Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
16. Is Truth Easy or Difficult? Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Two, First Reading: The Bat's Eye and Our Debt to Predecessors
Class of 2005-02-24
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/016-is-truth-easy-or-difficult-aristotles-metaphysics-book-two/

[0:00] So you see the order of those two, huh? Okay. So let's look at that first thing now: how man is towards knowing the truth, huh? Okay.

[0:17] Now it's interesting the way Aristotle begins this, huh? Because if a modern philosopher was to begin this, right? I'm sure the modern philosopher would say would be other question or problem whether man can know truth, right? You see, Aristotle seems to assume right that man can know truth, right? And he goes right to the question: Well, is it easy or difficult for man to know the truth, right?

[0:49] Okay. Okay. Now, some might say, well, gee, isn't Aristotle ignored the question before, right? You see? Well, let's let's look at this here now.

[1:11] Is knowing truth easy or difficult for man? Someone might say, "Why aren't you assuming that man can know the truth?" Right? Okay. So, someone might say, "Shouldn't there be a question before this?" I'll put in brackets. this here, Aristotle's asking, Can man know truth? Now, Aristotle doesn't answer that question, right? I'm objecting to like a modern philosophy, but do you see? So, Aristotle has ignored that question, right?

[1:56] He's assuming that man can know truth, It's not a question whether it's. easy or difficult for him to do, right? Yeah. How about does truth even exist? Yeah. You could ask that question too. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now, why does Aristotle ask those questions?

[2:17] See, you overlooked something. I think this is an unreasonable question. One is if a man's not sure whether truth exists, this is what St. Augustine says he must like to be lied to.

[2:37] Yeah, and the question is, wait, does truth exist, right? Now, Thomas Aquinas says that existence of truth is obvious. It's per se notum. And I think we'd say the same thing here: that man can know truth is obvious, right? Now, are those two, in fact, obvious?

[3:12] You wouldn't ask the question if it wasn't true that man can know the truth. You wouldn't even use the answer. Yeah, yeah. Even the Cartesian doubting everything says I can't doubt that I'm doubting, right? Okay. But you know, take the idea that you know if truth exists, is that statement true?

[3:38] And truth does not exist. The statement's true, too. Yeah. I think where it contradicts itself, right? So truth must exist, right? Okay. Or I

[3:52] could play around with the idea that statements exist, right? True or false. And so even the man who says the statements do not exist cannot say that without making a statement, right? So that truth exists is obvious, right? Now, in the um, Aristotle doesn't say it here, but in the second book of natural hearing, the so-called Physics, when Aristotle defines nature, right? Yeah. And

[4:28] he has after that an objection. Someone might say, "Well, you should have shown that nature exists before you said what nature is, right?" And Aristotle says, "Well, it's obvious that nature does exist, huh?" And so the man who asks, "Does nature exist?" He's speaking as if he doesn't know what he. Does know right?

[4:59] Well, the same thing he would say here if we had opposed to him these objections, right? Okay, that you can't, but not know that truth does exist, right? And that man can know truth, huh? And just the question of how easy or how difficult is for him to know truth that you have to consider. That's that's where the things are not altogether clear, huh? But that truth exists, and that man can know truth, right?

[5:36] Some truth, right? Is what obvious or per se, no, to man? And Aristotle says it would be laughable to try to what prove what you know because what is there besides what you know, but what you don't know, and try to prove what you don't, what you do know, but what you don't know would be absurd, right? So Aristotle, so he doesn't ask those questions. Does truth exist, or can man know truth, right?

[6:10] But he takes as being obvious that truth does exist, and that man can know truth to some extent, right? And now it is well, how is he towards knowing truth? Though is it a easy thing for him or a difficult thing, or you know, okay, okay.

[6:27] He doesn't ask the question here, but you could say, right? Is the consideration of truth, is the knowledge of truth, easier difficult for man, right? Okay. Now, sometimes make this concrete to the students, you know. You have the assumption there. You have the the hallway there with a whole bunch of offices of professors, right? I say, if you went down and knocked on the door of each professor here, right?

[6:51] And you ask, "Is it easy or difficult for man to know truth?" What answer you could get from most professors? Difficult. Yeah, and probably get some answer like difficult, if not impossible. I bet that's answer you get from most professors. Don't you think so? And students would see that, yeah, that's kind of what they mean? Okay. But now you come to the last door, and on the door it says Aristotle.

[7:17] Okay, every down the every down the hall said it's difficult, not impossible, right? Okay, now you knock on this door and you ask Aristotle, "Is it difficult, easier, difficult to know truth?" Aristotle. In one way, it's difficult; another way, easy. Different answer for everybody else, right? Interesting, huh? Okay. And also he says difficult first, right? And another what easy?

[7:50] If you think of the difficulty first, right? But also he's going to say in some way it's easy. This is the answer, but he's got to talk about both of those, yeah. Cardinal Ratzinger points out that among the great crises that are around now in theology and philosophy, many are now questioning or doubting the existence of truth at all, yeah, and also

[8:22] you know, so it makes you wonder people who say, who want to raise this question that there's really no such thing as truth at all, you know, or you can't even know the truth, presuming it does exist. Can we any other explanation for that than just moral perversity? And they just perverse this this almost pernicious doubting what should be obvious, what is in fact obvious, lying to themselves into the whole.

