De Anima (On the Soul)
93. Reply to Augustine and Plato: Truth Between Two Extremes, and Must We Know Things the Way They Are?
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[0:00] Now the third objection was the one from Augustine, right? And if you know a little bit about Plato, huh? Plato, in a sense, is getting into one extreme, right? And truth is often in between two what extreme mistakes, huh? So there are those who say that all powers of the soul are only in the body, right? There are many people who think the brain is the organ of what thought, right?

[0:35] Okay. Like Plato thought there were what more powers that are not in the body that in the soul alone, more than just the reason, the will. He didn't put the sense powers in there too, huh? Okay, or the power to move the body. You put that in the soul, right? By itself, huh? So he went in a sense to the opposite what extreme, huh? But Aristotle, huh?

[1:06] He avoids the two extremes, huh? I think I told you that about truth before, haven't we, huh? What does Kent mean in King Lear? He says, "All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so." Mm-hmm. Or Falstaff says in Henry IV plays there, if they say more or less than the truth, they are villains. He says, "And the sons of darkness." What does it mean to say more or less than the truth?

[1:49] There's two ways of being false, right? To say more than the truth, and to say less than the truth, huh? And you say more than the truth when you say what is not is, and you say less than the truth when you say what is is not. Okay. For example,

[2:17] how many students did you have today, Mr. Berquist, up at the monastery? Oh, I had ten students. See, I'm saying more than the truth, aren't I? I'm adding four people who are not here, and saying who are not here are here, right?

[2:40] Suppose they said only had two students today, then saying that some who are here are not here, right? There's two ways of me departing from the truth, huh? And of course, this comes out very clearly when the theologians talk about the the two chief mysteries of the faith, the Trinity and the Incarnation, right? Because you have heretics who say that as there are three persons in the Trinity, so there are three what?

[3:13] Natures. Well, that's adding to the truth and being false, right? You're adding two natures when there's only one nature there. That's what that's what Arius and people like that did, right? And then you have the other one, like Sabellius, who says as there's one nature, there's only one person. So he's subtracting from the truth. He's saying less than the truth. There's one nature and three persons, and that's in between these two extremes, right?

[3:48] There's one person, one nature, or three persons, three natures. Now you have the same thing with the Incarnation, but you have the reverse, right? There you have the unity of not nature but the unity of person, right? One person subsisting in two natures, huh? And so some say that as you have two natures there, you have two persons, and this is the heresy of what Nestorius, right?

[4:15] He supposedly got up at the church in Constantinople and said, we shouldn't call her the Mother of God, we should call her the Mother of Christ. And they all started throwing things out of it And there's something wrong with this, see? But Nestorius spoke as if you know God dwelt in a special way in this human person, named Christ. So he has two natures and two persons.

[4:41] Then the opposite extreme would be to have what one nature and you have one person. So the man who says you have one nature, like you have one person there, is subtracting from the truth of the Incarnation. The one who says you have two persons, like you have two natures, is adding to the truth, right?

[5:12] And as I mentioned, that that's really the meaning, although most people don't know it, of the the pledge you make there in the court of law to tell the truth, right? The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Some people think it's just you know, reiterating. No. You say to say the whole truth, you mean you're not going to subtract from the truth, right? You're not going to say that what is is not.

[5:44] And you say, and nothing but the truth, you're not going to add to the truth. You're not going to say that what is not is, huh? An example I always give in class, a very simple example. If they want to know who was at the bar between nine and ten that evening, and let's say John and Thomas were there at the bar, nobody else. I bet I'm the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when I said John and Thomas were there. But if I just said John was there, anybody else?

[6:14] No, just John. Then I'm subtracting from the truth, right? I'm saying what is or what was was not, right? But I could also depart from the truth and say John and Thomas and Paul were there. See? And now I'm adding to the truth, right? Okay.

[6:38] So there are some powers of the soul that are in the soul as a subject, namely the ability to understand, the ability to will, and also what is called the act of understanding. We'll meet again. But all the other powers are in the body, huh? Now some people say that there are what? No powers that are not in the body. You see? And others start to take some of the powers that the other animals have in common with us and make them in the soul alone, huh?

[7:15] So for Plato, then you know the soul of of the animals would be also immortal. You see? The truth is in between two what? Excesses, huh? And that way the the virtues of reason are something like the moral virtues. You know where courage is in between cowardliness on the one hand and what? Foolhardiness, huh? It's closer to foolhardiness, by the way. But you can see it very clearly on Shakespeare's plays, huh?

