Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
17. Why Truth Belongs to the Wise Man: Wisdom, Truth, and the Balance of Hope and Fear (Metaphysics II, Reading 2)
Class of 2005-03-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/017-why-truth-belongs-to-the-wise-man-wisdom-truth-and-the-balance/

[0:04] In The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor,

[0:22] help us to understand all that you've written. Happy birthday to us, Henry. What? His birthday, but it's so kind of birthday. Okay, so last time we saw the first reading of the second book of wisdom, and that first reading was about how man is towards knowing truth,

[0:48] and kind of the opening remark of Aristotle's was that to know truth is in some ways difficult for man, but in other ways, what, easy, right? And the main thing he brought out about each of those was not the same. As far as truth being easy, it might seem naive to say he was careful to point out three ways that truth is easy. You can't go through life, no matter what you do, without what bumping into some truth, huh?

[1:25] Whatever your occupation is in life, right? You're making hamburgers. You're going to discover something about the hamburger, right? If you have a pet cat, you're going to discover something about cats, right? So you can't avoid truth in that sense, huh? It's going to, you know, some bit however small and insignificant it might be, everybody's going to hit upon some truth. It may not be the same one you hit upon that I hit upon because of what we are exposed to and what we do, but in that sense, get away.

[1:54] Okay, but even in some way, a large amount of truth, he said, is easy, right? And that's through the efforts of many, right? So though what I might contribute or discover by myself might be very small, you discover something and he discovers something and so on and so on, and through the efforts of many, right? Like my mother said, many hands make light work, huh? So in some sense, it becomes easy.

[2:22] And then perhaps the most subtle thing is that there's some truth that what everyone sees, huh? Cannot avoid seeing, huh? I was at my class last night at the house there, and I was calling something which I haven't been able to find the text, but Jack Newman used it one time in one of his talks there at TAC, where Cardinal Newman, I think it was, in the Idea of a University, where he's talking about Aristotle, the Nicomaiic and Ethics, And what Aristotle's doing there.

[2:55] at least fundamentally is clarifying thoughts that everybody has in his own head already, but that you have in your head in a kind of an indistinct and confused way, and not too precise, and then you what, bring it out right, and in some sense he's doing that with the categories, um, so saying to the students there, if you ask a man in the street, is what a man is and the size of a man the same thing?

[3:29] No, is what a dog is and the size of a dog the same thing? So that people do have in some way in their mind the distinction between what a thing is its substance and its size, huh? And that's the first two categories, right? So you're kind of clarifying things that everybody knows in some way, and then building upon those, and so Aristotle's philosophy is not Aristotle's philosophy; it is philosophy, period.

[4:02] When I read the modern philosophers many times, it's their philosophy, it's not philosophy. It's something they've imagined, right? And then then that it kind of explodes from there.

[4:16] But now when he comes to talk about the difficulty of truth, the emphasis is more not that it is difficult, because that's less controversial, but what is the cause of difficulty, right? And in terms of the three looking parts of philosophy, or the three parts of looking philosophy, natural philosophy, mathematics like geometry, and then wisdom or first philosophy. Natural philosophy is more difficult than geometry, and wisdom or first philosophy is more difficult than geometry, but not for the same reason, huh?

[5:01] The cause of natural philosophy being more difficult than geometry is in the things being studied, that they are in themselves hardly existing, huh? I mean, if you take something like motion or time, does it really exist? Say, I said no. Someone would say, you know, time. Well, the past doesn't exist now, does it? And the future isn't here yet, right? Is any amount of time in in between the past and the future?

[5:32] No, because the any amount of time, that was all here, you'd have the before and after together, which doesn't make any sense. So time hardly exists, right? And that's where Augustine says in the Confessions, you know, if nobody asks me what time is, I know what it is. But somebody asked me what time is. I don't know. And so those things are difficult to know. But the cause of difficulty in them is in them.

[6:03] But in wisdom or first philosophy, the cause of difficulty is not in the thing. These things are most illuminating. But they dwell in light, inaccessible to us, because of the weakness of our mind. And since the cause really illuminates the effect, the first cause is the most enlightening thing there is. But the first cause is most obscure and hidden from us. And therefore, Saint Thomas's prayer there, Adoro te devote, latens deitas, you know, yeah, very latens deitas and so on, truly hidden.

