Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
27. Metaphysics Book III, Part 2: Which Comes First, Ability or Act? Mathematical Things, and the Start of Book IV (Knowledge of Being as Being)
Class of 2005-04-21
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/027-metaphysics-book-iii-part-2-which-comes-first-ability-or/

[0:00] Now when we're talking about ability and act. that's the next two questions here. Now, the next question is extremely important, and perhaps the the basic question, one of the most basic questions of all. And is the first what? Beginning in potency or in act? Now, notice the first philosophers and many thinkers even today, right, natural scientists, they say matter is the what? Beginning of all things, right?

[0:42] Well, matter is able to what? Become all things, huh? So matter is basically ability. So if you say that the beginning of all things is in potency, that's in harmony with saying that matter is the beginning of all things. And so what you have

[1:10] a large group of thinkers today, we call them evolutionary humanists, right? Okay, but they think of matter as the beginning of all things, and somehow out of this matter evolves everything else. And we had a position with the Marxists, right? They were very influential for a century or so, huh? So the official name of Marxist philosophy was dialectical materialism.

[1:44] Materialism meant that matter is the beginning of all things, and dialectical meant that there were opposites in matter, and the struggle of these opposites gives rise to things. He has something like that in the evolutionists, right? When they speak of the struggle of nature, the means of survival, and so on, giving rise to the development of things. So Karl Marx, you know, dedicated one of his most important works, to Darwin.

[2:12] So Darwin has a copy of Marx's first works. Now you could say in general that all materialists are saying that the first cause is what's most in potency Okay, most potential another word. Now the Platonists are insisting upon the forms, right? And form is what?

[2:46] Now you get to the ninth book of wisdom. You could say, with a bit of oversimplification, but basically you could say the book has three parts, huh? And the first part is about ability. Second part is about act. And the third part is the order of act and ability. And order, as you know, means before and after. And before and after, as you know from the categories, has many meanings, right?

[3:21] So there's many ways in which you can speak of the before and after among these, son. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Act or ability, right? Most people don't realize that little kind of puzzle there is is asking the fundamental question of wisdom, right? Which came first, ability or act? Because in some way it seems the chicken came before the egg, because the chicken makes the egg, right?

[3:50] You say, yeah, but chicken comes from the egg. So there seems to be reason to think that the chicken came before the egg, so the chicken lays. And yet, since chickens come from eggs, it seems their ability is before act. Aristotle answers that question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? You won't use that. Those words are that levity that might suggest by using those words, but that is going to be the question, right?

[4:16] See. In other words, that's going to lead to the the answer. That question is going to lead you to say either that the first cause is most in ability, right? Least actual, right? Most in potency, And then you'll be looking for something like matter, right? As the beginning of all things.

[4:40] Or the first cause would be most in act, right? It might even be what pure act, right? See. So this is going to be you know a fundamental disagreement about the first cause. Is going to be like Is it most in potency to be gradually actualized by some kind of evolution or struggle of opposites or something, right? Or is the first cause most in act?

[5:13] Aristotle, in that third part of the ninth book, will consider a number of ways, a number of senses of before and after, right, to bring this out, and we'll see their kind of mistake that is being made. If you make a mistake about this, second kind of mistake outside of words that we study in the book on sophistical refutations, son. Very common kind of mistake which Socrates makes himself, in the middle.

[5:44] which everybody makes in their daily life when they think they should do what they shouldn't do or not do what they should do, right? Kind mistake we're making constantly in our daily life. I tell the students every time you go wrong, you're making this kind of mistake in your your thinking, yeah.

[6:07] Fallacy is simply, and not simply, but in some way. But what's marvelous about the dialogue called Meno Mino is that Mino himself makes this mistake when he sophistically attacks the very possibility of investigating what you don't know. And if Mino's objection is good, it's impossible to go looking for what you don't know.

[6:38] May happen upon it, but don't don't go looking for it because you can't go looking for it. And he's an argument why you can't go looking for it, right? Do you know what you're looking for? Know what you're looking for? You already know it. You don't have to go looking for it. You don't know what you're looking for. Have to go looking for it. And Socrates tries to reply to that, right?

[7:00] And he tries to solve the objection, and he makes the same kind of mistake. You wonder, you know, whether Plato knew what he's illustrating there, right? Illustrates a man making a second kind of mistake outside the words. Another man his revered master, Socrates, trying to reply to that and making the same kind of mistake.

[7:30] What's the kind of mistake that is made here? Is going to determine whether you know the truth or you're mistaken about the first cause. And most people are what mistaken about the first cause. Most of them are materialists, huh? But because making the same kind of mistake that Meno and Socrates make,

[7:54] it's a very interesting kind of mistake. Kind of hard at first to get a grasp of it. We'll talk about that kind of mistake again when we get to the ninth book here. So, you know, this sounds kind of simple and in potency or act, but you realize the complications of this are what world shaky, if you wish, huh? You know. Now

[8:26] the second question: further, whether otherwise than by motion by what motion? Now, if you recall, the definition of motion involved both ability and act.

