Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
4. Metaphysics I.2: The Six Marks of the Wise Man; Wisdom as Knowledge of What Is Said of All
Class of 2005-01-05
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/004-metaphysics-i-2-the-six-marks-of-the-wise-man-wisdom-as-knowledge/

[0:00] Now, let's recall the division here of the premium. The premium has two parts, huh? And the first part, which occupies the first and the second reading here in the editorial division,

[0:18] is what is the end or goal of wisdom, right? Okay. And chiefly, what he wants to show there is that it's about the first causes, right? And he shows other things too, but that's the chief thing. And up to this point, he's especially shown that it's about causes, right? Okay. Now, in the second reading, he's going to go further and show that it's about the very first cause, huh?

[0:46] But. He's also going to develop somewhat its being about the most universal. What is said of all? Okay. So the second reading is the second part of the first part of the premium. Do y'all see that? The second part of the premium will be in the third reading, and that's the kind of knowledge this wisdom is. Okay. Mm-hmm. Since we seek such knowledge, knowledge is the knowledge of the cause, right?

[1:27] This ought to be considered about what sort of causes, about what sort of beginnings. Is wisdom the what? Knowledge of, perhaps he says, philosophical modesty, as Thomas calls it. Perhaps it would become clearer if one took the thoughts we have about the wise men. Again, the we here is not the editorial we. We Aristotle have, or even we, the Greek philosophers, right? But thoughts, for the most part, anyway, that we, meaning us men in general, have about what the wise man, or do we have about what wisdom, right?

[2:07] Now, sometimes he'll talk about the wise men. Sometimes he'll talk about wisdom in this next part here. But one can easily be transposed to the other, right? So, if the if we think the wise men knows all things in some way, then we think that wisdom is a knowledge of all things, right? Or vice versa, right? So, he's going to work out here now, kind of a an outline of what wisdom is or what the wise man is, put together from the things that are more or less commonly what said about the wise men or about wisdom.

[2:47] And it's going to be a six-part description, and then he's going to reason from the first three of those six. To wisdom being a knowledge of what is most universal, what is said of all, and from the last three of those, to its being a knowledge of the first cause or causes. Okay, see?

[3:21] Now the first thing he says: we think first that the wise man knows all things so far as possible, not having a knowledge of these in what particular, right?

[3:39] Because not no man could know all things in particular, right? Okay. But in some general way, we think the wise man knows all things. Now, is that a common thought about the wise man? Everything. Yeah, yeah. I just want to, take the example, you know, of a wise guy in the pejorative sense. What do you, wise guy, know it all? You know, but in a sense, you know, the wise guy is pretending to what?

[4:10] To know it all, okay. Um. We have another expression you see in daily life. He's got it all together, right? Okay, what does that mean? Somehow he sees the whole of life, right? He hasn't left chunks of life out of his consideration, right, or his, you know, his wisdom about human life, huh? Okay.

[4:42] You see, very much in Einstein, right? huh? He wanted to know the universe as a whole. The details don't bother, me, don't interest me. He says, you know, but he wanted to somehow see the big picture, right?

[4:55] Okay. I suppose that's what they thought about Homer, or we think about Shakespeare, right? That he understands human life as a whole, right? The poet does, huh? That the carpenter might understand wood and how to work with wood, or the tailor might understand cloth and how to work with cloth, but you don't necessarily see the whole life, right? The rest of their life might be a mess, right?

[5:39] So I like that book of Einstein, the book Lincoln, the universe, and Doctor Einstein, right? You know, he knows all things in some way, right? Understands whole universe. Wow.

[6:00] Then we think wise. The man who is able to know things difficult and not easy for man to know. Well, now isn't that a common thought about the wise man? A wise man is the man we admire, or reverence, or honor for his knowledge, right? And we honor and reverence and look up to a man because he knows things that are easy to know.

[6:26] There's eight people at this table, you know. Do you admire me for knowing that? Easy to do, right? Okay, not a count. Two more guys. There, better. Let's take this table here. Okay, eight.

[6:45] Okay. Two sense is common to all, right? Hence, it is easy and nothing what wise. Now, in the third or next paragraph, the next fourth paragraph in this reading,

[7:14] as Thomas in the commentary will explain, there, you have two more items, right? So, you might want to draw a little line between the man more certain or more sure, and then the man more able to teach, right? Okay. Because the third thing we think about the wise man is that he's more certain or he's more sure to use the English word, right, of what he has to say, right?

[7:40] Now, is that true, huh? Do we think of the wiser man as being more sure of what he says? Well, it seems to me that when you're kind of uncertain yourself and somewhat in doubt or not too sure what you're saying, right, that you go to. some... Someone you consider wiser in this matter to confirm or reject what you have to say, right? Okay. So, if a doctor, for example, the general practitioner, let's say, is not too sure about your ailment, but he kind of suspects what it is, he might send you to a what?

[8:20] Yeah, yeah. Okay. My wife had carotid conitis there years ago, you know. And of course, when it first happened, you know, when when it was discovered, went down to the local eye doctor, ophthalmologist right? I think he knew what it was, but he sent her to Boston to the specialist, right? Okay. Okay. I used to drive up to Quebec, you know, every Thanksgiving vacation, every Easter vacation, to see Monsignor Dionne again, right?

