Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
24. Wisdom's Questions About Substance and the Plan of the Third Reading: Is There a Cause Besides Matter?
Class of 2005-04-07
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/024-wisdoms-questions-about-substance-and-the-plan-of-the-third/

[0:01] Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. and help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:30] So we looked at a couple of the questions last time. Which causes should the wise man look for? right. And though we know there are four kinds of causes, not every science uses all causes, or not all of them equally so. So that's the first question.

[0:52] And then the second question was whether one should consider only the causes of substances in this course, in this subject, or also those statements that are the beginnings of all reasoned-out knowledge. And we saw the reason why a person might say that those statements are the common beginnings of all reasoned-out knowledge. Everybody knows them, right? So why have to? Why consider them? Why not just use them?

[1:23] And we mentioned though that people do sometimes object against these. The arguments that most people can't answer, right? And so people think they don't know what they do know. Aristotle, in the second book of the Natural Hearing, there, the so-called Physics, he says, you know, it's strange, but it's possible that a man can think he doesn't know what he does know. And the way he shows it to be possible is by the reverse.

[1:52] If I can think that I know what I don't know, and Socrates' whole life was showing that people do make that mistake, then the reverse mistake should be possible. If someone can think that a man is a woman, let's say, right? Someone else can make the mistake of thinking a woman is a man. Because you think a man is a woman because you can't tell apart sometimes, and so you can make the mistake going the opposite direction, right?

[2:19] If someone makes a mistake of thinking Budweiser is Miller's, someone else can make the mistake of thinking Miller's is Budweiser, right? So someone can think that what is unknown to him is known to him, and we make the mistake very often. One reason why we make that mistake is because a customer. Well, then it's because we can't sometimes tell apart what is known, what's unknown, right? And so you can make a mistake going in the reverse direction.

[2:48] But the mistake of thinking you know what you don't know is more common. But thinkers, especially right, get in the position of thinking they don't. Know what they do know. So I remember in modern philosophy class, some student asked my old teacher Kasurik, you know,

[3:07] how do you argue with someone who denies the existence of things outside of him? Kasurik's answer was kick him in the ass. And this is not a jocular reply because your senses are closer to things around you than your reason is, and so if your senses don't convince you there's something out there, and especially the sense of touch, which is the one that is most certain, as you know in the doubting Thomas, right?

[3:38] Reason is not going to do that, right? It's like you know if I tell you about my my mother and you have no knowledge of my mother except through me, and I'm not sure about my mother, how could you be? So, but there are people then who think they don't know, what they do know. huh?

[4:01] Even Barclay, the English philosopher, who denied there's anything material, right? Even Bartley opens the door of his study before he tries to leave. Okay, then he has. the way Thomas would divide them, five questions about substance, huh? But the first one, I mean, I've already talked about already, right?

[4:38] Now, as we mentioned before, he sticks into questions about things here because they're relevant to substance, huh? And let's jump ahead for a moment there to the fourth paragraph in page two. And it is also necessary to investigate whether only sensible substances, bodies, that is to say, exist, right, or other substances besides them, immaterial substances, right? What the Greek philosophers would call separated substances.

[5:11] Well, as Aristotle remarks there in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, when he's talking about place, it's a common opinion of his predecessors that whatever is must be somewhere, and if it isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist, right? If you went out down on Main Street here, Worcester, or any Main Street, any town, and you ask people, they'd probably say the same thing, right? If something exists, it's got to be somewhere, meaning in some place, right?

[5:43] And it's nowhere, not in any place, it doesn't exist. Well, notice to be somewhere, to be in a place, to be contained in a place, is really a property of actual bodies, right? So in a sense, you're saying that all that exists is what. Bodies, right? And part of the reason for this is that we never what think without imagining, and the imagination is tied to quantity, to something like a body, right?

[6:15] And that's the question: you know, how can even think about something that is not a body? And why it involves what imagining but negating what you're imagining? You say something is not a body; it doesn't have length, width, and depth. But in the study of natural philosophy, which was regarded as wisdom by the Greeks for 200 years, in the study of natural philosophy, there's perhaps three places where you get some evidence of there being something besides the material world.

[6:51] And we saw one of those in the great fragment of Anaxagoras, where Anaxagoras says that what's the cause of the order in plants and animals? Huh? And he saw the likeness between the order in plants and animals and the order in this room, or the order in automobile, or order in a house, and so on. And we know what the cause of the order is in the house or the automobile.