[8:40] But now the second question here is really what asking whether there's such a thing as creation? Because Aristotle doesn't deny that some things come to be by motion, right? Now the things that come to be by motion or by change are by transformation, you might say, of matter. So the carpenter gets the wood from the tree, right? And then he changes the wood, the shape of it, huh?

[9:10] Cuts it and smooths it and so on until he gets, say, what, table or something, right? So is that the way things come to be, only by transforming matter, by changing matter in some way?

[9:29] If that was so, matter would have to be what eternal, right? It always was and always will be, right? And things would come to be only by transformation of matter. And so, has some consequences for your soul, right? Your soul must have come to be by what transformation of matter by your parents. Therefore, your soul would be tied to your what body, right? And not in any way transcend your. Body, huh?

[10:03] In that case, understanding would have to be in the brain and some kind of material process in the brain, and so on. But on the other hand, if your act of understanding is not in the brain, if I understand, for example, continuous things in an uncontinuous way, like we were mentioning with the definition of square, where the definition is not continuous, but the square is, right? If my reason or understanding understands continuous things in an uncontinuous way, that's a sign that the understanding is not what continuous.

[10:47] It's not a body. There are many other arguments you can use to show that understanding is not bodily. Well, then you begin to suspect. Well, my soul could not have what come to be by the transformation of matter. That might have prepared the body for my soul as a suitable receptacle for my soul, but my soul itself could not have come to be by the transformation of matter.

[11:15] Then not everything would come to be by motion, right? But if everything comes to be only by motion, you'd be back in saying that really natural philosophy, which is the study of changing things, the study of motion, that's really the the whole, right?

[11:40] So you can see how profound that question is, huh? And if in the soul and things like that come to be not by transformation of matter, if they are created, then the question arises: What about matter itself? Maybe that's not the first beginning.

[12:06] Maybe it is a beginning, but a beginning that is not a transformer matter, or that can only produce by transforming matter, but one that can create. So these are extremely profound questions. You stop and think about them, huh? And Aristotle is he's thinking, you know. My old teacher Kasurik, and I told you his remark, and it's just it's kind of funny too because we had about six or seven philosophers there at the College of Saint Thomas when I was a student there, and Kasurik was by far the best.

[12:40] In fact, the only guy really took seriously in the whole department. But he says, compared to Aristotle, he says, "I've got the brain of an angleworm With none of the other, you know, half baked, half educated people who would have said, you know, but.

[13:02] You know, these are really very profound questions, as you'll see. Huh? Aristotle knows what the question is. These are not much ado about nothing, like some of the questions of the moderns, huh?

[13:24] I told you that joke there, where the I guess the guy's in the classroom. He says, "Professor, how do I know if I exist?" I told you what the professor's answer was. Who's asking? You know, that's not really a question. Do I exist? Right? But these really are questions, right? And it's very difficult to answer these, right? Huh? You see, but

[13:54] so you see, then the distinction of these six questions, huh? The first four are about the one and the many, and kind of a broad sense, huh? But as you get into them, you realize how profound they are, and the last two here are about ability or act, huh? The fundamental one is ability come before act or act before ability,

[14:22] which came first, the chicken or the egg, right? Because this is a question that you have to think about in order to find out what comes first, right? Because the first comes before everything else, right? So if you're thinking that ability simply comes before act, then the first beginning of all things will be most in ability. and most commonly you find this in the opinion, let's say, of those in ancient times or in modern times who say that matter is the beginning of all things.

[14:58] But in a way, you have this in Hegel too, see, because Hegel is trying to evolve everything out of the most universal. But if you compare the more universal to the less universal, it's like ability to act. If I know that the cat is an animal, I don't fully and actually know what the cat is, although I'm I'm on the way to know what the cat is, huh?

[15:28] And then when I add the differences to the genus, I get more actual. So in a way, to try to deduce everything out of the being which is said of all things, the most universal, the way is to make what is able to be everything the beginning of everything, right? So that's in a kind of strange way. In a different way, making ability the beginning of all things.

[16:03] What is most in ability? And I tell you, this this actually happened in one of the philosophical associations here. My friend was giving a paper. See, he was talking about the importance of the distinction between nature and art, which is very important. And so, anyway, you have a question period after your paper and so on. So one guy says, "Well, the philosopher can't distinguish between nature and art.

[16:34] The philosopher doesn't do that. " You've already told us in the second book of the actual hearing, but the guy says the philosopher can't do that. So my friend said, "Why can't the philosopher do that? Well, the philosopher talks about being, and in being, there's no distinction between nature and art. " So my friend said, "Well, that's that's the being that Hegel says passes over into non-being.

