Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
87. The Second Way: Per Se and Per Accidens, and the Principle That What Is Through Itself Comes First
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[0:00] Now the second way that he's going to go on to now to the second argument for existence of God in in the chapter on the proof of existence of God in the Summa Contra Gentiles and the article in the Summa. In both of them, there's five proofs, right? But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first two are from motion, right? And then the third one is from the what?

[0:29] Efficient cause, the maker, right? But in the Summa Theologiae, you have one from motion, and then the second one is one from the what? Efficient cause. Okay.

[0:45] So the the Summa Contra Gentiles is much more full here. The second way he says is such, huh? If every mover is moved, huh?

[1:01] Either this proposition or this statement is true. Per se, or it's true what? Perhaps that there are. Yeah, yeah. Incidentally, when Thomas says propositio, what does he mean?

[1:27] Statement. Yeah, yeah. But well, that's I'm going to say something about, right? Aristotle's a book on what I would call an English statement, right? Okay. And in Latin, they'll say what? Enunciation, right? Okay. Okay.

[2:02] Propositio originally is naming what? The premise in a syllogism, huh? Okay. And propositio, what does that mean? Basically, for. Yeah. Okay. It's something laid down, right? That's what position means. Before.

[2:29] Or for the sake of some what? Conclusion. Okay. So originally, propositio is naming not the statement by itself, but the statement insofar as it's a what? Part of the syllogism. Insofar as it's a what? A.

[2:53] As an order to a conclusion, right? Okay. Now the the Greek word for propositio there is protasis, and comes the Greek word proteino, which is even more excellent that way because it has a sense of what? Stretching forward. Okay. The the premise, in English, I would call the premise. And I always use that spelling, but some people will use this one and find it often with the ISE.

[3:29] Something sent before, right? Placed before, right? But the Greek word is more what? Close to meaning, right? It's something that stretching forward, right? Its

[3:47] idea is stretching forward to the what? Conclusion. Yeah. Yeah. But men got accustomed to calling a statement a what? Proposition. Yeah. Yeah. And so Thomas sometimes follows that custom, right? Okay. But it's not a particularly good custom. But it's customary, right?

[4:27] Just like you know that word proportion, right? Proportion got to mean what? Analogy, right? Rather than ratio, right? Excuse me. Ratio. Proportion got to mean ratio, right? It actually means analogy, right? Okay. So I don't like to follow those ways of speaking, but but

[4:54] it's customary in English now to refer to a statement as a proposition. I don't like that way of speaking. That's why I like to call it a statement, right? Rather than a proposition. Do

[5:14] you ever hear this expression? Define your terms. Okay. It's very common. Define your terms. But actually, the word term comes from where? Yeah. Yeah, and from the logic of the third act. When you have a syllogism, right? You know, like let's say every mother is a woman. Let's say

[5:51] no man is a woman. Okay. This is a syllogism, right? A speech in which these two statements laid down, right? Another one's going to follow necessarily that no man is a what? Mother, right? So these two are called what? Premises. And this is called the major premise, and this is called the minor premise, huh? But mother and woman and man are called what? Terms. Yeah. And mother, a woman here, would be called the what?

[6:35] Middle. Middle term, right? And mother would be called the major term, and man the minor term. So they're words, but they're called terms because they're the end of the resolution, right? The prior analytics, huh? What does that mean? The prior taking apart, right? Okay. So when you take apart a syllogism, you take it apart first of all the two premises. You take the two premises apart into what?

[7:04] Three terms. Okay. So why don't you say define your terms? Why don't you say define your what? Words. Words. Why call the word a term here, right?

[7:23] Well, I suppose it's because eventually men. You know our reasoning, right? That's kind of the act that most characterizes reason, huh? And so, when they think of the terms in the syllogism, they want you to define them, right? And but really, what you're trying to do there is define a word, right? See what the word means, huh? And you can say what the word "mother" means, you know, apart from it being a major term, right?