[7:22] It's a human mind, and so he made the reasonable guess that there is another mind, right? But a greater mind that's responsible for the order in the natural world. Another scientists, you know, have been led to this idea of a greater mind. A great mathematician, as Sir James Jeans, the British astrophysicist, said, "Right, God is a great mathematician." And but then he gave a reason for saying that this greater mind could not rule over this world if it were what mixed up with it, right?

[8:06] So there, he gets some evidence of there being an immaterial substance, this greater mind. Plato and Aristotle, Socrates, take off and investigate our own soul, and they find evidence that our reason, the one that understands universals, can't be a body. And there's many ways this can be shown in the study of the soul, in the third book on the soul. And we're giving a simple example that one time I think weren't we where.

[8:40] You look at the fact that I understand what a square is very well by the definition of square in geometry. It's an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. Now I know distinctly what a square is. But if you examine this way, I know what a square is by this definition of square. You find out that the definition of square is not continuous. The definition itself. The definition of the continuous is that its parts meet at a common boundary, and the genus and the differences don't meet at a common boundary.

[9:19] So, although the square is a continuous thing, I'm knowing it in an uncontinuous way. Was that due to the thing being known? We can eliminate that because that is continuous, right? So, if reason knows a continuous thing in an uncontinuous way, it must be because reason itself is not continuous and not a body. Therefore, now there are many arguments you can give to show the immateriality of our reason,

[9:49] and that shows that our reason, or rather our soul, rather, has an operation that's not in the body. And therefore, its existence is not tied to the body. Now, the third place, of course, where you find this in natural philosophy is when you define motion in the third book about the third book of natural hearing, and you go through all these things about motion in the subsequent books, and then starting in book seven and eight, you start to see the dependence of motion upon a mover, and then eventually the dependence of moved movers upon an unmoved mover.

[10:35] Of course, the body doesn't move without being moved itself, so you end up, therefore, with a unmoved mover at the end of the eight books of natural hearing that is not a what a body, right? So these are three places

[10:54] in natural philosophy where you come to the existence of something immaterial, of an immaterial substance, and maybe that's a good reason for calling wisdom sometimes metatahuzika after the books in natural philosophy, and without those books, you would kind of be stuck, you know, back with your imagination and whatever it is must be somewhere, right? Isn't somewhere it doesn't exist, right? It's very hard to get beyond that point, though, for the average man or even the average thinker.

[11:44] Now he asks a second question, assuming that there is something apart from what the material substances, right? Is there one or many kinds of such substances? And we mentioned this last time, right? Because Anaxagoras spoke only of this greater mind of one, and Plato spoke of the forms and the mathematical things and explained why he got into that that position, huh?

[12:14] Aristotle, when he talks about the number of separated substances, right, he doesn't want to go too far away from the distinct motions he can see in the heavens, right? But Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles gives good reasons to say that there must be many more than what Aristotle thought, right? And of course Aristotle, you know, is only speaking of probability, there is, I mean, there are, but but so you have even a disagreement, maybe, between

[12:45] Aristotle and Plato, right? He's kind of in between Anaxagoras and Plato, right? But Thomas, along with Dionysian and so on, I think they're very numerous. But he gives very good reasons for it in the Summa Contra Gentiles. Now he sticks in those two questions, which are really about the things and not about what wisdom is about, right? Because if there are immaterial substances, right, then the question is: Is wisdom about material substances and immaterial substances, or is there one knowledge about material substances, about animals and plants, and another knowledge about the separated substances?

[13:36] Okay, the reasons problems about this, right? But in the dialectic, when he goes into it later on in Book Three, he'll pull out those ones and make them a separate part. The questions here on substance, right? Okay, he sticks them in here because obviously they involve and kind of certain answers to them are presupposed for the importance of these other questions.

[14:09] And if it is about substance, the second paragraph. Now going back, and if it is about substance, whether there is one about all or many, right? Well, that becomes especially a question if you say that there are what not only material substances but immaterial substances. Are these known in the same what? Matter. Yeah. Yeah. The same science. Yeah. Yeah. Now, if you go to Plato,

[14:39] Plato, you know, speaks of the soul as if the soul was looking out there at material things, right, and drawn towards material things, the senses, huh? But if you want to know these immaterial things, you've got to what turn the soul around, okay? And

[15:02] you know, when you turn around, you don't turn around to 180 degrees at at one thing. You turn first to 90 degrees, right? Then you go to 180 degrees, right? So I'm looking at these sensible things that are always changing and hardly knowable, right? But if I go to mathematics, right? Oh. I come to a science which is not as immaterial as the forms, right? The things it's about are not as immaterial.