[17:00] " Yeah, because you're saying nothing, what, distinct about it, right? You see, you know, if I say, you know, I'm going to tell you about the giraffe. You know, you know nothing about the draft, right? You say, "Well, tell me, Burkas, about the draft, right? " And I say, "Well, the giraffe is is something, which is true, right? Okay. " And now you might say, you know, I've already told you what the giraffe is.

[17:29] You've already told me nothing, Burkas. You might say, right? Okay. Well, the word something doesn't mean nothing, does it? I say, but in saying that the giraffe is something, I seem to have told you nothing really about the giraffe, right? It's so vague and indeterminate and and so general, right? Huh? You see, so Hegel tries to make something or being pass over into non-being because it's it's saying nothing, right?

[17:54] This is kinda, you know the illegitimate of you know, tricks of Hegel. You know, he does these things, but but so my friend said that's the being. You know, there's no distinction at all, right? And of course, that I really couldn't understand what the philosopher does anyway. But I mentioned that just to point out that the that the that the universal is like matter in a sense, or the more universal is being more what Inability, huh?

[18:24] I mentioned the difficulty of the famous empiricist John Locke there, right, in the essay on human understanding, where he's trying to understand the general idea of triangle, right? And he says,

[18:42] are the sides of the general idea of triangle are they equal or unequal, right, or they meeting at right angles or not? And finally, he says, "Well, it's all none of these, right? Okay. " And then I mentioned how Berkeley, you know, quotes those words in the Principles, his fundamental work there, and says, "Well, this doesn't make any sense." So there are no general ideas. Well, what's the proper understanding of the general idea?

[19:08] See, you say, "Let's define triangle in general, right?" Well, you'd say it's a plane figure contained by three straight lines. So three straight lines are the definition of triangle in general. And now Locke is asking, are those three lines equal to each other, or just two of them, or none of them, right? Well, which is it? You got three lines there; they've got to be equal or unequal, right?

[19:38] You see. And if you say they're equal, then it doesn't fit the scalene triangle. Say, if you say they're unequal, it doesn't fit the equilateral triangle. So it's both and neither, right? What else you gonna say? It's all and none, right? Well, it's a little bit like confusion of the great. Anaxagorus. when he talks about matter, right? And everything is is in there, but it's so what small. Nothing is distinct from another thing, right?

[20:08] Nothing's really separated from another thing. Nothing's cut off from anything else, right? So, what would you say about those three sides of the triangle and the definition of triangle? See, the three lines got to be equal or unequal, don't they? Yeah, but only in those yeah. The proper answer would be that the three lines are equal

[20:34] and unequal in ability, right? But neither in act. That's kind of a subtle thing, isn't it? Huh? So we say the three lines are able to be equal or unequal, and you bring in a difference, right? What they call species making difference, you will make actual what is there only in ability, and that's why the great Porphyry, right, and you know not him originally Aristotle before him, not Plato, says that the genus and difference, where the genus is taken more from what matter, and the difference from what form.

[21:17] Of course, the matter is ability, and the form is act, and that's why when you add the difference, you get what we call eidos, a species, a form. See, and we even in English we speak of you know the forms of government, so that the species seems to be through the difference something like form to matter to the genus. So, in a sense, when when when Hegel tries to evolve, shall we say, right, by the Hegelian system, everything from the most universal, the most vague, the most indeterminate, the most indistinct, the most potential, in a sense, right.

[21:59] He's in in a way saying that ability becomes, what first, right? And therefore, there's some justification for Karl Marx, you know, who studied under Hegel all these years, and said, "Well, Hegel

[22:20] was standing on his head, right? We're going to turn him up and put him on his feet." But that Hegel, in a sense, is reflecting in his mind what's going on in matter, huh? But there's some truth to that in this, in particular, that I was mentioning here, because just as matter can be formed in various ways, right? So the genus can be determined by the differences in various ways, huh?

[22:48] Okay, so in a sense, wood is the chair and table and door, right? A bit like the genus triangle is the scalene, isosceles, and equilateral.

[23:01] So that's another bit more. A unusual way, shall we say, of this common way of seeing ability before what act? Yeah, you see. Um. So probably

[23:24] you had an awful lot of materialists, and you still have them around, right? You know, probably if you read read even the great scientists of the 20th century, most of them are materialists. Um, but that's probably you know an effect of custom because as you go forward in natural philosophy, you're going towards matter, right? And so you're going more and more into matter. So matter seems to be everything to you.

