Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
18. No Infinite Regress: The Moved Mover, the Train, and the First Matter (Metaphysics II, Readings 2–3)
Class of 2005-03-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/018-no-infinite-regress-the-moved-mover-the-train-and-the-first/

[0:00] Now in the second half of the second reading here, he's going to state again what he's going to show in the third and fourth readings, right? Okay.

[0:15] So just kind of exemplifying what he's going to show, but it is clear that there is a beginning, and the causes of what is are not unlimited either in a straight line or by kind. They're not limit unlimited in kind. There's four kinds, but not in a straight line. What does that mean? Well, this thing is being moved by my hand. I'd say this thing is being moved by the chalk.

[0:38] The chalk is being moved by hand. My hand is being moved by something else. This go on forever. That would be going on forever in a straight line, okay?

[0:48] And then he applies this to the four kinds of causes, right? For it is not possible that this from that is from matter goes on without limit. As flesh from earth, right? Earth from air, air from fire. And this does not what stop right? People have a passage I saw in one of Heisenberg's books, John, the great physicist. He said, "I never could believe this went on forever."

[1:14] He said, "Now we've come to the beginning there in matter. There is not a question, but he said, 'I never could believe this goes on forever. '

[1:27] Nor whence the beginning of motion. So he takes the matter first and mentions that right, and then the mover. Nor whence the beginning of motion? As the man to be moved by the air, and this by the sun, the sun by strife. He's giving this an example of opinion on Empedocles right? And there'll be no limit of this.

[1:52] He just did now. He's going to go on to show, right? Okay. Now, why has he mentioned matter and mover first? And then come to the end and form last.

[2:11] Well, maybe we'll see better when you get into the argument, right? Because we'll see later on, he'll give an argument which usually stated in terms of of the mover, right? But an argument for a first cause, mutatis mutandis, could be applied to all four kinds of causes.

[2:34] And then he does something a little different with matter, shows something other than what he says he's going to show. But you still apply the argument, you know, those stated in terms of the mover, but could be applied to in the four kinds of causes. And then he gets a whole number of arguments for the end and the form. Okay. Now, why does he do that?

[3:00] Well, as we'll see, maybe better later on, end and form are the main causes for the wise man, and then the mover, least of all matter. That's not really a cause of all things, but also there may be a special opposition between end and definition, right? And something being endless, almost in the words themselves, right?

[3:31] In other words, if if A is for the sake of B, and B is for the sake of C, and C is for the sake of D, this goes on forever. So it's endless, and there is no end, is there? Everything's a means. And again, definition comes from the word finis, meaning end or limit. So if it's endless or a limit, then there is no definition, right?

[3:53] So maybe there is a special reason why that's elaborated on, both because of the kind of cause it is, but because the relevance of those causes, especially for wisdom.

[4:07] Likewise, that for the sake of which, and that's the definition of the cause called end, is unable to go on without limit. Walking for the sake of health, this for the sake of happiness, happiness for the sake of something else, and thus always one thing is for the sake of another, right? Now, notice, huh? The idea that happiness is something desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, right?

[4:33] That's already developed that particular thought in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics, and Socrates or Plato already talks about it in the Symposium that the happiness is not desired for the sake of anything else, right? And if there is a first mover, is brought out again in the seventh and eighth books of Natural Hearing, the so-called physics.

[4:57] No, the Greeks thought there was a first matter, hasn't it? To much of a doubtful thing, and likewise in the what was to be, and that's really brought out in logic.

[5:12] I mention that because what you're going to see here in the third and fourth meeting, you're going to see this kind of universally about all the causes, right? But you see it in a particular way about the mover in natural philosophy, about what was to be in logic, right? You talk about those ten highest genera, and about the end in ethics, right? And about matter versus the natural philosophy.

[5:42] Um, so in a way, what you're doing is seeing in a particular way in different sciences something you're going to see here in a completely what universal way. When Monsignor Dionne had, a course, one time where he he began with a text of Thomas's teacher, Albert the Great, and Albert was distinguishing the sciences, right? And he was contrasting, say, a science like geometry with natural philosophy and ethics.