[7:51] To do it really, it's kind of a strange way we pick that up in daily life, huh? Influenced by logic, huh? The comic used to be amused by you know this expression you find and things, you know. I'm in a predicament, huh? You know. Apparently, it's got a funny thing because because contrary to what you'd expect, you know, the abstract, you know. Science more or less is influencing daily speech, right?

[8:21] But predicament comes from the Latin word predicamentum, and that was the name for one of the what? Ten genera, categories, huh? Okay. And of course, the idea: when you're in one genus, you can't get into another genus. So, so if seven is the genus number, it's not going to get out of the genus number and go into the genus substance or quality or relation, right? It's stuck in the genus, right?

[8:55] It can't get out. No way out. And so, when I get into a situation, especially a disagreeable situation, I see no way out. I'm in a predicament, huh? You know, I have no course of action. So it's kind of amusing to see how you know these these kind of abstract words get into daily speech sometimes, huh? You know, This was a testimony to the influence, you know, of philosophy and Greek philosophy, you know, floating his way down, right?

[9:30] So actually, I just fight these things I don't mind that I can like that, but the uh so the the Greek word category, uh, It actually comes from the the court house, huh? Yeah, and you see in the Gospels too, right? In the courthouse, there's two things: there's accusation, right, and that's called categoria, and then there's what the defense that's called apologia. So Socrates' apology, the Greek word is apologia, right?

[10:12] And it means what the legal defense in the courtroom, right? But I suppose some of the reasons why the word categoria was was borrowed is because when I charge you, when I accuse you, right, I have to accuse you of some crime, right? I accuse you of murder, right? See, so I'm saying you're a murderer, okay? Or I'm accusing you of robbery. You are a robber, huh?

[10:38] Okay, or some other crime, right? Huh? So in order to accuse you, I have to say something of you. Huh? You know, I'm charging you with the murder of so and so, right? You know, and since I'm trying to prove that you are the murderer of so and so, or you are the robber of the bank, or whatever it is, huh? And so

[11:04] you can see in the Latin word predicamentum that comes from the word set up, right? Yeah. So in a sense, the ten categories are the ten setups, right? But kind of by antonomasia, right? And but it has its origin from the courtroom. So my, since there's ten highest genera, right? My my friend Warren Murray kind of over the humor there. He speaks to them as the ten supreme accusations.

[11:35] Because supreme means the highest, right? Because there's no genera above those, huh? But it it it has something of the concreteness there of the origin of Greek word, right? Was taken from accusation, right? Yeah, the ten supreme accusations. Sounds pretty pretty important, right? Pretty significant, but not courtroom sense. But the whole philosophy is very important, huh? Do you have any idea if these some of these phrases came out of Shakespeare?

[12:09] as well? Well, sometimes. I mean, the the poets would pick up some of these and popularize them too. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, saw a little book there in the Borders the other day, which on Shakespeare's, you know, the phrases that come into the English language, you know, from Shakespeare they think of it, but it can never be, you know, sure altogether, you know, where. Yeah.

[12:33] You don't want to get the film community responsible for it, but yeah. So Thomas says this proposition. I think he's using just in the term sense of statement, right? Not necessarily in the sense of a premise, right? With

[12:58] the very etymology, the word seems to what say it's naming properly really the premise rather than the statement. huh? It almost seems like calling a straight line a side or something, right? We call a straight line when it's bounding a triangle. it says being a side, right? Triangle has three sides, huh? But to call straight line a side would be kind of what strange, wouldn't it?

[13:43] Call a line, right? Just considering it by itself, huh? It's a line. Something like that. Practical philosophy, right? You could say I'm a man, right? And that's where ethics looks at me. I'm a man, but domestic philosophy looks at me as I'm a father, right? And political philosophy looks upon me as a what citizen, right? You know, but really the question, what is a citizen, is a different question than what is a man, right?

[14:23] Even though the citizen is a man, huh? And the question what is the father is a different question, right? Than what is a man, huh? Even though the father is a man, huh? And the question, what is the premise, huh? Kind of very subtle the way Aristotle defines those, right? He defines, if you recall, logic. He defines a statement. How? One thing being set up another. No, That's one way he defines a premise, huh?

