, but by a certain what?

[45:32] Likeness, huh? Okay. And likeness, kind of a ratio. And so Thomas is going to start with the meaning that is most obvious to our senses and our experience, huh? And then he's going to order all the meanings going forward from that, the one that is most like the first meaning, and then gradually move away from it, huh? Okay. Now,

[46:11] meaning that is most clear to our senses is the one we'd be concerned with, huh? In place, right? It's the very first meaning of "in."

[46:23] In, like, for example, you and I are in the room, right? Okay. But more strictly speaking, we're in a particular part of the room, right? Okay. That's what's easiest for senses to to get at, right? Okay. My water is in my glass, right? Okay. Now,

[46:52] second sense he gives is that of an ordinary part is in a whole, like my teeth are in my mouth. That's it, right? Okay. Part in the whole. Now, this is very much like the first sense. And if you were to hit me in the mouth and loosen my teeth, so I could take them in and out, my teeth would be in my mouth as what? In place.

[47:32] In a place, and no longer as a part in a whole a hole, right? Huh? If I could take my little saw here and cut a hole here, right here in the middle of your table, and that piece I could take up and then put back in again, right? Like a little chie, you know, my grandfather and all of us followed too. You know, there's all these things we put the the thing in the square peg in the square hole and the round thing, right?

[47:58] But during the rest in a place, right? Okay. So if you just cut this out, then you can take it in and what? Take it out, right? And it's in there as in a what? Place, right? Okay. So someone's got false teeth. Their teeth are in their mouth as a what? In place. Yeah, yeah. Of course, the stuff they get to get some of the advertising on TV.

[48:21] Something. What's a blue dalmatian pineapple or something? My dad has always told me you want to save your natural teeth, right? You know, keep them in good condition. You know, you want to. You never quite get these false teeth to work properly. But to try to, in a sense, get back to what the second sense, right? By something that kind of attaches it, right? Okay.

[48:48] And so you know, sometimes you hear about these dental surgery where they're going to implant a tooth in your mouth, right? Huh? They do that now, right? Huh. And then the thing really grows and you've got what? It's really a part of your mouth now, right? Okay. And you know these things that you know, heart transplants and liver transplants and all the other transplants, right? Of course, the body, you know, usually tries to reject these things because they're an alien, right?

[49:15] But something they can overcome that to some extent. So you can see how close this what second sense is to the what first sense, right? Okay. Because

[49:30] once the part is is is no longer attached to the whole of which is a part, it seems to be in there simply as in a what? Place, right? Yeah. Do you see that? Yeah.

[49:51] Now the third meaning that he does, huh? Kind of striking that he does, huh? Because it's something really in the mind, huh? The sense in which a genus is in the what species, huh?

[50:16] And in general, a part of a definition is what in the definition, right? Okay. Part of definition in the definition. Now notice, the definition is a whole, right? It's composed of the genus and the what differences, right? So the definition, let's say, of square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, right? It's a whole composed of those three parts, right? And so we could say. Quadrilateral is in. It's nowhere in now.

[51:03] It is in the definition of what? Square. It's in the species square, right? Okay. And likewise, the differences are in there, right? What's the fourth sense of

[51:27] the genus? Species in the genus, huh? And I gotta ask, why is why is that not three? Rather than three. Yeah. I would have thought four was three and three was four, so. Okay. Well, notice, huh? The original meaning of whole is what we call the composed whole, the whole that is put together from its parts. Okay. Okay. But then sometimes later on we call universal a whole, but a universal whole, right?

[52:00] It's not put together from its parts, but it is what said of its parts, huh? Okay. Okay. And you know we tend to use the word general and the word what particular, right? Okay. And the particular, as you can see in English word particular, the Latin word, it comes from the word for part, right? So the particular is like a part of the what general, right? And of course the text we saw in Aristotle earlier, the general particular, right?

[52:32] The Greek word for general there is katholou, catholic, right? But catholic katholou in Greek means according to the whole. You see the word whole right in the word katholou, just like we see the word part in the word what particular. Okay. So you can say dog is a part of what animal, right? Okay. But it's a different kind of whole and part. See. But the the definition is still a what composed whole.

[53:05] So this kind of a whole is more like the original sense of whole than is the what universal. See the word cat is composed of c a and t, right? Okay. So c is in the word cat, right? It's a part in the whole. And the definition, right, of square is composed of these three words, right? Equilateral, right angle, quadrilateral, right. Okay. But the genus, like animal, is not composed of dog, cat, and horse, is it?

[53:51] Otherwise, to say a dog is an animal would be to say a dog is something composed of dog, cat, horse, elephant, right? But it's said of its parts, right, huh? Okay.

[54:04] But nevertheless, we sometimes speak of the species as if it were particular, and the genus is general. In fact, they have the same root there: genus in general, right? And we speak of the universal whole. So it's in some way like a part in a whole, right? But a much different sense of whole than the composed whole. So this kind of whole is more like that. It's composed whole, right?

[54:26] Okay. And this is not a composed whole, but it's a universal whole. Okay. So that's the. Those are two different kinds of genus. No, no, no, no. Two different senses of in, though, right? Oh. See. So genus is in species in one way, of being in, and species is in the genus in another way. Okay. And notice how when we speak in daily speech, yeah, we might say, you know, um,

[55:03] uh, in the definition of square, I would put quadrilateral, wouldn't you? And I'd put equilateral in, put in. I do. The definition, right? Okay. But then we might use that same phrase. Um. I would put um, dog, uh, in the genus animal, and I'd put tree in the genus not animal, but I put in the genus plant, wouldn't you? Mm-hmm. Right. And I'd put courage in the genus.