[23:51] Um, but it's very hard to to rise above that. But even the first philosophers, you know, saying that water is something is the beginning of all things, and even our English word for cause, ground, indicates that we kind of begin there. That's not the place to end. Obviously, you're thinking, but that's where you are in the beginning, and so most people are thinking of ability as being before act, simply speaking, and therefore what is most of ability, the first matter, or what is most ability in Hegel's sense,

[24:28] the most confused and indistinct notion of our mind, it's something, right? You know, I mean, sometimes people wonder whether whether you have any thought corresponding to the word something. I mean, people will, I think, correctly think that you can't get something out of nothing, right? And so they mean something by the word something, by the word nothing, you mean something, right? What do you mean by something?

[24:56] You see, it's so indeterminate, distinct, and that means it's most what potential most. You know, um, so we're going to form your mind. You see, we're going to make those confused thoughts be more distinct. It's a beautiful passage of Aristotle in the *Eudemian Ethics*, where he talks about this. You know, we're going to take what everybody's saying in a confused way. We're going to make it distinct, and I think I mentioned before.

[25:28] You know, I'll quote Newman there, I guess, in the essay, the thing on the idea of university there. who speaks of Aristotle in the *Eudemian Ethics*. He takes thoughts that we all have in kind of a vague and shadowy way, and he what makes them distinct, and then he he built upon them and so on. But there's a kind of a movement there from ability to act, from potency to act, from indetermination there to a more determinate state of mind, huh?

[26:03] Those are really profound questions. Now, the last two questions are indeed with mathematical things. In addition to these, whether numbers and lines and figures and points are substances or not.

[26:26] Well, the Platonists and the Pythagoreans tended to identify, at least, material substance with these numbers and lines and figures and points. That's why the

[26:41] naturalists were more thinking, you know, well, no, it's earth, air, fire, and water. They have size and shape. They something more than just numbers and lines and figures. Now you find this in in in Descartes, huh? Because Descartes identifies

[27:04] the material substances with their what extension, right? So you know, what's his expression in Latin res extensa, okay? And you heard my kind of joke there about Descartes. He's not distinguishing between the substance of these things and their what size, right? And to some extent, everybody makes that distinction, right? The substance of a cat or a dog is basically what the dog or the cat is. And is the is what a dog is or what a cat is the same as its size?

[27:41] No. So if you identify the substance of the cat or the dog with its size, then you could say the dog or the cat never grew up, right? That it's changing its size, it's changing its substance, right? See, and then I have to say with our friend Descartes, he never grew up, right? Not just mentally, but physically, never grew up, right?

[28:14] And as kind of a you know theological footnote, if you identify the substance, say, of of the bread and the wine in the Eucharist, with the size and quantity of the bread and the wine, right? Then you're going to have a philosophical thinking that's going to be a contradiction with the mystery of Eucharist, huh? Because in the Eucharist, you have a transubstantiation that the Church says the substance of the bread and the wine has changed into the body and the blood of our Lord.

[28:50] But this quantity of the bread and the wine remains, and then the sensible qualities that follow upon that remain. But if the substance of the bread and the wine was its quantity, then you've got really a problem, wouldn't you? Trample the Eucharist, then. But as an example, there,

[29:16] as I said to people, you know, it's important to see this too. Aristotle's understanding of substance and quantity is true. Not because it is in harmony with the Eucharist. That's a sign for me as a Catholic, right? That it's true, and that Descartes' thinking is false because it's not in harmony with the Eucharist. But that's not the reason why it is in harmony with the Eucharist. It's in harmony with the Eucharist because it is true.

[29:51] You know, you know, you know how you people are so subjective as they say nowadays. You know, I say. um uh Mozart's music is the best music, and they say you just say that because you like it the most. And I say, no, you gotta back it. I like it the most because it is the best.

[30:14] There's a difference there, right? So, is Aristotle's philosophy true because it's in harmony with the Eucharist, or is in harmony with the Eucharist because it is true? Or, in general, you know, you know, you know, the philosophy of Aristotle has proven very useful in theology, as Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great and others have shown. But is useful? Is it true because it's useful in theology? Is that the reason why?

[30:45] No, that might be a sign that it's true. Yeah, that's not why it's useful. It's useful because it is true itself, right? It's because he saw some truth about these things, huh? That's why it's useful in theology. It could be useful there if it was false was false. But you get a philosophy like Hegel or Spinoza or Descartes, and it's not really useful, but it will be harmful in theology.

[31:13] It's not false because it's harmful in theology, no. That may be a sign that's something false about it, that's harmful. Yeah, it's a good sign for a Catholic when he has the faith, right? But it's harmful because it is false, right? And if you do philosophy, right, you will maybe come to see it's falsity apart from the harm it does in theology.

[31:39] So it's very important to find out which comes first: chicken or the egg. And maybe there's some distinction necessary there. As we'll see, that Aristotle will see.