[6:51] huh. So, and then he ended up with the discussion of how one man helps another, right? And how we're helped not only by those we agree with, but even those we disagree with, that we have to what refute, huh? I was kind of thinking there of the first book of Aristotle's Natural Hearing, there, the so-called Physics, where he talks about the opinions of Parmenides and Melissus who say that there is no multiplicity of the world, and there is no change and so on, and everything is one and so on.

[7:33] And these are kind of absurd positions, in a sense. But even in arguing against those positions, we develop our understanding of a number of things.

[7:47] Now, why is it appropriate for the wise man to consider this question or this problem, how man is towards truth that we've just been talking about here and summarizing again? Well, as he's going to show up in the first half here of the second reading,

[8:12] the consideration of truth belongs most of all to the wise man. So it's appropriate for that reason that he talked about how man is towards knowing what truth, yeah, okay.

[8:31] So he begins by stating what he's going to show here. Moreover, it is right, it is correct, it's true to call philosophy the reasoned-out knowledge of the truth. Now notice here that he calls wisdom philosophy.

[8:53] And why does wisdom have more right to name philosophy than, say, geometry does, or ethics, even or natural philosophy? Well, his claim on truth is far greater, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But remember what I was trying to teach you before—that some people, you know, give us the etymology of philosophy,

[9:20] love of wisdom, right? But is that the meaning of philosophy of the word? Well, in Plato and Aristotle, the word "philosopher" that names the man means a lover of wisdom. Yeah, that's not just the etymology of philosopher. That's the meaning of the word, a lover of wisdom. But the word "philosophy" is used by Plato and Aristotle to name the knowledge that the philosopher seeks and gets if he's good, huh?

[9:55] Now we got to Mark's question, right? What knowledge would a lover of Wisdom pursue. Wisdom, wisdom, yeah, yeah, okay. And so, wisdom, most of all, is a right to the name philosophy. So Aristotle sometimes calls wisdom first philosophy, as opposed to natural philosophy, mathematical philosophy, or political philosophy. First philosophy, meaning it's first a dignity, and most of all, is character wisdom. But sometimes, like here, he just calls it philosophy.

[10:34] Period. Do you see, Because it's most of all has a right to that name, because it's a knowledge most of all that love for wisdom is pursuing. We saw what wisdom was somewhat in the first premium.

[10:55] Now, how is Aristotle going to show that that wisdom or philosophy is the reason out of knowledge of the truth? Well, he's first going to show that the consideration of truth belongs more to looking knowledge, looking philosophy, than it does to practical knowledge. And then he's going to show that among the forms of looking knowledge, knowledge whose end or purpose is just to understand, wisdom is most of all concerned with truth.

[11:29] Okay. So it goes back to the end or purpose, the goal of these two kinds of knowledge. But the end of the looking is truth. Well, sometimes you see the Greek word theoretical, which comes from the Greek word to look. Sometimes you see the Latin word speculative, but both theoretical and speculative kind of other meanings sometimes in English. Speculation is used usually for the stock market or something like that.

[11:56] So I could translate it in English, with the word "looking" right? But looking means trying to what understand, right? So he says the end of looking philosophy, or looking knowledge, is truth itself. That's the end or goal. And the end or goal of something is what's most important. What's most of all about? But the active, it's some kind of doing or making. So that shows that looking philosophy is more concerned with truth.

[12:24] That's his purpose. That's not the purpose of the art of cooking. Okay, even though the art of cooking might possess some truth about cooking and about food, right? That's not its end. Its end is to prepare dinner, not to eat dinner. It's not to know the truth about food, is it? Okay. So since the end or purpose is what's most important in anything, truth much more pertains to looking knowledge than to practical knowledge.

[12:55] Okay. And a second thing he points out about that, that the practical man. Is interested in the useful truth, right? And that may not be the same at different times, huh? For men of action, even if they consider how things are, do not consider the eternal, but the relative and the what present, huh? So I often quote the British Prime Minister who says, "England has no permanent friends, huh?

