Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
75. Nature and Reason: Distinction, Equivocal Names, and Why the Beginning Matters
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/075-nature-and-reason-distinction-equivocal-names-and-why-the/

[0:02] Customs that make you a good soldier don't necessarily make you a good citizen in a somewhat democratic environment. There, right? Custom is like a second nature. Custom, like nature, seems to be determined to one thing. So he makes that contrast between nature and soul.

[0:33] But what kind of distinction is that? And you get to the higher region of soul, you have reason and will, right? Sometimes the distinction between nature and reason, or between nature and will. Now, as you know, we've talked before how reason looks before and after. right? This is the very definition of reason, but included in the ability to look before and after is the ability to find the difference or distinction between things.

[1:26] So that comes before Shakespeare. who's looking for the difference between before and after. He's to Saint George, right? We're not sure he was born the 23rd but we know, he was baptized on the 26th. Custom in those days was to baptize you on the third day after your birth, So they generally think he was born on the 23rd, which is a perfect feast to send to George.

[1:58] It's a totally different time. Um, but in that same play after he denied Jesus, the heart's discourse before and after? Later on, Hamlet is talking about why he chose Horatio for his friend, his very close friend. He says, "Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, and could of men distinguish the soul of a baby is not yet mistress of the choice, because reason had not developed.

[2:52] " There he catches upon that before and after, and unless you can see the difference between Horatio. So you wouldn't see why he is a better choice as a friend.

[3:10] So Hamlet says, "Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, and could of men distinguish her election hath sealed thee for herself for thou hast been as one in suffering all that suffers nothing a man

[3:38] that fortune's buffets and rewards hast ta'en with equal thanks he says, "He. " goes on to say, "Give me that man that is not passion's slave. " and I will wear him in my heart's core in my heart of heart as I do thee Okay So thus he's seeing that the man who is not passion slave.

[3:59] is better than the man who is a passion slave, right? Whether he's a passion of his a slave of his anger, let's say, right, or passion of his lust, right, or passion of the desire to drink, or even a even a slave, or even a slave of his uh, fear or something of this sort, right? Not always a slave of his fear. So unless you can see this distinction among men that this man or that man is a slave of his passion, right?

[4:37] The Horatio is not a stable man in Kasurik. You wouldn't see that Horatio was a better man. than him or was a good friend, yeah.

[4:52] So distinction always comes before seeing some distinction always comes before seeing some order. As Thomas points out there in the sentences not in the entire text.

[5:08] sentences, where he says that order is defined by before and after, but presupposes what he says distinction. That's why in the two places where Aristotle distinguishes the senses of the word before

[5:32] the categories, and then the uh wisdom. Uh in both places, right before he does that, he distinguishes the senses of the word. opposed. Because all formal distinction is by um, consciousness. It's not by chance There's nothing does that.

[6:02] Now, um, it's not the fact that 6, 7, 8 today, we can't get to 6, 7, okay? See that that's wrong. But now, notice now, given the importance of distinction, these distinctions are extremely fundamental.

[6:26] And, uh, Aristotle for example, is distinguishing between natural philosophy and practical philosophy. He does the basic distinction between nature and choice. But now, if you misunderstand that distinction, you are in most. super useful. Yeah, yeah. Because as Plato and Aristotle teach this all the time, a mistake in the what? Beginning. and a great one. In the end, And they compare it to uh, taking the wrong road and forking the road.

[7:11] There's a little difference there. when you first make that turn. But. The further you go, the further you are from where you are. So it's because the beginning uh, contains a seed amongst everything else. you've done a little mistake there. It's terrible. right. now.

[7:37] That's one place where the wise man proceeds is, or proceeds wisely and slowly. It's been Thomas that gave the democracy. Because he proceeds wisely, and slow. on the most fundamental things like this, avoiding a mistake, right? Not everything that happens in the same way. nothing is more necessary. to positate than to kill a well. And nothing is more dangerous than to make a mistake. Martin Kennedy. Saint Augustine says, you know, the great deal is in the Kennedy, he says, the few to discover while there can be nothing for few to discover something has had a beginning where he didn't believe.

