Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
59. Time, Metaphor and Boethius: Measuring Time and the Numbering Soul
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/059-time-metaphor-and-boethius-measuring-time-and-the-numbering/

[0:00] See, and as Thomas explains in the commentary there in the second book of the metaphysics, men have sometimes by what birth, right, a different a different. Okay, shall we say a little prayer?

[0:19] In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, Lord illuminate our images, and allow us just to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Prayer for us. Help us to understand what you've written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. We have the reading in Mass today from Daniel there where the three are in the furnace there.

[0:49] We put three in there. and there's a fourth one in there. He looks like the Son of God, but he's an angel, just you know, protecting them there in the fire. So, handy ones to have around, those angels.

[1:04] Before we come back to time here, I was going to give a little bit of the Pope's address here to representatives from the world of culture, art, and science at the Palace of Congresses in Astana, Kazakhstan, during his pastoral visit. That was in September this, September 24th.

[1:28] He's quoting one of their writers or thinkers. Huh? One of your country's great thinkers, the teacher Abai Kunanbai, whom I've never heard of, but put it this way, and he quotes him. This is in quotes. A man cannot be a man unless he perceives the evident and the hidden mysteries of the universe.

[2:02] Unless he seeks an explanation for everything, anyone who fails to do this is no different from the animals. God distinguished man from the animals by giving him a soul.

[2:22] It is absolutely necessary that we constantly extend our interests, increasing the knowledge which nourishes our souls. It is important to realize that the goods of the soul are Are incomparably superior to the benefits of the body, and that carnal needs should be subordinated to the imperatives of the soul. Nice thing fits in very nicely with Socrates there in the Apology there, where he's always examining the Athenians about preferring the goods of the body and exterior goods to the goods of the soul.

[3:02] But also, this difference between man and the other what animals in terms of reason, huh? Now here's some other quotes. I'm just going to give them just a second, but you know one thing here about the next part that we're he compares it to something in the Gospels, huh? You don't know in these translations, you know, that people things what languages given in and so on, and a lot of times I think when they stick in the translation, they just take the current one that they're using in the church today, right?

[3:37] In America, you know, it's kind of inappropriate. You go back to the texty, right? Because in the quote from from him, he's talking about the soul, right? So holy father says, "How can we not appreciate the profound wisdom of these words?" He says, which seem like a commentary on the disturbing question asked by Jesus in the Gospel, and he quotes Mark eight, the verse thirty six. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?

[4:11] But in in the Greek there, right? You had the word, what? Soul. Yeah, yeah. And so you hear that other quote, What's it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of himself? But the Greek is what soul, right?

[4:28] So I mean, you know, obviously making connection between that text and this one, and and I know what version he used or what the translation that he did was, but certainly the translation you have here, which is the one that is must be common now in in the readings at you know in the parishes and so on. That that word soul has become a a non-person, right?

[4:50] A non-word. Yeah, that's unfortunate. Maybe we'll do some things in the philosophy of the soul, right? From the three books about the soul until we get through with Natural Philosophy. Now the next quote that he has from Abai Kunanbai. If this is a quote again, if the heart no longer aspires to anything, who can unveil its thought? If reason abandons itself to desire, it loses all its depth.

[5:27] According to somebody coming to the house there, you know, and I was comparing it to this fragment that we have from Heraclitus. You know, where he speaks of you would not come to the end of the soul no matter which direction you traveled. So deep is its the reason, right? So if reason abandons itself to desire, maybe means emotion here, especially, huh? It loses all its depth.

[5:56] Interesting, huh? Can a pupil worthy of this name do without reason? That's the end of that second quote he has from him, huh? And then later on, he has a a third quote from this

[6:15] Abai Kunanbai. All people, whatever their religion, attribute to God love and justice. Love and justice are the origin of humanity. Those in whom sentiments of love and justice prevail are the truly wise.