[6:17] Some sciences depend upon experience, and some don't require experience. Um, so geometry, I mean, you can construct these things in your imagination, sitting in your in your bare room, right? By natural philosophy, you gotta go out and observe the world, and for its political philosophy, you have to go out and and study government and so on in the concrete. So some sciences depend upon experience, and some upon what don't, like geometry.

[6:48] What about wisdom? Well, Albert the Great says wisdom is among those that depend upon experience. And Dionne said, "Well, now he doesn't mean an experience of being. That's not what he means. "

[7:06] That's what a contemporary Thomist would say, "but that's not what Albert would mean huh Now Dionne said he doesn't mean by experience. They're exactly the same thing that it means in natural philosophy or in political philosophy. In natural philosophy or political philosophy, experience is what we we met here in the premium. It's a what But many memories of the singular, right, brought together, right? Many memories of the same sort of thing brought together.

[7:38] That's what experience means, huh? That's a kind of experience that's necessary for natural philosophy. This cat meow, that cat meow, that cat meow, right? You know, never seen a cat barking like a dog, have you? With the all meow, and you know. This government, you know, gave rise to that government, or that government fell because of this, you know. So, but

[8:10] the experience required for wisdom is a foundation in the less universal sciences. So that multitude of right, that basis I have in natural philosophy, in natural and ethics, and logic, and so on. These are more particular than wisdom, right? They're not singular selves, so it's not wisdom. Not experience in the original sense, a collection of many memories of singulars brought together, but it's what many more particular sciences, sciences that are less universal than wisdom, where you see something in a partial way, and then a more universal way in wisdom.

[8:50] So, experience necessary, right? Okay, so let's look now at the way he starts to show the first reason here. For in middle things, he says, outside of which there is something last and before, is necessary that the before be a cause of what comes after. Because if it was necessary for us to say which of the three is the cause, we would say the first, not the last.

[9:31] For what comes at the end is the cause of nothing, but neither the middle, which is of the one only, and now the key thing, and it makes no difference whether they be one or many, unlimited or limited. For all the parts of things unlimited this way and of the unlimited in general are likewise middle things, even to the present one. Hence, if nothing is first, there is no cause at all.

[9:57] This is kind of overly simple, but easily missed. Suppose A moves B and B moves C. Well, when B is moving C, insofar as it's being moved by A, right? Now, which is the mover, A, B, or C? No one would say C is the mover because that's not moving anything, right? Okay, you might say that B is the mover, right? Because B's moving C, but since it's moving C only insofar as it's moved by A, A is really the mover, right?

[10:47] So this is first, and this is last. And this is in the middle, right? Okay. Now the middle here, the term of the mover, would be what we call a move mover. And why do we call it a middle?

[11:15] Because there's something before it and something what? After, after, right? Um. Now will a move mover move anything if there wasn't something before it? Okay.

[11:40] And so if there's nothing before the move mover, then nothing moves, right? Okay. Now suppose someone says that every mover is a move mover.

[11:58] Okay. Then what? I mean, no motion. And he says it makes no difference whether you have one here or what, many in that middle position. And if many, whether you have a limited multitude or an infinite multitude, because that whole series is like one grand moved mover. Okay. The moved mover won't move anything. There's nothing before it. So if everything is a moved mover, everything is in that middle position, isn't it?

[12:42] There's nothing before it. It can't move today. So there must be, I mean, what? Unmoved mover, right? Simple enough, isn't it? Sometimes I make a kind of homely comparison to help a little bit. I say, suppose you have a train here, right? Okay. And you got the engine up here, okay? And then you've got a wagon here, right? Then I guess they call it the caboose, the end, right?

[13:12] Okay. Now, of these three, which is the mover? See? Which is the puller? Well, the caboose is not pulling anybody, right? The caboose is just being pulled, so no one says the caboose is the thing, right? But the wagon in between the engine and the caboose, the wagon is a pulled puller, right? I'm being a little more confident. It's a moved mover, right? It's a pulled puller.