[8:52] humanity, But Aristotle points out there in the passage I referred to, in the second book of Natural Hearing. he says, "Is it possible for a man to think he doesn't know what he does know? " Right. And Aristotle gives as a sign that he can be in this position is the reverse, right? He can think he knows, but he doesn't know. Okay. Now, let's put this down on the board for a second.

[9:22] Now, he takes the fact that man can think he knows what he does not know. He takes that as a sign that man can think he does not know,

[9:49] but he does know. Okay. Now, why does Aristotle say that? Why does he reason from the first to the second? Take the first as a sign. Well, it's more known to us, right, that a man can think he knows what he does not know, right? And before Aristotle, he has Socrates going around examining people who are always claiming to know something that they are shown not to know, right?

[10:21] So there's no doubt that man can make this first mistake, right? Okay. But notice, if I can make the mistake of thinking, say, that a man is a woman, if I see Michael Jackson and go, "This is a woman," if it's possible for me to make the mistake of thinking that some man is a woman, right? Is it possible for someone else to make the mistake of thinking that a woman is a man?

[10:48] See, because I make the mistake of thinking some man is a woman because sometimes they're hard to tell apart. And therefore, the mistake could go in either what direction, right? Okay. If I can make the mistake of thinking that Miller's is Budweiser, couldn't someone else make the mistake of thinking Budweiser is Miller's? Do you see that? Okay. So Aristotle takes this, which is more known to take place, right, as a sign that the reverse is also possible.

[11:25] But the first kind of mistake is a mistake which is made by most men, huh? Very common. The second kind of mistake is mistake made by thinkers. See? And they're trying to avoid that first thing, and then they go to the opposite what extreme. What Aristotle is saying is, you got to avoid both of these, huh? You've got to avoid thinking you know what you don't know, and you've got to avoid thinking you don't know what you do know.

[11:53] And then you got to use what you really do know to investigate and come to know what you don't know, right? So that's the way he shows the second is possible, right? Okay. No, maybe also you know defect on the side of the of the the appetite too, right? And it can be pride and that sort, right? But even this first case, you know, pride can influence us too, right?

[12:18] I can think I know more than I do know because I think I'm better than I am, right? Okay. You see that? Okay. So people who think that truth does not exist, right? Well, they made a statement: truth does not exist, and is that statement true or false? See? Well, if it's false, then truth does exist, right? And if it's true, but they're admitting there's some truth, right?

[12:47] You see? So they really do know that truth exists. See? But they think it doesn't exist. Okay. Now, even the so-called axioms, which are the statements most known, right? I give an example there with the whole and part, haven't I? And sometimes present that sophistical argument in class to the students, right? Oh, gee whiz! Sometimes the part is bigger than the whole, you know. See, they're deceived by a bad argument, right?

[13:20] And so often, you know, that can happen, right? Even about something like that. And you get, even sometimes, you know, I read scientists too, you know, and they try and understand change, right? And they think, well, it can't be understand change without admitting that something can be and not be. See? And I've read, you know, mathematical physicists say that you know higher mathematics is not possible without contradictions.

[13:47] You know. So they think that something can both be and not be because they can't solve these these difficulties, huh? Okay. I was a beautiful one there that Aristotle solves in the sixth book of Natural Hearing, but it's one that Hegel takes up again, right? And Hegel takes it as an argument that something both is and is not. And you find in the theory theology of the Eucharist, you know, the Middle Ages, the same problem.

[14:22] And it's kind of a beautiful article on that in the in the Le Vautier's book. It's in French. paradoxe du devenir. See, suppose what is not a sphere, right, becomes a sphere. Okay. Anything contradictory? What is not a sphere becomes a sphere, right? Okay. Now, there's a time when what is not a sphere is not a sphere, right? And that time has an end, right? And there's a time in which it is a sphere, right?

[14:56] Okay. Now, is the last instant. In which it is not a sphere, and the first instant in which it is a sphere, are they the same instant?

[15:11] Well, if they are the same instant, then that instant it both is and is not a sphere, right? Now, if you take the other alternative and say, well they're not the same instant, then there is a period of time between the two instances, just like between two points instead of a line. And now you ask the same question: in that time, right, in between, is it or is it not, right?

[15:34] And if it is not, then that not the time in between; that's as long as the first time, right? So it seems you can't have any time in between, right? And therefore, it seems that the last instant in which it is not a sphere is also the first instant in which it is, and therefore both is and is not. And Hegel gives that argument, right? And therefore, he said all change involves a contradiction, right?

[15:59] And this came up in the Middle Ages when they tried to understand the Eucharist, right? Because there is a time in which, under the appearance of bread and wine, there is really bread and wine, okay. And then there is a time in which, under there, there is the body and blood of our Lord. Now, if the last instant in which it is bread and wine is the first instant in which it is now the body and blood of our Lord, then you've got heresy at that, you know.

[16:29] And so, in order to solve that theological difficulty, Thomas goes back to the sixth book of Natural Hearing, and to solve Hegel's one, we go back to the sixth book, huh? With a very subtle explanation Aristotle gives us right? And involves seeing that there is no last instant in which it is not a sphere, but there is a first what instant in which it is what a sphere, right?

[17:03] Just like when you say you are dying, right? Huh? There is a time when when you are dying, you know. Okay, your last day, your last hour, your last minute, right? When you are

[17:15] dying, is there a last instant which you are alive? No, but there is a first instant which you are dead. This kind of paradox, right? Huh? You know, In fact, that's the way it should be. You've got to stay at the sixth book, you know, somewhat. But you can get arguments that are very difficult, and the average person could never solve, right? He said. And so, even arguments against the axiom about being and non-being, right?