[14:56] Yeah what was that? Yeah, he defines the statement as speech signifying the true or the false. Speech which is true or false. And then he only divides the statement into affirmative statement and negative statement, right? But he doesn't

[15:19] define statement by affirmation negation. He defines it by true and by what? False. But when he gets to the premise in the category in the Prior Analytics, then he talks about what affirmative and negative, huh?

[15:42] And you can kind of see, you know, when you study the syllogism formally like we did a little bit earlier when we were doing a little bit of logic, you find out, for example, that you can't syllogize from two negative statements.

[15:58] Okay. And so the difference between affirmative and negative has nothing to do with being a statement, right? And the power to infer things and so on. And whether something is said of something universally or just in particular is very important, right, for the syllogism, right? Okay. But you talk about the truth or false in the statement, you're just kind of looking at it by itself, right? You're not talking about it in reference to its ability to draw a what conclusion, right?

[16:29] Okay. And again, you know, if if I lay down, let's say, even something absurd, like something totally false, like if I say every dog is a

[16:48] animal, right? Every stone let's say, is an animal. And every man is a stone, huh? It follows that every man is an animal, right? I say every stone is a dog. Every man is a stone, it follows every man is a dog, right? Even though the premises are all what? False, right?

[17:17] But the question whether conclusion follows or not is another question from whether the premises are true or false. Huh? In order for the conclusion to be good, it has to both what follow from the premises. if it's a syllogism necessarily, and it has to what follow from two premises. Yeah, yeah. You gotta be true, huh? And so you have the two books of prior and posterior analytics.

[17:41] Huh? When the prior analytics, you're looking just at the form of the syllogism, and then you take up whether it's true or false, but whether they're affirmative or negative, universal or particular, right? Huh? And then you can see whether something follows in terms of that. So,

[18:03] but notice notice when he begins this second way, he says, "The second way is such: if every mover is moved, either this propositio is true per se or per accidens." He's talking. about. in what way it's true, right? It would be true if somebody's maintaining this proposition, right? So he's looking upon it really as a what? Statement, yeah. Because he's thinking about the truth or falsity, in a way.

[18:33] Although he might also be looking at it, you know, in terms of Posterior Analytics, right? Which descends to the truth or falsity of it, right? Okay.

[18:51] Now, if per accidens, therefore, it is not what necessary, right? Because what is per accidens true is not necessary. Now, I think I mentioned that in the Posterior Analytics. Aristotle is pointing out that the premises of a demonstration, right, they have to be what necessary, right? And then he also says they have to be what per se kath' hauto, the Greek. Okay.

[19:32] How do you translate per se in English? right. Essentially Yeah. Per se in English should be translated as through itself. That would be per se, right? Sometimes in English it has a sense of of by itself, right? Okay. Because Aristotle gives us one meaning of kath' hauto or per se when it means all by itself. Okay.

[20:10] Sometimes it has a sense, but it's not so much a as such, right? Okay. So sometimes Thomas almost identifies the meaning per se as secundum quod huiusmodi. Okay. And I think in English say secundum quod huiusmodi would be say be saying as such, right? Okay. And I think I mentioned there earlier regarding logic that in one place in the Posterior Analytics Aristotle reasons from the premises of a demonstration being necessary and it being per se.

[20:49] In another place, he reasons it being per se to be necessary. And Thomas, you know, no, no, what's he doing here, right? Because when you reason, you should reason of what is more known to what is less known, right? And you can't prove a thing to itself, right? And so on. And Aristotle himself in the Posterior Analytics you know, warns us against reasoning in a circle, right?