[7:52] Okay. Coriolanus, right? He talks about this. Well, likewise the virtue of reason, which is to know the truth, is in between two what? Mistaken states of mind. The one which is adding to the truth, and then subtracting the truth, huh? And as you mentioned before, this is why

[8:19] the the truth can explain falsehood. See? If there are three persons in God but one nature, you can see why somebody might think there's three natures. See? To correspond to the three persons. And vice versa, you can see why somebody might think there's one person, like Sabellius did, corresponding to the one nature. But neither of those positions could explain the other position, right? If the whole truth is that there's three natures and three persons, why would anybody think there's just one of each?

[8:59] there's no basis in the truth in that case, right? For someone else thinking the opposite, huh? And vice versa, if there's only one nature, one person, why would anybody think there's three persons and three natures? You see? There'd be no part of the truth at all, right? But if the truth is there's three persons and one nature in God, then there's an element of truth in the man who says there's three persons and three natures, right?

[9:24] Because there are three persons, right? And there's an element of truth in the man who says there's one nature and one person, because there is one nature, right? Do you see that? And that's a sign, as Aristotle himself said, that you can not only show the truth, but show why people are mistaken, right? What element of truth they saw, right? But they didn't see the whole picture, right?

[9:53] Okay. That truth would be more based on, you know, scriptures, teachings of the church, as opposed to natural law. Yeah, yeah, but it's the same principle, though, in a sense.

[10:07] You know, when you study history of philosophy, right? You have some guys who are deterministic philosophy, right, where everything in the world is necessary. You get, you know, sometimes the rationalists, so-called, huh? Who are very much into mathematics and mathematical science, right? And they say everything is necessary. Then you have the existentialists. On the other hand, everything's contingent. Everything's up for grabs, right? Nothing, no definiteness anywhere.

[10:37] Well, the truth is that there are some things that are necessary in the world, and some things that are contingent, huh? And so some people, you know, seeing one part of the world, right, boast of having seen the whole, as Empedocles says, huh? See. But if the world was completely contingent, why would anybody think it's completely necessary? Right. If it's completely undetermined, you know, why would somebody think it's completely determined?

[11:11] And vice versa, if it was completely determined, necessary, why would anybody think it's all up for grabs? It's all chance. It's all luck. See.

[11:20] They can't explain each other. See. But the man who realizes that the universe is composed of things—some things are contingent, and some are necessary—he can see what both of these extreme errors are based on, huh? It's very important to see, huh?

[11:50] So you go through the history of philosophy, in a sense, you'll see that the truth is always in between two mistakes. huh? As Aristotle said in ethics that reason should rule the emotions like a father rules his son? Not. In the way a master rules his what his slave, right?

[12:25] Well, you got the one hand, the Epicureans, right? Yeah. I'm thinking Epicureans are not necessarily, you know, exactly historically, but but certainly the Epicureans that we have all around us here, right? Who think that what if it feels good, do it. That's that's our first principle, right?

[12:48] So they don't accept any rule of reason over the emotions, do they? And then you have on the other hand the Stoics, right? Whom Shakespeare calls stocks, right? Stocks. Yeah, like wood stock. Didn't have no feeling at all. Oh, oh yeah. He makes a kind of a pun in them, right? And the Stoics, you know, say you know they're torturing your your wife and children, you know, but can't do anything about it, so yeah.

[13:22] Yeah. Like the Greek philosopher Stoic, I guess he was, you know, that came to with the news that his son had died. He said, "Well, I always knew he was mortal." You see, there's there's kind of a a crutching, you might say, right? They want to, in a way, eliminate the emotions, huh? Sure. It's a little bit like a master ruling his slave, right? Huh? You see, well, the truth lies in between those two, huh?

[13:54] And that's why you know in bringing up children, you introduce them to good music, huh? The music of the Baroque period, the music of Haydn and Mozart, and so on, because this enables reason to rule the emotions, as a father rules his son, and also good fiction and so on, huh? See, the difference between a father and and the son and a slave is that the slave is ruled only for the good of the master.

[14:25] He has nothing to say about what he does. The son is ruled by the father for the good of the son, and the son has something to say about what he's going to do in life, huh? But the father directs him and so on, huh?