[17:50] Something and not both be and not be, and about whole and part, we can give arguments against them. Or sophists can give arguments against them that most people can never what? Yeah, right, right. So, because there's an argument against something obvious that you can't answer, then you think you don't know what you do know. Okay. Um. Ah. But just take something a little simpler than some things I've been saying there.

[18:22] Ah, people who deny the axiom about contradiction. If you ask why do they deny it, right? If it's not just out of perverse will, that could be perverse will, but if there's a reason why they deny it, it's because something contradicts it. So they're denying it because they what? Because they accept it. Mm-hmm. See. They're saying that contradictions exist. Something can both be and not be, because if you say that isn't so, you contradict change.

[18:59] So you're saying it isn't so because it is so. And it's a little bit like the the the thing in ethics there, huh? Ethics. We say should a man live by his reason or by his emotions, right? Now someone wants to argue with you about that, right? Someone wants to argue to live by your emotions rather than by your reason. Well, emotion can't argue; only reason can, right?

[19:29] So he's, in a sense, admitting that reason should decide whether you should live by reason or by your emotions. In which case, he's already admitting that you should live by your reason. You see? And so, people who deny the principle of contradiction, something can both be and not be, they deny it because something contradicts it. So they're denying it because they accept it.

[20:01] Yes, yeah, yeah. That's why you couldn't make the the axiom about contradiction an hypothesis to be tested, right? By its consequences, because you test an hypothesis by seeing whether its consequences are or are not contradicted by observation or experiment, right? Okay. So you have to assume the truth of the axiom about contradiction to test it, right? Which is absolutely absurd. So

[20:32] a man can think he doesn't know what he does know, right? Not only because of perversity of will, like to be part of it, but also because there's an argument against the obvious that he can't what answer. Yeah. Yeah. So Aristotle, you know, is is talking about the axiom of contradiction there in the fourth book of wisdom. He would talk about people who deny it sometimes because of their difficulty in something else that they can't resolve, right?

[21:04] Okay, so you can think you don't know what you do know. It's kind of a strange situation to be in, right? But Aristotle shows that that's possible. They say by taking the more known situation of the human mind.

[21:20] This would be different from something practical, where, take an example of what Chesterton says: pornography is not something that we should reason about. It's something we stomped on with your foot. Yeah. Because it's obviously a moral evil. Yeah. Yeah. That's different than reasoning about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think getting moral matters about homosexual marriage and this sort of thing. You know, people, perverse will they're really involved in these things, huh?

[21:52] Or even abortion, you know. It's funny, like like judges sometimes, you know, if I kick. A pregnant woman and kill the baby—that's murder, homicide, at least, right? So they didn't think it's human being, right? And then you turn around, you you you allow abortion, right? So I mean, there's really a contradiction there in their judgments.

[22:19] So you tend to get, you know, more in moral matter, you get more of that. Shakespeare says it very well in the beginning of of Macbeth, right? Fair is foul, and foul is fair. He's saying in a sense, good is bad, and bad is good. Then he gives the two reasons for it: hover through the fog and filthy air. And hover through the fog is more the defect on the side of the knowing powers, right?

[22:50] But the filthy air is the defect of the heart, right? Of course in Antony and Cleopatra he talks explicitly about that filthiness of the heart there, blinding the the eye of the soul. He said very clearly. Okay.

[23:12] So you got you got to be careful, right? Sometimes to say people will get into this second position here because of an argument they can't solve, right? And therefore, they think because of that they don't know what they don't know. But that that second state of mind is possible is shown by the fact that the first is possible. If I can think, if somebody can think that an orange is a lemon, someone can make that mistake of thinking an orange is a lemon, Shouldn't the reverse be what?

[23:45] Yeah, yeah. It's funny when I was out at my my daughter's there out in Omaha. There, usually in the morning at breakfast, I slice an orange, right? Okay. And so they usually get some oranges, I mean I don't have some in the house, but they also had some grapefruit, right? It's kind of funny, you know. Some of these oranges are really getting big now. They're bigger than the than the than the grapefruit.

[24:09] Well, one of the medicines I take says explicitly I should take no grapefruit. Oh. So, um, was one morning I was cutting one of these things and I said, "Is this an orange?" You know, it's kind of a funny tasting orange. You know, I said was I about to mix the wrong things here, you know. But no, so someone could make the mistake. I mean, one one day I picked out a grapefruit and I cut and then I realized it was a grapefruit, you know.

[24:38] But I started to cut it because I thought it was an orange, right? So if Berquist can make the mistake of thinking that an orange, excuse me, that a grapefruit in this case, that grapefruit is an orange, right? Couldn't someone make the reverse mistake and think that orange is a grapefruit? You wouldn't make the mistake going one direction if it was hard sometimes to tell the two apart.

[25:00] And then someone could go in the opposite what direction, right? You see that? Yeah. Should take a little break and then we'll come come back to this. Let's go back here now to the first reading here of Book Two. So we've seen why Aristotle doesn't ask, you know, does truth exist, right? Because then you'd be thinking you don't know what you do know. And why he doesn't ask can man know truth, right?