[21:18] And so Thomas says, "What is the master doing here, right?" A modern philosopher says, "Well, he's contradicting himself, or he's, you know." And you know, I see Thomas sometimes in other places, you know, where it seems to be something particularly glaringly Aristotelian. They'll say, "You know, what's an important man to say? But it's so great a philosopher, and so great a matter,

[21:47] you know, with just such a, you know, just such a stupid thing doesn't make any sense, right?" And so Thomas says, "A really demonstration is from necessary to what per se." But you know, someone who's grown up in the school of Plato, it's a probable opinion among all the Platonists that Episteme is about the per se, right? You know, the ideas. If we look at Plato's phrase, the ideas, you know, man himself to himself by himself, he's underlining that phrase, right?

[22:20] kath' hauto right? So here he's using reasoning from a probable opinion, right, to that, right? And in case he's reasoning more with necessity, no pun intended there. Okay, but these two things are very closely what connected, right? Okay, now let's exemplify that just a bit, because because that's behind his what he's saying there that there's a connection between these two, right? And then between the what, per accidens right, or the two happening or by happening, right?

[22:59] And what is contingent and not necessary, right? Okay, now let's take the number seven here, or take a triangle, right? Take a square. A square, you can do that example. here. It belongs to the square as such, to itself, to what? Be a quadrilateral, for example, right? Okay. So anything belongs to definition of the thing, like quadrilateral or equilateral

[23:44] or right angles and so on. All of these things belong to a square as such, or to itself, right? And it takes a while, people, you know, to be at home with that phrase "to itself." What does that mean? If I say a square to itself is a quadrilateral, right? Well, I mean the square to being a square must be a what? Quadrilateral, right? Notice it's also necessarily a quadrilateral, right?

[24:19] Is necessarily right. It's necessarily right angle, right? It necessarily has angles equal to what? Four angles. Yeah, and so on, right? The triangle, as such, is three-sided, and the triangle, as such, has interior angles equal to right angles, and so on, right? Okay.

[24:42] So what belongs to the square as such also belongs to it what? Necessarily, right? It can't be a square and not be all these things, okay?

[24:59] But vice versa, what necessarily belongs to the square, right? Belongs to it what? Yeah, as such, right? Okay. But let's say green now, right? A square can be green, but necessarily is a square green? No.

[25:28] But again, does it belong to the square as such, or through being a square to be green? No, that's by happening, right? Through happening, right? So we see the connection between these two, and the connection between contingent, what can be and not be, right? And what? That's per se. Per accidens is Latin for which, right? Per accidens through happening,

[26:07] we could be happening or by happening happening or by happening, right? So how's he proceeding here? He's saying, if you say that every mover is moved, right? Which he doesn't agree with, right? But if you say that, right? You say that's true, right? It must either be true what? Necessarily or accidentally. Yeah, or here he says, yeah, it must be the true per se or per accidens right?

[26:56] Okay. It's got to be one or the other, huh? Okay. And if it is true per accidens, then it is not what necessary, right? For what is through happening true? Or by happening true is not necessary, right? Okay. Therefore, it's contingent, or it's possible, you might say, that no mover be what Moved. That's possible, right? Okay.

[27:39] But if the mover is not moved, then it doesn't move anything else, as the adversary is saying, right? Therefore, it's contingent; it could be that nothing is moved. For if nothing moves in the active sense, there nothing is moved, right? He says Aristotle has this for an impossibility, right? Okay.

[28:06] Now, Thomas will discuss later on, you know, whether that's really impossible, right? Okay. Aristotle has this for something impossible, to wit, that at some time there was no motion, right? Okay. Therefore, the first was not contingent, because from something false as possible, there would not follow something false that is what impossible.

[28:46] And thus, this statement that every mover is moved by another is not per accidens true, right? Okay. So notice the form of the argument there, right? It's an if-then argument, right? And the whole thing's not even if-then argument in a sense, right? Okay. But he's eliminating one of the two possibilities, right? If every, if it's true that every mover is moved, right? Either this is true per se or per accidens, right?

[29:15] Okay. And if it's true per accidens, he's going to eliminate that possibility, right? Then it's contingent, right? And therefore, it could be that there is no motion at all, right? And Aristotle takes that as a what impossible thing, right? And as Aristotle is assuming here that motion always was, right? Okay.