[14:43] So again, you know, it's something like that, just like when you rule a father ruling a son. Sometimes the father makes a mistake of trying to force the son to be the same thing that he was or what he wanted to be, right? See, so sometimes if the father was a doctor, he wants a son to be a doctor. If the father was a was a lawyer, he wants a son to be a lawyer or something of that sort, right?

[15:08] And sometimes you see the son being pushed into something that he's not really fit for, right? But the other thing is just let the son go out and you know you have no direction at all, huh? And you have to hit kind of a mean between two extremes, huh?

[15:25] So, by way of you know, reply to the third objection, I'm mentioning that Plato, in a sense, has gone what? The truth is that only the human soul is immortal. The truth is that only the human soul, right, has powers that are not in the body. Now, the two extreme mistakes are is what? No soul is immortal, right?

[15:56] No soul has any powers that are not bodily, right? And the other extreme would be to say that not only the human soul, but maybe even the animal soul, the sensing soul, has powers not in the body. And therefore, would be something candidate for immortality.

[16:18] You see the idea? And you can see it very clearly in the great dialogue of Plato called the what? The Phaedo. Because in the Phaedo, the two main opinions in the Phaedo about the human soul and immortality, although one of them is not developed that much, but the opinion that that Simmias brings in would would conclude that the soul neither existed before nor after the body. And Socrates would defend the position that the human soul existed before the body and it would exist after the body.

[16:57] Now, what is the truth? No, neither one of them is true. The truth is that the human soul did not exist before the body, but it will exist after the body, right?

[17:15] But Socrates is defending the position that existed before and after the body. And Simmias is bringing in the other probable opinion that the soul existed neither before nor after the body.

[17:36] Of course, Simmias sees the soul as merely being the form of the body, right, and having nothing that's not in the body. While Socrates seems to see the soul as if it's some kind of thing, kind of entrapped in the body, like a man in a prison or something, right? But not really one with the body. Using according to scripture, how would you reconcile the saying of God saying, "I knew you before I formed you"?

[18:03] In the sense that the soul, in the sense, seems to be existing before the body's formed. No, that's that's saying that God's knowledge is not in time, right? And it's interesting if you read the fifth book of the Consolation of Philosophy.

[18:20] I don't know if you were here when we were talking about back the distinction or difference between Aristotle and Plato about knowing. The central question of philosophy. We talked about the difference between natural philosophy and mathematics. Some of you were here. Okay, let me just touch upon that a bit.

[18:43] I call this the central question of philosophy because, like the center of a circle, everything meets here. Now, what is the central question of philosophy?

[18:56] Well, it's going to involve the end of philosophy to know the truth, right? And everything the philosopher talks about. If you hang around philosophers like me, long enough, right? You'll find out that there's only two things we talk about. You talk about the way things are,

[19:26] and you talk about the way we know. Okay, that's the other thing they talk about. No, in natural philosophy, for example, the emphasis would be upon the way natural things are, right? In political philosophy, the emphasis would be upon the way political things are. In wisdom, the emphasis would be upon the way all things are. Okay, but in logic, the emphasis would be upon what the way we know, right?

[20:01] Okay. Now, what brings together everything the philosopher talks about and is in their goal? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? It's going to influence everything, huh? Okay. As I say to the students, there is two possible answers to this question, and they're scratching their heads sometimes,

[20:53] looking for something abstruse, I say there is two possible answers. What are the two possible answers? Yes or no. Yes or no. Now, the chief philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, seem to answer differently. Plato seems to answer yes. Aristotle answers no.

[21:27] Now, I could go down the whole history of philosophy and show you who follows in Plato's footsteps, right? And who follows in Aristotle's footsteps? But if you took, you know, the famous names in history of philosophy, you'd find many more following Plato. Okay. I mean that they learned it from Plato, right? But that they adopt the same position that Plato had. Aristotle had few and far between, huh?

[21:57] Okay. Now, that suggests a reason, right? Why is it that most people would tend to, right, agree at first, at least, with Plato? Because you want to control, explain, determine something, And the yes, I guess, would allow you to kind of meet that goal, Whereas the no, just keep you still in limbo. I guess. Yeah, yeah. But it's something to do with the idea of what we commonly mean by truth.

[22:37] Yeah. When we think of truth, I think everybody has to some extent the idea that truth is a conformity of the mind with things, It's an agreement. you see? So if you say, for example, that Berquist is standing now, he's speaking truly. If you say Berquist is sitting, or he's not standing, your mind is not in agreement with things, right? So having kind of a hazy notion, at least, about what truth is—that is conformity of the mind with things—you might think that it requires that the way we know be the way things are.

