Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
19. Endless Ends and Endless Definitions, and the Influence of Custom on Thinking (Metaphysics II, Readings 4–5)
Class of 2005-03-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/019-endless-ends-and-endless-definitions-and-the-influence-of/

[0:00] Now, let's look at the fourth reading here. Here, our student will develop some reasons for saying that the cause called end, that for sake of which, doesn't go on forever, and then to talk about this in terms of the cause called form, which is defined by definition. Okay.

[0:33] Further, that for the sake of which is an end, and such as what is not for the sake of another, but other things the sake of it. So, if there be something last such as this, it will not be endless. If there is nothing such, there will not be that for the sake of which. Well, take the distinction here between a what and an end and a means.

[1:04] A means is something that is desired for the sake of something else, right? Okay. Now, if everything was desired for the sake of something else,

[1:29] and this went on forever, would anything be desired as an end? No, everything would be desired as a means, right? Okay. Um. So in a way, if this goes on forever, never comes to an end. There's no end, right? Okay. Now,

[1:57] I told you that kind of funny story, huh? Used to work in the factory there, and then in the office here at my father's company when we were in high school and so on. And I told you that story about the one educated guy down there. He was my father's engineer, right? And so he talked to my brother Mark and Rich and myself sometimes, and what we're studying and so on in the summer.

[2:19] And we we were studying philosophy, and oh, why are you studying that, oh, for its own sake, we say. Well, he just could not buy the idea that something could be desired for its own sake. And so after a few weeks, he came back and asked us again what we're studying stuff for. And he's kind of a practical engineer, right? You know, doing these things for its own sake.

[2:44] I just couldn't, you know, accept our answer. It didn't make sense to him, so he had to answer the question himself. And finally, one day comes up and he volunteers the answer. His answer. It's brain food. In other words, you you you know, you build up your muscles, right? But this is build up your brain, right? And then you go out and do something, you know, with your brain.

[3:07] It's like nice and practical, right? It couldn't be for its own sake. And but very often in in daily life, you find somebody saying that, right? What's that good for, right? Yeah. That something has to be good for something other than itself to be good at all. And they don't realize that if everything was good for something else, if everything was of that start, then all you have that whole.

[3:36] Whether it be one or many, right? That whole series is one grand what means, huh? Just like with those move movers, right? They're one. No matter if there's one or many, or any? Infinity of them. The whole series is just one grand what mover with nothing before, right? So if everything is desired for the sake of something else, then everything you desire is just one grand means, huh?

[4:05] Right. It's not for the sake of anything else. So you are really doing away with the end altogether. That cause. But you'll find people very often thinking that way, huh? If you look at at the

[4:23] symposium, Socrates or Plato, maybe you don't know where Socrates. leads off and Plato begins, but he makes the same point about happiness, huh? Okay

[4:40] Now, sometimes I show this in a little different way than Aristotle, but same thing basically. I am saying that if I desire A for the sake of B, okay, can I desire A without desiring B first?

[5:01] See, if I desire medicine for the sake of health, could I desire medicine before I desired health? Okay. So if everything is desired for the sake of something else, there is always something else you have to desire before you can desire anything. That gives you a little problem there, right? Generally. Yeah, and so I say,

[5:28] how do you begin to desire? Right? See, because anything you say, that's the first thing I desired. But since you say desire for the sake of something else, it can't be the first thing you desired, right? So you couldn't even begin to desire anything, could you?

[5:47] Unless there is something you desired and not for the sake of anything else, you couldn't begin to desire anything. It's kind of another little side of this, huh?

[6:02] But notice even in the word "end," there is a kind of opposition between a being desired for the sake of b, and b for the sake of c, and this going on without end. It almost seems in the word itself you are contradicting the word, right? There is no end. Everything is a what means, huh? Yeah. You see the similarity there, huh? Means has something of the idea of the middle, right?

[6:30] Okay. Now when Aristotle talks about end and good. They're basically the same thing: the end and the good, huh? The means is good, but because of the end, so the good and the end are basically the same thing. So those making the endless do not see that they are taking away the nature of the good. That's something Aristotle more than anybody else before him, and most people afterwards, with the exception maybe of Thomas, you know, sees that connection between the end and good.