[8:56] And usually, you know, questions that I had worked on miles away, and usually, you know, I worked out an answer to the question, you know. I started checking with him, you know, and most of the time he'd agree with what I'd thought out, but occasionally he'd have a disagreement or qualification there, and usually I'd see, you know, that he saw something I didn't see, right? But why did I go to this man, right?

[9:23] Or the only man that I really knew that I could really what trust trust? Yeah, yeah. But so if I consider him wiser, it's because he what? He's more certain about these things, right? More sure. Okay.

[9:46] So those are the first three things about the wise man. In some sense, he seems to know all things, at least in some general way, right? He seems to know things that are difficult for us to know, right? Not easy to know. He's more sure of what he says, right? Now notice there's a little paradox there between the second and the third thing, right? Because if a man is knowing things more difficult, or maybe the most difficult for us to know, you'd think, well, then would he be less sure about what he's saying than the man who's knowing the number of people at the table here, or knowing something easier to know, right?

[10:27] But we have both of these thoughts about the wise man, don't we? But maybe where the wise man knows what's most difficult to know, and where he's more sure, is not exactly the same place. But the mystery there, right, comes up later, right? And Aristotle has something that same mystery in the three books about the soul, right? Because in one way we're very sure that we have a soul,

[11:04] but about what the soul is, we're not too sure about that. Something Descartes didn't see, right? I think, therefore, I am, right? He's very sure he's thinking, right?

[11:21] But are you sure what thought is? It's difficult to know exactly what thought is and what thinking is, right? So I can be very sure that I'm thinking, and not very sure, or less sure anyway, of what thinking really is. Okay.

[11:42] I was asking the students there that night. I ask people this sometimes. You know, can you think without words? Do you know what you're thinking without words?

[12:05] But before I can say in words what I think, do you know exactly what I'm thinking? Do you? Huh? You know and then you realize not so clear Thank you, yeah.

[12:25] Now, the fourth thing, they might be a little easier if one left out the word "the causes," because he's going to kind of reason to speak about the first causes, right? But I suppose you could leave that in there. The wise man is more able to teach.

[12:45] Now what do you think about that. Is that a thought we have about the wise man? He's more able to teach. So I didn't. Once in a while, I get sort of my first teacher, right? The question he wasn't too sure about.

[13:05] Well, the first thing he'd do is get on the phone and call Father Baumgartner, the seminary, and ask him, right, or send me over to see Father Baumgartner, okay?

[13:20] Or then later on, when Charles DeConick used to come down in this lecture tour and give, you know, seven or eight different talks in the Twin Cities area and so on, and he'd stay at Kasurik's house So Kasurik says, well, when De Koninck comes down, he says you ask him those questions. So I was about to go to the house, and DeConick came down, and I put to him the same questions that Kasuri couldn't quite handle, and DeConick was very clear about and explained it all to me.

[13:50] And I could see very clearly DeConick's superiority there to what Kasuriks, right? So the teacher is more able to what to teach, right? Of course, people who had never studied under DeConick, you know, but had run into people who had studied under DeConick, right? They had a hard time understanding the respect that we had for DeConick as a teacher. It was kind of very manifest, now. See, but as part of his wisdom that he could what really teach, my my teacher Kasuriks had given up philosophy for a while before he met DeConick, and then he heard about DeConick and well, try this guy out, see.

[14:37] But he was old when he first went to Laval see, and so when he got there, he says, De Koninck, if you teach the way I was taught philosophy in the states, I'll get up and leave your class. And DeConick was not was not annoyed by this. He says, "Fine, you know." And but you could see the respect that Kasuriks had for DeConick, and I always remember one little incident there where DeConick was speaking there up on the stage there, and there was some problem with the microphone, you know, getting it just right.

[15:08] And Kasuriks he jumps out the audience, runs up to the stage, adjusts the microphone, runs back. If I can get on this, you know, but you'd see that kind of respect, you know, just you know, right away, you know, and towards him. Of course, they used to Father Baumgartner I mentioned and Father Dulac and Kasuriks and so on who had studied under DeConick. And Dion, they would pay Dion's way down here, you know, so they could come down and and see what he's thinking about these days.

[15:37] So the man more able to teach, we think, is what wiser. Um, Niels Bohr was what visiting the United States there when he got something from one of his colleagues in Europe, right?

[15:56] And then he realized what the possibility of the atom bomb. The first thing he said was, "Get rid of the reporters, get all the reporters out of here." And then he explained to the American scientists the possibilities, right? Well, he seems wiser, right? He's teaching them, right? And Heisenberg, you know, some people think is the greatest scientist next to Einstein, anyway. You know, Heisenberg. You can buy his lectures when he first came to the United States to explain what the quantum theory to the American physicists.

[16:33] Heisenberg describes Bohr when Bohr first came to Germany. He was still a young student at the time, and Bohr had the reputation of knowing the atom better than anybody in the whole world. And so the German scientists called it the Bohr Festival, this series of lectures Bohr gave, right? So we think of this guy who's able to teach as being what wiser.

[16:56] Now the fifth one here in our democratic practical age is a little harder for us to see, but we saw it anticipated here in some of the things we read in the first reading. And the science is the one for itself.