[8:43] He said, nowhere is it is asleep. He said, angels, to lose is another field, or angels in the state It's a, they bring their stuff as arche in the beginning. They're always going to be proper arche. I took a semester of college to picture them, you know, there's big problems in there. But they have that problem, arche. In the beginning, arche is half

[9:21] It's the beginning is half of all. right? And Plato and Aristotle hope that. And then they go on, Aristotle said, "Plato says, Socrates says, it seems to me to be more than half of all." And, uh, kind of, uh, interesting other that, uh, text I gave you from, uh, Carl Heisenberg there. One more, lecture that I want to get you right. Heisenberg was talking about the importance of asking the right question.

[9:57] He says, "you know To ask the right question."You often go more than halfway. I think it's very interesting because it casts a certain light there on the side that the beginning is half of all or more than half of all, right? Because a question would seem to be uh, the least of beginnings, There's nothing positive, right? It's not like

[10:33] something that you think is so, and so fundamental is going to give rise to all kinds of consequences and so on. right? The question is not asserting anything, right, And so it seemed to be at least the beginning, in the sense of the content.

[10:52] And yet, Heisenberg said, I think it's very true that to ask the right question is to go more than halfway to the solution. represented, as I say, by the straight line by which ignorance can enter into knowledge, right? Uh, line of the time, and the effort, and so on—necessary to get from ignorance to knowledge. Ask the right questions,

[11:23] It's not easy to see that. And that's why Socrates that's why Socrates, um, um, in the in the Meno, right? He can give the impression that a slave boy is recalling how to double a square, right?

[11:46] Because the way a double square comes out is answers. but really Socrates is doing most of the work by asking the right questions. And if you ask the right questions,

[12:04] then the student will appear to be teaching himself, and you will have the perfection of teaching. them. You know, we say that there are two ways of coming to what you don't know. One is to discover it yourself, and the other is to be taught it by someone who already knows about it. although you can distinguish those two ways, the second way should really imitate the first,

[12:35] and you can do that of course, especially when it's a one-to-one situation, like Socrates and the slave boy, right? And then, if the professor asks the right question, the next thing to be seen here, it's not too far for the student to see it. and he sees himself, right? And. Now you are imitating as much as possible, teaching them to actually discover it yourself. See, as man discovers it himself, he puts together what he already knows and come to see something else.

[13:15] he didn't know at first. In a sense, in asking the right question. The teacher is helping the student to see something. So let's go back to this. He said that some of us have discovered. So what? What does reason always see before it sees? order, right? What does reason always see before it sees beforehand?

[13:56] Well, the student, in some way knows, in fact, in some way we all know that nothing is before or after itself. It's kind of like an axiom, right?

[14:13] You can manifest that one way more distinctly than different senses of before. Today is before tomorrow, and after yesterday. But today can't be before. today can. It can come after yesterday. Nothing can come before after itself. So there's always has to be a distinction between what is before and what is after. So you have to see some distinction before you can see before and after. So

[14:51] if you misunderstand the distinction or don't see the distinction, you can't see before and after. So you can see the distinction without seeing before and after. Sometimes people may not see or know some things they don't recognize which is better An example there I tried to tell you about Porphyry He says So that's the young man. There's two plays of Fletcher. One is Shakespeare. And as he saw these plays again and again, he began to realize how better Shakespeare was than Fletcher.

[15:43] So those, in some sense, know Fletcher and Shakespeare's plays for a while without perceiving how much better Shakespeare was than Fletcher. What kind of distinction is it? It's always easy to see the

[16:20] distinction. What kind of distinction is that? Is it like the distinction between, let's say, virtue and vice? Is it like the distinction between two and three, or one and two?

[16:52] Now, what's the difference between the two? Well, I mean, distinguishing virtue and vice. What's the difference here? In 3, there is a 2, isn't there? So you could say in a way that three equals two plus one,

[17:16] and two is just just. Now, is that the kind of distinction between virtue and vice? Virtue is just virtue. and vice is virtue plus. something.

[17:42] Or vice versa, right? But that vice is just vice, and virtue is vice plus something. You see? Because in three, in a way, there is a two. It's not just. So this is the kind of distinction there is between the will and nature, or between reason and nature, and maybe also between the soul and nature.