[7:10] Um. Kant talks about doing your duty, you know, but doesn't talk about the good being the end. So that's a. So if you take away the end, if you make the thing endless, you are doing away with the nature of the good. That's real terrible difficulty, right?

[7:30] And no one would attempt to do anything, not expecting to come to a limit. Nor would there be mind in things, for the one having mind always acts for the sake of something. But this is a limit, for the end is always a limit, huh? So you'd be doing away with attempt to accomplish anything, and in terms of doing away with the mind too, huh? I used to always say, you know, how high can you count to?

[8:06] You know, and I am counting to a hundred, so I can count to a thousand. Counting to a thousand, I can count to a million. Counting a million, and this is what mindless, isn't it? It never comes to an end, right? So you are doing away with an awful lot of things if you say this, huh?

[8:30] So the second and the third and the fourth arguments are showing things that follow. They're destructive, right? From taking away the end, you take away the good as well.

[8:44] You see it very much in the beginning of the *Nicomachean Ethics too: the connection between the end and the good. In so much, we define the good as the good is what all want. That's the first definition of the good. The good is what all want.

[9:10] And we define the end as that for the sake of which We also say the end is that which is what aimed at, right? Okay, that which is aimed at.

[9:33] So you might define the good and end slightly different, but if you look at the definitions, you can see they're really the same thing, basically,

[9:41] because we aim at something that we desire, right? And for the sake of what we desire, that we act. These two things go together. So to take away one is to take away the what? The other. other So

[10:04] early days of TV, there one of the big companies there, you know GE or somebody. But GE or, our most important product is progress.

[10:17] Well, people, you know, the modern sometimes think of progress as something that's going on forever, right? And can that be the end? Progress? Would

[10:31] you really have the end if your end is progress? No. Like the man counting there, right? Huh? He has no end. No one would attempt to do anything, not expecting to come to a limit, huh?

[11:01] Would there be mind in things? You're doing away with the good and mind and the effort, huh? Now the end, in some ways, is the most important cause of all, right? We saw that even in the proemium of it, Aristotle touching upon that, huh? He said the wise man orders all the rest. Okay, but the cause, the end, is sometimes said to be the cause of all the other causes being causes.

[11:41] So how did the wood get to be the wood of a chair? Was through the carpenter, right? And how did that the shape get to be the shape of the chair? Well, the carpenter shaped the wood, right? So in a way, the carpenter makes the wood to be actually the wood of a chair. He's responsible for the shape of the chair being in the wood, huh? So he's in a sense responsible for the causality of the matter and the what form.

[12:16] But why didn't the carpenter make the chair? For sitting, right? Yeah. So sitting is the cause of the carpenter doing what he did, huh? And he's in some sense the cause of the matter and the form. So the end is the cause of all the other causes, huh? So Aristotle is showing in the 12th book of Wisdom that God is the first cause. He can't stop by saying that God is the unmoved mover, or even that he's the first maker, right?

[12:45] He's got to also be the first what end? Yeah, he's got to be a cause in the sense of end as well. Otherwise, he would not have. You would not have that. unmoved cause. Yeah. because if the unmoved mover, the first maker made for the sake of something other than himself. Then he wouldn't be exactly, fully, completely the first cause, would he?

[13:12] Interesting. St. Bonaventure says that God is the end because He's the beginning. Let's say, or they compare it to the circle, right, where the same point is the beginning and the end, right? So as you leave the point, you're in a way, but approaching. Yeah, yeah, kind of paradox there, right? But but our our minds are tied to the continuous. We kind of see it through the circle, right?

[13:45] You know. Which is a better circle than you had in the materialist, right? Dust there are, and the dust shall return. There you come back to where you started, but there you're end is your destruction, right? But this is end in the sense of that for sake of which. It's one of the last things Chesterton said. my end is my beginning. Oh, yeah. The famous saying of good there, you know,

[14:16] happy is a man who can join the end of his life to the beginning. I mean, I don't know if you saw the profundity of what he's saying, you know, but this makes some sense, right?