[13:27] Just permanent interests, right? So is Germany or France the friend or the enemy of England, right? " On the Napoleonic Wars, France is the enemy of England, right? In the First World War, Second World War, France is the ally of England, right? Okay. We were the ally of Iraq at one time, Saddam Hussein, right? In the war with the Iranians, huh? Because we're mad at the Iranians, and and then later on we're the enemy of them, right?

[14:00] So this changes all the time, right, huh? So he's interested in particular truths like that. that are sometimes true. and then as a France our friends. Sometimes it's not true, right? You see. So those things that are true sometimes, other times not, are necessary to know who your friends are when you're in war and so on. Who's going to support you? Who's going to go against you?

[14:32] But those truths are not as true as something that's always true. Okay, the triangle always has its interior angles because it's the right angles, right? But France is not always the friend of England. It's not always enemy, right? Okay.

[14:53] So be friends with them, as they say, you know. Bearing in mind that you may someday be enemies, or your enemies with somebody, you know, don't be too opposed to them, right? Because someday you may be what friends of each other, right? Or need each other. Okay. So that's kind of a what second point he makes, right? So he says, truth is a very end or purpose of looking knowledge.

[15:24] It's not the end or purpose of the practical knowledge, right? And secondly, that with the practical knowledge considers truths. Very often, it's interested in these truths that are kind of temporary and relative to the situation. And by the looking knowledge, looking for things that are true always, huh? Okay. Do you see that? So something that's always true is more true than something that's sometimes true, and sometimes not true, right?

[15:54] Okay. So it's kind of two reasons there to say that truth is more the concern of looking knowledge. Than a practical knowledge. It's the end or purpose of it. It isn't of the practical, and even when the practical does consider truths, it considers things that are less true because they're sometimes true and sometimes not true. Does make sense? Okay.

[16:19] Now, in the third paragraph, he's going to reason from what we saw in the premium, that wisdom is about causes, and in fact, about the very first cause. He's going to reason that wisdom is most of all about truth, even among the looking sciences. Now,

[16:44] the principle he's going to use here, as I mentioned it before, we saw it in the study of the ethics, right? Um, it's often stated by Aristotle and Thomas following him in a very brief way by saying, "You'll see it like that." is a kind of much more so right You agree Brevity is the soul of wit more so, right? You agree? Brevity is a soul wit.

[17:09] Propter quod unumquodque tale, et illud magis. You'll say in Latin Okay? But I'd like to kind of expand a little bit, right? Let's just state it again. We stated it before in the ethics. It comes up a lot,

[17:26] but the principle that we stated the number of causes. If the same belongs to two things, but to one of them, because the cause being

[17:56] because of the other, it belongs more to which? The other. Yeah, belongs more to cause. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, you may recall that I gave some very simple examples to illustrate this principle here, right? So I take the example of the fire and the air around the fire, right? And the fire is hot, and the air around the fire is hot, but the air around the fire is hot because the fire is hot, which is hotter.

[18:41] than The fire, right? Huh? If the water is wet and the cloth is wet, but the cloth is wet because of the water, which is wetter. Yeah, and sugar is sweet, and my coffee is sweet, but my coffee is sweet because of the sugar. Which is sweeter? Yeah. Now you may recall our using that principle in talking about which is better, right? Which is gooder, which is more good, the end, or that which is for the sake of the end, right?

[19:23] So if good or desirable is said of the end, and that which is for the sake of the end, but it's said of that which is for the sake of the end because of the end, then which is more good or better? Yeah.

[19:42] So if good is said of health and of medicine, but the medicine is good because health is good, which is better, to be healthy or to take medicine?

[19:56] To be healthy, yeah. Now you can show that by induction too, but. I mean, this is kind of the reason for it, right? Okay. And

[20:08] we apply it in logic. The same principle. We say if the premises of a syllogism are known, and the conclusion is known, right, of the syllogism, but the conclusion is known because of the premises, which is more known. Premises. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you can confirm that by saying if the premises were not more known than the conclusion, why would you use the premises to arrive at the conclusion, huh?

[20:42] So if you go through geometry, there, one syllogism after another, right? And what you know already is used to prove what you don't know, right? Okay. And eventually, the unknown becomes known, right? But because because it becomes known because of something already known, so that other thing is even what more known, right?