[6:35] I don't know if this guy may be you know Islamic you know because he's you know speaking you know well you don't actually have to give the church respect for authentic Islam right but but interesting interesting there no clue if he's ancient or modern it doesn't it doesn't identify when exactly he he was I don't think so here how you spell his name doctor ah the first name the first name is Abai A B A I and the second one is K U N A N B A I

[7:22] one the first quote is from the sayings of Abaya second was from his so-called poems and the third one again was from the sayings of Abai this is in Kazakhstan where the holy father was yeah yeah you know if the pope speaks this is like the March April this year edition but it's always what giving you a sample from three or four months or so back you know so these ones are from well that one's from September twenty fourth you know

[8:04] okay so we wanted to say a few more things about time and then about eternity right now three things perhaps we could talk about a bit regard to time

[8:27] and one is what motion do you take for measuring time another question is what it is to be in time right and then a third thing that Aristotle would come back to in some of the readings we didn't see is what we saw in the problem in the beginning about the existence of time and he raises the question would time be Without the numbering soul, without the rational soul, the soul that numbers.

[9:17] What does it mean to be in time? Right. What means to be what? To be measured by time. Um. So, what is it for your life, for my life, to be in time? Right. Well, it's measured by time, right? It has a beginning and a what? End in time, huh? Okay. That's important. Remember when we talk later on the definition of eternity, huh? Because God's life is not in time, right?

[9:58] It's not measured by time. It doesn't have a beginning and an end in time. Some, but some people's life is longer, and some is shorter, right? In my lifetime, I was able to go to the bicentennial of the birth of Mozart, and they had, you know, in Minneapolis there they had two concerts devoted entirely to Mozart. But then I was also around for the bicentennial of the what?

[10:34] Death of Mozart. Where they, you know, in New York, New York, they performed every piece of Mozart that they have. Okay. And my oldest was at West Point at the time, and they had in the fall they had, you know, the Marriage of Figaro, and in the spring the the Magic Flute, right? Yeah, they brought there from the New York City Opera and so on. So Mozart's life, right, much shorter than my life, huh?

[11:06] But his life was what measured by time, right? Okay. It had a beginning and an end in time. Okay. Now, because time is a measure, the other question that we asked, um, time was defined as what the number of the before and after in motion, or the number of motion according to the before and after in motion. But you take just any motion in order to measure time.

[11:48] Well, in general, you look for a measure. What do you look for in a measure? Standard. Yeah. You want something that is kind of invariant, right? Yeah. And perhaps simple too, huh? So would you measure distance by using a rubber binder or something

[12:13] that gets longer and shorter as it's being used? If you stretch around various things, it becomes longer or shorter. You try to take something that what seems inelastic, at least compared to other things, right? Yeah. Not getting longer or what shorter?

[12:37] Clothing stretches sometimes in time, right? Especially eat too much or something. Okay. Stockings, you know, they get you know longer and shorter, huh? Sometimes an old shoe is more comfortable than a new one because it's got stretched, right? So you don't want something like that, huh? So in ancient times, and for most of man's life, what did they take as the motion to use for this?

[13:10] Yeah, the motion of the sun around the earth, or at least the apparent motion of the sun around the earth, right? That seemed to be very regular, right? Okay, and not going faster or slower, like when I walk or you walk, right? Or if you take a stone falling to the ground, you know it it seems to fast as it falls, right? Okay, so this motion or apparent motion of the sun around the earth seems to be very what regular, right?

[13:38] Okay, and also you know it's swift, right? But also, what's the third thing that it has? What seems to be continuous? Huh? So that you can what

[13:56] you know just go and then come back again, you know. Maybe you stop there at the end a little bit, but it can be what continuous? Huh?

[14:09] Now, you know the question of whether the motion or the apparent motion of the sun around the earth is the is the best standard to use, right, for time, is really a question more for experimental science than for the philosophy of nature based on our common experience. It's quite possible that they might find something that would be a better what measure, right? But in ancient times, there seemed to be an additional reason to take the motion of the sky around us because that seemed to be in some way a cause of the changes down here, and so in terms of the weather and so on, right?

[14:50] And in terms of generation and you know plants, right, and growing and so on, sun seemed to have a lot to do with this, huh? So it seemed to be a motion also that was a cause in some way of other motions. So that was maybe an additional reason, huh? Okay.

[15:10] So now the most interesting question is the third question that I raised, and that is the question of Aristotle asks it later on in the same treatise on time, not friendship, on on time, and that is: Would there be time without the numbering soul?

[15:33] Because time is defined as a number, right? Now Aristotle sees a distinction between time and numbers, like say the number of chairs in this room, right? If none of us were in this room and none of us had counted the what chairs in this room, it would still make some sense to say there's a number of chairs in this room, right? Okay. Because all the chairs in this room.