[23:16] Aristotle answers no, right? And the place where it comes up first in natural philosophy is when Aristotle is distinguishing between pure mathematics and natural philosophy. And he says there are a number of things in the natural world, right? And the pure mathematician talks about number, right? So is he talking about the numbers of natural things, or what is he talking about? And he talks about sphere and cubes, right?

[23:53] And there are more or less spheres and cubes in the world around us, right? Is he talking about the sphere and cube? Aristotle says no. What he's doing is considering number in separation from all sensible bodies. He's considering sphere, right, in separation from all sensible bodies. And that's why in the definition of sphere in geometry, there's no matter at all. Okay. And then Aristotle has a kind of footnote there.

[24:23] He says, and there's nothing false in his doing that either. He can consider in separation things that don't exist in separation. Now Plato was convinced of the truth of mathematics too. But he knew that mathematics was considering spheres and cubes that had no matter.

[24:52] Therefore, he said there must be a mathematical world corresponding to what? Pure mathematics. Aristotle says no. It's our mind that considers these things and separates them. Okay. Now,

[25:13] can you know in separation? Can you truly know in separation? Things that don't exist in separation. Well, take a very simple example. Take white sugar. Okay. White sugar is white and sweet. Huh? Now, is the eye false in knowing the whiteness of the sugar without the sweetness? No. You can say it's knowledge of the sugar is incomplete, right? But is it false? Isn't the whiteness knowable without the sweetness?

[25:51] And vice versa, my tongue, right, my sense of taste, can know the sweetness of the sugar without its whiteness. And is it false in knowing the sweetness without the white? You could say its knowledge is incomplete, but is that false?

[26:10] Now, if If I said that this sweet thing is not white, or this white thing is not sweet. Then I'd be false, right? But I can know its whiteness without its sweetness, and vice versa, right? Because one is knowable without the other. Do you see that? For example I use in class a lot. Huh? Um, you know me to be a philosopher, right? Okay. Maybe you didn't know I'm a grandfather, huh?

[26:44] Okay. But when I was in the hospital there, my daughter was having one of her babies, and my wife and I were going to kind of take care of the ones already around there. But the nurses are not going to let us take care of them until my wife's my daughter's husband came down, identified us as grandparents, right? Yeah. I just let anybody take care of the kids, right?

[27:11] Yeah. So the nurses know me to be a grandfather, knowing nothing about my being a philosopher. Some of my students might know me to be a philosopher, knowing nothing about my being a grandfather. But in reality, I'm both a philosopher and a grandfather, right? But isn't one of those knowable without the other? See? Now, if you said this philosopher is not a grandfather, then you'd be false, right?

[27:40] Or if you said this grandfather is not a philosopher, then you'd be false, right? But your mind is not false in knowing one without the other, because one is really knowable without the other. See? Do you see that? Okay. Now you couldn't know I'm a grandfather without knowing I'm a man, right? Because man is in the understanding what a grandfather is.

[28:10] I told you I was in church, one time there with my wife my wife and my daughter, and and a whole bunch of grandchildren, right? And this guy used to work with years ago. He sees all these grandchildren. He says, "You know," he says, "you're responsible for all this."

[28:25] So notice, grandfather is not knowable without knowing what a man is, right? Although the reverse is possible, right? You can know I'm a man without knowing I'm a grandfather, right? But you couldn't know I'm a grandfather without being a man, huh? Do you see? So the mind is not false in knowing me to be a grandfather without knowing me to be a philosopher, or vice versa. Your mind is not false in knowing me to be a man without knowing me to be a grandfather.

[28:57] Do you see that? Okay. Um. Then, what about order, right? My stock example in class is take the first sense of order there, and I say now, I know you students before I know your parents,

[29:25] but now in reality, who came before? You. Parents. Yeah, now, is my knowledge of you false because I know you before I know your parents? No. See. Notice in this respect, if I know you and then through you I meet your parents, right? The order in my knowing is the reverse of the order in reality. And more generally than that example, we tend to know usually the effect before the cause, like the great Sherlock Holmes says to his friend Watson.

[30:07] There, we're going to have to reason backwards. And Holmes or Watson says, "What do you mean? We've got to reason," he says, "from the effect back to the cause." Now, is my mind false in knowing the effect before the cause? No. But in reality, the cause comes before the effect.