[29:45] Now sometimes Thomas speaks to that as if that was the mistake of Aristotle, right? Okay. But other times he has a second thought about it, right? Okay. We'll come back to that, right? Okay. Okay. But for the moment, let's assume, right, that motion always was, right, and that it must always have been, right? Okay. And if it, and and that would be contradicted by saying that what every mover is moved is true per accidens, right?

[30:26] Because then it could happen, right, something impossible that there is no motion at all. Does he that? Okay. It's a little involved, right? Okay. The part where he says if, but if the mover does not move,

[30:50] and nothing there's no motion. Does not move. Yeah, anything else? Anything else? Yeah. No, so what what they're saying is that the mover, every mover, moves only insofar as it's being moved itself, right? Okay. Aristotle saying, or Thomas is saying, or Aristotle saying, is that true as such per se, right? Or is it true peraccident that you're saying this right? And he's taking up the possibility there's true peraccidents first, right?

[31:26] You gotta eliminate that possibility, right? And he says, if it's true peraccidents, right, then it ain't necessarily so. It could be that nothing is moved, right? That no mover is moved. Well, we're just saying it could be that, yeah, the mover is not moved, but it still could be a mover. No, no. The the person he's arguing against here, and the proposition in a sense he's arguing against is that every mover is what?

[32:00] A mover. Yeah. Every mover moves other things, right? Insofar as it's moved itself, right? Okay. But if that was only true peraccidents, then it would not be necessary, be contingent, right? And therefore, it's possible, right, that no mover is moved, right? Okay. In which case, it's possible to be no motion. But Aristotle's taking that as being something impossible.

[32:41] Okay. And he's gonna come back and and examine that supposed impossibility, right? Okay. You know, is there a weakness there or not, right? Okay. But for the moment, let's assume that, right? And come back and examine that, right? You see where the argument goes up to this point. Okay.

[33:13] Also, this is kind of a secondary thing here, if two things are joined by accident, um, by happening in something, and one of them is found without the other, right? It is probable, right, nothing more certain than that, that the other will be found without the other, right? Okay. As for example, if white and musician are both found in Socrates, and in Plato one finds a musician without him being white, it's probable that in some other thing one can find something white that is not a what?

[33:54] Musician. Yeah. If therefore the mover and the moved are joined in something by happening, and motion is found in something without it moving something else, right? It is probable that one is going to find a mover without its being what moved, huh?

[34:21] Nor is it against this instance in which of two things of which one depends upon the other, because such things are not joined per se. I mean, the things we're talking about here now are not of that sort. They're not joined per se, but they're joined what? Peraccident, right? Okay. It happens that the mover is moved, right? It happens that these two things are found in the same thing together.

[34:45] It's both the mover and moved, right? Well, then, if you have something that's moved, it doesn't move something else, right? Then probably you're going to find the mover that moves without being moved. Okay.

[35:03] So this is now kind of it's just probable, right? Okay. Okay, it's kind of outside this other view about peraccidents. It reminds me the thing in rhetoric, you know, where they say, you know, if sometimes what

[35:26] the false is believed, right? Then it's probable at some time that the true is what. Oh, not believed. Yeah. Right. Okay. Now he goes to the other alternative, right? So you notice he has two reasons to eliminate the possibility that the statement "every mover is moved" is true by happening, right? Okay. One of which is stronger than the other, maybe, huh? Okay. Because he says that leads to something impossible.

[36:06] Okay. The other is probable, right? Okay. Now he goes to the other horn of the dilemma. If, however, the foresaid statement is true per se, likewise there follows something impossible, huh? Or inconvenient, I would like to say? It has a more meaning than that, right? It means it doesn't fit together. It doesn't go.

[36:34] Doesn't go with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it has a closest sense here it doesn't fit in. Because either is necessary that the mover be moved by the same species or kind of motion by which it moves, or by some what other one, right?