[17:17] It's interesting. We do give the Nobel Prize more for the work of the theoretical physicist than for the man who might construct the bomb or do something else on the basis of the theory, huh?

[17:36] And so we said Einstein is admired more than those who did the practical things with this, huh? So the one for itself and for the sake of knowing—that's the same thing—is more wisdom than that for the sake of its results or for the sake of doing or making something. That's the fifth attribute of the wise man of wisdom,

[18:06] and then the sixth one, and this in a way comes out of our thinking that the chief artist is wiser than the man who what obeys, right? Well, then the one ruling is more wisdom than the one what obeying. That's a common thought we have, right? For the wise man, ought not to receive orders from another man because another man will be wiser, but to give orders, right?

[18:31] And he ought not to be persuaded by another, but the less wise by him. Okay. So, such and so many other thoughts we, meaning people generally, have about the wise men and wisdom, right? So, as Thomas says, you can construct a kind of six-part right description or encircling of the wise man, right? He's a man who knows all things in some way. He knows things that are difficult for man to know, right?

[19:06] He's more sure of what he says in some way, right? He's more able to teach, right? He has knowledge more desirable for its own sake.

[19:19] Knowledge more desirable, simply as knowledge, and he's able to order, direct others, right? So you find Thomas often quoting that in Latin, "sapientis est ordinari ordinari," right? Okay.

[19:37] You saw that, you know, from the book of wisdom, right? Wisdom ordering all things, you know, sweetly, huh? Okay. Pretty interesting description of the wise man of wisdom, huh? But sometimes he speaks of the wise man, sometimes of wisdom, but as I say, you can transpose one to the other, right? If wisdom is a knowledge of all things in some way, then the wise man, some way, knows all things, or vice versa.

[20:05] Okay. See that? Now, sometimes I would give students a kind of little exercise saying, "Which seems more like wisdom, logic, or ethics and political philosophy, or natural philosophy?" Right.

[20:37] In some way, the logician seems to what direct all the other parts of philosophy, right? I mean, Socrates is in the phaedo there, and again, a very important question, especially in the last day of your life. The question is whether the human soul. Survives death, right? Goes on after the destruction of the body. And Socrates develops some arguments that seem pretty good, and then Simmias and Cebes come in with some objections, and the arguments don't seem so good.

[21:14] And Socrates will say, "We need an art about arguments that would help us to tell the difference between a good argument and a bad one, right? And the difference among good arguments between one that's really necessary and one that's only probable. And this is, to my knowledge, the first time someone has said we need an art about arguments, which is what, logic, is ultimately an art about arguments.

[21:45] So maybe you're arguing about the triangle, and you're arguing about the soul, and you're arguing about courage or temperance, right? I'm going to tell you, all whether you're arguing correctly or not, right? I'm going to be directing all you guys. So it's not the geometer or the natural philosopher or the political philosopher who's what like the wise men, seems to be. like the logician is directing them, right?

[22:16] But you, being a political philosopher, might say, "Hey, just a minute now. We're going to decide, Berquist, whether you practice the art of logic or practice the military art, huh? You know, where you can best, you know, contribute to the defense of the country or something, right, huh? And we're going to see, Mr. Berquist where where you can most contribute to the common good of this country, right?

[22:40] See, so we're going to be directing you, right? Aristotle spoke of, you know, how in some way the political art seems to direct all the other arts, huh? And so I can't practice a medical art without being some way certified by the state, right? And I can't practice that art of driving out. Me, I got a little license in here that licenses me to practice that art, right?

[23:05] And they talk about, you know, when we get old like me, you know, they check us again to see if we're capable of driving safely on the roads out there, right? Now, see, it's very deciding whether I can practice the art or that art, right? And when the President of Assumption College confers formally the degrees, he says, "In virtue of the authority invested in the state of Massachusetts," he says, you know, so we're giving degrees.

[23:32] Assumption College is licensed, you might say, by the state, right, to grant degrees in certain areas, anyway, right? So the political philosopher, in some way, seems to be what the wise man, the political statesman, right?

[23:55] But then, in terms of knowing causes, the natural philosopher might seem to be right. But you can see that different parts of philosophy all have a likeness to wisdom, and even somewhat in some in in some of these items more than others, right?

[24:16] So I mean, if if ethics is in political philosophy is basically about the end of man, then what you direct somebody to the end, don't you? So if this is the ultimate end of human life, and the practical philosopher knows that end, he's directing everybody towards it. Isn't he the great director? Isn't he the wise man?

[24:43] Of course, wisdom we consider the end of the whole universe, but certainly in terms of human affairs, the political philosopher seems to be the wise man, right? In terms of knowing the end, but in terms of thinking, you know,

[25:03] logician seems to be the great director. Buckley used to have was it Eleanor Roosevelt's faulty reasoning, but he'd submit, you know, submit it to James Brennan, who was something of a philosopher, right? You know, to correct the reasoning and point out the fallacies in the reasoning. So if you turn to logician, right, to see if this reasoning is correct or not, sometimes Charles De Koninck would get Monsignor Dionne, right?