[25:34] But he begins with this question. You might say he doesn't ask as a question, but is it truth easy for man, you know, or difficult for man? And he says, in one way it's difficult, in another, but easy. He mentions difficult first, right? But he also says easy, right? Okay. Now he's going to go into both of those, right, in what follows. But there'll be a little different emphasis of what he does on both.

[26:06] As far as truth being easy for man, he wants to show the ways in which it is easy for man. Okay, as if that's more in doubt. I mean, truth is easy for man. Well, yeah, in some ways it is. Well, tell me how it's easy, right? Okay. Um, but now as far as the difficulty of truth, he's not too much concerned with showing how it's difficult or that it's difficult.

[26:31] But what is the cause of the difficulty? You know, you see, okay. So he says the sign is that no one is able to grasp it worthily. Nor do all fail to hit it. But everyone says something about the world. Okay, that's what Aristotle's saying here. This is the first way the truth is easy. You can't go through life without seeing some truth, however small and minor it might be, huh?

[27:04] Even if you make me down on hamburgers all day long, right? You're going to see something about some truth about the hamburger that it shrinks in size when you cook it or something, right? You see, you can't avoid, huh? Okay. And you might add, what you happen to see because you fry hamburgers, right? And what I happen to see because I I groom horses might not be the same thing, right?

[27:27] But you can't avoid truth entirely, right? Okay, so that sense is easy, right? Everybody is going to see some little bit of the truth, however small, right? Whatever it might be about. Okay.

[27:41] Now the second way in the third paragraph, and this is the sense now in which not even just some little bit of truth, but even a large amount of truth is easy for man. And although one man adds little or nothing to the truth, something great comes to be from all gathered together. Okay. Now on Saturday morning, sometimes my mother's trying to get my brothers and I to help out with some of the housework, whatever it was.

[28:11] And her saying was, her proverb was, "Many hands make light work," right? Okay, so in some sense, right? It would be difficult maybe for me to lift this table by, by myself, right? But if we all got around this table and we all lifted together, it would be what? Easy, right? So in some sense, even a large amount of truth is what? Easy, through the efforts of what?

[28:38] Many, huh? Okay. And this is the way, you know, the arts and the sciences all grew, right? You saw something, right? And you told me about it, and I saw something, and you listened to the two of us, and put it together, right? And so, you know, if I discovered, say, one theorem in geometry, but there's a hundred guys doing geometry, and each guy discovers one theorem, then all of a sudden you got a hundred theorems.

[29:05] Or you know, people are always putting out these cookbooks, huh? There's some guy on TV there who put out a cookbook. Well, people, you know, you sit in your, your, your aunt's best cook, you know, your mother's, whoever it is, grandmother's best recipe, right? You put all these together, you got a really nice book of time-tested recipes, huh? See, and every family probably has one grandmother or one aunt or somebody who had some real dishes they all talked about, right?

[29:31] And so that's all she did, right? My wife has some aunt who always makes the same kind of cookies, you know. And they're good, very good though, they're very good. But same thing all the time. But but. So she's not, you know, cordon bleu cook or anything like that, right? But she does one thing very well. Someone else does one thing very well. Okay, you're bound to do something well, however small, right?

[30:04] I just realized it's something. But through the efforts of many, a large amount is easy. The second way, truth is easy, right? Now the third way is different from the first. Thus, if it seems to be as we say proverbially, who misses the door? In this way, it will be easy. Now, apparently it's a Greek proverb, huh? You walk down the Greek city, and you can see the doors, right?

[30:36] These famous houses, but what's behind the door? You don't know, right? But everybody sees the door, okay? Well, the door is the beginning, the introduction, right? Okay. So there's some part of the truth that everybody sees, right? So everybody, for example, sees that the whole is more than a what? Part, right? And someone says, "I don't see that," but we'll give him part of his salary this week, right?

[31:05] And part of the car that he bought, right? And part of the meal that he ordered, and so on, right? And he'll scream and rave and rant, and so on, right? Because he knows that's not the. Yeah. Okay, he paid for more than a part of his meal. Paid for more than a part of his car, right? for more than a part of his salary. I think I am, right?

[31:26] See? So, note that style saying here, huh? If you want to distinguish the first and the third thing he says about easy, there's one part of the truth that everyone sees, like the whole is more than a part, right? Okay. Um. Now, in addition to that, you might say, right? Because of your occupation or what you do or what you think about, right? You're bound to see some other little bit of the truth, right?

[31:55] You may not be the same bit that he sees or he sees, right? And then through the efforts of many, even a large amount, right? Okay. So you could order these if you wanted to and say the part of the truth that everyone sees, right, is like the cornerstone of human knowledge, the truth, right? And then one adds to that cornerstone or foundation the bit of truth that one man sees but not other man sees, right?

[32:28] But by bringing them together, then you build up the whole structure of the art of science on that foundation. Do you see that? So there are three different ways in which it's easy for man to know what truth. There's some truth that's so easy that everyone sees it, and that's like the door, right? Everybody sees the door of the house, but doesn't see what goes further along inside.

[32:58] Ah, but in addition to that part of the truth that everybody sees, you're bound to see some other little part of the truth, depending upon your occupation and what you think about and so on. However small that little bit may be that you see that not everybody else sees, right? And then the third way to bring together those bits of truth that one man sees by himself, another man doesn't, we get a certain what large amount of truth, right?