[18:32] It's that distinction there between virtue and vice. Now the moderns all understand this distinction like this one, But Thomas very clearly understands the distinction to be a distinction.

[19:00] And of course, there are texts where Thomas explicitly explains this. You see, the moderates aren't even aware of the fact that there are these two kinds of

[19:18] distinction. In fact, misunderstood the distinction. Now, this is why we can say that reason, that what naturally understands some things, or naturally comes to understand things. Reason is a nature, but it's not just a nature,

[19:53] just like 3 in a way is 2 right there but it's not just 2 it's 2 plus 1. Because it has something in addition to 2 we give it a name.

[20:08] Because two is just two, it keeps the name two. So the nature that is just a nature keeps the name nature. The nature that has something in addition to what nature has has us be open to opposites, right?

[20:29] With the name reason in this case. So you see how reason in dialectic, dialectic reasoning is reasoning to prove efficiency by doctrine. Like Socrates reasons with the third part of Meno, you know, and the doc and not? the doc, so the doc's in some way. And the choice, right?

[21:01] Appetites, right? Not determined to want it. But again, there are some things that the will naturally will, like happiness. You can't do the opposite And what reason naturally understands is the beginning of everything. is going to what Understand the account.

[21:31] And that's why uh, Thomas Fox is going to be a widget about those virtues, or reason, right, He puts deuce above what can be stigmated, not just about chance and Above what episteme, intellectus of Gentian, Gentian depends on intellectus, episteme, on this. And what the will naturally wills is the beginning of its choice, So we're choosing things that we think are going to lead to our happiness.

[22:03] And we choose sometimes well, and sometimes badly. but we naturally But, actually, it will. So the models get into a terrible fix here, because reason, in addition to what it has naturally, it's not determined, right? And therefore they think that our reason never really knows anything. It's never really determined to either side of the. Contradiction.

[22:51] You can see that if you look at the same thing. Thomas, does in the SCG on liberty Let's look at the chapter on freedom of thought and so on and so on And uh his thinking is that the mind will never knows either now or after then. We implied more to one or the other.

[23:24] Maybe someday, right? So you got to keep the door open to anything, right? Is it? So, you think you've got an absolute distinction there. Like. Thomas would say you can speak of reason as a nature, right? And then you can't understand its determinate. And then reason as reason, right?

[23:56] Just like three would say three is half of four, right? Would say three is half of what? Six. Three as three is half of six, right? But the two in three is half of four. Would say three is half of four, right?

[24:14] There is a 2 in 3. there's something in three that is half of four. And if there's anything, there's something in reason that provides determinate to one against the other. That's what the axioms are supposed to be about. They're known to themselves by all. And it's on those that we ultimately know all the statements of the world. But if there are no statements naturally known, we'd never be able to know any statements.

[24:53] And we come, you know, as Thomas says there, very interesting. example he gives there that we acquire what is not natural. What is natural? Just as we acquire all our exterior things, for an AI, it's starts to be natural.

[25:14] And, a lot of times we talk about uh, language. you know. It's not natural to speak English, you know. We acquire language, English doesn't make a language. But, uh, we acquire language by imitating our mother, and our daddy and our older brothers and our aunts and grandmothers and so, on. But it's natural for man to be like personality. He says, man is the most imitative of all the animals.

[25:49] and at first we learn that imitation. So, man, naturally imitates. That's how he does. He goes on to say that's how we first learn imitation. That's how we learn how to speak our so-called native language. That's how we learn to speak a foreign language. We imitate in natives. We acquire what is not natural, speaking English. Of course, everybody speaking French is not natural. Latin. I tell you a joke about my children they were there to study Latin.

[26:31] People want to say, Daddy, what was the greatest accomplishment of the Romans? The answer was speaking Latin. How could anybody speak that? So, but then it's not, you can read a language right? It is not natural, but you acquire what is natural.

[27:03] So, we acquire what is not natural. right? Listen, what we do next to understand. See, we're here. We feel happiness before we try to choose.

[27:20] Happiness. You see, it's seen so, You start to get something. Even as you say the plot there, our anticipation to the scene is not being determined to the opposite side. So in that sense,

[27:50] the soul is a nature that gets a new name. because there's something additional in nature beyond that And then the nature that does not right keeps the word nature. So you can say, the soul is a nature. you can say, "reason is a nature, and the will is a nature."