[25:34] You know, have Monsignor Dionne give a logical analysis of something, right? Well, there De Koninck seems to be being directed by Dionne, right? But then, in his Proemium to Logic*, Thomas recalls things that Aristotle taught in the third book about the soul. So now the natural philosopher seems to be coming into prominence, huh?

[26:05] And maybe this end or purpose of man you're talking about is the natural end of man, right? Does nature act for an end? We've got to go to this guy for natural philosophy here for a direction in that matter, right? Take a little break here. Sure. On a break here and now. I can't help it Aristotle is going to reason from these six things to two things about wisdom, right?

[26:40] One that is about the most universal, what is said of all, right? And the other that is about the cause of all, right? Okay. Now, if you read the modern philosophers, it's always confusing these two things, right? And let me.

[27:09] In Latin, when Thomas talks about it, he'll sometimes use the phrase "universale in "praedicando and "universale in "causando," right? But it's a distinction here between what is said of many, and if it's most universal, said of all, and what is a what cause of all. right? Now I think it's a simple example, of, the army, right? Because Aristotle in the twelfth book of wisdom will compare the order of the universe to the order of an army, and God is like the general, right?

[28:03] He doesn't take the city because the city is too distorted. It's the army. but notice the difference between a soldier, let's say, which is said of all in the army, right? And then the commander-in-chief, let's say the general of the army, who is an individual, right? And he commands everybody in the whole army, right? Okay. So if if it's General Douglas MacArthur, I'd say my favorite general, if MacArthur is a universale in causando, right?

[28:42] He commands the whole army, right? You all obey him in some way, but he's not saving anybody in the army, is he? No one else is MacArthur, right? You heard the thing when what was it, replaced him in Korea. There, I asked him, you know, does he feel like to step into his shoes? He says, nobody fills his shoes. Okay? But soldier is said of all, right?

[29:06] Okay. There's a big difference between what is said of all and what is a what cause of all, right? So soldier can be said of everybody in the United States Army, right? Okay. But the commander-in-chief, let's say, is the president of our system, right? Well, Bush is not said of everybody in the army is he? No, but Bush, in some sense, is a cause of the whole army moving, right?

[29:31] Okay, you see the difference between those two, huh? Okay. Now, my favorite whipping boy is Hegel, or Spinoza anticipates it, huh? They confuse the two things, right? Because Hegel takes the being which is said of all things, right? And he tries to generate everything out of the being which is said of all things.

[30:04] And Karl Marx, you know, who studied under Hegel school in a sense, is all playfully making fun of it, right? He says, "This is what Hegel does." huh? He says, "you've got an apple here, and an orange, and a banana, and a pineapple, and so on, right?" And Hegel, you know, separates out what they all have in common, which is fruit, right? And then from the idea of fruit itself, he tries to give rise to all these fruits.

[30:34] Well, it's taking what is said of all and trying to make that the what cause of all. Now, what we do there's an equivocation here in the word universal, right? But you have that same confusion or multiplicity meanings in say the English word general, right? Because in one sense, soldier is something general, right? Said of every particular soldier in the army, right? Another sense, Douglas MacArthur is called a what?

[31:07] The general, right? But he's not general in the way of its soldiers is he? Okay, so you have to separate those two. When the great Heraclitus says that those who speak With understanding, must be strong in what is common to all. Well, it can be common to all in the sense of being said of all, and what being a cause of all, right? Remember how we were talking about the goods of the soul and the goods of the body and exterior goods, right?

[31:44] What's common to all of them? Well, they're a good of man. In which sense is that common to all the good of man? Said of all. Considered all of them, right? Okay. But happiness is, in some sense, common to all of them too. But in this other sense here, okay, it's for the sake of happiness, right? That all these other things are assumed.

[32:12] So Hegel, if you look at his logic, for example, where this thing comes up, the being which is said of all things, he identifies with the one who said, "I am who am." Just explicitly. So he's confusing these two. That's quite a quite a

[32:37] interesting mistake, but a terrible mistake, huh? Okay. Of course, you know it's going to be a pantheistic notion of God, right? Or God, in a sense, is a part of everything because what is said of all is the sense in everything, right?

[32:59] Now Aristotle wants you to avoid that, right? Now he could reason from some of these things here to both conclusions, right? But instead, he does something kind of interesting, huh? From the first, second, and third, that the wise man knows all things in some way, that he knows things difficult to know, and that he's more sure or certain of what he says, he's going to reason from those first three things in the description of the wise man or wisdom to its being a knowledge of what is said of all.

[33:39] Okay. Do you see that? Let me just kind of diagram it a little bit to show you what I'm saying here. One, two, and three. He's going to reason to that, to wisdom being about what is most universal in predication and being said of something. Okay. He's going to reason from four, five, and six that the wise man is more able to teach. that his knowledge is most desirable for its own sake, he's able to direct and order all others.

[34:15] Right. He's going to reason from those three. To its being a knowledge of the cause of all, we could say the first cause. Okay.

[34:29] Okay. Now he could reason from some of these to both of these, right? It seems to me he wants you to keep those distinct in your mind, right? Now he knows, of course, it's a three. Three is enough, right? So he's going to have, in a sense, three arguments to show that wisdom is about the most universal, what is said of all. Okay.