[21:05] Um. Or we applied it to the question of a mover and moved, right? Huh? Now, if I got the boxing gloves on, right, and we go into the boxing ring, and I you get knocked out, right? Was it the glove or the boxer who knocked you out? Well, I can say both, huh? Because it's a glove that you know, but the glove knocked you out because of the boxer, right?

[21:35] So it's more he's more the guy that knocked you out than the glove, right? Because they put the boxers, the big worldwide champion's gloves on your hand, you get you in the ring, you'll find out that it's not the main cause of winning the gloves, you know. It's not the magic of the gloves that's going to make you. Unless they got got some weights in there or something.

[21:56] Okay. When Aristotle is going to apply that to the question of truth, right? And if true is said of the cause and of the effect of the cause, okay. But the effect is true because of the what? The cause. Which is more true? The cause. Yeah. And if the cause has a cause, right? Then that cause is going to be more true, right? So what's going to be most true?

[22:31] The first cause. The cause, the first cause, right? So if wisdom is about the first causes. It's not only about truth, as the other parts of his philosophy, but it's about what is most true, huh? Okay.

[22:50] But we do not know the truth without the what cause. And then he gives that principle, which I try to state more clearly, right, for

[23:04] some just way. But each thing by which the like in meaning belongs to others is itself the same most of all. That's the principle, right? As fire is the hottest and is itself the cause of heat for others. Hence, the cause of what comes after, namely the effect, being true, is also the most what true. Therefore, it is necessary that the beginnings of the things that always are be most true, right?

[23:36] Now, there Aristotle seems to be saying that things like the angels that always are, right? They have God as a cause. He's the cause of their necessity. He's kind of hinting that he knows about creation there, as Thomas would say.

[23:52] For they are neither just sometimes true nor is there some cause of their being, but they to others. I think it's kind of a corollary of all this. Whence is, each thing is towards being, so also is it towards what truth, right?

[24:11] The same way being was said of the cause and the effect, but of the effect because of the cause, the cause is more being, right? That's kind of interesting, huh? Because in the Old Testament, God says, "I am who am," right? So He's first in being. He's the first in being, huh? But then in the New Testament, He says, "I am truth itself." But that makes sense, Aristotle, as a what philosopher, right?

[24:40] That primacy in being and in truth would both belong to the first cause, huh? Yeah. So this is the reason then why, or one reason I should say, why it's appropriate for the wise man to talk about how man is towards truth, right? Because the consideration of truth belongs most of all to the wise man, okay, and even more so than among the other forms of looking philosophy.

[25:16] Now there may be other reasons you could give why it's appropriate for the wise man to talk about how man is towards knowing the truth, because that's giving a very general direction to our proceeding, right? And it's the wise man who orders everybody else around, okay? But the reason why he talks about this right here, Thomas says, is to give a reason for what he's done in the previous reading.

[25:43] Why it was appropriate for him to talk about that here, in a wisdom, okay? Now, in the rest of the second reading, and in the third reading, and then in the fourth reading, huh? Thomas says that what Aristotle is doing here. Is something they've kind of assumed up to this point, and that is that there are first causes, huh? Okay.

[26:22] Um. So it's kind of backing up in a way this reason, right? He's saying that wisdom is about the first causes, and the first causes are most true by this argument. Therefore, the consideration of truth belongs most of all to the wise man. That assumes that there are first causes to be known, right? And so he's going to manifest that now, Thomas says, right? Okay.

[26:51] Now, another way I like to look at these intermediary readings here in the second book, between the first and the fifth reading, right, the second, third, and fourth readings, I'd like to say that they belong to what I call the subplot of the fourteen books of wisdom, huh? And I borrow that expression, you know, from our study of plays, right, huh? Sometimes in Shakespeare's plays and other people's plays, sometimes too, I suppose, there seems to be two plots, huh?

[27:28] Somewhat independent, huh? The one may be the chief or main plot, right? The other kind of a subplot, huh? Maybe they have certain connections, you know, but kind of two storylines going on together, right?

[27:44] Well, a hint of that is back in Book One, where Aristotle has finished the proemium to wisdom, so he knows what wisdom is aiming at. He knows that this is the most desirable knowledge there is, right? And now he's got the question: Well, can I learn wisdom from my predecessors who have pursued it, or must I myself undertake some investigation of this, right?