[32:00] You see these comments, you know, on the new papacy and on the rigid thinking of that has become Pope. You know, you realize they can't make any distinctions, and

[32:15] I mean, they're always lumping, you know, the married priesthood with abortion and contraception, and they can't see any distinction, you know, that the church could never allow or approve of abortion huh? Because that's really murder. But it could allow a married priesthood, but that, you know, is another consideration whether that's suitable or not, you know. But they can't make any distinctions among these things.

[32:52] In the same way, there, you know, they talk about capital punishment and abortion. You know, they, you know, people won't make any distinction there, It's important to to uh see distinctions, huh? Aristotle says somewhere most men aren't good at making distinctions. That's true or seeing distinctions you could say. Okay. So anyway, the next last question here.

[33:20] It's not only the Platonists in Pythagoreans in ancient times, but also the what people like Descartes, right, who seem to identify the mathematical with the very substance of these things, huh? And of course, partly this comes up in modern times too because of the mathematical study of the natural world. Okay. I think I mentioned before Schrodinger, right, who perfected the mathematics of wave mechanics, which is used in studying the atom, right, and who showed the mathematical equivalence of Heisenberg's mathematics and that of wave mechanics.

[34:02] So a man who's really into the mathematics of the of the atom, but he says in one of his essays, the modern atom consists of no stuff at all, and he compares it to Plato's theory of the four elements in the Timaeus, where he makes them all geometrical figures, huh? There's no stuff there. There's no matter, right? And I think I mentioned how you know at the time the communists were still in power and trying to enforce orthodoxy from from Moscow, whether some concern about this fact that matter seems to disappear, and because you have a mathematical science of nature, there's no there's no what there's no matter in mathematics, huh?

[34:45] So speaking of of matter, without matter, right, huh? And it's a strange way of knowing, but that's what you have. So that might need somebody to say, "Wait a minute, there is no matter; it's just these mathematical things. That's all it is. " Basically, just equations, right? And equations out there. That's a there's a problem for these guys, you know. How can there be equations out there?

[35:15] But anyway. But you can see how the mathematical way of thinking might lead to this kind of a conclusion, and that's only influenced the Pythagoreans and through the Pythagoreans Plato. You know, Plato left Athens sometime after the death of Socrates, discussing with the Athenian Polity, and he went over to the Greek cities in Italy and studied with the Pythagoreans and got tanked up in Pythagoreanism. So you know, Plato comes from a a broad background.

[35:49] His name means broad, Plato, huh? But he's influenced by by the great Socrates and by the great Heraclitus, who's teacher. Cratylus and he has a dialogue, named the Cratylus. He's influenced by Parmenides and Melissus he has a dialogue called the Parmenides. He's influenced by the Pythagoreans, and you see that in the Timaeus. And a little bit in the Phaedo and so on. So you see all these different thoughts.

[36:13] You read a guy like Plato. You are not reading just Plato, right? You are getting you know streams coming in from all these great thinkers before him. You know, it's like you know, I always you know quote the Pope's Pope Leo the Thirteenth. I think quotes the Cajetan saying, you know, that Thomas so venerates the church fathers that he seems to have inherited the mind of all them.

[36:37] So it's not like you are reading just one man. You read a guy like Thomas or a man like Plato, or Aristotle. you know, For that when you read Euclid. You know, they know how Euclid. You know, even the way he constructs the elements. You know, is acknowledging that you know the contribution of the great mathematicians before him. So,

[37:00] what I Mozart said, there wasn't a master in not studying you know thoroughly his works. So you are not just getting one man. You know, with these guys

[37:15] now, the Platonists and the Pythagoreans shared this idea that the substances of these natural things are something mathematical and so on. But apparently, the Pythagoreans thought that that's where the mathematical things are. They're out there in these sensible things. Although the Platonists might have made that, they also had this other world of what the pure mathematical things, and so this is a disagreement between them. And if substances, whether they're separated from sensible things, as the Platonists say, when they have the mathematical substances, you might say the pure ones, or only existing in them, as the great Pythagoreans would say, and maybe as as what Descartes would say, right?

[38:03] So, no, since you go through these questions, you see how, although they're arranged around the two famous opinions of Plato, right, that there are universals separated from things, and there are these mathematical substances and so on. Everybody else's opinion, right? Even Descartes, as well as the Atomists, right, and the materialists, right, and Hegel, so they all come in here, huh? Even Aristotle wouldn't know about those guys after him explicitly, but you see that they tend to come down on one or another side of these famous what questions, huh?

[38:42] These are the basic questions of wisdom, right? And they're all very profound, huh? Notice Aristotle's last statement: "No, it is not only difficult to find the truth about all these, but it's not even easy to doubt well about them by reason. " And Thomas, you know that phrase to doubt well means to attain well. For the reasons for doubting about these things, to attain well to the reasons for saying that this is a real question, right?