[14:29] So since the end is the cause of all the other causes of being caused, it's most of all of interest to the what? lover of wisdom, which is a knowledge of the first cause. That's one reason why he takes up the end more here, right? But there's also more of a what? Direct opposition, even the word itself.

[14:57] It's interesting in in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle takes up the word end or limit. It's one of the the words in the fifth book. The fifth book is the book about all the names that are relevant to wisdom and the axioms.

[15:14] And the word could be translated as end or limit. And what's the first meaning of end huh, or limit? huh? Well, we should all like be end of the table, something like that. So the end of the table, yeah. The end of the continuum, right?

[15:42] And then, like that, is the end of emotion. The end of emotion. And then the end of intention. End of emotion. End of intention, and this is in now and back for the sake of it, yeah.

[16:15] And the fourth sense is definition, right? And of course, you see it's better in Greek or Latin because definition comes from finis, meaning limit, and in Greek they use the word sometimes horos sometimes horismos right? Actually horismos is like we get the word horizon. Horizon is the limit of the sky, right? But now it's being used for what? the definition.

[16:46] So, in the very word itself, right? These two kinds of causes seem to be opposed to this endless series. But sometimes you see even the first meaning here a likeness to what you see later on. So you say, what's the end of a body? What's the surface, right? What's the end of a surface? A line. What's the end of a line? What's the end of a point.

[17:24] So that's the end that has no end, right? That's end in this first sense here. That's kind of interesting. And in the beginning of the fifth book, he takes up the word beginning, which has something like that too. The first meaning of beginning would be like the beginning of the table or the beginning of the line. Point is beginning of the line. And again, you could say a surface is the beginning of a line, A line is the beginning of a surface.

[17:58] A point is the beginning of a line. What's the beginning of a point? No, that's the beginning that has in that sense a beginning, right? No beginning, huh? It's kind of interesting, huh? But this kind of, Aristotle says, and Thomas here often points this out, that the word beginning is more universal than the word cause. Every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause.

[18:34] So the point, you know, is the beginning of a line, but not the cause of the line. But it's interesting that even that first meaning of beginning, which is not a cause, has something like this, right? That there's a beginning. In that sense, it has no beginning. In that sense, right? Huh?

[18:56] And and to some extent, you kind of see the dependence of this, right? If you take a a ice cube or a wooden cube, right? The wooden cube is limited because the six squares that what bound the cube are what finite. Yeah, are limited, right? Yeah, yeah. But the squares are limited because the lines that contain them don't go on forever, but they're limited too, right? And the lines are limited because they have an end too.

[19:36] But the point, you know, that's it, right? Okay. So because of the point, the line has an end. Because the line has an end, the square has an end. Because the square has an end,

[19:51] the body does, right? So there's kind of anticipation. That's What you're going to see here with the causes, huh? It's the beginning of the day.

[20:14] But you know, if you go back and say, "Well, is it the first hour? Is that the beginning of the day? Is that what? That's the first hour, but is that the beginning of the day? Is it the first minute? " Eventually, go back to something what? In indivisible, huh?

[20:40] Now, as far as as the kind of cause called mover, not mover, rather, but form, form is defined in Antiphon as the definition of what it was to be was to be.

[21:00] So Aristotle's doing here is showing the definitions don't go on forever, right? Now, if you look at Euclid, there say you can see often how one definition enters into another definition, right? So before you say definition is a square, let's say is defined as a equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. But before he defines square, he defines quadrilateral, right? I hope so. And he defines quadrilateral as a rectilineal plane figure contained by four sides or something like that.

[21:39] And then before he defines quadrilateral, he defines rectilineal plane figure. Plane figure contained by straight lines. And before he defines that, he defines plane figure. And before he defines that, he defines figure. Now does this go on forever? See that every part of every definition is a definition that's going forever.