[13:43] It's pulling the caboose insofar as it's being pulled itself, right? So it's by definition what we call a middle, right? A moved mover or a pulled puller in this case, right?

[13:59] Now, would the pulled puller pull anything if there was something before it? Okay. Now, does it make any difference whether you have one wagon between the engine and the caboose or two or three or four? No. Because it's just like one grand pulled puller, right? That series, is, how long it is. So whether you have one wagon in between here or many, and if many, whether you have a limited multitude or an infinite multitude, right?

[14:32] The whole series would still be like one what? Pulled puller, right? And so everything is in that middle position, and there's nothing before it. Nothing's gonna move. You keep on adding wagons forever, isn't it? But since every one of those wagons is a middle, a part of the middle, right? You're never getting beyond the category of pulled puller, no matter how many.

[15:06] The caboose is not going to be moved at all, no matter how many wagons you put here. You've got to go outside of right to something before the pull pullers, and that's the locomotive engine, right? And that's most of all the mover, right? Like we said before, that principle we saw the previous in the beginning of the second reading, right? If this is a mover, but it's this is a puller, but it's a puller because of this, right?

[15:40] This is more of the puller, right? Okay, So then you've got the beginning, middle, and end, right? You can't have the middle without something before it.

[15:55] Remember that comparison Aristotle makes when he says in the Proemium that the *philomuthos* is in a way a philosopher. Remember that. And there, the use he was making of that was to

[16:18] bring out that philosophy begins in wonder, right? Okay. So the lover of myths, or the lover of fairy tales, we might say, right, is someone who's filled with wonder, and therefore he's like the philosopher, right? And sometimes we say the the wonder of the *philomuthos* is a stepping stone to the wonder of the philosopher. But that word *muthos*, which means first myth, later on takes on the broader sense of story in Greek, and finally, like in Aristotle's book on the poetic art, it takes on the sense of the plot.

[17:02] And so it occurs to me that you can see also the lover of plots is in a way a philosopher, and of course the plot has it has sometimes Aristotle divides plot into two parts: tying the knot and untying the knot, and sometimes into three: beginning, middle, and end, right? Well, you got beginning and end, right? The lover of plots is what is beginning, middle, and end, right?

[17:30] In a way, a philosopher, right? What Aristotle is seeing here is you can't simply have the end and the middle; you've got to have the beginning of what is first, because the middle is a moved mover. If you understand what a moved mover is, it's a mover that doesn't move anything unless there's something before it.

[17:58] And as far as having something before it, it makes no difference whether you have one moved mover or many. He says, and if many, whether it be a limited multitude, right, or an unlimited multitude, it's still one grand what Moved mover, right? You see, but I think it kind of helps the image of the train, right? No matter how many wagons I add here between, you know, before the caboose, you still don't get any motion.

[18:32] See, because whether you have one or many wagons, it's still by definition one grand moved mover. And if there's nothing before a moved mover, there's no motion. There has to be a first what? Mover. Yeah, the first mover. Yeah. Now, that reason he gives here is usually stated here in terms of the mover, but in a way you could generalize that and apply it to any kind of cause right?

[19:09] You're talking about a what Caused cause, huh? Okay. And if you understand what a cause cause is, right, you realize it has something after it, namely the fact that it is a cause, right? But because it's a cause cause, it has something before it, right? Okay. Now, someone was to say to you in general, can you have

[19:38] a caused cause without an effect? No. No, wouldn't be a cause. Any effect. But can you have a caused cause that's causing an effect without anything before it? No.

[19:55] It's the very nature of a caused cause. Has something before it? You know, Aristotle is praising Homer, right? He says Homer is kind of the the greatest of Greek poets, and and he comes early, right? And Aristotle praises Homer because Homer taught all the Greeks. He says how to make a plot. That the unity of a plot Homer saw did not consist in being about one man.

[20:30] He didn't, you know, take everything that Odysseus did, right, and try to make one thing out of it, right? Or take the whole life of Achilles, right, and make out of that. But he chose a what course of action that had a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that's what the unity of a plot is, not because it's about one man. Because there are many things that might happen to a man and might do in his life that don't have any connection one with another.