[39:17] There's really something difficult here to decide. Reminds me of his statement there at the end of the second book, right, where he says you can't at the same time acquire episteme, reasoned-out knowledge, and the tropos, the way of reasoned-out knowledge, and it's not easy to get either one. He says, you know. And now he's saying, you know, it's not easy to what, either not just to get the answer to these questions, but to even what, discuss them well, right?

[39:50] Of course, in the rest of Book Three, which you're not going to be looking at, but he goes into discussing each one of these questions, and I give you a little taste of that, you know, the so you see something of the difficulty. of these questions, but he kind of develops them, you know, with reasons a person might have for thinking this way or thinking that way about it.

[40:08] So he ties you into a lot of knots, just like the poet does. I think I mentioned that play there, the Cymbeline, you know, one of the late plays of Shakespeare. And the learned dispute as to how many knots Shakespeare is untied in one scene, you know, and sometimes twenty-five knots, just unbelievable, you know. But that's that's the. there's some likeness there, the muthos right? and lusis, where you have these knots, and then you have to, what untie them, right?

[40:48] So now we've got to look a little bit at the fourth book with this to me. And I know you're in breathless anticipation of the the great turnaround, huh? You know, in the college there you have to give these little syllabi, you know, for talking them off and all this, and you're going to talk about things and so on. And so you have in capital letters the great turnaround.

[41:20] Yes, as to what that will be when it comes up. I got some things yet to put for me. And the readings that I'm giving you here from Book Four are the ones that come before the great turnaround, huh? So we have to see these readings in the early parts of Book Four here, and then we'll see the great turnaround, huh? So let's get

[41:52] some copies here. Go down this way. Probably want one, two, or five of these. At least one once. Nine, nine, nine. Yeah, I got some more copies here. How many more copies? Is everybody got copies? Yeah, we're missing these two. Oh, that's it done. That's it done. Okay. I thought you were copying around,

[42:03] you know? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, how many more copies do you want? Two extra. Two, three. Okay. Do you have to get a few copies, then No. That's fine. I've got a few more here. if you need one. Is Brother Patrick still coming? I don't know. I saw him walking around outside. Yeah. He may have had something to do with it. Okay. He will come. Oh, another one.

[43:00] Loes, yeah. Now you're confusing theology and philosophy. Multiplication of the loes. We call multiplication of beliefs. Now, books three through fourteen, right, could be divided as the play Romeo and Juliet, right?

[43:41] Remember the comparison made before. Almost every work of Aristotle is divided in a way proportional to Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. What's the division of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? It's into the prologue and the what play, right? Okay. So Aristotle has at the beginning of almost always works, if not all of them, something that is called in Greek. You see, the Greek commentators proemium, right? And I think I mentioned how in the Vatican II there the De Verbo, right, has a proemium.

[44:18] If you look at the official Latin text, it will say proemium. The translations mistranslate It's an introduction. It's not an introduction. It's a proemium, you know, and it's a proemium. very fond of that one in particular. But I also find the fact that they use the word proemium. But proemium, etymologically in Greek, it has the idea of paving the way, right? Okay. And the most important part of the proemium is what they call the skopos huh And skopos is a very concrete word in Greek.

[44:57] It's what you're aiming at, right? So the target is called skopos And Aristotle uses that word skopos in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics And he's talking about knowing the end or purpose of life. Won't be like a man with a bow and arrow, right? He knows the target. He he can aim at it, right? Okay. And you know yourself, it may be hard to hit the target.

[45:23] Even if you're aiming at it, but if you're not aiming at it, you might as well forget about hitting the target. And when I was in England, there we were in Sherwood Forest, there, and they had the the great bows there. You know, you could you know a little bit of money, you can you know take your turn, and I could see people trying to shoot balloons and so at a good distance, you know, and it was nice to watch that.

[45:45] But the point is, it's not easy to hit the hit the balloon at a distance. But if you're not aiming, you you might as well forget about hitting it, huh? So one thing that paves the way. In reading a book of Aristotle, is to know what he's aiming at right. And sometimes, depending on how difficult it is, he'll say something about how he intends to get there, right?

[46:10] And so on. So that's a little bit proportional to what Shakespeare has, the what prologue, right? To Romeo and Juliet, which kind of prepares the way for the play and for the tragedy what's going to be about, right? And

[46:33] now the play called Romeo and Juliet, like every good play, has a plot, which is Aristotle says in the book on the poetic art is the very soul of the play. huh? But a good plot, as he explains in the book on the poetic art, consists of tying the knot and untying the knot. And Shakespeare, as I've mentioned before, was quite aware of this. But the one place where he explicitly uses the word "knot" there is in

[47:07] Twelfth Night, where one of the characters says, "You know, oh time, that must untangle this. Not I. It is too hard or not for me to untie." Okay.