[22:08] If that were so, how many definitions would be before knowing any definition? Infinite. Yeah. So we never know anything by definition, which is contrary to our experience, huh? That we come to know something by definition, huh? So it can't be an infinity of them, huh? Okay.

[22:35] But neither is it possibly says always to lead back up into another definition, exceeding in thought. Now, by exceeding in thought, he means what? Said of more, more universal, right? Oh. See, because quadrilateral is said of more than square, and rectilineal plane figure is said of more than quadrilateral, and plane figure is said of more than rectilineal plane figure, right? And figure is said of more than plane figure.

[23:01] Solid figures too, and so on. For the one before is always said of more, but the one after is not. But what does not have a first does not have a next one following. Now, what the heck does that mean? Well, it's kind of like the argument there for the unmoved mover, right?

[23:51] Yeah. You have only middle thoughts, right? If it doesn't have a first, it doesn't have a second. Yeah, yeah. All your thoughts presuppose a thought. Yes.

[24:04] But if that's all your thoughts, for your thoughts presuppose a thought, then all your thoughts presuppose something that isn't there. right I suppose not. Yeah. For those speaking thus, take away reasoned out understanding, for it is not possible to understand before one has come to the what indivisible.

[24:29] Now, since this reason is the same one as the one about statements, right? Some statements are known to other statements, right? Yeah. Now, someone says, "Well, is every statement known to other statements?"

[24:46] Well, then you'd have to go on forever, right? To be infinity of what statements? Yeah. And so your mind would never come to a rest or a stop, right? And of course, understanding has that sense of coming to a rest or a stop, a standing. The

[25:07] mind would always be. Why is A so? Because of B. Why is B so? Because of C. Why is C so? Because of D. Your mind can never come to rest; it would always have to go to something else.

[25:22] Now, the Greek the Greek word that I translate, reasoned out understanding I've mentioned this before, but the the Greek had one word, episteme, right? But episteme etymologically in Greek comes from the words to halt, to come to a stop.

[25:39] So it's kind of obvious in the when the word episteme, right, that this is opposed to it, huh? Because the mind could never come to a stop, huh? So Aristotle gives an example there in the biological works of the mouse on a pile of grain. You can't move because the grains keep on giving away.

[26:05] Yeah, like us trying to walk in water. Right? Keeps on giving away, so you can't find anything at a rest in order to move yourself.

[26:18] And knowing in general would not exist, right? For how is it possible to understand things thus unlimited? He said, "This is not like the line, which is not stopped by divisions. There you can go on a line forever, right? "

[26:43] What's the difference between that and thought? Is thought something like that, divisible forever? No. Otherwise, you'd have to know infinite things to know anything. You have to actually know them before you can know what comes afterwards. And

[27:19] I don't understand that sentence too well. But it is necessary to understand matter and what is moved. That's true. What was it doing in here? And what is unlimited is nothing. And if not, at least what it is to be unlimited is not unlimited. Is that true?

[27:46] Can you define motion? You do so in natural philosophy. Can you define motion? Can you define the unlimited? Well, if you do know what the unlimited is, you don't know it by going through an infinite series, do you? You know it by general? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[28:20] Now, if the kinds of causes are unlimited multitude, we would not have knowledge either, right? We've already seen somewhat in the first book that the kinds of causes are what unlimited, huh? So Aristotle is more concerned with showing that in form don't go on forever, right? In because it's the cause of all the other causes, right? Form because it's the cause of being, and we'll find out in book four that the wisdom is about being as being, right?

[28:53] Okay. Why matter and mover are more appropriate to natural things in particular. Although the mover is something like that that's very important too in the first class.

[29:08] But also, there's a special opposition between these and their very name, right? Definition and and the idea that endless what series. huh So you're convinced that there are first causes or what? Aristotle is giving some backup for the statement that wisdom is about the first causes, because there must be first causes before you have a knowledge about the first causes, right?

[29:42] But he's also, in a sense, in the subplot, right, advancing our knowledge from what we saw in the first book that there are these four kinds of causes, right? So that you must look for causes in one or more of these kinds. And now we're seeing that in each of these kinds, there is a what first cause, yeah. That kind of leaves, you know, in, confusion. Is the first cause of all things matter, or is it something else, right?