[15:32] It's closer to the material world, but it's still kind of separated, and that's kind of turning 90 degrees to use that kind of metaphor, right? And then I try to what? And in Proclus, you know, following in the school of Plato, you know says that mathematics purificat oculum mentis purifies the eye of the mind, the eye of the soul, right? And then turn around and look now at the what immaterial things, right?

[16:01] Okay. Now, of course, you Christians, right? He tries to philosopher here, you know. You Christians sometimes speak something like that, right? Because when Saint Paul is carried up into the third heaven, right, whether in his body or not, he didn't know when he talks about this. And if you're talking about that kind of knowledge, huh? You kind of turn away from the sensible world, right? The black night of the soul, maybe, and so on.

[16:33] And you're turned around, facing another direction, right? And what's interesting about that? It's kind of metaphorical what Plato's saying there in public, and you know, compare the soul to the body, turn around, but it kind of fits that word that Aristotle used at the end of the second book, where the Greek word was tropos, right? Aristotle talk about the tropos, the way of proceeding, and so on.

[16:58] And I mentioned how that word is a little different from the the Latin word they used to translate it, modus procedendi, yeah, modus. And English we use the word war, more way, huh? But the Greek word tropos has got the idea of what? Of turning, right? Huh? And and one of my favorite authors there, Washington Irving, huh? In a beautiful little thing called Mountjoy, right? It's a guy who's got a very poetic turn of mind, he says, right?

[17:27] And he's attached to this teacher, you know, who makes everything poetic, you know. Yeah, it's a very interesting little story, but but I'm struck by his choice of word, right? And sometimes I think other people use that phrase too, right? Yeah, somebody has a different turn of mind, huh? And so you think that you have to turn 180 degrees, and it's just the opposite direction in order to consider the immaterial substances.

[17:59] How could there be one knowledge, right? Of material substances and what immaterial substances? If you have to turn away from the material world and go to this and look another direction, huh? Um.

[18:19] Now, if you answer that, it seems kind of plausible at first, right? Okay. And we might say, you know, to use a word that we Christians use for the immaterial substance, we call them angels, sometimes, right? Would you think there's the same knowledge of animals at zoology and and the knowledge of angels would belong to the same knowledge? I don't think so. At first, you wouldn't think you wouldn't think so, but.

[18:46] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, now that goes on the next question, then, right? If you have one knowledge of material substances and another knowledge of immaterial substances, which is wisdom?

[19:02] And what happens to what we learned about wisdom in the beginning—that wisdom is a knowledge of all things, right? So, get two wisdoms. Right? That seems strange, right? Or if you say one of these is wisdom, then wisdom is not about all things. You get real problems here, right? Okay.

[19:30] You see a problem? Yeah, that's what you want to see at this point. I didn't get the answer, but a problem, a question, right? Okay.

[19:40] So, there's two questions then about wisdom being about substances, right? Is there one wisdom, one reason out knowledge about all substances, or not? And then, assuming that we're reasonable to guess, that there isn't one knowledge, then get two wisdoms, or one of these wisdoms, one's not. But that involves problems, doesn't it? Right, because then wisdom would not be a knowledge of all things. The wise man would not be a know-it-all.

[20:18] Okay, and if you're knowing the first causes of of all things, which is what wisdom's goal is, well, neither one of these would be about all things. Is is whether the man contradicts himself or not, right? Because eventually Protagoras starts to contradict himself, and then there is another criterion which is more hidden but somewhat the man's appetite, right? Oh. And as Protagoras says, if I had always fought the weapons my opponent wanted, I never would have become famous, and my name would not have spread throughout Greece.

[20:53] so you can see the man is getting even glory, right? So, but anyway, the the topic of the conversation between Protagoras and Socrates is about what we might call the cardinal virtues. But the list that Socrates has is not the four we have, but the four we have plus piety. So you have practical wisdom or foresight, and you have justice and courage and moderation and piety, right?