[34:56] And we'll see more, better, in book four, what is said of all. Okay. And you're going to argue from three arguments, three things, right? That it's about the first cause, the cause of all. Okay. Three different things, right?

[35:15] And in books, say, six through ten, he's mainly talking about what is said of all. In books eleven through fourteen, what is the cause of all? See, this will be both of them. We did something like that, but on a lesser scale in ethics, right? We talked about human goods in general, right? And human good is said of the goods of the soul, goods of the body.

[35:50] Okay, not equally, but it's said of them, right? And then we talked about happiness, right? Two different things, right? What is said of all, and what is the cause of all?

[36:04] Is that clear enough, Okay. What it is to be a soldier, and what it is to be Napoleon, now, not the same thing, is it? But the same science that talks about both. Okay.

[36:32] In the politics, which is a culmination of practical philosophy, Aristotle will talk about the common good, right? And he'll talk about the government, right?

[36:47] And you talk about what a citizen is, who is and is not a citizen, right? Now, when you talk about what is a citizen, you're talking about something that is very general. But in what sense?

[37:04] Yeah. When you talk about the government, or you talk about the common good, you're talking about what is. cause of all, yeah. You see.

[37:20] MacArthur said, "What in war there's no substitute for victory." Well, victory is the end, right? But that's a cause in the sense of the end of all the army does, right? The general Napoleon or MacArthur is commanding is a cause, universal cause, in another sense, the mover, the maker, right? But soldier is general, another way, right?

[37:48] General Schwarzkopf said many years ago in the first Gulf War, a reporter asked him a question. He said, "Well, generally speaking," and he interrupts and says generals always speak generally, I told you about Shakespeare's punning on that, didn't I? Huh? So I was trying to show you he's wiser than Hegel, because in *Troilus and Cressida when *Troilus and Cressida comes over to the Greek camp, and and Agamemnon gives her a kiss, oh yeah and of course she'd be a pretty good girl so everyone else, could do the act, and so Ulysses says she's been kissed by the general, but she hasn't been kissed in general.

[38:27] but he gives her a kiss, right? this is the start of the downfall because*, you know, a ruined woman, but but it's one thing to be kissed by the general, another to be kissed in general, right? but Shakespeare often, you know, kind of intellectual in a sense because the the Elizabethans are always punning on the meaning of words, and Shakespeare does that.

[38:54] Um. Now, next to the last paragraph in page three, he's going to start to reason now from the first thing that we saw that the wise man knows all things in the way possible to man, right? But that's not possible to know all things in particular. Now, someone might say, you know, well, how can anybody know all things? Because there's an infinity of things to be known, right?

[39:18] Now you say, well, stop and think of something. Very easy to see. Do you know what an odd number is and what an even number is? And do you know that no odd number is even? Yeah, but odd number is said of how many things?

[39:36] Yeah, and even number is said of infinity of things. And even, if what's the order number is right. So when I say no odd number is even, I'm talking about infinity of things, right? But in what way is it possible for man to know infinity of things? See, well, you can't go through all the odd numbers one by one. No one can ever do that, right? But you can know something that is said of even infinity of things, right?

[40:01] You see. So if the wise man knows all things in the way that's possible for a man to know all things, right? It's not by knowing all things in particular, but by knowing all things by knowing what is said of all things, right? Do you see? So he can reason from that first thing to its being a knowledge of what is said of all.

[40:23] Of these, to know all things necessarily belongs to the man most of all having a knowledge of the universal, the man knowing the most universal, therefore. For he knows in some way all things placed under the what universal, right? So when I say no odd number is even, I'm making a statement in a way about all odd numbers, aren't I? About infinity of things. Now, notice you can see there why why the philosopher will say that God alone is wise, huh?

[40:54] Because to know all things, simply without qualification, would be to know them in detail and in particular, right? And that's this man that does know all things all. But it is possible for man in some imperfect way to know all things, because to know a universal, he knows in some way everything that's underneath it, right? You see that.

[41:18] Now the second thing he says, he's going to reason now from the wise man knowing things difficult to know, right? They got to be careful about this, right? Because Aristotle could have reasoned from its being about things difficult to know to say it's about the first causes, because everybody would admit that it's very difficult, if not it's possible the first causes. Most people, right?

[41:44] Aristotle knows how he qualifies, this, and perhaps, right? The most universal are the most difficult for men to know, and he gives a reason for it, for they are furthest from the senses. If our knowledge starts with the senses, and the senses know what the singular, well, then the most universal would be furthest away from the starting point, and therefore would seem to be what most difficult to know, right?

[42:12] But he says perhaps, because it's going to be much more difficult to know the first causes, right? Okay. You see what he's doing. He could reason from that second thing, even more so to its being a knowledge of the first causes. He doesn't want to. be like Hegel and accept the two. Right? He doesn't want to confuse. So he's going to reason from the first three just to one thing, and from the last three to the other, right?

[42:47] Now there is, you know, science a question about this, right? Because some might say, isn't it easier to know that this is a liquid, let's say, than that it's water, right? Huh? Okay. And there's no problem there.