[30:14] You know, or is the first cause a mover? Is it one of Plato's forms there in the definitions, right? See, but then many other things have to be considered to come back for a more exact, perfect knowledge of the first causes. Huh? See, I'm making some progress here, right? See, I know that there are four kinds of causes. I know that in each of these kinds of causes, there's reason to think there's a first cause, right?

[30:41] Okay. I'm going to study some other things, and then we'll see better what those first causes are, right? At the same time as the wise man is kind of showing in a universal way what you see in a particular way in the other sciences, huh? In natural philosophy, you'd see that there's a first mover and maybe a first matter, right? In logic, you see more the definitions don't go on forever, just like syllogisms go on forever.

[31:18] There's an end there, right? And in ethics, you realize that the end doesn't go on forever, right? So you see one of these, or maybe two of these, in the other sciences in a particular way. But here you're kind of seeing it what in a universal way. So this is an example of what Dionne was saying. You know, kind of experience of these things in a more particular way prepares the mind to see this in a very universal way here.

[31:47] You see that? Yeah. Okay. Now, let's recall what we had said before here about the second book here, and we put ourselves in Aristotle's shoes, right? At the end of Book One, remember that? Being Aristotle's shoes, still have them on. Okay, we said we've gone through the premium, so we know what the goal of wisdom is, and we know some things about the kind of knowledge this is, and we know that this is the most desirable knowledge that there is, right?

[32:29] Because the most divine knowledge, as he says. But we know we can't simply learn it from our predecessors from the second part of Book One after the premium.

[32:48] We have to some extent discover ourselves, right? And the question that might arise after seeing the fate of those who've gone before you, you know. We all want to get to Boston, right? But all those who try to get to Boston have not gotten there, right? It might occur to you if you're either not too bright. What is the road to Boston, right? What roads we take to get to our goal, right?

[33:18] Okay. But there's a more general question than that. Remember, there's a before that we spoke about, right? And what is that? Okay. But Aristotle is not going to take up here. What is the road to follow within wisdom, right?

[33:46] He's going to take a more general question here in the fifth reading, a question that is presupposed to that, right? Well, just take a question like this: What road should we follow in geometry? What road should we follow in natural philosophy, right? What road should we follow in ethics, right? Should follow the same road in all these, or not, right?

[34:18] That's like the question we face here now. What road should we follow in wisdom, right? Right. Right. Okay. But what general question is presupposed to trying to answer all those questions? Would be something like what? What is it that we're seeking? Well, it may come in eventually, yeah. But there's a common question about all these, and that is, how should one determine, right, the road to follow in any reasoned-out knowledge, right?

[34:56] Whether it be geometry or, you know, natural philosophy or political philosophy or wisdom, you know, it's a more general question, right? Okay. Um. And since there's the same knowledge of opposites, right? Um. You might say a knowledge of how one should determine the road and how one should not determine it is presupposed trying to determine the road of geometry or the road of ethics or the road of wisdom, right?

[35:32] Okay. Now, given that that more general question is kind of presupposed, then is there a reason why it's appropriate? As we asked before, that that general question, which is relevant to the geometry, the natural philosopher, the political philosopher, as well as the wise man, right? Is there a reason why that general question, how the road in a reasoned out knowledge should or should not be determined how the private road of that science should or should not be determined.

[36:04] Is there a reason why that that general question should be considered or determined by the wise man? Which relevant to all them. Aristotle, in fact, is kind of expansive, especially in the ethics about this. But is there a reason to say that ex officio, the wise man should take up this general question? Because he directs all the others. Yeah, yeah, because the man who

[36:35] teaches us right how the private road of each reasoned out knowledge should or should not be determined. He in a way is directing everybody, isn't he? Okay, who directs everybody? Wise. Yeah, yeah. So it's appropriate, right, that the wise man talk about this, and this what he does in the third reading, right? Talking about how men, in fact, do determine the road, which is not the way you should do it, and then how it should be determined, right?