[28:16] So, when Shakespeare defines reason, What he's defining is reason as reason. And what you can figure out that's kind of naturally. That's kind of more known. And if you look, you know, very we're going to go to the De Anima after the actual philosophy. And in the De Anima, you will see Aristotle does the same thing. He begins from reason as reason, but eventually comes to know reason as nature, is naturally.

[28:50] He has to begin. And inside of that is, you know, the act seems to us most characteristic. of reason, so much so that it gets its name from reasoning, is reasoning, right? And reasoning is the act of reason as reason. Aristotle, in terms of, distinguishing between reason, say, and imagination, he does so. Jesus says in the discourse,

[29:20] "It's very simple way of looking." He says, "I feed."It's one thing to another And that's what reason as reason does, right So Sartre, Aristotle, he first distinguishes reason. as reason. Later on, he sees the differences right? Difficult to see. but he first does so, he's distinguishing reason as reason. And here again, it'd be like distinguishing.

[29:59] Or defining, let's say, the will as the ability to choose. That's more known to us than the ability to choose is something different, from, say the emotions. Even though the will itself also have loves and desires right And loving or desiring is more basic than choosing in this sense But you see the difference? more in terms of choosing.

[30:34] Yeah, yeah. See, the same thing with the will, see, because you do Jean-Paul Sartre, for example. For Jean-Paul Sartre, the will wills nothing naturally.

[30:47] So even the end is up for grabs. So it's a complete misunderstanding. The will naturally wills happiness. And, uh, what the will naturally wills is really the beginning of this. God doesn't see anything.

[31:19] So you don't see that uh, uh, reason is nature plus something. though it's a nature plus something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they all came to. That's, that's a mistake about something so basic. That's what's for this is to say you don't know anything. You never know anything. You're never sure of anything.

[31:50] And for sure, you're going to be saying, but everything is. They will stop its own end. That's it. There's not, um, anything. There's nothing natural.

[32:20] Sometimes you know we divide studying natural things out of this general part into the life sciences. and the physical sciences. Well, it's not too bad of a dividing. right? If. Physical comes to be referred to as nature. But you deal with just nature. The life sciences then

[32:43] have things that involve the soul. But you're using the word just nature to get you. It doesn't make sense to me. But the basic fact about it causes it, right? So is not just nature. Then you can talk to a good boy. Much clearer.

[33:48] There's one kind of name equivocal by reason that is very close to the original, and it's a very different from what we should talk about in analogy or so. Uh, and it's the case where uh, a name is set in two things, right?

[34:14] And then one of them keeps that name has its own name, and the other is given a new name. So uh, and the ones given a new name, they perform a reason for it. But one way is that it has something noteworthy in addition.

[34:37] That's a very common thing, and if you don't know that you can get a bit confused with what words are being used. Like, you take the word "animal" here,

[34:49] and sometimes we use the word "beast" and "man," right? Man for an animal that has reason, and the beast for an animal that doesn't have reason. But since the beast doesn't seem to add any noteworthy, animal, sometimes we keep "animal" as the beast's own name, and then we distinguish between man and the animals.

[35:20] Although in another sense you can say man is an animal. I always recall that conversation with my mother, you know, when you say man is an animal.

[35:30] She liked me saying that. She didn't say those things. And. I said, well, mother, I don't mean he's just an animal. He's an animal, with reason But why was she objecting to my calling, man, animal.

[35:49] which is thinking of animal in this sense here. right? In this sense here, you can say man is an animal. That's very common. Now, take the other genus here, take plant, Right. Sometimes the little things keep the name plant. So my wife has been down visiting the grandchildren, and I was reminded by my wife and reminded by my daughter, you know, water the plants. Okay. Usually I forget all about the plants and then dead or died, and my wife gets back.

[36:26] Wait for me to visit the grandchildren. So uh, she doesn't mean water the trees, you know, she says plant. And if I go to the nursery, you know, where they sell plants and so on, they probably won't call a tree a plant. right? If I say I want to get a plant for my wife. they won't say, well, I want a tree, or a bush, or you know.