[20:56] But you need a course of action that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That's what he he taught the the Greeks to do, right? But you see something like that here, right? Huh? You see? And where

[21:12] He says, "well, the middle is something that has something before it and something after. That's the middle is." And in the old days, you know, when I was young, you know, you could go to the movie theater and you could come in anytime, and you could stay as long as you wanted to, you know. So people sometimes, depending upon their their schedule, they come in the middle of a movie, right?

[21:36] And I remember as a child, this is before some of your time. And I'm in the middle of a movie, and some of you was that before your time, Do you remember that or not? Or was it before your time? I remember. Yeah, yeah. I remember 10 cents at the Saint Clair Theater Saint Paul ten cents to get in. Um. So somebody would stay, and I'm going to stay and watch the start of the movie to see.

[22:07] if he's still puzzled because he came in the middle of the movie, right? He didn't know exactly what the situation was. And there's a sense of dissatisfaction, right? And as they saw what came before, right? In other words, you're kind of thrown in the middle of things in those days, or you came in at that wrong time, and and you naturally your reason looks for something before, right?

[22:31] So I'm going to wait till the movie starts over again. But to begin with, which is the very nature of of the middle would be the middle of a plot, right? Or a move mover that has something what before it, yeah. But even you know it's even stronger here than the case of the plot, right? See, there has to be something before the cause cause, or

[23:02] it won't cause anything. When you speak of a cause cause, here you mean something that's causing something else, insofar as it's being caused itself. So if all you have is cause cause, there's going to be no causes.

[23:20] That can be applied about standard usage in terms of the mover here. It could be applied mutatis mutandis to each of the kinds of what causes, huh? Okay.

[23:39] Now, in the rest of the third reading, he's going to talk about matter, but he doesn't develop an argument for saying there's a first matter.

[23:55] And why not? You know, why not? See, well, I can give three partial answers to that, right? Okay. One answer is to say that this argument, right, can be applied to matter and to what? Every other kind of cause, huh? Just generalize it, right? Same argument the same way. So, really, have a problem about the first matter. You've got the basis for it here, right? Okay. But a second reason why you may not elaborate on matter in this way is because it's not really a doubtful thing for the Greek philosophers beforehand.

[24:42] Um. They all thought that there was the cause called matter. That's the kind of cause that's most known, and they all thought there was a first matter. They might disagree as to the first matter is water or air or fire or all four of these things, you know. But there's no doubt in their minds that there was a what? First matter, right? So it's a less doubtful thing, right?

[25:06] There's no special difficulty. This this suffices this general argument, And perhaps the third reason is that matter cannot be the first cause of all things if there are immaterial things, right? So it's a left concern to the wise man, right? Okay. Would reason? Would the reason also be simply the fact that he's he's already established the fact in a prior work of his in in natural hearing?

[25:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, even there, it's it's more a question of what is the first matter there, and that there is a first matter, right? Yeah. Okay. And I say you could apply this argument to the first matter to use it if you have doubts about that, right? Yeah. But it's not a matter that was especially doubtful his time, right? Because all the philosophers before him thought there was a first matter, right?

[26:06] Some of them have not have not come yet to see that there was a mover even as a cause, but they all saw matter as a cause, huh? And when you get to the third book, when Aristotle starts dialectic about

[26:21] the problems of wisdom as a whole, and some of them are questions about causes, huh? Well, one of the first questions will be about causes: Is there any cause besides matter? You know, doesn't have a question. You know, it's matter or cause. No, that's not a doubtful thing. Nobody doubts that. Question is: Is any cause besides matter? See, everybody had some opinion about the cause called matter, and they doubted there was that kind of cause.

[26:50] But some saw only that cause, and some thought there was some other kind of cause besides matter. And so Aristotle will argue: Is there any cause besides matter? And then, if there is, does it exist only in matter, or is there a cause other than matter that doesn't even exist in matter? You know, you got to think what the real difficulties are of this demon. but there's no question that matter is a cause.