[16:04] Exist in this room, right? But now this number that is time—could you take, say, three years, right? Or three days, right? Or even three minutes, right? But any number like that that is time is a number of things that are before and after, and therefore don't really what exist together, right?

[16:38] I mean, take a strange example. I mean, not exactly the same thing here, but suppose one of us came into this room by himself, and then he left by the door over here, and someone else came into this room by himself, right, and then left by the door over there, right? And each one of us, huh? Well, could you say that there was eight of us in this room today?

[17:11] Was there ever eight of us in this room? Because you left before he came in, and he left before you came in, and so on. There really never was eight people in this room, was there?

[17:30] When was there eight people in this room? But is not even one day or one hour or one minute of time that's ever here, because time always has a before and after, and the before and after don't exist what together, right?

[17:57] Thomas has a interesting thing to say there in the beginning of the Summa Theologiae. that first question of the Summa, where he raises one among the questions about how one speaks and thinks in theology and sacred doctrine. He has an article there on whether sacred scripture should use metaphors. You've seen that sometime. And as you know, in the Summa Theologiae, you have kind of a contraction there of the quaestio disputata, so you have usually maybe three or four objections, right?

[18:35] Usually against what he's going to be determining in the body of the article, and one of the objections against their sacred scripture using metaphors is drawn from the common saying in the medieval times that the poetry is what infima doctrina. Okay, infima doctrina, meaning that is what the lowest teaching, right? Infima doctrina, the lowest teaching.

[19:19] The Greeks said Homer was the teacher of all the Greeks, right? Okay, but then sacra doctrina is the what highest teaching. Of course, it especially fits poetry down here,

[19:45] fiction, to use the what metaphor, right? And so the objection is, it seems inappropriate for the highest teaching, right, to use what the very lowest teaching uses, with all these things in between, like geometry doesn't use metaphors, natural philosophy doesn't use metaphors, right? When Aristotle talks about defining, says you can't define by metaphors, right, and so on. So all these intermediary sciences don't use metaphors, huh? Just that lowest one, the one in the basement that uses these metaphors, huh?

[20:24] And so it seems inappropriate then for Sacra Doctrina to use what is appropriate to the what lowest, huh? Okay. Now, what's the reply that Thomas gives to that?

[20:43] What's the reply he gives to that? Metaphors are often used for things that are not well known to us. Okay. Because they're above, or because they're above. Yeah. So he sees a distinction, right, huh? That Sacra Doctrina is talking about things that are what, to a large extent, above our mind, right? Yeah. While poetry is talking about things that are really below our mind.

[21:33] Mm. And therefore, they have something in common that they're about something in a way beyond, right, our mind, right? But for exactly in a sense the opposite reasons, huh? One is above our mind, the other is below our mind, huh? Mm. So our mind, so to speak, is is in the middle here, right? And so the Sacra Doctrina it uses metaphors to bring things up to our level, then, okay?

[22:07] And Sacra Doctrina or the Bible right? It uses metaphors to what bring them down in a way to our level, right? Okay. This is the way he solves that what objection, huh? Okay.

[22:27] Of course, there's many reasons why we use metaphors in scripture, but as far as this objection is concerned, that's the distinction that he he brings out, huh?

[22:37] Okay. And I think that's important. That Thomas has given us an important thing there for understanding not only you know the use of metaphors in scripture, but also for understanding not only the use of metaphors down here, but also understanding what is characteristic of great poetry, great fiction, if you wish, huh? And that is that it's making things more what

[23:09] understandable, more intelligible, more knowable. More reality, therefore, right? Than they really have. It's very interesting thing that he's doing, huh? Okay, and you can see that in other things besides the metaphor.

[23:31] Sometimes I take a whole example, but if you're familiar with Charles Dickens, huh? And his novels and so on, huh? And when he's, you know, describing the house of of an old miser, right? Penny pinching, right? But even the furniture in his house starts to look kind of what pinched and tight and so on. And and his chairs and everything seem to somehow what have more meaning, right?

[24:10] Than the chairs in real life would have, huh? They seem to have something of his what very character, right, huh? Or like in Bleak house there, where you're dealing in that famous novel Dickens, we're dealing partly with the decaying English what aristocracy, huh? You have the summer home there and the country home there, you know, where the wood is rotting and the rain is falling and things are are seem to have more meaning, right?