[36:49] They'll think it's a little thing, right? If I want to buy a tree for my property. I'd say tree, probably rather than plant. So sometimes the little things keep the name plant, and the other ones, right?

[37:07] Now in Greek and Latin. you have nomen divided into nomen and verbum get into the Peri Hermeneias. And in Greek, you have onema, onema, and a

[37:28] ringlet, let's say. Okay? So nomen is used as a complement to sometimes Aristotle, and sometimes for the nouns, which is the verb. right? And uh, Aristotle defines the noun and the verb. The definition is

[37:54] let's say a vocal sound, right? signified by custom and agreement. no part of which signifies by itself, right? That's not legal. But the verb signifies with time, and the moment signifies without time. So the verb adds something, right? to the common idea. And so the noun keeps the word, the other gets a name. So if you read, you know, Ammonius who's the great commentator to Peri Hermeneias now he's very close to him to work on him in the Apocrypha.

[38:37] He's always explaining, you know, this different meaning. Now in English, you see, I teach us in English, we tend to use the word name here for nomen. and then we have a separate name here noun, and verb, so we don't have that problem.

[38:58] But you know, with the name man and woman, you have to refer to something. In English, you don't have a name here which is common to men. We use for men, and the

[39:15] But in Greek or Latin you might have "you know ovo and vir" and "femina." right See So you just have to respect the language. right That's the way. that they did in the Greek or Latin language right They have. Kept a common name for one and not the other, right and you have to be aware of that fact. and stop people doing that

[39:40] if you read, Aristotle De Koninck and Ethics you will distinguish the virtues of wisdom, and these will be separate virtues: there, episteme, and sophia.

[39:59] which in Latin are translated by scientia and sapientia So, those are two different virtues: that episteme and Sophia. and then, nous or natural understanding is another virtue. right Yeah You got to go to Aristotle's 14 books on wisdom on Sophia, and we use the word Sophia, right?

[40:26] And he calls Sophia an episteme. Now someone might think where Aristotle is you know stop where he will if he used the word himself or somebody else. But the confusion is all in the head of the reader, right? In other words, Episteme is being divided in Episteme and Sophia. Now, Episteme, right? It's reasoned out

[41:03] knowledge of causes. But Sophia has something very special about it, and that is, it's not about just any causes; it's about the very first causes, about God Himself. So, it's got something very special in addition to whatever Episteme has. Every Episteme is about causes. This is about the very first causes. So, because it adds something very noteworthy, it gets its own name, Sophia. Wisdom And the other keeps the name It's like if we distinguish between knowledge and wisdom: wisdom is a form of knowledge, is it?

[41:58] Because it has a certain excellence, it's above every other knowledge, so very noteworthy, right? In addition to any bad knowledge, has, to the knowledge of God himself, then we give it a special name. called wisdom. Isn't that?

[42:21] What Thomas will use the word intellectus, right? So you have the image to understand it, right? I sometimes use the term natural understanding because sometimes it can sting you when you have a problem with English. Sometimes English is about understanding, it's about knowledge. I told something this time.

[42:47] I kind of learned about it now. Yeah, so you might distinguish at some time between knowledge and wisdom. right? Another time, you might say wisdom. is just more knowledge. Just knowledge. Oh, yeah, okay, now we have the same. Yeah. But knowledge is not you know, too accurate. It's just a broad word. It doesn't that big of a range. But people, you know, tend to translate it to stay in Latin by scencia, translate it to science in English, but science can take lots between times.

[43:24] And, so you could, geometry is not a sci- is a science in the ancient sense, but not in the modern sense. So, what is just the nature? Right. Keeps the name nature. and then it gets a new name. So you can distinguish, Thomas does, between reason as a nature and reason as reason.

[44:04] So look at like distinguishing between three. as three and the two in three. like distinction between 3 as 3 and the 2 in 3.

[44:15] And, and it might seem at first to be a contradiction, right, to say that there's a 2 in 3, because then you're saying there's something in 3 that is half of 4 But 3 itself is half a six, not half of 4 But is that really a contradiction What does that mean not rich You're failing to understand. Um it's not like the opposition of virtue and vice where virtue can never be vice or include vice in it and vice can never be virtue or include virtue.