[21:25] Socrates asks him, "Are these five names the same thing, or are they five names or different things, like the ear and the nose and the eyes?" Well, he says, "Like the ear, the eye, and the nose, and so on." Then Socrates starts to reason, right, that they're all the same thing,

[21:46] and I won't go into all of it, but one part that's relevant to this. He argues that wisdom and moderation are the what same thing. Now there is a certain connection between those two, right? Like that fragment of Heraclitus: moderation is the greatest virtue, and wisdom is to speak the truth and to act in accord with nature. But the way Socrates tries to reason they are the same is that the contrary of both is what the same,

[22:24] and so he says. Now, what's the contrary of of wise in this practical sense? Be foolish, foolish, yeah, okay. And what's the opposite of being temperate? Like being a drunkard. Well, drunkard acts foolishly, right? Or as I mentioned, the word "fond." You know, the word "fond" you see, you're fond of a girl, but the original meaning of "fond" is foolish, right? So you see, somebody's fond of a girl, he's acting like a fool, right?

[22:58] So Socrates gets some evidence that the opposite of moderation is foolish, right? And everybody thinks a drunkard, you know. I mean, he makes a fool of himself, right? And then Socrates reasons that a thing has only one contrary, so foolishness is the contrary of moderation, and foolishness is the contrary of wisdom, and wisdom and moderation must be the same thing. So there you see what might suggest these questions to Aristotle, right?

[23:30] And the examples he uses, right? We mentioned contrariety there in the next to the last paragraph in this reading, huh? Of course, Aristotle will talk about contrariety in the tenth book of wisdom, especially. Okay. Did you say won't? He will. He will. Yeah. Yeah. But the the the dialectician always talks about these things, huh? When Plato was making this argument, he certainly must have seen that he was using the word equivocally or analogous analogously, didn't he?

[24:07] Yeah, didn't he? Well, the point is, dialectical reasoning is reasoning from probable opinions, even to contradictory conclusions. Now, probable opinion always has some part of the truth in it, right? But not the whole truth, right? And as we find out when we study ethics, huh? The moral virtues like moderation and courage and so on, they all have to partake of reason. And therefore, practical wisdom, huh? Yeah.

[24:43] And the the vices opposed to them don't partake of reason, so they might say they partake of folly, right? Yeah. So, folly is the pure contrary, you might say, of wisdom, right? Mm-hmm. But the vice opposed to moderation, right? Drunkenness and so on, um, partakes of folly, right? Huh? Yeah. Without being it, huh? Okay. So, it's like if you listen to the music of Mozart, right? Um, it's very convincing when Mozart represents emotions.

[25:24] The truth that underlies ethics that the emotions can partake of what? Reason. Yeah. Yeah. And a famous article that Austin Ostley wrote years ago called Towards an Evaluation of Music wrote years ago called "Towards an Evaluation of Music" appeared in the Thomist. but when he compared the music, say of Mozart's period or the Baroque to to the Romantic period, right? The thing the Romantics wouldn't admit is that reason should rule the emotions, huh?

[25:53] And you got to be careful about that because Aristotle, when he says that reason should rule the emotions, he asks a very good question, huh? He said, "Should reason rule the emotions as a master rules his slave, or should reason rule the emotions like a father rules his son? " Aristotle will eventually conclude that, like a father rules his son, right? But notice the master rules the slave not for the good of the slave, but for the good of the master, right?

[26:29] But the father rules the son for the good of the son, right? And so you see that in in family life, you know, where the parents are are good parents, reasonable parents, wise parents, the children are more happy with the right discipline, huh? They're not being crushed. It's not a father crushing the children, you know, but giving them the right discipline, so on, like a father disciplining his son, right?

[26:57] Then they're actually emotionally more happy than the ones that are allowed to run wild. Um. So there is an element of truth in what he's saying. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's interesting too about we want to try to show later on he doesn't get to because Protagoras wants to get out of this thing he's getting into. But the one that he leaves kind to the end is courage and wisdom, right?

[27:31] Well, it's beautiful the way you know for understanding these things because when we study the moral virtues and learn that they are in the mean between two extremes,

[27:47] ah, what we call the golden mean, not the mean that is diminishing. You know Shakespeare likes to put it that, huh? You know they are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing with nothing. Therefore, it's no mean happiness to be constituted in the mean. Means just a little happiness, right? To be constituted, in the mean. very beautiful understanding. But it doesn't mean that the moral virtue is equidistant from the two extremes, huh?

[28:16] And so courage is in between cowardliness and foolhardiness, right? And moderation is in between, let's say, puritanism, and and intemperance, right? But moderation is closer to which extreme? Yeah, yeah. But courage is closer to what? The foolhardy, right? So courage doesn't seem to be opposed to foolishness as much as moderation does. Because moderation is more opposed to eating and drinking too much or chasing the woman too much, and so on, right?