[28:20] And so in order to answer that question, he has to recall what his predecessors said and why they said it, right? And then examine whether it seems sufficient what they said, right? Okay.

[28:39] Um, but as I mentioned before, when he enumerates what they said and why they said it, a little bit like what we did when we went through the fragments, of, the Greek natural philosophers, he wants to kill another bird with this same stone, right? And that is, he wants to go through what they said about causes, not only as a preparation for discussing the sufficiency of it or not, or the insufficiency of it, but also to see.

[29:10] If they touched upon any other kind of cause besides the four kinds of causes found in what natural philosophy, and so when you go through that part where he recounts what his predecessors said and why they said it, you're really killing two birds with one stone, right? You're preparing the way for the examination of the truth of what they said or falsity of it, whatever it comes out, but you're also coming with a positive conclusion or confirmation of something positive that there are indeed only four kinds of causes.

[29:53] When now in the second book, Thomas says he's going to show that there are first causes. As a way of confirming one of the premises in the reasoning here, that wisdom is about the first causes, when obviously it couldn't be about the first causes if there is no such animal.

[30:13] But at the same time, it represents a kind of advance, right, in our study of the causes, because we've learned in the first book in the subplot that there are indeed four kinds of causes, and now we're going to learn that each one of these kinds of cause is a first cause. So in a way, we're getting kind of analogy instead of the existence of the what first causes, huh?

[30:44] And when Thomas is trying to prove, say, the existence of God in the in the Summa, he'll come back to the second here as one source for arguments for the first cause for the existence of God in particular.

[31:07] So there's a real advance there, right? But in this respect, the 14 books of wisdom in their order remind me a bit of the order of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. Now, what Aristotle does in the ten books, Nicomachean Ethics,

[31:32] in the very first book, he investigates what happiness is, and he draws a line around it. He says, right, in perigraphe in Greek, huh? And separates it from everything else, and says something about what the end or purpose of man is—that's man's own act according to human virtue throughout life, right? But then he goes through all the virtues of man, right, and shows which ones are eventually better than other ones, huh?

[32:06] And then in the tenth book of wisdom, I mean tenth book of Nicomachean Ethics, rather, he comes back again to say more precisely and more fully and completely what human happiness is. You see? So what's interesting about the Nicomachean Ethics, if you ever studied the whole work, is that there are two considerations of happiness, and one a a a more drawing a line around happiness, right? And the other more fully penetrating what human happiness is, but what's in between those two in books two through eight, right?

[32:48] Are many other things to be considered, especially what the different virtues are and so on, which enable you to come back and. Determine about human happiness more fully and more perfectly and more completely. Do you think? Now there is something like that here. In in if you look at the first two books of wisdom, right? In the first book, among other things, you learn that there are four kinds of causes, right?

[33:19] And then you reason in the second book here in the middle, that in each of those kinds of causes there is a first cause. So in a sense you've arrived at the first causes, haven't you? But in a kind of imperfect way, and not a very clear understanding of exactly what the first causes are. And then in books three through ten, the middle books, he's going to consider many other things, like being and one and so on.

[33:49] They'll enable him to come back in the last books of wisdom to a much fuller knowledge of what the first cause is. Do you see? That's kind of interesting, huh?

[34:06] If you look at Thomas say in the Prima Secundae I mentioned, I think in, Second Nicomachean Ethics. Thomas begins with a rather full consideration of human happiness, right? And then he talks about the virtues afterwards, right? But he doesn't have two considerations of human happiness. You see? In the same way in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Very very interesting consideration of human happiness is there in the third book, but there isn't two considerations, right?

[34:37] Okay. But that is what Aristotle does in the what Nicomachean Ethics, and it's very interesting the order there, huh? Okay. So in a sense, in the subplot of the first two books here of Aristotle's fourteen books of wisdom, you can say, hey, we're not left

[35:06] rotating the wind or whatever they call us. we do make some progress towards knowing the first causes, right? In the first book, we learn that there are what just four kinds of causes. So we must look for the first causes in one or more of these kinds of causes, right? And in the second book, in the subplot, we learn that there are indeed first what causes in each kind of cause.