[37:07] He's very brief about it, but you see, it belongs to the wise man, kind of from his office of a wise man. You see that? Yeah. Let's

[37:24] see this bit. Let's take a look at this a little bit. Now, at the beginning of the fifth reading here, Aristotle is going to talk about the influence of custom upon the road that we what take, huh? And one shouldn't simply adopt the method or road to which is accustomed, huh? But in fact, men will take the road to which they are accustomed as a rule, and this shows the great influence of what custom upon the way we think, huh?

[38:10] Now, sometimes I like to stop here and talk a little bit about the influence of custom on our thinking, right? And look at this a little bit more universally. You say taking this as a title, the influence of custom

[38:36] upon thinking, yeah. And perhaps you could distinguish at least two, maybe three parts of that. One is the part he's going to be. Talking about here, the influence of custom upon how we think, right?

[39:07] That's going to be his emphasis here in this reading, right? Okay. Now Thomas Aquinas, in the beginning of the Summa Theologiae, talks about the influence of custom upon what we think, right? Okay.

[39:39] Now, if you go to different countries and different ages, you see people have what they think something differently, right? What they think is different, and people went to different schools or different teachers, you know. And is this more influence of reason or custom? You have a similarity of thought, right? How strong is influence of custom upon what we think?

[40:09] Yeah. You ever see those remarks of of John Paul II? He's talking about who's the theologian there? Dead now. The one who's saying, "Maybe, you know, can we hope that everybody's saved? " Of course, of course, yeah, yeah. And and the Pope kind of, you know, it's kind of fun the way he speaks of it, you know, as if he kind of, you know, puts an idea to play a little bit, right?

[40:43] I can say it, right? You know. They go back to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and for them, most people are lost. And they'll take, you know, the words of Christ: "Many are called, but few are chosen," or the words of Christ: "Narrow is the road, and these, and few there are who find it." And so, kind of a probable, reasonable right interpretation of the words is few will be saved, right?

[41:19] Many will be lost. Saint Paul, there in the epistles, there he talks about what happened to the Jews as being what you figure for us, right? And most of them, God is not well pleased, right? You can see that the Jews, you know, down through the ages, though being the chosen people, you know, God being, we're displeased with most of them, right? And the assassins we get into because of that.

[41:50] Now we seem to have gone to kind of the to the opposite extreme of saying, you know, just about everybody's taking it, right? Everybody, right? And this is a little bit like, like you know, I mentioned I got through reading Campion's biography of Campion there, by Evelyn Waugh so. But when you go back to these earlier centuries, you're struck by the severity and the cruelty, you might say, of the punishments, right?

[42:26] That they're common those days, right? And we have in our constitution, you know, you know, cruel and unusual punishments, right? And they're you know come up now with the question of executing minors and so on, right? That just decided to speak of court again, huh? So we kind of because of our customs, huh? They talk a little talks about that in America, how.

[42:58] Democratic times kind of soften the punishments of criminals, right? Part of that is because we think we're more just like the other guy, right? And so we feel more, right? But in a more aristocratic age, you know, where you have all these class divisions and so on, your suffering is to be in a different class, a little bit like the animal's suffering compared to us, right? It's kind of interesting, right?

[43:30] One of my social histories, you know, the Paston letters they call them letters; they call them right. And the Pastons are well-to-do family there in England, and they wanted to marry their daughter off, young beautiful daughter off to a rich old money bag, right? Good for the family, right? She doesn't want to marry this rich old money bag, and I don't like my dad. And so, of course, they're beating her every day until she agrees to do so, right?

[43:57] But the historians, you know, warns us we should not think the pastors were mean and cruel parents. Of course, if your dad didn't marry the man you wanted to marry, you know, that's part of the family, right? Of course, you beat her every day until she agrees to do so. That's what you do with her, you know. I mean, you know, just take it for granted, right?