[29:01] And the man who drinks too much or makes a fool over himself or the woman, right? It seems more opposed to folly. But courage, the courageous man, almost seems what foolish to us, right? Because it's not as far from that, huh? So he doesn't reason the same way, right? So even that tells us something, doesn't it?

[29:23] It tells us. I mean, it shows a understanding of of moderation is more opposed to folly than courage is, huh? Okay, and so in Shakespeare's great play Coriolanus, now he's a very brave man, huh? But tell the men think he's foolhardy. but he's not foolhardy they're a little bit cowardly compared to him, right? But he he he doesn't appear to be um posed to folly, but to be folly or to be foolish.

[30:03] Well, notice the last question Aristotle asks there: further, whatever happens as such to these, and not only which of these is, not only what contrariety is, but also this further question, kind of like the property of a property, whether one is contrary to what to one, right? Huh? So if you know the Protagoras, you can see how Aristotle is being influenced, right?

[30:30] But if you remember. I know we do the first book of natural hearing, you know, but it's there that starting with Heraclitus and then Plato and the Phaedo and finally Aristotle, the first book of natural hearing, bring out that all change is between contraries, it seems, and to some extent all the Greek philosophers see this, right? So contrariety takes a great importance, huh? Okay, but nevertheless, these last two questions seem to be a little more particular than some of the ones we saw earlier here in this reading, and they're not really developed that much in the dialectical.

[31:03] They're not as basic as whether there are material substances only or also immaterial substances. That's a real, a real major question, you know, and

[31:15] okay. So, with the exception of those two questions about whether there are immaterial substances as well as material substances, and if there are, whether there are one kind or many kinds, right? These questions in this first group of questions have been about what wisdom is about, right? Okay, and Thomas says he brings up those questions first because you have to know what wisdom is about before you can know the way of proceeding in wisdom, and you have to know the way of proceeding in wisdom before you can proceed well, right?

[31:50] To answer the questions about the things themselves. So the end of the second book kind of shows us the difference and also the order of the questions in the second reading and the questions in the third reading, which will be about causes themselves, right? Okay, so let's turn now to the third reading here, huh?

[32:22] Now, Aristotle does something interesting here in the way he arranges the questions in the third reading. There's going to be about fourteen questions, right?

[32:42] And all the questions are divided according to the opinion of Plato. See, they say, "Well, why are that? " What's not as if the other people's opinions are going to come up. Everybody else's opinion is going to come up in its opposition to the opinion of Plato, okay? But

[33:09] why give this kind of prominence to Plato, right? Well, you could say Plato is the only philosopher, for the most part. Hank Seger says it's an exception, somewhat, right? But Plato is the only philosopher before Aristotle who talks much about immaterial things, right? Plato is the only guy who seems to have.

[33:35] He thought that there are more things than these material things, these natural things, right? And he's supposed to have asked Anaxagoras, you know, why is it better that a man be born than never born, right? Well, so he could contemplate the universe, right? But he's kind of talking about the material universe, right? Cosmos, huh? So, in a way, Plato is quote the first metaphysician, right? The first man who sees wisdom as something after that is to say, natural philosophy, huh?

[34:08] Okay. Up to that point, natural philosophy would have been considered wisdom, and that's because all things, as far as we know in the beginning, are these things around us, these sensible things, right? And sensible things are mainly natural things and artificial things, right? And so, I look around this room. Most of what I see is artificial, right? So, on your face and hands, they're natural, right? But your clothing and the walls and the room—everything is artificial.

[34:49] Now, if we went for a walk in the woods, most of what we'd see would be unnatural, right? But if you stop and think about it, you realize that the natural things are before the artificial things. That the artificial things were made originally out of material that came from the natural world, and they're made by the hands of man, right? Which are something he has by nature, right?

[35:14] So that the maker and the matter of artificial things is really something natural. So, if you're looking for the beginning of all things, the first causes, right? You don't look for the first causes of artificial things, but the first causes of what natural things. And if all there is is these sensible things, meaning artificial and natural things, then natural philosophy must be wisdom, right? Okay. In question,

[35:43] you know, sometimes you know, in this relativistic age, you know, people will say, you know, you call that wisdom or the best knowledge just because you want it, right?

[35:57] But the point is, for 200 years, the Greeks thought that natural philosophy was the best knowledge, right? And they weren't attached to it. They didn't say it was the best knowledge because they liked it the most, but they wanted it the most because it seemed to be the one that was about what was the beginning of all things, right? If you knew the beginning, right, the first causes of natural things, since they're the cause of artificial things, then you know the first causes of all things, right?