[43:09] But as a teacher of philosophy over many years, in hearing students, you know, talk about the difficulty of philosophy, right? And why they might find philosophy more difficult than other subjects, or some other subjects anyway. Kind of the common thing they come up with is that it's so abstract, philosophy, right? Now,

[43:34] of course, it's a very abstract word, abstract in English. But what do they mean by saying it's so abstract? Don't they mean it's very, very general? You see, and not particular and concrete like history or botany or something, right? You see. And so they're saying, in some way, it's very difficult to know something that is very what universal, and it's easier to talk about something much more what particular.

[44:07] Yeah. You know, when you go to the supermarket and you get to the checkout counter and you get all this trashy magazines telling you about movie actresses and actors and and anybody who's you know. Prince Charles or Princess Diana or whoever it is, you know, and all these—things. It's kind of funny to see the title of some of these articles that they're selling it for, you know.

[44:32] But that's what the with the common man is reading apparently, the common woman or somebody reading, because they're all there, you know, and but all about the what singular, right?

[44:45] They have a hard time, you know, considering man or a woman. It's got to be Princess Diana or whoever the actor is or actress is, right?

[45:02] Now there is a special problem we'll find out about the most universal. In some sense, universal seems to be easier to know in some way, right? Although it's abstractness, you know, people see a difficulty there. But just give a little hint here, huh? In the fourth book of Natural Hearing, Aristotle quotes the common opinion of the Greek philosophers: whatever is must be somewhere, and if isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist.

[45:35] So people take it as a property of what is to be in place, and this is really a property not of what is, but of bodies, right?

[45:48] So when men think of what is, in the beginning they think of what is as bodies and what is in bodies, and that's why they say whatever is must be somewhere. but in some way, it doesn't exist.

[46:05] And so you know, it's to be the little question of where is God, right? And you know, when the Russians, when the communists were in power in Russia, and they sent the astronauts or the cosmonauts, they called them, and you know, speaking back, you know, in the intercom system, you know, to. There's no God up here. They're saying so funny. But you're going to see God in some place up there if He exists, right?

[46:33] But most people, even you know, people who are Christians, right, they kind of think that way, right? You see. And I know myself, you know. I mean, I'm convinced that the soul is immortal, you know, from philosophy as well as from the faith. But I tried to, you know, you know, picture, you know, my soul separated from my body, and then I'm trying to imagine my soul to be kind of a body-like thing, you know.

[47:00] And people imagine the soul to be a kind of a a air-like substance, but nevertheless something kind of bodily, right? More or less in the shape of yourself, right? Like Dante represents the souls there, you know, that he meets there, you know, in purgatory and so on. He tries to embrace them in their air, like that. But people can't rise above body, right?

[47:23] Well, as Aristotle pointed out later on, if everything that is is a body or in a body, right, then natural philosophy would be wisdom. And it's only because you have some reason to think there exists something that is not a body

[47:41] that you begin to realize that being is something more universal than what body and what is in bodies, right? So the most universal things like being are hard to what

[47:59] separate from less universal things like body and what is in bodies. So he says, perhaps there's a lot to think there, right? He's not elaborating, right? Okay. He really points out one difficulty that there might seem to be in knowing the most universal, and that is because it seems to be furthest from the starting point. And that's the difficulty the students are trying to get at when they say philosophy is so abstract.

[48:29] Okay. But they say there's another difficulty, and that is that the most universal there is something very hard to separate from body and what is in bodies. Until you can do that, you don't realize it's something higher. One reason why this science is sometimes called metaphysics after the books in natural philosophy. There's two or three places in natural philosophy where reason can reason to the existence of something apart from bodies.

[49:10] And one place is in the seventh and eighth books of the Natural Hearing, where Aristotle reasons to the dependence of motion upon a mover. And the dependence of moved movers upon a what unmoved mover. And then that a body doesn't move without being moved, so the unmoved mover is not a body, right? That's one place where, in natural philosophy, studying motion and the causes of motion, one comes at the limit, you might say, of natural philosophy, to the unmoved mover.

[49:44] There's not a body. And then in the third book about the soul, Aristotle perfects Plato, who had some awareness of this. He reasons to the what immortality of the human soul. And then you have another evidence, right, that there's something that is not a body, right? That can be. Perhaps the third place is when you start to realize that there's some greater mind behind the material world, huh?

[50:17] And we'll see that again in Anaxagoras. First, begin to see this, that this greater mind is not mixed with matter. He had a reason for saying this. We'll see, very good reason. So it's only very gradually, very difficult to follow reasoning, right? That our reason begins to realize that there's something that is not a body. And then you realize that what is, being, which is said of everything that is, right, is not to be identified as everybody does in the beginning with bodies and what is in bodies, right?

[50:52] There's not a property of being as such to be somewhere. See, that's very hard. You can see how hard it is to to derive at that. See, I always take that example there. My cousin, you know, went to Laval, teaches philosophy. We have a conversation with his pious mother, right? Who just can't understand that God doesn't have in his divine nature a body, right? You can't transcend the imagination, right?