[36:59] If therefore, if by the same, therefore, is necessary that the one what altering something, right, be altered, right, and the one healing someone is also being healed, and that the one teaching is taught, right? Huh? You see? Okay. And and by the same what? Science, right? But this, however, is impossible, for it is necessary that the one teaching have the knowledge, right? And the one learning necessarily does not have it, right?

[37:41] So if he was both teaching and learning the same science, then the same thing would be had by him and not had by him, which is what impossible, right?

[38:00] If, however, by another species of motion it is moved, thus there would be necessary that the one, say, altering, for example, would be moved by according to place, right? And the one being moved according to place was growing or something, right? And so on about others, huh? Since there are limited genera and species of motion, it follows that one cannot go on forever, huh? Always having a thing being moved by a different what kind of motion, right?

[38:34] And the one is imparting to something else. And thus there will be something, some first mover that is not moved by another. Unless perhaps someone says that there comes about a what? Uh circle. Circulation. In this way, that having completed all the genera and species of motion, one comes back again to the first. But if the one moving according to place is altered, and the one altered is growing, the one growing is moved according to place.

[39:08] From this follows the same thing as before, that that which is moved by some according to some species of motion, I assume that which moves in an active sense, right? According to some species of motion, is moved by the same, although not in immediate way, but immediately. Okay.

[39:32] Therefore, it remains that it is necessary to lay down something first that is not moved by something outside, huh? Okay. Now he's going to go on to what Aristotle does in the in the metaphysics, and before he comes back to that problem that we raised there. So,

[40:00] so let's look at that now, right? Okay. Because, huh? This being had that there is a first mover that is not moved by something exterior, it does not follow that is entirely immobile. Therefore, further, Aristotle proceeds by saying that this is able to be in two ways. In one way, that that first thing can be entirely immobile, right? Which being laid down, we have what we propose to have, namely, that there is a first mover that is immobile.

[40:41] Another way that that first mover is moved by itself, right? And this seems to be probable, right? Okay. Why? Because what is through itself is always before that which is what? Through another. Yeah.

[41:01] Whence also in things moved, it is reasonable that the first thing moved is moved through itself or by itself, and not by what? Another, right? Okay. Now. No, it's such a very famous proposition, and it was Plato who first brought this out, right? Okay, what is through itself is always before that which is through another, right? Okay, so let's look at that a little bit huh

[41:51] Well it's really before and after, right? Let's get before and after. Before the through another is the through itself. The way he states it, the through itself

[42:23] is always before the through another. Now, I think that Plato was the first thinker to very much talk about this, right? Now, is coffee sweet through being coffee?

[43:02] Okay, but is sugar sweet through being sugar? Okay, yeah. Okay, and so if the coffee is sweet, but not sweet through itself, there must be before the coffee something that is what. Sweet through itself. Yeah. Simple enough, right? Sounds quite reasonable to me, right? Okay. Now, is the water wet through itself?

[43:33] I think so. Is the dishcloth wet through itself? Hmm. So if you discovered that the dishcloth was was wet, but you also saw the dishcloth was not wet through being a dishcloth, you'd say there must be something wet. You're looking before and after now, right? Using your, you know, this is what reason does. That's the definition of reason: before and after, right? There must be before the dishcloth, right?

[44:04] Something that is wet through itself. And Eureka! I have found it. It's water, right? Which is wet through itself, right? Okay. Now. Let's make some, you know, more profound applications of this now, right? Okay.

[44:32] Are there some statements that are known to other statements? So, there's some statements that are known to others, huh? And not to themselves, right? Okay. Well, then there must be, right?

[44:50] Some statements somewhere that are known what? Yeah. Right. Right. That's that's true, I think, huh? Okay. Okay. And you know, the same thing is true with simple terms too, right? That there are some things that are known as to what they are through something else, right? But is everything that's right? It must be something that is known to be what it is, not to knowing what something else is.

[45:41] Right? Okay. So I mean that's that's fundamental, right? And you know the the moderns, you know, sometimes want to say, and Aristotle talks about some of the ancients, right? They want everything to be proven, right?

[46:00] And that is they they regard therefore every statement as having to be known to another, right? But if that were so, then no statements could be known, right?