[47:21] She's disguised, you know, as a man. Fall in love with the man she's serving. He's using her to go to what? Olivia, right? Won't give him the time of day, but she falls in love with this presumed man coming to see her, and so on. So we got a real knot developing. O time, thou must untangle this. Not I. It is too hard or not for me to untie.

[47:43] But Shakespeare ties it, you know. As you'll find if you read the wonderful play. Um. Well, books three through fourteen are like that, huh? Book three is what tying all those knots, huh?

[48:02] Aristotle compares it to tying knots in the in the first reading, remember? And then starting in book four through fourteen, he will be what? Untying those knots, huh? Answering those questions, huh? So in that sense, it's like the play, right? And therefore, you have another reason for saying that the philomuthos, the lover of plots, is in some way a philosopher, is a certain likeness to the what?

[48:32] Philosopher, huh? Now they say the detective stories are are popular with people of high IQ. I don't know if that's so, but that's what they say, you know. But essentially, they kind of like see a knot or a problem a whodunit, right? And and try to solve it, huh?

[48:54] So, but now when you get to the great turnaround, we get another insight into a lot of the order of the wisdom too. But you can see now the distinction between what Book Three and Books what four through fourteen.

[49:18] Now, in both of these things we'll be taking up here in the beginning of Book Four, is perhaps really a division you could make.

[49:32] I take the first sentence here, the first reading. There is a reasoned-out knowledge, which is my translation of the Greek word episteme. There is a reasoned-out knowledge, or you could say a reasoned-out understanding,

[49:49] which looks at or considers being as being, right? And what belongs to this to itself. Now. The first thing you've got to try to understand a bit is the truth of the statement. There is a reasoned-out knowledge which looks at being as being and what belongs to this through itself. And this, of course, as we study being as being, and especially in Book Nine, which emphasizes an act and ability, you'll see that this is correct, right?

[50:25] But then there's a second thing you have to see: that this reasoned-out knowledge of being as being, what belongs to this through itself, that this is wisdom, right? Okay.

[50:42] Now later on in the fifth reading, which I've selected here, in the fifth reading, he's going to be showing that wisdom is in some way also about the axioms, the statements known through themselves by all men. But in a way, you could say there's really two questions here. One is: is it necessary to have a reasonable consideration of the axioms,

[51:17] or is it? Could you just use them because everybody knows them? See. And if the answer is a reasonable consideration of them is necessary, for some of the reasons we've given before, that there are people who deny them and give sophistical reasons for denying them, which people can't solve, and so on. And the actions are expressed in words that are equivocal by reason, and so on. Maybe it is necessary to stop and consider the axioms.

[51:50] That's really one question then, right? And then the other question is: but is that reasonable investigation or consideration of the axioms? Does that belong to the wise man? Why him more than what? Everybody else, because everybody else uses these things too and needs them. You see. So you see, I'm I'm saying that both in the first reading here and the fifth reading, the two ones I selected, basic here in the beginning of Book Four, there's really kind of a double question, right?

[52:23] You see that? One is: is there, in fact, a a reasoned-out knowledge of being as being, and what belongs to being as such? And then, if there is, is wisdom that reasoned-out knowledge? And then, is it really necessary to stop and consider, you know, in some detail the axioms? And if so, is the wise man should make that? up? The man is above everybody else, right? Should he get down in the basement there, down in the ground, and look at what all reason out knowledge is based on?

[53:03] ultimately. these axioms, huh? You see that? Okay. And after we we've answered all those questions, then we'll be able to approach the great turnaround. And once you understand the great turnaround, you understand almost the whole order of wisdom, the order within wisdom, and you'll see the reason why it has that order, and it cannot be otherwise. Another way to do it. Aristotle discovered this, right? You know.

[53:35] Okay. It explains the order of the premium in books what, four through fourteen, right? Doesn't explain everything, right? But makes you see almost the order of everything in a general way, right? It's very appropriate in your first approach to this book, huh? Aristotle is going exactly in the right order, you know. He's proceeding orderly, easily, without error. You know. Now we almost out of time here, but let me just say something first of all about this first thing.

[54:14] When we study reason out knowledge, reason out understanding in the in logic and the posterior analytics, in fact, one thing we learn about reason out knowledge

[54:28] is that it's about what belongs to things as such. That's one way of stating it, or what belongs to things through themselves, per se, kath' hauto in Greek. You got to stop on that because not too familiar with that. What does that mean? And and is that true, right? Okay.

[54:59] Before you try to answer this particular thing here, right? Now let's take a simple example that you may be a bit familiar with, geometry, right? Reason out knowledge.

[55:15] When the geometer talks about the triangle, right? Does he talk about the triangle being green or blue or red? Well, couldn't a triangle be green or red or blue? Why doesn't he talk about this, right?