[30:30] So the order in which we know is just the reverse of the order in reality. God, who's the beginning of all things, is the last thing we know in philosophy. It's in the twelfth book of wisdom that Aristotle finally arises in the knowledge of God, and everything else is ordered to that ultimate knowledge. So the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Right. What's first in reality is last in our knowledge.

[31:01] You see the idea. So we can know things in separation that don't exist in separation, right? We can know things in an order that's even contrary to the order in which they come. And Aristotle says there's no mistake, provided you don't attribute one to the other. If I say because I know you before I know your parents, therefore in reality you came before your parents, then I have falsehood, right?

[31:29] Then I'd be attributing the order in which I know you and your parents to the order in reality in which you and your parents came. You see the idea? Yes. So so far is yet from being what?

[31:47] Ah, requiring that is that if you do require that, you're going to end up with all kinds of falsehood. And the supreme example of that is Spinoza and Hegel huh? Because Spinoza says in his Ethica More Geometrico demonstrata, that the order in our ideas. And the order of things is the same. Wow. Same? And so Hegel, following Spinoza, he identifies the most confused idea in our mind, which is the first idea in our mind, this very confused idea of being, right?

[32:28] With what Scripture says, "I am who am." Hmm. He makes the first thought in our mind correspond to what? God. What's the first thought again? This confused idea of being is something else. Now Thomas, of course, in the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles is a whole capitulum, in there a whole chapter, to show that the being which is said of all things is not the being that is God.

[32:53] See? So Hengel is identifying what's first in our mind, what's first in what? Reality. Yeah. Very gross mistake in a sense. Yeah. Um. Now, ah, it's interesting when you read the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. There are five books of the Consolation of Philosophy. It's really a very great work, huh? And there are there are poems and there's prose, right? Poems and prose, huh? Very thoughtful poems, I'd say, their verse.

[33:28] Ah, Boethius is perhaps one of the greatest minds we need in the church. Between St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, being Boethius is the greatest mind. But he's seeing a very great mind. But in the beginning of the Consolation of Philosophy, this is written in the form of a dialogue between Boethius and Lady Wisdom, has come down to console him in prison. He says he's a member of the Academy, the School of Plato.

[33:58] Okay. But now when he gets to the fifth book, the very thing you were touching upon there, right? He's trying to understand the way God knows. Huh? Now God's knowledge is not in time. God's knowledge is God Himself, and God is eternal. There's no before and after in God. There's no time in God. There's no change. And yet God truly knows everything in time. So he knows time in a what?

[34:35] Non-temporal way. He knows the past, the present, the future in his eternal now. Now. Okay. So in order to understand the divine knowledge and the truthfulness of it, he has to follow Aristotle instead of what? Plato, although he said he's a member of the Academy, huh? What's interesting? He doesn't say he's going to do that, but at the beginning of Book Five, Lady Wisdom says she introduces Aristotle, the true follower.

[35:07] So Goetheus is following Aristotle there in opposition to Plato. Of course, Thomas is the second great mind, right? That's following Aristotle, right? But he has the benefit of Boethius before him, right?

[35:26] Take another very simple example of this. Here we get together with somebody to talk about old times, huh? You know, you and I were in high school together, or something, right? Or you and I were in college, or something. Now,

[35:46] you're talking about the past. You're thinking about the past now, aren't you? Right. You're remembering the past now. Are you false remembering the past now?

[36:02] Can you remember the last class you had here? Maybe a little bit. You're Remembering something last week. But you're remembering is now, this week, today, right now, here, right? I can remember the beginning of this class, can't you? That's in the past now, isn't it? The beginning of this class. So is my mind false, remembering the past? Now, knowing the past? Now? Well, if I thought that the past was present, then I'd be false, right?

[36:37] But in my present knowledge, I know not the present, but the past. You see? the way we know? Not the way things are, right? There's no falsity there, is there? No, the falsity would come and say that because I remember the past now, the past must be now, right? And then I really got a problem.

[37:03] You guys got battle shock or something, right? Okay. So let's look at the reply here to Plato. We're going to take a little break before we do the second one. He said the opinion of Plato was that to sense is an operation proper or private to the soul, just as to understand, right? So he's adding, you might say, to the what truth, right? Those who say that understanding is in the brain, they're subtracting from the truth, right?

[37:33] But he's adding to the truth. He says in many things which pertain to philosophy, Augustine uses the opinions of Plato, not asserting them, but what simply reciting them, right? Okay. That's the first thing he says, right? He says Augustine doesn't really mean this. He just. Okay. Now the second one, he tries to kind of an abstruse explanation of of how this could be said, right?