[35:34] And so in a way we've what come to the goal of wisdom in a way we've arrived at the first causes, but in a kind of imperfect way and a much more perfect way we can do in the last books of wisdom. But after we considered many other things, okay.

[35:57] That's a different reason the one Thomas gives here. Thomas gives the reason he's backing up what he's. His argument here, right? His reasoning from wisdom being about the first causes to his being most of all about truth, and therefore appropriately talking about how man is towards truth. That's kind of the main plot, right? But this second thing being right there,

[36:22] and one thing I appreciate Aristotle, and you see it already in Plato in the way Plato presents Socrates in the great dialogue, the Phaedo. The great dialogue called the Phaedo, where they're discussing whether human souls are immortal or not, and they become discouraged, right? And they fall into a kind of despair. The friends of Socrates, kind of despair or distrust of arguments, you know, about the immortality of the soul, and a kind of despair: we're never going to find the truth about this matter, right?

[36:57] And the man narrating it, Phaedo there and the man who, narrates it, you know. What did Socrates do, you know, huh? And Phaedo says Phaedo says, I never admired Socrates more than at this time, right? If you read the the dialogue, he gradually leads them out of their despair, right, and gives them a certain hope that they can find the truth by reasoning out these things. And then, when he finally gets them going again, and they start to make some progress again, they get a little bit overconfident, and now he's saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

[37:37] Right? You don't be so bold, right? Have some fear. What belongs to the to the teacher there to strike a balance between hope and fear?

[37:55] The hope of overcoming the difficulties in the way of knowing the truth, and if you don't have that hope, you're going to give up. But at the same time, you got to have some fear of making what? Yeah, otherwise you will become overconfident and you'll make stupid mistakes and so on.

[38:19] And the teacher, like Socrates, there he can see these guys are discouraged, they're despairing. Another time they get a little bit cocky and so on, and

[38:32] seem kind of strike that balance, huh? I think I told you that story there, where my teacher Kasurik told me about he was in class with Monsignor Dionne, right? Oh. And he had some question he wanted to pursue further, you know, than was possible in the class, and he went to see Monsignor Dion in his office, and Dion talked much differently in the office than he did in class.

[38:58] And you know, Kasurik said, "You spoke much more confidently in class than you're doing now." You know. All right. Well, he says, "Dion says, it's the business of the teacher to encourage the student." But now you had a guy who didn't need encouraging, the guy who needed to be what? You know, you know. So frightened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it seems to me, in in in other things in life, it's an imbalance of hope and fear, are necessary, right?

[39:31] So when a man's running for public office, right, if he has no hope of getting elected, well, he's not going to go through the motions, right? But if he has no fear of losing, he doesn't run a bit scared, as they say. He's going to run a bad campaign, too, huh? And sometimes a man who's been elected a number of times thinks he can elect him again, right?

[39:53] And so the guy who's feared that he may not be able to challenge the big guy, right, is really working the district, huh? And the? Guy comes back from Washington late in the campaigning season, and he realizes the inroads. the other guy's made, right? And so sometimes they're defeated, right? They even the many times elected guy. So it's kind of a balance of hope and fear, in the same way the Christian life, huh?

[40:17] You said that Thomas has commentary in the Psalms, huh? Where sometimes, in some of the Psalms, is mentioned both the hope and the mercy of God, right? And the fear of the divine justice, huh? And Thomas says, "Well, you need both, right? Because if you have the hope of the divine mercy, but no fear of the divine justice, you'll say, 'Well, no matter what I do, he's a good guy.

[40:39] He's gonna, you know, see me through, right? ' But if you only had the fear of the divine justice, then you'd despair if you didn't have the hope, right? So you need kind of a balance of the two, huh? But you know, if you're a spiritual advisor or something of this sort, right? You may see that the soul you're dealing with at this time needs to be encouraged.

[41:01] Maybe another time they need what to have a little more fear, you know? You see, and so I assume that if you were counseling a woman and had an abortion, right? She'd be more inclined to despair, right? You'd have to hold out the emphasize the mercy of God, you know, huh? You see, but a lot of times in church nowadays, you know, they emphasize the mercy of God, the love of God, but not that there's justice, huh?