[55:36] Well, he doesn't, does he? No. And the reason why he doesn't talk about the triangle as green or red or blue is that it doesn't belong to the triangle. We'd say in Greek kath' hauto in Latin per se, in English through itself, huh? Or you could also say as such. Now, what does it mean to say it doesn't belong to the triangle per se or through itself to be green?

[56:09] Well, as you know, a pronoun refers to something, pro something. So you're saying that a triangle, through being a triangle, is not green, right? That's something that could happen to a triangle, right? To be green, but it doesn't happen to the triangle through being green. And no matter how much or how well you understand what a triangle is, you would never see through what it is that it is green if it happens to be, right?

[56:47] It happens to be green would be something you discover by sense or something, but not by reasoned out knowledge. But now, if you study the first book of Euclid, we can reason out from what a triangle is that it has interior angles equal to two right angles. That famous theorem there, 32 in book one. Okay, to have interior angles equal to two right angles belongs to triangle through being a triangle.

[57:17] It belongs to triangle as such, right? Now, before that, we'd also what define what a triangle is, right? And we say the triangle is a rectilineal plane figure, right? Contained by three three lines and so on. And that also belongs to triangle through being a triangle. It belongs to triangle as such, right?

[57:45] And we might also divide triangle into equilateral, isosceles, and scalene, right? Because that's a division of triangle as such, right? The way those three lines can be. Now, these are and and in in in the postulates we distinguish these. These might involve different senses of through itself, right? Because one is more like a definition, one is more like a property, and so on, right? One is a division, right?

[58:15] But in general, you could say that what you're considering in geometry about the triangle is what belongs to it to itself or as such, not what happens to it, right? Do you see that? Okay. If you had a reasoned out knowledge of a philosopher, you say what belongs to a philosopher as such. Well, I'd say to love wisdom, right? Does belong to a philosopher as such to be white or black or to be Swedish or Irish or something?

[58:49] Doesn't. No, you might run into a philosopher that's white. You know, you might run into a philosopher that's gray. Gray. You might run into a philosopher that's Swedish or half Swedish, right? You know, but does that belong to a philosopher as? Such to be Swedish or half Swedish?

[59:10] You know, what is it? Heidegger says philosophy speaks Greek. Well, it's a compliment to the Greeks, right? But does that belong to a philosopher as? Such to speak Greek? Does a philosopher as such Greek? Even if historically speaking, right? The Greeks are the first philosophers, and maybe the greatest of the philosophers we've had, right? And no one, you know. You know the the modern physicists. You know, say that Schrodinger, the same physicist I was quoting.

[59:47] You know, he says no one has ever had science who hasn't come in contact with the Greeks. And he says science is the Greek way of looking at things. That's a beautiful compliment. To the Greeks, right? Just like Heidegger's is a compliment to the Greeks, but does that belong to science as such?

[1:00:11] That science is essentially a Greek way of looking at things. No, no, see. See, you get a little idea here that reasoned out knowledge, right? Thought out knowledge, where you define and reason out things about something, syllogize things about something. It's about what belongs to something as as such, right?

[1:00:38] So, if there is a reasoned out knowledge of being as being, it's going to have to have that same condition, right? Going to have to talk about what belongs to being as such. That's why he says being as being, right? And what belongs to this to itself, right?

[1:00:56] We were touching there in the intermission, I guess, when he said that to be good, we'll find out. eventually in book nine belongs to being as such. When you find out that bad is what a kind of non-being, right? And although act would be better than ability, the ability is for the sake of act. Ability is good because it's ordered act, and so to be good belongs to being as such.

[1:01:29] So there's some things that belong to being as such, or to be one belongs to being as such. Every being is either simple or composed, and the composed would not be if its parts were not put together, right? You know, you know, I got a car out there. I hope still. You know, but somebody's out there been taking it apart when I was in here. I don't have a car anymore.

[1:01:56] We take you apart, you won't be anywhere, right? You see? Yes, I mean. So it belongs to being as such to be one, and that's easier to see, perhaps. than it belongs to being as such to be good, right? So there is something that belongs to being as such, right? Obviously, belongs to being to be in some way, right? Okay. So we're going to be studying. Why we have no we're not yet going to be going to be doing that yet, but you begin to see that there is something that belongs to being as such, and therefore maybe there can be a reasoned out knowledge of being as being what belongs to it as such to itself, right?

[1:02:39] Of course, this is being more clear as we start to study being as being throughout here. But then he's got to show that this is not any of the other sciences that we've talked about, like geometry or natural philosophy or ethics or logic, but it's going to belong to this wisdom that we talked about in the proemium right? Let's see if you can see how Aristotle brings that out, right, and how he reasons out that the wisdom we were talking about in the premium, and we found such a desirable knowledge to pursue, that that is the reasoned out knowledge of being as being, right?

[1:03:13] How does he reason to that? So we'll start there next Thursday, right? Okay.