[33:26] Which might be called an art or a science. Do you see that? And notice in the way that Aristotle is adding another step to what he had in the proemium, right? Because in the proemium he spoke of sensing coming first, then memory, right, and then experience, and then he went kind of to art of science, right, beating out this natural understanding the doorway that everybody sees. So you could say natural understanding would come next, then reason out understanding, reason out knowledge, art and science, and last of all wisdom, huh?

[34:03] Okay. Now in the next little paragraph he's very brief about the difficulty of truth, right? Before he goes to the cause of difficulty, but to have the whole. And be unable to have the part shows its what difficulty, right? And that's true whether you're talking about a composed whole.

[34:31] so you can know water without knowing hydrogen oxygen, right? Or a universal whole, right? You can know what number without knowing all the different kinds of numbers, or something, right? Or you can know virtue and not know the different kinds of virtue, right?

[34:51] But now in the last paragraph of this first part here, he's going to talk about though the cause of the difficulty. This is a very important text, though it's very short. However, since difficulty is in two ways, perhaps the cause of this is not in things but in us. Now, you gotta be careful there. Aristotle's saying that there's two causes of the difficulty in knowing. One is in us.

[35:21] The other is in the what? Things. That's an interesting distinction, right? And you can see it in other things. Thomas' commentary gives the example of a man trying to start a fire, right? Where he's got too little of a flame, or the thing he's trying to ignite is too what? Moist or not dry, right? You know, the wood is not dried out enough.

[35:48] Sometimes I say the difficulty of loving, right? Okay. Now we say only in him. The difficulty is in him, right? He's not very lovable. But we say it's difficult to love God, or difficult to love wisdom, right? Then the difficulty is where? In us, huh? Okay. So it's easier for me to love, for example, the private good than the what? Common good, right?

[36:29] Is that so? It's more difficult for me to love the common good than the private good. But is the cause of that difficulty in me or in the thing? It's in me, see? Because the common good is much better than the private good, and something is lovable because it's good, right? So what's more lovable, but is better, is less loved by me? Must be a defect in me, right?

[36:57] Um. Or, when I was a child, at least. Hope it's not true anymore, but well, it's easier for me to love candy than the love of wisdom.

[37:09] Um. But is candy as greater good as wisdom? Well, then that's a defect in me, right? Huh? So I love the sensible good, huh? The candy, right? More than the good that can't sense, which is much greater, right? So the defect is in me, right? Um.

[37:46] But now, if I say it's it's difficult to love cancer. Difficult to love rock and roll. to love these things? is that a defect in my heart? Find hard to love these things.

[38:09] Yeah, the difficulty is in the thing, right? You see that? Okay. So. Aristotle is making a subtle distinction about knowing, right? He says one thing can be more difficult to know than another, right? Either because of the weakness of our mind,

[38:33] or because of the defect of the thing itself. That's kind of hard to understand, right? And he's going to make a comparison here, right? And the weakness in our part there to the bad, and so on. But sometimes I try to take you know a little simpler, more partial example, but easier to see at first. I say,

[39:08] if you find the sinner easier to understand than the saint, and I think most people in our society find the sinner easier to understand than the saint, right? That the playboy is more understandable than than the saint, huh?

[39:32] Is it difficult to understand the saint in him or in us? Well, actually, the saint is is more reasonable than we are, right? See, and sometimes you know I say, "Now I'm going to give you a doll for every twenty dollars you give me." And you say, "Well, you, now you're you're crazy. I'm going to give you twenty dollars for every doll you give me. See, but you know you're you're trading some temporal thing for an eternal thing, right?

[40:07] That's more than one twenty dollars. You know, it's far more reasonable than giving twenty dollars for every one dollar bill, right? You know. Um.

[40:22] So the difficulty you have in understanding the saint, the difficulty you have in understanding somebody who's more reasonable than you are, the difficulty is in you, because he's more understandable.

[40:45] But then you know you can take someone who's less reasonable than you, someone who's doing what crazy things they can read about in the newspaper every day, and it's hard to understand them, right?

[40:59] I was seeing an interview the other day with the there's a new movie coming out. I guess I don't know if it's on the theory yet, but from Germany, right? A movie on the Hitler's life or something, or the last days of Hitler or something like that. And Charlie Rose was interviewing the producer where he was, and and the guy played Hitler in the movie, right? Of course, they did a lot of you know research for this, and but they really you know you can't really understand Hitler, right?

[41:26] And is evil, right? And Charlie Rose kept coming back, you know, you know with the yak, you know, you know about you know you really got to understand Hitler now, you know. He says, "Well, you get this thing." He said, "Why not?" He says, "You get in there," I said, "and it's just emptiness there, you know. You can't really understand the man. What is the difficulty in you or Hitler?

[41:57] You know, what did we were seeing a sermon or talker was a John Paul II, you know, called you know called insane ideology or whatever they had, right? It doesn't make any sense, really. It's it's so someone who's who's much less reasonable than you are, it's hard for you to understand too. Hitler is hard to understand.

[42:26] Even Mussolini found him hard to understand, He was first better, right? Well, then you see the cause of difficulty in understanding is what in that person, right?

[42:43] People I can understand the best. The people are just like me. They're not more reasonable than I am. Not less reasonable than I am. see? But people who have a difficulty in understanding are those who are much more reasonable than me, the saints, and those who are much less reasonable than me, like Hitler and all these crazy people around, huh? You see, but you could say the difficulty in understanding the saint, the cause of that difficulty is in me.