[27:17] Okay. So what does he do then? The rest of the third reading. Well, he goes in the opposite direction, right? Instead of saying, you know,

[27:37] this came to be from that, and that came to be from something else, and that didn't go on forever, but there was a first matter. He says, "No. Given that there's a first matter, does something come to be from it? From that something else, and that something else, and this goes on forever.

[27:54] Okay. And so he calls this going downwards, right? Okay. Now. It's interesting Aristotle used the word downwards there because mention a little difference here between the Greek and the

[28:13] English, right? The Greeks and perhaps the Latins, to some extent, they speak of the cause, and if the cause were above the effect, then okay. And so you'll see derive the Latin and they'll see that the cause, effect rather, depends upon the cause, right? What do they call these things? Depend, dependent? What is a pendant? It's the part that hangs down? Right? Okay. So that's one way of kind of imagining the cause, right?

[28:48] As if it's holding something in existence from above, right? Okay. So if the effect were like this lamp, it's hanging from the ceiling, right? Okay.

[29:01] While and therefore, if you're going from the cause towards effect, you're going downwards. That's Aristotle used the word downwards there. Okay, that's what used the word depend. Okay, it hangs upon. I'm saying someone said in English, right? But the English word for cause is more the word what? Ground, right? And then you think of the cause as what? Upholding for me. Yeah, yeah. And so in English, the things in Latin too, in other languages, we'll speak of the underlying what?

[29:36] Cause, the underlying cause, right? Okay. So and this gets very much in with matter being the cause most known, most undeniable to us, ground to us. But the Greeks there, yeah. A hard view of cause.

[30:04] So he's he's looking the opposite direction, right? But neither is it possible to go on downwards without end, having a beginning above, right? As they say, people don't doubt that, but if they do, you can go back to the first argument, right? Okay. As from fire, water, from this earth, and thus always some other kind comes to be. And he shows this by kind of an either-or argument, right?

[30:35] For this comes to be from that in two ways, really coming to be from, not just after it in time, like things. Either as the man comes to be from the boy changed, or as air from what water? Okay. Now, when the man comes to be from the child, that's the perfect from the what? Imperfect, right? Huh? Or the tree comes to be from the what? Seed, right?

[31:06] Huh? Then you have this other kind of change, like with the weather, where the hot comes to be from the cold, and then all of a sudden the what? Cold comes to be from the hot. It goes backwards and forwards, right? Okay. So it's between two contraries, right? Okay.

[31:29] For we say a man comes to be from a child, as what has come to be from what is becoming, right? And the perfect from what is being perfected, huh? The perfect from the imperfect, being perfected. For its coming to be is always between to be and not to be, right? So the becoming is always between being and unbeing. Is the one learning who is becoming a knower, and this is what is said that the knower comes to be from the learner.

[32:00] But the other kind of change, from one being But not perfected, but the other being corrupted, right? Hence, the form do not turn back to each other. So now they're going to be just about seventy. Can I turn around now and start growing? You know, back to sixty, fifty, forty. Be nice for a while, you know, you'd be like the prime of life. But I don't think I'd go all the way back until I'm a baby anymore, right?

[32:28] You only gotta go to the movies for ten cents together Hence, the form do not turn back to each other, for the child does not come to be from the what man? Said metaphorically, second childhood they call it.

[32:47] For what is become does not come to be from becoming, but it is after the becoming. Thus, also the day from dawn, because after it, whence neither does the dawn come to be from the day, but the latter turn back. And then he says, in both ways, it is impossible to go on without end, for these being between, there is necessarily an end. While those turn back to each other, for the corruption of one is the generation of the other.

[33:19] So notice, does the generation of man go on forever? No. And does the change from hot to cold go on forever? No, because you go to one contrary and then you go back again, right? So there are there are limits, right? Okay.

[33:41] And then he talks about the incorruptibility of the first matter there at the end of that. Okay, that's a little bit outside of what we want to show mainly here in the third and fourth reading, and that is that there are first causes, right? So let's take a little break here now before we look at the fourth reading here.