[51:19] Um, I'm going to be posting. And the net there in the sixth book there of wisdom there's something I want to put on, but Thomas's questions there in the Super Boethium De Trinitate, the exposition of Boethius's De Trinitate right, but one of the questions or one of the the articles he has Thomas there following Boethius is that you can't judge these things by the imagination right you can't end up with imagination and because we never think without images and and the images are tied to bodies and what is in bodies so we're very much inclined at first to think that whatever he is must be a body or in body and we can't judge the way God is the way the angels are for that matter

[52:09] by what we can imagine or what we can sense and if you do you're going to end up you know the soul being you know air like substance huh

[52:25] so that's the most universal is very what difficult for man to know not just because it's removed from the senses which are an knowledge of the singular but because you have to transcend judging by your imagination

[52:42] okay now the third thing was that the wise man is more sure or more certain right now at this point he recalls a a principle that is given in the what Posterior Analytics right which is about demonstration and the effect of demonstration which is the reasoned out understanding of things and Aristotle is saying that one science is more sure or certain than another and he takes you know these fundamental sciences of arithmetic and geometry and the principle is that those from fewer things he says are more certain or more sure than those from addition as arithmetic than geometry now

[53:39] sometimes when we compare arithmetic and geometry we take the simplest thing in geometry which is the point Euclid says has no parts and in arithmetic the simplest thing is the one

[54:01] now the point is something one indivisible but the point has in addition to the one it has position it's here or there right so if you compare let's say three which has three ones in it and then let's say three points

[54:25] Well, you consider those three points. You have to consider where they are, right? And you can always draw a line between two points, but where's the third point? Well, could be on the same line, right? Or it could be outside the line, right? Okay.

[54:43] How about the three ones? Have to consider where they are. No. So the point involves more than the one. Now, if you study Euclid, now, which is the way to learn arithmetic and geometry, when you study the geometrical theorems,

[55:08] and especially you have Heath's notes and so on, right, or Proclus's commentary in the first book, the geometers down through the ages have distinguished in geometry, in the proof of a theorem, a number of cases you have to consider, because the lines can fall in somewhat different positions, right?

[55:28] And of course, we read Heath's notes or Proclus. Sometimes they'll say so and so in commenting on this thing has distinguished more cases than necessary, you know, you know. And they'll point out that Euclid sometimes, or usually, will give the most difficult case and leave the simpler cases to us dumb skulls, right? I know myself in trying to be sure about these things, right? Say now we have all the cases that need to be distinguished here, right?

[56:02] But when I do arithmetic, I don't have to worry about that, is it? So I know kind of concretely through my study of geometry, arithmetic that there's a difficulty, right?

[56:16] In geometry that there isn't in arithmetic, and that I sometimes say, "No, you know, am I sure? These are all the cases that need to be distinguished. So there are really more things to be considered here in geometry than in arithmetic, and that's why I'm less sure here than I am there. You see, and you will see people raising questions more about geometry, you know, the moderns than about arithmetic, because of those points.

[56:49] Okay. Now, as you go from arithmetic to geometry, to natural philosophy, to political philosophy, you keep on taking, requiring you to consider more things, right? So you go from the geometrical sphere or the geometrical circle to the sphere in matter or the circle in matter, right? You have to consider other things because there is matter involved there as well as the spherical shape, right? And so, when people talk about the shape of the earth, well, is it a cube or is it a, you know, plate or?

[57:32] Well, no, we say it's a sphere, right? Okay, but then you come back and say, yeah, but you know, we think it's kind of flattened at the poles, and I don't know if there's a reason for that. Maybe there is, right? Does geometry have to worry about whether it's spheres that get flattened at the poles? Or you say a side cut there of the of the tire there in my car out there is circular, right?

[57:58] You know, it's supposed to be a great invention, the circular wheel, right? But when I get out and look at my car there in the parking lot, there it's flattened out at the bottom, right, because of the weight of the car and so on. So it's not really a perfect circle. So there's more things to be considered here, right? In in the earthly sphere or the the tire, whatever it is, than in the geometrical one, right?

[58:24] Okay. So natural philosophy or natural science is going to be what more difficult, less sure than geometry, right? Just like geometry was less sure than arithmetic, right? But now when I go from man as considered in natural philosophy to political philosophy, when I go, say, from what man is by nature to what man is, what American man is, let's say, right? Well, American man is what he is partly because of what he is by nature.

[59:00] So I'm a two-footed animal, just like Aristotle, I think, and Plato were two-footed animals, right? But now I have to consider in addition what American man is by custom and by the choices he's made and so on, in addition to what he is by nature, right? So it's going to be more difficult to talk about American man. I got to consider what he is by. custom and by choice and by chance and so on, in addition to what is by nature, right?

[59:30] So political philosophy will be less certain or sure than natural philosophy, and that will be less certain or sure than geometry, and geometry less sure or certain than what? Arithmetic, because the more things you have to consider, the less sure you are going to be, right? And sometimes you take a simple example. You know, it's fairly easy for me and sure to count the number of students I have in this class here, right now.

[59:59] But now, the inauguration coming up there in Washington D. C. or the pro-life march, something like that, or the number of people in the Super Bowl or something, right? It'd be hard to get the exact number of that, wouldn't it? To be sure of the number of people that went to the Super Bowl. In fact, nobody will be sure about the number, right? Because so many people to be taken into account, right?

[1:00:21] You see, so I can maybe be sure the number of students in this class today, right? And be quite uncertain about the number of people at the Super Bowl. You see?