[43:15] I'm not that reasonable. Say, but the difficulty in understanding this unreasonable person is in what him, right? He doesn't have much reason for what he does, huh? You've heard me talk about these simple examples in academic life, huh? Running

[43:39] into this guy, he's an historian, right? What's his specialty in history? Restoration England. I take that example. Okay, he's devoted his life to the study of Restoration England, right? And I said to him, "Now, why of of all the periods of history, you know, would you want to devote your thinking and reading and research and so on to Restoration England? "

[44:09] Well, I guess when I was in college, I had a professor, and he gave a course in Restoration England. It was very interesting. I'm interested in. Oh, okay. Now, is that a reason to devote your life to the study of Restoration England? It's something of a reason. I mean, is that the period of history that is really the the most interesting, or the most important, or the most you know illuminating, or the most?

[44:40] you know, When I was teaching out in California, there there was one guy. especially he deals with Arabic history, right? And apparently, this is before all the you know. Right now, there's kind of you know fashionable. I'm supposed to get into these things, but he had to learn Arabic. right, It was just a very hard language, I guess, to learn. and so on. he didn't know what motivated him.

[44:57] He couldn't tell me. He couldn't explain. Well, he's hard to understand these people, right? You see. Now, if I'm pursuing wisdom, I can tell you why I'm pursuing wisdom, and then why it's it's so important, you know. But these guys can't quite understand what they're doing. What they, you know, I've known a couple of guys who have mentioned Heidegger, you know. Oh. You mean Heidegger doesn't make any sense anyway, you know?

[45:26] Yeah. And it's hard to understand how a man can devote his life, you know, his academic life, his mental life, to beating Heidegger, you know, or as much larger. But it's a difficulty in me or in this individual? You see what I mean? Aristotle was thinking now that when you're studying geometry, kind of in what's right at your your level, when you're trying to study wisdom, much more difficult than geometry, or natural philosophy, more difficult, huh?

[46:02] But is the reason why natural philosophy is much more difficult than geometry, and wisdom or first philosophy is much more difficult, is it the same? Same.

[46:17] Or in the case of natural philosophy, is the cause of difficulty in the things themselves, huh? That these things are hardly what actual. Well, in the case of But the divine things, they're most actual. They're most illuminating, but not. But to us, they're obscure, right? Because the weakness of our what mind, huh?

[46:49] So sometimes they compare it it to the eye there, right? If I go into a dark room, right, it's hard to see things. Now has it caused the difficulty of seeing them, or the weakness of my eyes? No, it's a lack of light that there is in that dark room, huh? Because it's light that makes things visible, huh? But if I go out into the bright sunlight, you know, I'm kind of blinded at least temporarily, right?

[47:19] Things are more visible. There's more light out here, but not to me, you know. You see. It's a different different cause, huh? If things are visible because they're what, because of light, then when there's more light, they're more visible. But because the weakness of my eyes, they're less visible to me. They're hard to see, huh? When the dark room, the cause of difficulty is in the thing.

[47:50] Okay. And this will be important, I think, when you get to Aristotle's discussion of how discovery is made at the beginning of the third book. Because he's really talking there, I think, more about the way discovery is made in, say, natural philosophy or in wisdom, right? Than in what geometry. Something that's appropriate in natural philosophy, and something that's appropriate in wisdom, because the difficulties these things have for us, right?

[48:26] But kind of presupposed understanding a bit of this, this thing. This is preparing the way not only for that that other thing of of how the road in each science should be determined, but also something about how discovery is made, right?

[48:51] Now let's take for example cause and effect, right? Does the effect really illuminate the cause, or does the cause illuminate the effect? Cause illuminates the effect. Yeah, yeah. So the cause is brighter than the effect, right? More illuminating. And the cause of the cause is even more illuminating, right? So the first cause is the most illuminating thing there is. But the first cause is most difficult for us to know.

[49:25] Is the cause the difficulty then in the thing? That what is most enlightening is is is dark to us and is difficult for us to know. No. So the cause the difficulty in knowing the first cause in knowing God is in us.

[49:45] That's why Aristotle is saying the cause the difficulty in knowing the truth is more in us than in things, because it was primarily in what things, right? Then the things that are more illuminating we know more, right? But the things that are most illuminating, most enlightening, are what? Most difficult. For us to know, right? So the chief difficulty must be in us, right? Okay. Although in a science, like natural philosophy, it would be more in the thing, right?

[50:23] So he says perhaps the cause of this is not in things but in us, right? And then he makes a beautiful comparison. Presumably Aristotle thought, I don't know how this is, true in biology, but that the bat flies at night because the light of the sun during the day was too bright for it, right? For as the eyes of bats are towards the light of day, so is the understanding of our soul towards what are by nature the clearest of all.

[50:49] And see Plato had used a somewhat similar example because he, in the Republic, he speaks of us as people born in a cave, right? With very little light, and someone escapes in the cave and, he's at first blind when he comes out, right? And so although things are more visible outside the cave, cave than in the dark cave, to the men coming out of the cave. They're easier to see.

[51:16] They're easy to see in the cave than they are on the outside, but of course that could, you know, be changed with time, as you say, right? Your eyes adjust to it. So Aristotle takes a little stronger example than Plato, right? Where it seems to be innate, the bat's difficulty of seeing during the day, right? Okay, so he says, "As the eyes of the bat are at the light of day, the light of the day is too bright, even though things are more visible then, right?