[24:41] See? And Aristotle makes a point something like this in the book on the poetic art, now, where he he talks about well, kind of a very simple example from some work in Greek fiction, where a famous man or a great man is what assassinated, right? Or and but no one knows who has what killed him, right? But because of this, he is what

[25:15] a statue set to him in the marketplace, huh? And one day there's a big festival in the marketplace. There's a huge crowd there, and the crowd is swaying. And the crowd, you know, is pressing up against the statue, and the statue what falls over on top of somebody and kills them.

[25:37] Guess what man it was that is killed? The man who had what assassinated, anyway. Now, when you see that, there seems to be some meaning in this event, right? See? But in real life, when a statue like that is you know knocked over, could fall on anybody. Doesn't mean any particular what reason why it fell on this person rather than that person doesn't have any meaning, right?

[26:09] See? But the fact that it fell. Upon this man, huh? The man in fact who had killed him. There seems to be some deep meaning to that, right? Okay.

[26:26] And when Caesar was what assassinated, right? I don't know if it's historical or not. It's supposed to have been what? Nearly statue of what Pompey, whom he himself had eliminated, right? See, seems to be some meaning to it, huh?

[26:48] Or, or take an example any more known to you, the one from Romeo and Juliet, right? At the end of Romeo and Juliet, you know the the Duke there, the ruler of the city, right? You know, where are you, Montague? you know, come here, you know. And of course, he's upgrading them, huh? And they've been having this feud for what generations, right? He says, "Heaven has found me to punish you for your hatred, right?

[27:16] By what the death of the only son and the only what daughter, right? That kind of reconciles them, right? See, but they seem to be being what punished, right? For their hatred by their the one's only son and the other's only daughter, right? Falling in love and the tragic death of them because of the enmity of the two families, right? There seems to be some meaning in this, doesn't it?

[27:47] Okay. Um, yeah, something like this too in painting, where you get Titian or somebody who's a great portrait artist, right? And he's trying to capture the whole character of somebody in what

[28:12] one expression, as it were. And it's kind of remarkable thing you see a great portrait painter like Titian. They seem to give what more meaning to a man's face and expression on it than any expression in daily life has of the man You know, when you talk to somebody and you see them in different circumstances, and they laugh, and when they're you know sad, and all these other things, right?

[28:44] And you gradually start to kind of see what kind of a person they are by the way they react to different things and so on, huh? And I know a lot of times, you know, I have students sitting in class in front of me, you know, And sometimes, you know, for one reason or another, they have to come to the office, you know, and we have a little more, you know, personal conversation and so on, right?

[29:04] And they seem to come alive, you know. I mean, this blank face that's been staring at me for half of the semester now seems to have meaning and. You know, it seems to have some reality, you know,

[29:20] and it has some contact with reality too, and so on. I mean, but as a talkative person, you see them reacting to things you say and things that they laugh about, and so on. And but the portrait painter, he's trying to find right or put an expression. He's trying to capture the whole character of that man in this one what picture, right?

[29:45] You know, I don't think you like the Mona Lisa, but I mean, it's a common example, you know, of how people, you know, write books and articles as to what the smile of Mona Lisa means, right? And there was a while to revive it. You know, I remember years ago, Time Magazine, you know, had a whole series of articles, and and medical doctors are writing in as to what it meant the smile on her face, and all kinds of people got theories, and and and recently there was another, you know, crazy theory.

[30:11] I don't even want to mention it. But You know, but you see, it seems to be right more meaning in that smile than what people can quite express, right? And the same way, you know, with the music of Mozart, you know, you hear many of these melodies of Mozart, and they seem to have so much meaning you can't quite say it, right? But it gives you that impression that he's taking, you know, ordinary emotions that, like in the operas that you meet in daily life and so on, all of a sudden they seem to be what filled much more meaning than anything.

[30:57] Huh? Some people say that the origin and history of the Iliad really is some maybe maybe a pirate raid or something like that, right? When Homer gets to representing this, right, it's a it's an image of what the whole struggle of mankind, right, and the whole life of man, right, and you know, like Job says, our life on earth is a warfare, right? It seems to be, you know, raising things up, huh?