[1:00:38] Because there's so many people to be taken into account there, right? But the number of people in in Petersham, you know, maybe that's easier than the number of people in Worcester or New York City or something, right? You see what I mean? So the more things you have to take into account, the less sure you are, right? Or vice versa, the less things you have to take into account, the more sure you can be.

[1:01:04] Do you see that? Okay. Well, now this is a reason for saying that the most universal knowledge is the most certain. Because as you descend from the more universal to the less universal, you have to take into account more things. So as I descend, let's say from body to living body to animal to dog or cat, I'm adding things, aren't I? Okay. Or when I go from what dog to animal to living body to body, I'm dropping things, aren't I?

[1:01:55] So the one who considers the most universal has the fewest things to consider, right? Actually, even though this is being said of all things of all things, right? There's actually fewer things to take into account. And if the one who has to take into account fewer things is more certain, then the man who has the most universal knowledge is going to be the most certain. Okay.

[1:02:23] And of course, this is going to be reflected when the wise men defend, say, the axioms or talks about the axioms, as we'll see. So I'm more sure that the whole is larger than one of its parts than I am that water is H2O. And. I have to know all kinds of other things, many different things, to know that water is H2O. if I ever succeed in knowing that, which I have not succeeded in knowing yet, by the way.

[1:02:50] Right. In fact, I take on human faith that water is H2O. I don't know if I should believe them or not. But if I don't take on human faith that the whole is larger than one of its parts, right? Do you see that? Yeah. So you see the principle, right? The principle is that the man who has fewer things to consider, right, is more certain than the man who has additional things to consider, right.

[1:03:21] Well, as you descend from the more universal to less universal, you have additional things to consider. Why there are fewer things to consider as you ascend, right? So the the wise man knows the most universal. Then he would what be most certain, right?

[1:03:43] You see that? Kind of subtle, right? Okay. So three is enough, we say, right? I was reading the Gospel of Saint Matthew, and you're kind of struck by, you know, Peter denies him three times, right? Hmm. And of course, later on the resurrection, he's asked three times, and and the commentators were remarking how, you know, this is appropriate punishment for Peter, right? He had to confess. You know, I I love you.

[1:04:12] But three seems to be what? Yeah. Or you know, Christ, um, uh, he what he he goes and he prays three times during the crime. It's kind of striking that he does that, huh? Or he's three days in the what? Two, yeah. Three days is enough, right? Two would not have been enough, right? But three is enough. And you keep on seeing these examples where three is what enough, huh?

[1:04:41] You know what Mark Anthony says in the famous speech there? You know, you all did see you all the feast of Lupercal. I thrice presented him a kingly crown. That third refusal seems to be what complete, right? I tell the girls in my class, you know, if you you can say no when he asks you once, twice, but that third no, he'll take as final. No, no, no.

[1:05:09] It's funny, huh? But but three does seem to be what very often enough, right? So so Aristotle, from the first three things, he argues that the wise man must be knowing the most universal. Why? Because he knows all things, right? In some way, but in the way that's possible for man, right? Which is only by knowing what universal. And so, if you're knowing all things in the way that's possible for man, you must be knowing the most universal, right?

[1:05:38] You must be knowing what is said of all, right? Okay. Or the wise man knows things are difficult to know, most difficult to know, right? In some way, the most universal perhaps seems to be most difficult because it's furthest from the singular, right? It's most abstract, right? Okay, but perhaps right.

[1:05:59] And in some way, the man who considers the more universal has less things to take into account, right? And therefore, he's more what? Sure, right. See, and you see that principle simply, you know, even in science, like I say,

[1:06:20] twenty-eight. Well, is that a number? Number. It is, yeah. Is it a perfect number? Yeah. But in order to know it's a perfect number, I have to take into account much more than I have to to know it's a number, right? A perfect number is a number which is equal to what the sum of everything that measures it, measures it in strict sense, evenly, right? What's twenty-eight measured by?

[1:06:53] Huh? One plus two plus what? Four plus. seven plus fourteen, right? But you have to stop and think no, that's all it's measured by. Because that's going to add up to twenty-eight, isn't it? You know. So I can't be as sure that twenty-eight is a perfect number, as that it's a number, right? You know. So as you descend from the more universal less universal, right? The what?

[1:07:24] Less sure you are, right? Okay. So. if he knows the most universal, he must be the most certain, right? I can see it, right? So three is enough to see in some way that wisdom is about what is said of all, right? Now he's going to reason from the next three things that it's about the what? Cause of all, right? Maybe we should stop now. It's four thirty, huh?

[1:07:48] But next week, now we will meet on Thursday, as usual. Yeah. My other students now they want to move from Monday to Wednesday, which is okay, but with us anyway. Wednesday one of them's got a. conference that comes up on Monday, and the other guy can't go on Tuesday because his kids take violin lessons or something. They tell me that Matt Maria's wife is on the phone that Matt bought a a violin, playing the violin now.

[1:08:16] Are you kidding? Yeah. Well, he says to Maria? how's he play? Not bad. I know his sister Carolyn. I saw her. You know, I said, "I'm playing the violin." He's playing Bach and some something out there, but.