[51:44] " So the defect of the eyes of the bat, so is the eye of our soul, the understanding, to the first causes, the most enlightening things.

[51:57] Now, see what we bring out when you get to the ninth book, there, ability is knowable only through act, right? So act is more knowable than ability, and of course you eventually find out that God is pure act, right? So God is the most knowable thing there is, but not to us. That shows that the difficulty in knowing is chiefly in us, okay? But you get down to matter and motion, they're difficult to know because they're hardly what actual,

[52:30] and people try to, you know, put what's only an ability in matter actually in there, like Anaxagoras tried to do, and you get problems doing that, obviously. But you can't get the idea of ability, huh? But the other difficulty is more than the thing.

[52:50] So, you know, if I want to put our our mind kind of on a diagram, you can say like this. You can say our reason, you might say, is much more proportioned to what we study in geometry, but wisdom is more above us, and natural philosophy about things that kind of fall below, right? Yeah. That's why I make this. That's hard to see, but it's very important to see.

[53:33] That's why I make this comparison, right? Of understanding other people, right? Um, old friend Jim, friends, I used to like to say, "Women like to be told that you can't understand them. " I don't know, and but that could be a compliment. You can't understand something to what is or a insult, right? Take it a little safer territory, They say.

[54:18] It's easiest to understand people who are neither more nor less reasonable than you are. To get somebody like Saint, who is much more reasonable than you are, and doesn't waste his time all the time like we do and stupid things and so on, he's really more understandable than we are. See, we're doing something more stupid than giving twenty dollar bills, and one dollar bills. Infinitely more stupid, you know.

[54:46] See, how can we be so stupid? Why are you doing it that way? But it's also difficult to understand people who are less reasonable than you are.

[55:09] And there, the difficulty is in them, right? And you get you know especially down as people who are doing these senseless things you read about in the newspaper all the time they don't have much reason for what they're doing you

[55:22] see they don't do they no they don't so if a man doesn't have much reason for what he's doing then that he's difficult to understand what he does that the cause of the difficulty understanding is in him it's true right

[55:47] even for himself yeah yeah can't understand himself probably why a lot of those kind of people really really miserable yeah yeah so that's kind of a parallel to what we're saying here right

[56:07] now it's interesting you know if you read Berkeley you know like to knock around a little bit George Berkeley you know and his work the principles of what's it called Human Understanding somebody said that cause of difficulties in us or in things you know he says but I think it's because we insist upon the wrong principles But he kind of dismisses us all. So this is extremely extremely profound what Aristotle's saying, you know um Bishop Berkeley

[56:44] yeah Bishop Berkeley yeah came to came to what I did for a while you know there's some commemoration down there I see when I go down there go down swimming down there go by the Berkeley place um okay to see what

[57:05] Aristotle's done huh as far as truth being easy he's emphasized especially the ways in which it's easy right because on my first think well not easy well yeah but in some way it is right and notice how Aristotle has respect there for our appetite too huh because if all you saw was the difficulty of of knowing you might what despair of ever knowing right on the other hand if all you saw was you know it's easy it is the difficulty you you would not be careful enough right and of course the more difficult it is the more careful the mind has to be huh it's the famous words of Augustine there about the Trinity you know that can't repeat exactly but he says three things

[57:52] about it and that nowhere is knowledge acquired with more difficulty right nor is it more what fruitful what you get right but more dangerous to make a mistake right but that's in general you know you can say when the difficulty is in us you know you've got especially be be careful

[58:17] Now, this last paragraph, Aristotle is going to talk about how one man is helped another man towards the truth. Okay, it is just, he says, to be thankful, not only to those whose positions one shares. Huh? I should be thankful to those men from whom I've gotten some part of the truth, right? But also to those who spoke more superficially,

[58:44] for these also have contributed something in that they have exercised our habit, huh? In trying to refute them, right? And that's why the great Augustine says, you know, that heretics are necessary for theology to develop. So you look at the titles of Augustine's works and other church fathers, and you see so many contra, contra, contra, contra, right? Because this man denied that article of faith or made this mistake, Augustine was forced to defend that article of the faith, right?

[59:13] And he advanced, right? So even from those who spoke heretically, let alone superficially, he what benefited, right? Um. But if it's the only one, is thankful to those from whom one has gotten somewhat part of the truth, huh?

[59:37] So. Now, where does he take an example of how one is dependent upon others? Right. Well, he takes it from the art of music. and you ask yourself, why does he do that? Why does he take example of the great musician here, dependent upon other men? Right. Why?

[1:00:11] Why? Well, if anything is inspired by the muses. It's what's named from the muses, music, right? And this would seem to be something that you can't learn from another man. Right. Something kind of spontaneous, right? Huh? What Mozart say if melodies don't come to you like piddling comes to the cow? He says you shouldn't be a musician. Oh. It's such a natural thing, right? So if even the great musician depends upon other musicians, right, and should be thankful for the help he got from them, then even more so in the other arts or sciences where one is more what able to be taught, right?

[1:01:00] Aristotle says in the book on the poetic art that you can't teach another man to make good metaphors, Huh? It's more like a natural gift, right? So, you know, but you see in Mozart, it's a natural gift even more so than in Shakespeare, right? Because Mozart was writing great music. Before Shakespeare was writing great plays, right? So it seems you know more a natural gift in Mozart, huh?