[31:26] Okay. In that sense, you know, a work like Dante's Divine Comedy or a work like Milton's Paradise Lost is not really so characteristic of what fiction, right? In a sense, Dante is is trying to do something more like what we do in what sacred scripture, right? You're trying to bring something down, right? You see these, you know, the saints are in heaven there, right, and of course their their joy and and their vision and so on is is beyond our understanding, right?

[32:03] Eye has not seen nor ear heard right? But he's got to put it in front of your imagination, right? So he's got to bring this down in some sort of way. You know how he does it now with the rose and so on to be beautiful, right? But in a sense, you know, putting things down, right? And that's not really proper fiction, right? That's kind of a what fiction trying to imitate scripture, right?

[32:27] And the same way for for Milton, that is good, obviously Paradise Lost, but I mean that sort of thing, right? But you can't, yeah, you can't set those aside. It's not what's really characteristic of fiction. You go to Homer and say, "Yeah, that's what it's all about, right? " He's making things have more meaning or seeming to have more meaning, right, more significance than they really do.

[32:52] And one example of this too, I mean, that characterizes good fiction, and Homer is the first man to realize it. In a sense, at least when Aristotle speaks of it, he says Homer taught all the other Greeks how to make a good plot, and Homer saw that a good plot. Had to be a course of action that had a beginning, a middle, and an end, right? So Homer didn't write about the whole history of the Trojan War, that ten-year long war, right?

[33:22] He just chose what? Well, this historically part of the battle, right? But he chose a course of action that had a beginning, a middle, and a what? End. He didn't write in his second work that we have of him, the Odyssey, there, right? He didn't try to give an account of the whole life of Odysseus, right? But he dealt with a course of action that had a beginning, a middle, and a what?

[33:48] End. But notice if you realize that reason looks before and after, right? That order is what makes things understandable. Beginning, middle, and end, right? That's not the way our life is. In fact, you see, our life is more like the like the newspaper, right? We have all kinds of things going on that don't really what have much connection with each other. Don't have a beginning, a middle, and a what?

[34:15] End. So the the poet is is giving things more intelligibility. Do you see that? No. All that because of this question, I'm saying now. When Shakespeare says in the sonnet there, he's giving a simile, instead of metaphor, but it's similar. He says, "Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, right? So do our minutes hasten to their end, each changing place with that which goes before, in sequent toil all forwards do contend.

[34:55] " So he's simulating the minutes of our time to the ways coming to the shore. But which has more reality? Which has more existence? The multitude of ways, the number of ways, if you wish, or the number that is time, which has more being, existence.

[35:17] Yeah, yeah. Because you can see to some extent a number of ways coming in. You know, it's down the ocean here in Florida with the grandchildren, right? You can see that you know, the waves coming in, right? So it's not just the waves crashing against the shore, but in a way the next two or three waves are there already, right? See. But the next two or three days are not out there in the hall waiting to come in, are they?

[35:39] Waiting their turn, so to speak, right? They don't strictly speaking exist at all yet, huh? Okay. So any number of time, you're numbering things that are not what? There.

[35:55] Right. See. As opposed to the number of chairs in this room, right? Yeah. What Aristotle is saying is that the number of chairs in this room. You can speak more of a there being a number of chairs in this room, even though we haven't counted them, right? And you can speak of a number of days, or a number of years, or number of minutes, right? Number of hours, because that number would not be without what?

[36:27] I remember yesterday, right? And I am anticipating tomorrow, and I speak well yesterday and today and tomorrow are three days, right? But yesterday isn't here, and tomorrow isn't here, and even all today isn't here for that matter, but right? Okay. Or if I talk about if I talk from two to five, right? Well, I mean two hours, but but we know those three hours here, you know.

[36:52] Now it's between two and three, and three and four is not here yet, and four and five is not here yet, and not even all between two and three is here, is it?

[37:04] So, in a way, when you speak of three days, you are speaking as if there there there are three days, right? Why are there three days? No, hardly at all, right? You know. So Aristotle is saying is that that time would barely be, it would hardly be, without the what? Numbering soul, right?

[37:34] There never would be what? Three days, right? Without a soul to what? Number them, right? Because three days never exist. So it's only one day at a time, and even that doesn't exist, really. Do you see that?