[38:05] Nevertheless, as far as it pertains to the present, this which is said that the soul senses some things with the body and some without the body, this can be understood in two ways, huh? In one way, that this which I say with the body or without the body determines the act of sensing according as it goes forth from the one sensing,

[38:36] and thus nothing senses without the body, right? Because the action of sensing cannot proceed from the soul except through a bodily what organ. In another way, this could be understood that the fore said determines the act of sensing on the part of the object that is sensed, huh? And thus some things it senses with the body, that is existing in the body, as when it senses a what wound, huh?

[39:08] Vulnus or something of this sort, huh? Some things it senses without the body. That is not existing the body, but only in the apprehension the soul, just as when it senses itself to be what sad or to rejoice about something that it's heard, right? Okay. So if you stick a knife at me, oh, I sense that, right? It's in my body, right? If I'm sensing, right? Okay.

[39:36] But then maybe you bring me some good news or some bad news, huh? Right. Your mother's died, or your father's sick, or something, right? Huh? Or you won the sweepstakes or something, right? See, and now I have what joy or sadness, right? Aware of this, but it's not about something in my body, is it? Okay, but that's on the side of the object, right? I'm sad or joyful because of the news, the good news or bad news that you've just given me, right?

[40:06] Okay. So he's saying either that Augustine is saying something false, right? Not as asserting that he himself thinks it, but this is what Plato says, right? Or he has this other strange way of speaking, right? Ah, but he should not say something false, right?

[40:34] Okay. You see that? Yeah. I was reading the the treatise on the Trinity there today a little bit, and sometimes you know the the the Greek fathers, right? A little bit sloppy in the use of words, huh? And Thomas will say, you know, well, he's using the word in a loose sense, you know, like that. So he doesn't want to attribute to the Greek father, especially something Basil or somebody, you know, something.

[41:05] Um, the Greeks say, you know, that the the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, huh? And Thomas said, this is never said in Scripture. Okay. He's talking about this name of of the Son, the Image huh? And why it's it's really the proper name for the the Son. But all he says all all that Basil means is that the Holy Spirit is is like the Father and the Son, huh?

[41:37] But not that he proceeds as an image of the thing, huh? So so sometimes he'll say too, you know, when there's a way of speaking that's not too good, he'll say, um,

[41:52] when they say this, it should be piously expounded, right? But one shouldn't continue that way of speaking, huh? Another example was where where Boethius uses the word fate, right? For the what?

[42:10] Order in things, you know, that divine providence, you know, establishes, huh? And Thomas says, well, that's what you mean, you know, your opinion is is correct, right? But the word fate is also used by people who have this idea, you know, the stars determine everything down here and so on. And says we should avoid that word, not use that word, right? Because use a word that people commonly, you know, use to signify something false, and you seem to, you know, okay.

[42:39] And it's just like you know, if I was to say, you know, well, Mary was the mother of Christ, huh? So I've got to be kind of careful with that, right? Because Nestorius said that because he wanted to deny that he was what God, right? You see, and therefore she's only the mother of the man, and not the mother of the person who is God, right? According to his human nature, huh?

[43:01] So, gotta kind of be careful those words, huh? That's why you know sometimes I see, you know, even paper documents sometimes they use the word value, you know, rather than the word good, huh? Now they they tell me sometimes that when you look at the Latin text or the official text, you have the word good, and they translate as value, right? See, but there's a tendency to use that word because everybody uses that word nowadays, huh?

[43:30] But most people who talk about value theory, it's something completely what subjective, as we say, right? Something just in the person who's, someone who's extrinsically right, bestowing value upon something, right? Rather than being something good in the thing, right? So I like to avoid those words because they're commonly what misunderstood, you know. And because

[43:59] I remember I first read some of the Greek fathers there, and you know they say the father is the cause of the son. Well, that's kind of a misuse of the word, huh? See, you can say that the son proceeds from the father, so the father is like a beginning, right? But not a cause. Every cause is a beginning, but every beginning is a cause, see? But Basil really means, you know, not cause in the strict sense, huh?

[44:30] But that the son proceeds from the father, so sometimes you don't use the word exactly right, huh? Even though the understanding is not heretical, huh? Right. So you got to, you know, explain that text, right?