[36:27] But then, when they realized that there were immaterial things, right. As Anaxagoras begin to realize, and Plato much more so, and Aristotle, then they realize that wisdom is going to come after, and then they wanted that knowledge even more than natural philosophy. You know, though natural philosophy has to be learned first, it's on the way to something else, which is more philosophy. First philosophy is Aristotle called,

[36:56] or wisdom. So now, notice what Plato said. Plato had two main opinions about these immaterial things, right? He had the what separated forms, which are capitalized, corresponding to the definitions that Socrates is looking for, right? The universal forms, and then he had these mathematical things, right? Okay, this is kind of unique to Plato. Mathematical

[37:37] things corresponding to the mathematical sciences, huh? And we gave one reason which Thomas often gives for these two, right? That the way we know must be the way things are, if we truly know, right? Okay, and so if we truly know in mathematics, there must be a mathematical world out there. If we truly know numbers and geometrical figures and so on in separation from the sensible world, they must truly be out there in separation from the sensible world.

[38:18] In the same way, if we truly know the definitions that Socrates was showing in the dialogue, sorry, the definition is knowing the universal in separation from the singular, then those universal forms must really exist out there in the world by themselves, huh? The world of forms, huh? It's a Greek word, idea, you know.

[38:43] That's more a transliteration than a translation, huh? So these fourteen questions are divided according to these two, okay? But there's going to be twelve questions about the first and two about the second. Well, some of these can be subdivided, but that's basically the way it is, okay?

[39:09] Now, those twelve questions, huh? You'll see more clearly the first six how they're related to this, okay? The first six, because the second six are more particular, okay?

[39:30] So, in a sense, what Plato is saying is that there are universals separated, right, from all the things. So, in the first six questions, you'll meet some will be about separated, and some will be about universals. But after these questions, he will bring in everybody else's opinion. Very subtle Aristotle does here.

[40:06] Now, the second six questions will be more particular and not as closely tied to this position. But we'll see those second six when we come to them. Okay.

[40:24] Now, the first two questions, huh, will be tied up with the universals. And then the next four with separate. Okay. Now, going to be a certain similarity between the first two questions and the third question, okay?

[41:10] The first question about separable, huh? Or the separated. Look at the third question just a moment, and I'll come back to the first two because I want to make this comparison a bit here. Most of all, right? This is extremely important, he says. Should be sought and considered whether there is some cause as such besides matter. Okay. Now, we went through the early Greeks if you remember, right?

[41:41] And the poet said, "Mother Earth." And Shakespeare, being a good poet, right, addresses Mother Earth, saying, "Common Mother, thou, whose womb immeasurable, an infinite breast, teems, which means gives rise to, right, birth to, and feeds all." So Shakespeare addresses what Mother Earth as a common mother of us all, right? Whose womb immeasurable, right? An infinite breast teems and feeds all, right? And then you have Thales saying the water is the beginning of all things, right?

[42:22] And then Anaximenes saying air, and so on. So the first philosophers are thinking of matter, some kind of matter, as the beginning of all things, right?

[42:37] And although some of the later thinkers, right, like especially in Empedocles and Anaxagoras and so on, ah, and even to some extent Pythagoras, will introduce some other kind of what cause, right? They also keep matter as a cause, huh? Okay. So you could say that everyone agrees that matter is a cause of some things, right?

[43:08] But the early ones think only that matter is a cause, right? So that's the first question there. You might say, right? Is there some cause besides matter, or is matter the only cause? Okay. Now, of course, in modern times, you know, I mean, you have. The Marxist philosophy is officially called what? Dialectical materialism, right? Okay, but materialism means that matter is a source of everything, and as Comrade Lenin said, you know, mind—the highest product of matter.

[43:49] So, um, uh, this is something about which the philosophers disagree, right? They don't disagree as to whether matter is a cause, um, but they disagree as to whether matter is the only cause. Okay, so Aristotle doesn't raises a question: Is matter a cause? Now he takes it right as being something. There's no disagreement about really. The disagreement is is if the only cause. Okay, it's interesting. He's taking what is more known, right?

[44:31] And even the poets who who imagine more than think, maybe right. Even they say that same thing, right? Common mother, thou, whose womb immeasurable and infinite breast, teems and feeds all. Do you see that? Okay.