[37:58] And notice the same thing could be said in a way about what motion, right? That motion never is what fully there. And so later on, when when we

[38:14] when we reason from say motion to the unmoved mover, we're reasoning from what hardly exists, right? The one who said "I am who am right? But it's a the most extreme example, you might say, of what Aristotle taught at the beginning of the first book there of Natural hearing, first book of the Physics. And what is more known to us, right, is less known by nature, right?

[38:51] And what is more known by nature, right, is less known to us, right? But here you are kind of taking extremes. This is most known to us, motion,

[39:05] and therefore it seems most real to us because most known to us, but it's the least real almost of things. It's the least actual, I should say, of all acts.

[39:20] Matter, of course, is not even actual considered by itself. But we go from the act, which is the least actual of all acts, to the act, which is what pure act,

[39:34] and therefore we go from what is least knowable to what is most knowable. What is least knowable is most knowable through what? Through acts. It's a very strange

[39:52] thing. Of course, Aristotle talks in the second book of Wisdom about the cause of difficulty. Says sometimes the difficulty in knowing is in us, and that's the difficulty in knowing God. weakness of our mind. Sometimes it's in the thing, right? The weakness of the thing, it hardly. Is Hardly anything to be known there. So you have one kind of difficulty here, another kind of difficulty here, right? And see how people have a difficulty going from one to the what other, right?

[40:30] Huh? Have a very great difficulty of one kind here at the end, another kind of difficulty. It's an even greater difficulty as Aristotle says in the second book of wisdom, huh? In fact we better have ourselves huh, but right here we're just talking about what Aristotle says. He comes back to what he said before, right? You know those projections that seem to indicate that time doesn't exist, right?

[40:56] Okay. And the same thing he said about motion, right? Where's my motion from here to that post exist, right? Well, part of it's always gone by; it doesn't exist anymore, and part of it is still to be. And how much motion is ever fully there? Any amount of motion at all? Well, the motion of going just one inch, or a half of an inch, or a quarter of an inch, or an eighth of an inch, or a tenth of an inch.

[41:23] If it's any distance at all, then I'd be here and there at the same time, right? Which is impossible, right? And see why people would, you know, say it doesn't exist, right? What Aristotle is saying is that it barely exists, huh?

[41:50] But as Ulysses says in Shakespeare's play, there, things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs. So that since our knowledge starts with our senses, motion seems to be what's most what known to us, huh? What grabs our attention at first, huh? And that's why that study of not only what motion is, but what's found in motion and becoming that we've made already is is so basic in our thinking.

[42:22] Okay. So now let's talk about what eternity, right? Now the the definition of eternity that Thomas discusses comes from. Boethius and comes from a very famous work of Boethius, which is called the Consolation of Philosophy. Now, Boethius, as a young man, went down and studied in Alexandria there with the Neocentonists, huh? With maybe Ammonius there, huh? Ammonius Hermaeus, huh? he learned Plato and Aristotle and so on.

[43:45] And he wrote a number of works. I don't know. Have you read any works by Boethius? I've read the Consolation of Philosophy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's perhaps the most famous one, right? And what famous poet there translated into English at his time?

[44:21] Chaucer, right? Oh, okay. I guess Queen Elizabeth I was doing it like a translation too. Okay. Now this is considered to be Boethius's last work. I mean, Boethius kind of took seriously Plato's idea that until philosophers are kings or kings are philosophers, you'll have bad what government, right? So he went into government service there, right? Under the Ostrogoths, I guess it was. And but he was a very what just man, and so he's always stopping people who are trying to what plunder the people and so on.

[45:11] So because of his justice, he made what many enemies, huh? And so they ganged up in him finally, and had him imprisoned on false charges and so on. And eventually, he was what executed. Yeah, yeah. And there was a you know local cult, you know, which Oh, he was single, right? he's never been formally you know canonized or anything like that, but but the Rome has has recognized the fact that there was a local cult for him, right?

[45:45] So he has many famous works. He's going to try to make the whole of Aristotle's works available to the Latin world, and he translated a number of the what the logical works, you know. That's about as far as he got. But he has some famous translations of Aristotle's logical works, and then he has a number of works in his own, some in philosophy and some in what Theology.