[46:13] And and what about desirable or good, right? We brought up that problem a minute ago. If we just have means, yeah, we don't have an end. Yeah. If everything is desirable for the sake of something else, nothing is desirable to itself or as such. anything is desirable because something else would it be desirable? right? You find this when you first start studying philosophy. people say, "well, what's that good for?

[46:51] Well, they kind of you know start out the idea that to be good, something has to be good for something other than itself, right? And I told you the conversations my brothers used to have with we used to have with the my father's engineer. He's kind of a practical guy interested in making money and so on. And but we're the only educated people around there besides himself, right?

[47:15] College education. He talked to us sometimes, you know, and. So finally, we're studying philosophy. You know and what are we studying that for see? And my brother Mark and Richard say, "Well, we're studying for its own sake." Well, he just couldn't, you know, accept that answer. We could not be studying it for its own sake. And so, after you know, he thought about it. I'd come back another day and ask this again.

[47:40] You know, why are we studying it? And Richard and Marcus and my older brothers would give him the same answer. Right? It's for its own sake. We don't think it's for anything else.

[47:54] And well, I say as they say. I mean, he just couldn't accept that. So finally, one day he had to answer his own question. Right? He said, "I know why you're studying it."

[48:10] We said, "Why? It's brain food. In other words, you you take this, you really fill up your brain, right? And then? You go and you do something with your brain, right? He's got a

[48:27] hair of the truth. It's something to think about. I mean, I mean, Davey is supposed to have shown you that he could, you know, make money if you want to, right? You say, but then he, you know, actually showed them, and he said, but now I see, you know, not that I'm not interested in money because I don't know how to make it, I know how to make it, but that's not my interest, am I?

[48:49] So, so it must be something that is desirable, right, to itself, right? Otherwise, nothing would be desirable. Okay. It's the idea, you know, what are you philosophers contributing to the common good, right? My brother Richard's answer was, "We are the common good."

[49:11] Infuriate some people. You have to be qualified a bit, but there's something like that, right? Now, in a sense, you know, this contemplation of truth is the ultimate end of man, right? And even the practical man, you know, in heaven,

[49:32] that's what he'll be doing. The practical life is over, right? You know the the famous words there of Christ to Mary and Martha, you know, where he says that Mary has chosen the better part, right? And shall not be taken away from her, right? Well, the Church Fathers and Thomas the church fathers here, understand that as being that she has chosen the better life, the contemplative life is distinguished from the practical life, right?

[49:59] And shall not be taken away from her. It's the fact that contemplative life will continue in the next life, right? And in fact, be more perfect. By the way, the other one, the practical life, will be what cease, right? No longer. I tell students that sometimes, and my students will say, "well, we have to do the practical life because we'll have a chance to do it in the next life."

[50:19] You've convinced me. I've got to go. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave the contemplative monastery. I'm going to join an order, enter a practical

[50:41] order. I can't do it in the next life. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's a time when when Saint Teresa of Avila, you know, she appeared to one of her after she died, right? And she appeared to one of her sisters, you know. He says, you know, you and I are very much alike in some ways. He says we're both praising God, right? He said, I'm praising Him now face to face, and you're praising Him behind a veil, so to speak, right?

[51:13] But I mean, very similar to life we're leading. you're leading here on Earth, and I'm leading up in heaven here, right? I'm interesting, you know. Anyways, you know what she said to this nuns, right? You know, I'm gonna tap it to there.

[51:30] Okay, now, is this true the statement then, or what do you think? It's not in that case. What? It won't be true in that case. Won't it not be true in that case simply because that there would be, given the definition of motion, strictly speaking, that would imply a contradiction for something to be moving itself, and that's why it's not per se rather than per annum. Yeah, you mean that there can't be.

[52:12] There can't. There can't be a thing in motion to itself. Yeah, because it implies a contradiction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, one very strange position that Plato got into. Who got into? Plato. Plato. Was regarding his uh that there are these what you call forms in Greek, huh? Um? But notice, huh? Plato saw some interesting truth, nevertheless, huh?