[44:52] Now the second question in that. Continuing the second group here from there. Now, if there is reason to think there's some other kind of cause besides matter, right? The next question is, but is it only in matter? Okay, so someone might admit, well, yeah, there's another kind of cause because, say, your parents are a cause of you, right? Your parents made you, right? Okay. Maybe not entirely, but they might think entirely.

[45:25] Okay, so they might admit that that the parents made the offspring, but the parents really aren't the matter, right? Okay, so here you get another kind of cause, but your parents are material things too, right? Okay.

[45:39] Or someone might say, well, the teeth in front have a different shape than the teeth in back, right? So here you got something besides matter, namely shape, right?

[45:54] But the shape exists only in the matter, right? Okay. So now, if you look at say, uh, person who says those things, you might say, okay, there's another kind of cause besides matter, like the parents or the shape, but only in matter. Is that another kind of cause, right? Okay. But then you have this strange guy named Anaxagoras, right? Who says that not only is there another kind of cause besides matter, but one of those causes, other than matter, right?

[46:36] Namely the greater mind exists without matter, right? So that's another disagreement, right? Okay. You see, someone might admit that there are moved movers, right?

[46:55] Aristotle's talking about the opinions about the soul in the first book of about the soul, and y'all the idea that the what the soul moves the body, huh? But they thought you couldn't move something unless you're in motion yourself. So they tried to make the the soul like Democritus did, these atoms that are very mobile, huh?

[47:21] And well, no, if you only had moved movers, right? Then you'd have another kind of cause besides matter, the mover. But the move mover would be itself a body of some sort, huh? So that's the difference between in the third paragraph at the bottom of the page in the third reading there and the fourth one, right? The third one is saying, is there any kind of cause besides matter?

[47:53] Okay. And some people say no, that's all there is, Mother, earth or water or something, right? Others say yes, there is. But those who say yes, then there comes another question, right? Does another kind of cause exist only in matter, or is it apart from matter? I see. Not only would Anaxagoras see that there is a cause, at least one of the causes other than matter, right?

[48:18] The greater mind is existing apart from matter. But Plato is talking about separated forms, so you guys you're all partaking of the form of man himself, right? But the form of man himself doesn't involve any matter. So here's a cause other than matter existing not in matter, right?

[48:49] So Plato and Anaxagoras would be on one side, and the other guys maybe might be on the other side, huh? Okay. You see that?

[48:59] And perfectly Aristotle ordered the questions there, right? Those. You have to agree or come to conclusion that there is some kind of cause besides matter, right? Before you even raise the question,

[49:16] is are some of those causes or some cause other than matter? Existing only in matter, or is there some cause other than matter? It doesn't even exist in matter. Exists without matter, right? You see that? Perfect order. Can't be other way.

[49:39] And then the third question is like one we've met before, right? Like we met about substance. Whether one, like the greater mind of Anaxagoras, right, or many a number, like the many forms of Plato's thought, right? That's perfect order, right? Because now you're asking whether that cause, other than matter, that doesn't exist in matter, doesn't or exists without matter, right? Whether it's one, like Anaxagoras said, or many, like Plato said.

[50:13] So these are questions because the great thinkers have what given different answers to them, right? Okay. Now the fourth one is a little more particular, right?

[50:29] But it's dealing with the idea of the. Forms themselves, right? And whether there is something besides the whole together. Now, what does he call the whole together in Greek? Huh? When something is said of matter, right? Huh? Okay. Or nothing, or of these, but not of those, and what sort of things they are, right?

[50:54] So you're a whole together, right? You involve what a man is, because you are a man, right? But you involve something private to you, right? Your matter, huh? Is there something besides that, man himself, or not, huh? Yeah, that's a more particular question. So he puts it forth, right? Okay. Now,

[51:17] let's go back to the first two questions here in the third reading, huh? The reason why I looked at those ones there, because obviously you can see the starting point in that group of four questions. They're talking about separated from matter, right? Okay. Separated in kind, and then if in kind, also separated in existence, right, or from matter, right? Okay. But it's starting from matter, which is the natural place for our mind to start.

[51:50] Okay. That's why I think the English word for cause is very revealing, right? The English word for cause is what? Ground. Yeah. Okay. And

[52:09] I was reading the Comedy of Errors, right? Huh? I sometimes you know play around with Shakespeare a bit, and I I'm always asking these questions like, what title of what Shakespeare play best describes modern philosophy? And I think the two best competitors are Much Ado About Nothing.

[52:38] Or Comedy of Errors. But the Comedy of Errors is very interesting if you're interested in errors, right? How errors are made, huh? And yeah, but in there Shakespeare puns like he does in in Two Gentlemen of Verona. He puns on the word what? Understand. Oh.