[46:12] theology, yeah. And the definition of person, for example. That we have in theology also comes from what Boethius, huh? The his work on the Trinity there is one that Thomas started a commentary on it. You know, Thomas sometimes I have a whole page or two in the Marietti editions you know, which are fairly fine print, two or three pages on one word of Boethius, right,

[46:49] Of course, Monsignor Dionne, you know, used to compare the De Trinitate with the some of his things in logic, right? The De Trinitate is so excellent that Monsignor Dionne says it's the same as Boethius I don't believe it. " he says, "But he's kind of kidding about that, right? But the De Trinitate is really a tremendous, tremendous work of his, huh? But he's in the you know the tradition of I guess Augustine's on understanding of the Trinity what it is understanding of the Trinity what it is.

[47:21] Now, the Consolation of Philosophy is written, as they say, in prisoner, and it's written in the form of a what dialogue, right? So, Lady Wisdom, Wisdom is is female and what Latin, huh? Sapientia. Lady Wisdom comes down to what console, console in in prison there, and there is a a commentary on the Consolation of Philosophy that was attributed to Thomas, but nobody thinks it's by Thomas. But it's not it's not a bad commentary.

[47:55] I know my brother Mark used to use it sometimes, and he taught the Consolation of Philosophy, and I looked at it, and, so on. But what you have is kind of a dialogue between Boethius, who's of course upset that he's in prison and all these things, and Lady Wisdom trying to console him, right? And but in between each little section of dialogue there, there's what a poem, right, huh?

[48:24] Which has elaborate Latin meter and so on, huh? And so it's a very pleasing work to read, right? You have a little dialogue and then a poem and a dialogue and then the two are intertwined in their thought, huh? So

[48:43] the the early books of the Consolation of Philosophy are dealing with what mainly human happiness, right? True happiness and false happiness, huh? And Boethius talks about false happiness before he talked about true happiness because it's more known to us. That's interesting. How how Thomas even in the Summa Contra Gentiles, At the end of the first book, where he shows the happiness, the the attitude of God himself, right?

[49:16] And In terms of, you know, true happiness and so on. But then he says. Even if we look at this false happiness that men seek, right? And it shows how, God has everything that they seek in an abundant way, right? But they don't know where to find it. It's to be found in God.

[49:37] But the other problem in the Consolation of philosophy, besides understanding happiness, is trying to understand how good men can what suffer, right? Okay. And it kind of looks back in a way to Socrates there in the Apology. And Socrates, at the end of the Apology, has a very interesting statement there in his last words in the court, where he says that he doesn't think that God really allows bad men to harm a good man.

[50:12] Of course, it seems. that Socrates is obviously being what harmed, right, by these men, huh? But is he really being harmed by these men, huh?

[50:31] Well, that kind of raises the question there, right? In a Christian context, we say, is the martyr really being harmed or helped to a better place, a higher place in heaven, by those who are trying to what harm him, right? So, perhaps something of the same thing we said about Christ himself, right?

[51:04] But it's kind of interesting. Socrates professes, right? Because he's not doing so in terms of of Christian martyrdom or something like that. You know, when the execution there of Saint Thomas More, right? Of course, the executioner asked pardon, of, Thomas More, and Thomas More says, "Have no fear; he's sent me straight to heaven."

[51:32] So that's kind of unusual, right? So, we get into this discussion then of divine providence, right? This question of divine providence and the what problem of evil. That's a very difficult thing to what to discuss and to understand, huh?

[51:56] And I don't know if you ever seen the the dialogues of Augustine, the dialogues of Cassiciacum And there's there's three dialogues, right? The Vita Beata, I think, is the first one, and then the second was against the academics, and the third one is very mistranslated. On the third one, huh? But in the English editions of it, it's a divine providence, the problem of evil, something like that.

[52:25] They'll translate it. Well, in the dialogue, there is a discussion of that, right? But Augustine is trying to show his young friends in the in the dialogue that their minds are not really yet ready to discuss this.

[52:43] There's too many things that they have to understand before they can talk about that. Well, you see, the translators don't realize the purpose of the dialogue. Purpose of the dialogue is not to investigate to any extent the problem of divine providence and the problem of evil, how you can reconcile these evil in the world. But they see that that problem is discussed in the dialogue, so they want to give it a title, right?