[44:47] Piously expound it, right? what the man means, but then not adopt that way of speaking because it could be what misleading, huh? Monsignor Dionne has a bit, interesting remark too about. He says Greek is a better language for philosophy and theology than Latin, huh? But in the formulation of the. Articles of Faith and so on—the careful and nuanced way of speaking of these things was perfected in Latin before in Greek, even though the Greek is a better language.

[45:29] And Monsignor Dionne attributed this to the fact that the Latin language was tied with the papacy, right? Rome, right? You see, and so that's part of the thing that happened with the Greeks, right? They weren't as close to the papacy, right? And so there's certain supernatural help, we'd say,

[45:56] in the papacy, which led to what—a more clear statement of the Articles of Faith, choice of words, etc. Right? In in Latin before in Greek, even though Greek is a language that lends itself. To philosophy and theology more, is that because it's broader vocabulary-wise, or many reasons? Yeah, it's it's more concrete Latin is more abstract. And Monsignor Dian used to say, you know, a sign, you know, of the great excellence of Thomas Aquinas was that he could think so well in Latin.

[46:33] Aristotle was thinking in a much better language for philosophy, Greek, and but Thomas because the excellence of his mind, right? You see, and so you know, I kind of you know, as years go by, I'd hear Monsignor Dionne and Father Boulay, whose native language was both French, right? But two very good teachers I had, but they both would say that English was much better than French for philosophy.

[47:05] It's much better than French for for poetry too. Really? Yeah, and I got I got to Monsignor Dian sometimes, you know, when I was first teaching in Assumption, and I talked a little about the way I was saying things in class, you know, and something like that. And I know he'd stop and say, you know, this is a very good way I had of speaking. He says, but but in French you can't speak that way, you know.

[47:25] You know, you can see, you know, you'd see it so clear to him, you know, how much better it was the way I could express myself in English. I was talking about, you know, the phrase to think out, to reason out, in the very sense of in and out, and how you can. And he said this was very good that I was speaking that way, but he said we can't speak that way in French.

[47:43] You see, so I kind of pay him the you know the compliment that he paid Thomas, a sign of the excellence of Monsignan's mind, was he could think so well in French. I mean, I can think of English. as. Superior language, you see. Yeah, I just kind of thought that you know the language was more concrete; it would be better for philosophy. But therefore, a language that was less concrete, therefore more flowery, might be better for poetry.

[48:10] Because I always thought that you know, philosophy and poetry were you know kind of different aims. You know, one being more specific, one being more. No, Actually, it's the same language; it's better for both of them. Yeah, that's why I find it harder. Yeah, yeah, Monsignor Dian used to use the proportion there that French is to English like Latin is to Greek. French is much more abstract, especially since Descartes got very abstract.

[48:37] But the they used to use the the preface by André Gide, you know, sort of a master of French prose. André Gide has a preface to the Pléiade edition of Shakespeare, the edition of Shakespeare in French. Oh yeah. And André Gide, in the prologue there, he talks about the difficulty of translating one poet into another language, right? But the peculiar difficulty of translating it into French from English, right?

[49:05] And he speaks of the French language, the words he used were "presque antipoétique huh Almost antipoetic the French language, and so now when Sainte-Beaune sometimes we talk about the word, and so and he would sometimes go into English and sometimes maybe into Greek, you know. But sometimes the word for one thing is better in one language than another one. I think the word "understanding," for example, in English, is better than the Greek word "knowing" or the Latin word "intelligere.

[49:43] Okay. Yeah, And it really leads you to see all kinds of things that word "understanding" about what it is. It's a much better word, and remember when Sainte-Beaune was talking about the argument called "example" and going to English, you know the word "example" and "sample," you know. So, but but sometimes the Latin word is very good. I think that the Latin word "sapientia, if you know, which Thomas kind of says "sapida scientia, savory knowledge, right?

[50:21] That's a nice, concrete thing. See, and why wisdom is not that concrete in English, huh? So there is something in the Latin word, huh? And I mentioned how Shakespeare, right, in in

[50:36] Romeo is comparing himself to a foolish sea captain, you know, who's going to dash his ship upon the rocks. He's going to take his life there at the tomb of Juliet, whom he thinks is dead, and he says, "Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide." And he just just just—it's amazing, right? Is that right? Unsavory for the fool, right? Foolish guy, and the opposite of that, of course, would be savory, right?

[51:05] Sapida scientia. Let's take a little break here, then we'll go try to do Article Six.