[1:01:24] So you know, you know Wagner's judgment about Mozart, huh? Mozart was above all the masters in all the arts and in all the ages, you know. But you see this this child prodigy, and you see well this is this is a natural gift, right? So he doesn't depend upon anybody else, does he? Well, no, just me now.

[1:01:44] I'll come to Mozart, but let's take Aristotle's example, right? Now Timotheus was a famous musician, and he was, I guess, the favorite musician of Alexander the Great, huh? And uh Dryden there in his ode on the feast of Saint Cecilia, who was the patroness of music, he he represents you know Timotheus, the former, in front of Alexander, and first of all he plays some martial music, you know, and Alexander, you know, it's like back in battle, almost like his, you know, and he starts playing some romantic music, and and he's fondling the woman next to him, you know, and so on.

[1:02:16] But Timotheus was you know the great musician of the time, right? For if Timotheus had not been, we should not have much of our music, right? But if there had been no Phrynis who was some much lesser composer, right? There would have been no what Timotheus.

[1:02:33] Now in the case of Mozart, Mozart is what probably the greatest composer, and certainly far greater say than than Haydn, right? No one would put Haydn on the same level with what Mozart, right? And you know the time when when Haydn pronounced Mozart the greatest composer, you know the occasion for that. Well, it's when he heard these these quartets of Mozart, right? And he might have actually you know they get together and play these in the evening together, right?

[1:03:03] But he went to to Mozart's father and he says as an honest man, you know, for God and man, your son is the greatest composer known to me. either in person or in writing from his studies studies. And Mozart, you know, when he heard this, you know, from his father, then he went and he dedicated these quartets to Haydn, right? And so that this six are called today the Haydn quartets, but they're written by Mozart, right?

[1:03:26] Six ones dedicated to him. But we also have the words of Mozart, you know. I had to dedicate them to Haydn because he taught me how to write the quartet, huh? See, and Einstein, not not Alfred, but the cousin there, Alfred Einstein, writes a famous book on Mozart. Speaks of the influence of the so-called Russian quartets of of Haydn, which gave a kind of an equal play to all the instruments.

[1:03:50] That was one of the tremendous influences upon Mozart, right? So it would not have been maybe these quartets that were so great, you know, that they forced

[1:04:00] Haydn to acknowledge Mozart's, you know, being supreme musician of all time, perhaps. But there wouldn't have been them without those Russian quartets of Haydn, huh? You see, and you know if you listen to Mozart's, you know. Piano concertos, which are one of his greatest accomplishments, but the first piano concertos are imitations of Johann Christian Bach, the Catholic son of Johann Sebastian Bach, right? So he's he's he's, you know, imitating him and taking his pieces and making concertos out of them, right?

[1:04:34] So maybe there wouldn't have been a Mozart without J. C. Bach, and you know, and of course Mozart had great respect for for Johann Sebastian Bach too. He discovered him and Haydn and Handel too, and so on. But Mozart himself said in his letters, "wasn't not a you know, you say my music comes easy to me, but he says not a master in the art of music before me whose works I haven't studied, you know."

[1:04:54] And they describe Mozart going up, you know, and discovering the manuscripts of Bach, you know, and he had one of the four all around him, you know, and he's he's getting something from these, he said, right, you know. They describe Mozart, you know, one time in some place, and you know, he heard some music by Bach. What is that? He said, you know, he's overcome with it, you know. And you can see how he was influenced by that, huh?

[1:05:15] Even in his masses. So, even though Mozart undoubtedly a child prodigy, he had these natural gifts, right? And therefore, if anybody doesn't depend upon his predecessors, for other men, for you know, perfection of art, but Mozart himself is is would have been Mozart without, Haydn without, you see? Wait a minute once or?

[1:05:39] Okay. So it has been the same, he says, with those speaking about the truth. And you know, as I go back and I read, you know, the dialogues of Plato, I'm struck by how much Aristotle got from Plato. Of course, he went and spent 20 years in the school of Plato. I don't anybody who spends 20 years in somebody's school, do you? He came at the age of 17.

[1:06:01] He left at the age of 37 because Plato died. There's nobody to succeed, you know, Plato like that in the school, but you know, 20 years there in the school of Plato, right? Aristotle got tremendous amount from him, right? And I noticed, you know, when I started, you know, teaching the first book of Natural Hearing and so on, and reading these Greek fragments and so on, even from those guys, he realized how much Aristotle had gotten, on it.

[1:06:28] And so, but some people he's getting a bit of the truth from, and others he's what thinking they're mistaken. But even in reasoning against their mistakes, he is what profiting from that, huh? And the same as I said is true in theology, as Augustine says, huh? Necessary for heresies to be, so theology would would develop, and certainly in the Patristic period, and even in the great councils, right, in the great development of of theology of sacraments, say, and Trent and so on, this is the result of heresies and so on, and people denying things, and so in some sense they're useful, right?

[1:07:18] Um, so in some sense we're indebted to them. So it has been the same with those speaking about the truth, for we have received certain positions from some, while others were the causes of those coming to be, huh?

[1:07:42] This is part of you know the consideration of how man is towards truth, how he's helped by other men, right, in coming to know truth. That's Aristotle an essential part. No man's an island to himself, right? But but he's helped both by those he got a part of the truth from, and by those he disagreed with, but developed his thinking and refuting, you know, what they said, right?

[1:08:09] Okay. Pretty impressive reading. It's short, but an awful lot in there to what to to think about, huh? So we're gonna stop around four thirty. Yeah.