[55:37] Virtue, wouldn't you? See. And so we speak of putting in, right? Okay. But the sense in which dog is an animal, and the sense in which animal is a dog, is a different sense of in, right? Mm-hmm. Animal is in dog is a defining part of of what a dog is, huh? A dog is a four-footed animal that barks or something like this, right? Okay.

[56:07] That's not the way that dog is an animal. Dog is not a defining part of animal, all is it? Okay. But in some sense, you might say that dog is a part of animal, right? It's a particular animal, right? Do you see that?

[56:26] So it's just something of the idea of part in a whole, right? But the species in the genus is interesting, right? Because is the species actually in the genus? No. No. Remember the the difficulty there of our good friend John Locke, right? Huh? Where he wanted to put equilateral and isosceles and scalene actually in what? Triangle in general, it's all none of these things, he says. Yeah.

[57:02] But actually, equilateral. And isosceles and scalene are in triangle in general only in what ability ability yeah yeah and that leads on to the next meaning now right which is a sense in which form is in what in matter see

[57:27] yeah thinking you know of a form at first is only in the matter in what ability right of course notice the word species of course or the Greek word eidos is about the idea of a form isn't it

[57:47] in fact in English we can use either word right and we might say that democracy is one what species of government right if one uses a Latin word or the Greeks would say it's one eidos right in the genus in the genus right we may also say that democracy is one form of what government right okay

[58:12] so notice this is not so much like a part in a whole in any sense right but it's like this in so far as a species is in the genus in ability and the form is in the matter what in ability right okay so this is like that meaning there right

[58:37] now it always struck me you know that only Thomas probably is the only guy who could have after Aristotle I should say who could have ordered these meanings right because it strikes me how form and matter is something in a way in a sensible world isn't it it's like you have a piece of clay in one of various shapes why these senses here are more in the mind right and it's very strange that the sense in the mind should be before the sense in the what yeah and in the sensible world right but you don't realize how obscure matter really is right and but in terms of the likeness here you can see how this meaning is more like a part in a whole than

[59:27] this is but this meaning is more like that than this is because this is actually in there and this is only in there in ability and this is like that it's in ability right so it's it's exactly where it should be in the middle right but it's very interesting when you when you talk to somebody

[59:47] you say to somebody like this you say um suppose you have a piece of clay right in the shape of a sphere and then you mold it into a cube right What has changed—the clay or its shape? What would the average guy say? Do you think? Would you probably say he's nuts? It's my test for acting, huh? Shape. I'd say the the shape had changed, wouldn't you?

[1:00:15] Huh? Wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah. Even the way we speak today, we might say, you know, the weather has changed, right? Rather than say the air has changed, right? Okay.

[1:00:35] Now, what has changed? When you say that the shape has changed, you're imagining the what? Genus to be what is changing? You're saying the shape—that's the genus, right—has changed from C to what Q, right? As if the genus has changed from one species to the other. That's not what's going on at all, is it? It's the matter, the clay that has changed, not substantially, but accidentally, right? The cha- it's the clay that was a sphere that now is a cube, right?

[1:01:12] It's not the genus shape that used to be one of its species and now the other species, right? You see the idea? It's very striking. I remember When I first noticed this, you know, when I was presenting to my brother Richard there, and the other guy now, he's got struck by that, right? You know, it's interesting that in our very way of speaking, we tend to think of this before that, right?

[1:01:40] His attitude has changed. We sometimes say, right? Or his mood has changed, right? Has his mood changed? Has the genus changed from one species to the other? Huh? It doesn't change his mood, right?

[1:02:14] It's you that changed from being sad to being joyful, or vice versa, or something, right? Being upset to not being so upset about something, right? Huh? See, it's not your mood that has changed.

[1:02:33] You know, virtue and vice are habits, right? Now, when I go from being virtuous to being vicious, has my habit changed? No, I've gone from being virtuous to being what? Vicious. I'm the one that's changed, right? The genus habit has not changed, right? Right? Yeah. You say that the quality of soul has changed from happy to anger. Yeah, we speak that way, right? But it's not really the quality.

[1:03:08] It's not. That's the genus, isn't it? Yeah, the genus has not changed from one species to the other. Right. But the individual has changed, maybe accidentally, not substantially in this case, right? But the individual who has changed. See,

[1:03:28] did you change? Did the condition of your body change from sick to healthy? Or did you change from sick to healthy? I'm still sick. I'm still in ability, but I'm in motion.

[1:03:49] But the genus. So we're thinking of the genus as kind of a matter. Yeah, yeah, but again, that shows the likeness of the two, right? See,

[1:04:00] you know, when a person blushes, right? We might say what the color of his face changed, right? From white to crimson red or something, right? Embarrassed by something, right?

[1:04:15] But has the color of his face changed, or has his face changed? his face changed? Yeah, the face that was white that is now red, right? Huh? It's not the genus color that was one of its species and now is the other.

[1:04:34] See, but we're having to speak the way, aren't we? Huh? The color changed, huh? See, the color's different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the face that's different.

[1:04:52] Because two colors are different to begin with, right? Two species of color are different to begin with, right? But my face is different now than it was before, right? It was white before, now it's red, or you know. You

[1:05:13] see, the weather's changed. I think you're speaking that same way, right? As if the genus, right? The weather was good, now it's bad, or the weather was bad, and now it's good, right?

[1:05:27] That's kind of a you know, you start to think, you realize that Thomas has ordered these things perfectly, right? You see little things like that.