[52:50] Is Socrates a man to being Socrates? Is it through being Socrates that was a man? No, no, that that would be limited to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, in some way, it seems as if no material thing, right?

[53:21] That orange is not what's that name of that cat? That orange is not a cat to being orange, right? Okay. Moppet, the cat we got at home there. Moppet is not a cat to being Moppet, right? Otherwise, Moppet would be the only cat, right? Well, in these material substances, right,

[53:46] each is unique, right, and it is what it is to itself, right? Okay. But then Plato thought, well, then if Socrates is not a man to being Socrates, then he's a man to another, right? And therefore, there must be something that is a man, right? To itself, what is that? The idea. That's form, yeah. That's the form, yeah. That's a form yeah Okay. And Aristotle has something a little bit strange about that, right?

[54:27] And when he's in a kind of playful mood, you know, he compares it to the anthropomorphic views of the gods, right? Not really understanding the nature of Zeus or God, the invention can be kind of kind of Superman, right? But you can see how man having this invention mind, right, and then discovering in a way that in a material thing and even in a mathematical thing, right, you see,

[54:58] is this circle? Is this a circle through itself, right? Well, then how could you have another circle? You know. So he said, if these are not circles to themselves, then they must be circles through partaking of what is a circle through itself. And if you and I are not a man, if I'm not a man through being Dwayne Berkowitz, and you're not a man through being yourself, then you and I must be men by partaking of the man himself through himself.

[55:46] Aristotle spends a lot of time there in the seventh book of wisdom, reasoning against this idea that the ideas. But very much tied up with this proposition, that's not the only reason for it. Thomas usually gives us a reason for it that

[56:07] Plato thought the truth required that the way we know be the way things are, right? Oh. Aristotle answered no to that question. So if you add to this the thought that through definitions we truly know things, as Socrates seemed to bring out,

[56:31] but through definitions we know the universal in separation from the singulars. So for truly knowing through definitions, through definitions we're knowing the universal separation of the singular, we're knowing man separation from Socrates and Plato Aristotle. Then truly man must exist, right, outside of our mind in separation from Socrates and Plato Aristotle, right? Sometimes he usually

[57:04] gives that you know as the reason why Plato thought that. Just as he thought that there's also a mathematical world, right, corresponding to the truth of geometry, because in geometry I truly know sphere and cube in separation from ice cube and plastic cube and wooden cube and any kind of material cube, right? And therefore he thought there must really be a mathematical world, right, existing in separation from the material world.

[57:36] Otherwise, all this wonderful certitude that we seem to have in geometry would disappear, right? Okay. But I say another way to reason to some of these things is, in a sense, by taking this, right, and apparently seeing that

[58:00] Socrates is not identical at least with what a man is. Okay, there is a problem in having a man by himself through himself, right? Because in a sense you're trying to make something both what material and immaterial at the same time. Okay. If if it belongs to what a man is to be material, right, and then this forms, as the name indicates, are without matter, right? How can that be what a man is?

[58:33] What a man is contains matter, right? So, I mean, the other thing too, people get into the problem. Sometimes the Platonists, you know, speak as if there must be a something bad to itself, right?

[58:54] Because again, I do this principle, right? But Aristotle in the ninth book of Wisdom argues that it cannot be a bad to itself, and Thomas would argue that way too, because the bad is. Yeah, it's a non-being of something one is able to have, right?

[59:25] And should have by nature, right? But you don't have, right? And so something couldn't be bad to itself. It always has to be in something that is good. That subject, right? Okay. Of course, as we point out, that really the bad is always opposed to to some nature, right? So it's not nature is bad; it's what's opposed to nature is bad. If there was a bad to itself, its very nature would have to be to be bad, which would end up in a contradiction, right?

[1:00:06] That's what the bad really is. So maybe there can't be a bad to itself, right? But so you have to be somewhat careful in the statement, or at least in the application of it, right? But has a great deal of probability, right?

[1:00:31] Okay.