[41:32] You know, so it's hard to strike a balance of these two, right? But now for the philosopher, he needs that's what you see in Socrates there in the Phaedo talk. You need the hope of arriving at the truth, but also the fear of failure and mistake, right? And that's why when Aristotle in the previous reading when he spoke of the pursuit of truth being in one way difficult and in another easy, there's something for our hope, right?

[42:06] Because if truth was oh so difficult, you know, you'd be kind of frozen, right? Huh? Say, but other hand, if if you say, well, you need caution sometimes, right? Huh? Okay.

[42:23] Um, you know, when I think of my three teachers there, especially Kasurik and De Koninck and Dion, I had them kind of that order. I mean, they rather came more and more dominate my thinking. But Kasurik, I think, did more to encourage me to think about things and to work on them, right? Deconic probably more so than Dion, but more caution than Dekonic, right? And then one of my friends used to joke about Dion.

[42:54] His principle of passion is fear, you know, and. And he said, you know, if he presented a new idea to Dion, his first reaction was to reject it, you know, and he really had to had to really defend it, right? That was good, right? You see, but that's maybe not for the beginner, right? If I had Dion as my first teacher, me, I would have got too overwhelmed with the difficulty and the dangers of of thinking about these things, huh?

[43:20] And so, one example here of Aristotle's balance here is to talk about both the difficulty and the easiness of truth, right? Or like going back to that first book there after the proemium. There is something discouraging about seeing that all those men before you who tried to know the first causes have failed, right? There is something discouraging that could lead to despair, but there is something positive that it comes away with too, right?

[43:57] That there are four kinds of cause, right? That's something affirmative and not just a negative thing. So something, some hope. We made some progress, right? You see, we haven't simply, you know, seen failure, right? We've seen confirmation that there are four kinds of cause, right? And here now we're going to see the second book here that we can give reasons, good reasons for there being first causes and these different kinds of cause,

[44:29] and then we sort of record making some progress, right? It's easier for a person to despair or give up, you know, so you can't know the first causes. Too difficult, right? I remember reading a little autobiographical sketch there in one of Max Born's books. You know, who Max Born is He's a great physicist in the twentieth century, famous for many things, um, and he worked with Einstein in in Berlin and so on, and so you can buy the Einstein Born correspondence, right?

[45:12] But later on, Born went along with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. You know, so you have a lot of the controversy between him and Einstein coming back and forth. But uh, uh, I think Max Born is the guy who suggested the Heisenberg the math he should use for quantum mechanics, huh? And but he's kind of the master of waves, you know, and he's the guy who finally explained what the waves meant in wave mechanics.

[45:35] So very great physicist, huh? But his little description, autobiographical sketch of one time we talked about, you know, he was a young student at the university, and his impression in being in the philosophy classes, right, was how great and important were the questions, but how little progress have they made, right? So he turned away from philosophy and so on to science, where he thought he could make, you know.

[46:03] So if all you saw was the great difficulty of this pursuit of wisdom, and it's one of the attributes of the wise men they know those things difficult to know, right? And the failure of those before Aristotle increases one's awareness of the difficulty of this thing, right? If you think you can't make any progress towards knowing the first causes, you could easily what give up as clear-minded Max Born did.

[46:30] But here you see, hey, I'm making a little progress here, right? There are four kinds of causes, right? And now that there are, I can see some reason for thinking that there are first causes, right? And then when I study some other things, I'll be able to know those first causes better. So it's beautiful the way Aristotle gets that kind of a balance there between what hope and and fear.

[46:55] I think you find that in the great in the great teachers, you know. The famous words of Augustine there in the Trinity, you know that nowhere more is it fruitful to discover something, but nowhere more dangerous to make a mistake, you know. But but you got this both sides there, you know. But

[47:20] I told you the time when I went in with my outline, of my doctoral thesis to Monsignor Dion, right? And he asked me a few nice questions, you know. Then he proposed a little change in the order of it. The minute he proposed it, you know, I could see it was better. In fact, it was so good I could write the thesis my own by myself then.

[47:37] Once he gave me the idea. But so I agreed right away when he when he proposed the change, and he said, "No evidence," he says. I don't have any evidence he says that's kind of funny, but anyway.