[44:57] in it So this understanding of this distinction, which is the beginning, of our distinction of all kinds of things, this distinction of sciences and so on. That's what makes you know to them uh freedom something divorced from nature, Because the will has nothing of nature. in it sui generis. is entirely right Uh Paul Sec uh Thomas Spengler talks about that divorce. between freedom and nature It was bad That's that's horrible That's that's a misunderstanding Why he's been slow?

[45:45] in defending that That's why he follows the lines The greatest mind in innovation is perhaps the greatest mind in history How they possibly got to the mind with the logs It was because like firebrands and vices you see them wise and slow thinking about these ideas So they got out of that, right Multiply air When you make that opposition there to the will and nature. You're using nature there to

[46:35] solve. Well, so Aristotle starts to make the distinction in the, uh, book of wisdom, between an ability that is determined to one of two opposites, right? An ability is open to opposites.

[46:53] An example, stock example is fire, right? It's something like the fire is going to be what? Heated, right? Fire's going to sometimes heat, it, sometimes cool it. Heat. Right? As far as that. Sometimes hidden, sometimes put, but hidden is determined to one. But you put a patient before a doctor, and through the. medical art, you get what? Or in there, yeah, and this abortion. is a good.

[47:17] Example of how we can kill the patient, right? Deliver the baby or be killed. You can then, I mean, no one more than the doctor. who is knowledgeable would say he wanted to.

[47:32] And that's true about these rational abilities. If I possess the art of grammar, I can speak correctly and say. I am a professor on my students' night. But by the same art, I can say I am a professor on my students' night. I know I'm speaking incorrectly, but I know. that I'm speaking correctly to the art of grammar. To the art of grammar I have to speak.

[48:00] And uh, Mozart wrote the musical joke, right? Which shows you how not to write music, right? And there's obvious mistakes, but there's more subtle mistakes.

[48:12] And music realizes what I was teaching. there, right? Again, from logic, I know how to see things. I know how to to give an argument and say go to that what is it And.

[48:28] so because it's for patience you know how to deceive right It's not as you're because you have rhetoric you're persuading that's the first action you're persuading So the rational goes to the opposites Shakespeare saw that nature not being able to expect Peri Hottens right so concerned with say like Coriolanus to be a soldier, so used to commanding, you know in great he can adjust to this uh so much great democratic tendencies that is over time Maybe have people show their votes and pass their vote and all these sort of things you know which means it's wonderful play you know for lots of us doesn't have.

[49:11] to be way is He's. Very interesting. Which Coriolanus? Coriolanus, you know, of Rome, and then he goes and turns against Rome, right? And, uh, he's, you know, this tremendous soju that he's starting with his against him, and now his parents are in Rome itself, and they're desperate. His former friends going out there, is he going to give these precious walk? And finally they said, he's better out.

[50:16] You see it, I have a problem. I guess I never understood with nature and soul. I thought because I can see that, like in a way, the uh, the growth of a planet's not eternal long because you go up. and down in a high rate. Yeah, and that's not as full in there, You don't have the soul as fully in the plan as you do in the appetite.

[50:56] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because there you have appetite, and in man, you've got the soul in all the parts, so that the distinction of the soul into the plan is

[51:09] not to the condition of a, sets it to a full, right? It's not like a division between species. Oh, yeah. But Aristotle uses that. There are vill- there are natural villages and there are villages of the soul. Among the souls you know, the rational soul. They begin with the soul, There's already a little bit of difference there.

[51:42] To see it fully. Oh, yeah. Nature, reason, right? And therefore, between nature and choice. That's a good point. You see, the moderns simply misunderstand this. They they can't see the order between nature and reason, or nature and will. And there's no order between them at all right. And, uh, it's serious.

[52:20] You said order, order is defined by before and afters. Anything else? would you say order is before and after? That's, that's what you mean, yeah.

[52:30] So many kinds of orders or many senses. Yeah, that's a chronological order. You want to go to anything else where I have issues? Well, if you look at Thomas's text, you can have differences too, right?

[52:52] In general, that's before and after. Yeah, it's got to be something different before, before and after. Well, that's and that's unity. One is convertible being. So it's going to have universality. The same being is the definition of. Yeah. I'll say something here about six, seven, and eight. Although we won't include them entirely, but um, unless we line them up.