[44:13] It's called investigation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What? Well, I mean, I mean, you go back, you know, multiply these examples, right? The things that they would take for granted, you know, and you know, just the the idea

[44:31] that you are not free to marry whom you want to marry, right? But who wants to marry you, or whatever it is? That your parents would basically make the decision for you. That makes us is very strange, but in the words of

[44:50] these ancients, is strange, right? Now, I always take, you know, the creation of independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men are created equal. If you got up in slave Rome or Athens and said that, you know, you would sound so so ridiculous, right?

[45:10] One time I was studying the speeches of Demosthenes, and as he was supposed to be, guys a great orator. I remember one of the speeches there. He's making fun of the guy, you know. He came up scrubbing benches, you know. And we we admire today a self-made man, wouldn't we? That he had done menial things at one time in his life, huh? But you scrub benches, you know.

[45:33] You're you're a lowly born, you know, peasant. You're you know, you know, ignoble, right? Huh? You see, I said, I said to myself, you know, well, I'm not going to learn rhetoric from this guy because this would be very poor rhetoric in our time. Because your guy is a very good, you know. It just shows you how strange how the customs change, right? So we've got to stop right.

[45:58] now. think a little bit about, you know, in general, the influence of custom upon what we think as well as how we think, right? And it's important thing to take into account because

[46:14] I sometimes put to my students this way. I say, which is stronger in our thinking, you know, custom or argument? Most of them, even with their limited experience, will say custom is stronger than what argument, right? If the most part men are more influenced by custom than argument, and sometimes I try to show them, you know, how absurd is the idea that the earth is turning on its axis rather than the sun moving around us, and they they can't break down their arguments.

[46:48] You see, I said, you know, you know, take some dirt and mold it into a ball, and it's just going around in a circle. No, the ball, what's it do? It goes down a straight line to the center of the earth, right? You mean this this big tump of dirt is going around like that in a very regular way? You see, and there should be a big wind and so and all these.

[47:10] So they can't give any arguments for saying the view is turning on its axis, but they're so accustomed to that thought that you couldn't change their mind, right? And water is H2O. I mean, that's that's rock solid, right, in their minds, right? I say, well, how do you know water is H2O? Well, it's not obvious. It looks homogenous to me. You see, and they they, you know, but you know what they're accustomed to hear from the time they're little, they will hold on to in face of arguments they can't answer.

[47:46] So, custom is stronger than argument for the most part in our thinking, and the reason for that is that custom, I think, acts upon our mind long before argument does. And when something has become customary, it's like a second nature, like this thing. She's second nature to me now, like breathing out and breathing in, like in the musical. And so it seems like something naturally known that you don't even like a starting point.

[48:22] And of course, in in Socrates' dialogues, great conversations, people who are accustomed to something think they they know it, so it makes you think you know what you don't know, and can even make something false seem true.

[48:41] So, because interesting thing, the custom is for the most part stronger than argument, and I often quote the great Max Planck, you know, who's sometimes given the title the father of modern physics. Because in December of 1900, right at the dawn of the 20th century, he proposed the quantum hypothesis. He went for a walk in the park with his son. He said, "I think I've discovered something as great as Newton."

[49:11] And five years later, Einstein showed you can't understand light without this quantum. And 13 years later, Bohr that you can't understand matter without this. You know, so everything involves this, huh? But Max Planck says, you know, we never convinced the older generation of physicists of the new ideas.

[49:29] The way they get accept the new ideas is the older physicists die out, and the new ones coming into university are introduced to new ideas at the beginning of their academic career, right? But the older physicists, you know,

[49:44] they hold on to the ideas that they were introduced to when they first started their academic career. And you can't hardly, you know, I say now these are the guys who are trained to presume we follow the evidence, the scientists, right? If even for them. Custom is stronger than argument. How much more so for the common man?

[50:09] So Aristotle is going to be talking here, though, about the influence of custom on how we think and the danger of this, right? You know, this is not the way to determine how to proceed, huh? And therefore, you have to try to teach us how you proceed proceed to determine the road right. So it's interesting, you know. But think about that, you know. Come back, after we've gone next week, and we're going to come back.

[50:35] Okay, you will be here next week. I'm going going to England on Saturday.