[53:13] But you go back to the Latin text and what is the title of the work? Is that de ordine? De ordine, yeah, How, about order. And the whole point of the dialogue, in a sense, is to show that this question is what out of order, right? You see, until you know many other what things, it's a difficult question.

[53:46] That reminds me of that other phrase that I think I pointed out before here. How Augustine in the De Trinitate speaks of an immature and perverse love of reason, right?

[54:05] You suddenly have an immature and perverse love of reason when you are applying reason to things out of the order in which it has to consider them, and before it's ready to what to consider a certain question or problem. And I know myself when I am

[54:28] always getting, you know, free books in the mail, right? I only am going to order my students, you know, to buy their fifty dollars book or this. But I was getting free copies of introduction to philosophy books, right? And the way you know not all these, but most of them are, they're kind of you know arranged around problems, right? One of the problem might be you know the problem of evil, right?

[54:55] Another might be the existence of God, right? But all kinds of things that they are not ready, and obviously, freshman he doesn't know anything really philosophically speaking. It's not ready at all to discuss, right? And they're what plugging out for grabs, you might say, right? And

[55:17] what they're actually doing is trying to encourage a immature, perverse love of reason that I can think about anything, not knowing anything, right? And not even you know having learned logic and so on, right? And other things I need to know before I can discuss this.

[55:40] And so, anyway, in the last books here of the Consolation of Philosophy, five books, Boethius is getting into these questions of divine providence. I think the definition of providence, you know, comes from the Consolation of Philosophy too. And

[56:01] but then you get into questions of God's knowledge and so on, and does God know the future and all these sort of things, right? And it's in that context that Boethius has to

[56:17] very subtly, you, might say, start to follow Aristotle rather than what Plato, in one respect, huh? Because he has to defend that the past and the present and the future in time are all present to God in his what eternal knowledge, huh? And therefore, the way he knows is not what temporal at all, but he knows temporal in a non-temporal way. And so, the way he knows is not the way things are, and that, to many thinkers, starting with Plato to some extent, seems what to involve falsity, right?

[57:04] We saw that before, right? We talked about the difference between mathematics and natural philosophy. And Plato thought that if reason considered things in separation, truly they had to truly exist in separation.

[57:22] So we can come back that question a bit here. But at that point, Lady Wisdom, you know, announces Aristotle as her true follower. This is Aristotle as a true follower? So even though Boethius, in the first books of Constellation Philosophy, has kind of put himself as a student in the academy, right, and therefore in a way the school that is started by Plato, right, here he has to what follow Aristotle.

[57:51] Of course, Thomas follows him there. I was talking to a man the other day that just who's written a lot on Saint Augustine and so on, and and just you know, really, just kind of substance of or the parts, you might say, the the elements of Boethius' definition are already in Augustine, right? But Augustine doesn't really put together in a you know complete definition the way Boethius does, huh?

[58:20] And that's why Thomas goes back to Boethius because there it's it's spelled out in the complete definition. When Thomas talks say about what it is to believe, right? He goes back to exact words of Augustine, right? And that's the definition, right, that he takes of what is to believe, and then he what you know defends that definition and raises questions about it and so on. He's trying to understand Augustine's, but when it comes to eternity, he goes back to what Boethius, huh?

[58:51] When he's going to say what is a person, right? He goes back to the definition of Boethius. So there's a Constellation Philosophy, a whole mine, you might say, that they dug in the Middle Ages, and they're always pulling things out of it, right, that are you know useful for this or that part of philosophy, so. In my opinion, you know, Boethius is kind of the greatest mind in the church between St.

[59:15] Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. You know, the other greats very good too, but Boethius seems, you know, although he's very much involved and practical too. So I mean, he didn't maybe have as much, you know, time to go entirely through the life of the mind the way Thomas did, or. But I say I think he's really kind of the greatest mind in the church there between Augustine and Thomas.

[59:41] You know, but anyway. So when Lady Wisdom first comes down to Consolation of Philosophy, and you see this theta up here, and the pie down here, right? And the Theta represents, what theoretical philosophy that's above practical philosophy, right? You know, just like Mary has chosen the better part. You know, but the Greeks all thought the theoretical above the practical, but her garments are kind of torn. The commentator says, you know, that's to represent the fact that men, in battle for the truth, have got a part of it, and they kind of torn it apart, right?

[1:00:24] That's kind of interesting, the symbolism there.