[53:06] Okay. Now, regardless of what you think of humor or punning upon the words like that, in in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, the two servants are talking to each other, and one doesn't understand what the other guy said, and the other guy's kidding him, you know. In fact my my kid understands me, right? You see? And so they they they they kind of you know play that.

[53:29] Well, this one, the the master is whacking the ear of the head of the servant because he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing, and what did he say and so on? And I could hardly understand him, right? Meaning, you know, I could hardly stand up under the blows he was. Okay. But when we think of the humor, or you know, of that punning, Shakespeare is making us what think of the etymology of the word, right?

[53:59] Okay. And I maintain that the word understanding is better than the Greek word knowing, right? And even better than the Latin word intelligere, Yes it's way better than the Greek word. Okay. Some people, Thomas, interprets intelligere as intus legere to read within, or some people say it means to read between. But anyway.

[54:25] Ah. But the English word understanding has a meaning, basic meaning, that corresponds to the etymology. Now the etymology and the meaning of the words correspond, but here they're very close. So to understand something means to know what stands under it, or to know it by what is said to stand under it, right? And so when you understand a word, what does that mean? You know, it stands under the word.

[54:58] The meaning of the things that stand under the word. Of course, even Latin they'll speak of the word as being upon the thing. Thomas used the term impositio nominis,

[55:11] the placing of a name upon something, right? I must say that too, right? To put a label, mean a name upon something, right? So we we we speak as if the meaning of the word or the thing that is being named is under the name, right? Mm-hmm. So to understand a word means to know what is said to stand under it, right? Yeah. Okay. Or we use the expression, in English, the underlying cause.

[55:42] Yeah. So we speak as if the cause is supporting the effect, right? Mm-hmm. So what does it mean to understand an effect? To know the cause. To know the cause that stands under that effect, right? Okay. Or we have the same etymology with the Latin word substance, right? The word understanding, right? Okay. And sometimes use the word substance as opposed to accident. Sometimes substance means what a thing is, right?

[56:12] So our reason or understanding knows the substance. The accidents are known by the senses, but the senses don't know substance. That's why the modernist thing they don't know substance, right? That's why I said thinks that. His wife is an hypothesis, right? Okay. You know,

[56:36] he doesn't think he knows that she's a substance, right? So, so Mars is pretty understated, right? Well, now that fits the usual for cause being ground, right? Because the ground stands under something else, right? Okay. Now, almost the same act there of Camdeverus, huh? Where that pun takes place about understanding, right? The wife is complaining, right? She thinks her husband is not being interested in some woman, right?

[57:12] And she's not as good looking as she was when they got married, right? And so she says, "He's the ground of my defeatures," okay?

[57:25] And of course, the foot on the entire ground means cause there, right? Huh? He's the cause of my declining beauty, shall we say, right?

[57:35] So, right in the same, I think you. It doesn't make an connection there, Shakespeare, but you can make it, you know. Put two and two together, right? Huh? But the reason I mentioned the word "ground" here as the name for cause, which kind of cause does "ground" seem to be most like? Material. Matter. The one that starts from, right? See, most like mother earth, right? Okay. The earth and the grounds would be somewhat the same thing, right?

[58:06] So the fact that the poets first spoke of mother earth, right, and the fact that we name this this kind of cause ground, right, indicates that matter is the first cause that we kind of know and recognize, huh? and so that ground is a cause. That matter is a cause is not really in doubt. That's not really a question for the wise man, right? Of course, it's a cause.

[58:34] The question is: Is there some kind of cause besides that? If the answer is yes, then the next question is: What? Is it only in matter? Is it a kind of cause? Because certainly are causes other than matter in matter, right? Maybe. But then there are some guys like this great Anaxagoras came to Athens when I was young man, and and Plato and so on, who think that there are some causes not only other than matter, but also not in matter, not with matter, that exist without matter, right?

[59:09] Okay. Now, if that's true, is it the one that Anaxagoras talked about, or these forms that Plato talked about? Right? See, he's pretty far in the questions. You see, starting from the cause that everybody agrees about, and which even the English word kind of indicates that's a place to begin, right?

[59:35] You see that? The Lord is my rock. Yeah. But the rock is something you can what stand on, right? Like you build your house on rock, you know. Yeah. I think the Aramaic word for truth is rooted in the same word as or rock is the root. Is that right? Otherwise. You mentioned before. I'm not aware of that. Okay.