Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
30. Why Wisdom Defends the Axioms and the 'Great Turnaround' in the Order of Wisdom (Book IV, Reading 5; Overview of Book V)
Class of 2005-05-12
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[0:03] Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order the luminaries images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:30] So in the last reading, we looked at the philosopher was showing that the wise man considers being as being, right? And after that, in part we've not read, he shows that being and one are convertible, and this is also about the one. Now in the fifth reading, he's going to show that wisdom considers the axioms. Now, as he said last time, there's two questions you might want to answer here.

[1:06] And one question which we've dealt with before is why is it necessary, right, to consider the axioms? Why not just use them, right? Since the axioms are the statements known to themselves by all men, can we just assume everybody knows these and we don't have to talk about them, just use them and apply them?

[1:32] Well, the main reason was perhaps that some people, like the Sophists of ancient times, and the sophists of modern times, deny sometimes an axiom, and sometimes even give a reason for denying it. A reason that most people can't untie or can't solve, and so people begin to think they don't know what they do know.

[2:07] And as Aristotle says in the second book of Natural Hearing, the so-called Physics, if it's possible, as Socrates showed, that people think they know what they don't know, then the reverse is true. Huh? That it's possible that someone can think he doesn't know what he does know. And so, if you think you don't know the axioms, you don't think you know anything, really, and you're kind of a universal skeptic, and so on.

[2:40] So someone has to reply to the objections to the what axioms, huh? Now, as you consider these objections to the axioms, you'll find that some of them, not all of them by any means, but some of them are based upon mixing up different senses of the words in the axioms. And Aristotle discovered that the very words in the axioms are all equivocal. That is to say, they have many meanings, but that they are equivocal by reason.

[3:14] There's a connection among the meanings. And so, to distinguish the meanings of the words in the axioms, not only helps you to untie some of these objections against the axioms, but it also gives you a more distinct knowledge of the axioms than everyone has.

[3:40] And since the axioms are the beginnings of all our knowledge of statements, a distinct knowledge of them will enable you to build upon them better. So,

[3:55] it is necessary for the good of the reason to consider the axioms, right? Both to get a more distinct knowledge of them, but also to reply to the objections that some people give to them. Now, given that, the next question is, why does it belong to the wise man to make this defense of the what axioms? Well, that's the answer Aristotle is going to be giving here in this reading.

[4:31] And the basic reason is tied to what we saw before in the first reading, that the axioms pertain to being as being, and therefore the man who considers being as being and the one as one, and so on, and distinguishes the meanings of being and one, and so on, he appropriately considers the axioms whose parts pertain to being as being. And this is seen most clearly in the most fundamental the axioms, the axioms about being and what non-being.

[5:09] And sometimes we distinguish two axioms about being and non-being. One is that something cannot both be and not be in the same sense of being, the same time. And the other is that something must either be or not be in the same sense.

[5:33] And so sometimes I quote Hamlet when he says, "To be or not to be, that is the question." Huh? It's a question because you can't both be and not be. Huh? And someone said, you know, to eat or to drink, that is a question. Or to eat or to breathe, that is a question. No, that's not the question. You can both do both, and you better do both, right?

[6:02] But to be or not to be, you can't be both. And likewise, you've got to be one or the other, right? So there you can see in the in the axiom which Aristotle says is the natural beginning of all the axioms, the axiom of being and non-being that pertains to being as being. So it's appropriate then, because this science is about being as being, that it take up the axioms, huh?

[6:40] And that's going to be basically the reason Aristotle gives here. It should be said whether there is one or or mis or should be or many forms of reasoned-out knowledge about what are called the axioms in the mathematical forms of reasoned-out knowledge and about substance.

[7:07] Of course, Euclid you know distinguishes some of the axioms that are particularly important in math. It is clear Aristotle says that the investigation about these belongs to one reasoned-out knowledge and that of the philosopher. And notice now he calls the wise man the first philosopher, the philosopher, right? Kind of by antonomasia. For they belong to all beings and not to one kind privately apart from the others.

[7:45] They belong to being as being, okay? And since we found out that that is the subject of wisdom, then that's the reason why the wise man should also be the man to defend the axioms.

[8:00] And all the sciences, all the other forms of reasoned-out knowledge, the men who practice them use them because they are being as being, and this is said of everything. And each kind of thing is a being of some sort. And of course, they use them so far as this is enough for them. That is as far as extends the genus of which they carry out demonstrations. So the mathematician might say, you know, well, an odd number cannot be an even number, right?

[8:29] An even number is divisible into two equal parts, An odd number is not. They can't both be and not be divisible into two equal parts. But he's kind of taking the what impossibility of being and not being and taking it in his domain, huh?

[8:50] So since it is clear that they belong to all in so far as they are beings, for this is what is common to them, the consideration of the one knowing being as being will also be about them. And whose consideration is about being as being? Well, we find out in the beginning of the fourth book that it's the wise man, right? That the man who considers the cause of all considers what is said of all, and what said of all is being, and the things that pertain to being as being.

[9:17] Since the axioms, the very parts I made up of being as being, therefore he should talk about these. Whence he says, none of those considering by art tries to say something about these as whether they are true or not. Neither the geometer nor the arithmetician. So Euclid doesn't try to show these are true, right? He just takes them for granted, huh? But now he says there's one exception, right?

[9:46] But some of the naturalists, right, some of the natural philosophers, reasonably did this, right? Why? They thought it was first philosophy what they were doing. Yeah, they thought. that. Natural philosophy was what wisdom, right? And as Aristotle was saying, the sixth book of wisdom, if only material substances exist,

[10:13] then natural philosophy would be what wisdom, right? Okay. So you could say for almost two hundred years, the Greeks identified wisdom with natural philosophy. But then, when they started with Anaxagoras and Plato and and Aristotle, they have evidence that there exists something that could be without matter, right? Then they realized that natural philosophy is not about all things, and it's not a property of being as being to be somewhere in some place.

[10:54] But Aristotle quotes there in the fourth book of natural hearing. He's talking about place. The common opinion of the Greeks before him was that whatever is must be somewhere. If it isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist. If you go on Main Street today, you find that the common opinion too. But to be somewhere, to be contained in a place, is a property really of bodies? So you're thinking that nothing exists but bodies and what is in bodies.

[11:22] And if that's all that did exist, then to be somewhere would be a property of being as being. Okay. So in so far as they thought that they were the wise men, or that this is wisdom, right? Then it's not without reason that they sometimes touched upon the axiom here about being and non-being. There was some controversy about that. But some of the naturalists, meaning the natural philosophers, reasonably did this, for they were thought to be considering about all nature and all being, all things.

[11:59] And so Aristotle divides in the second reading there of the first book of natural hearing the opinions of the natural philosophers before him, right? He said, well, it's the same way they talked about being, right? The same division of thoughts, because you're identifying natural things with all things in some ways.

[12:23] But since there is something, there is someone above the naturalist, meaning the first philosopher, the wise man, for nature is only one kind of being. The consideration about these will belong to the one looking at the universal and the first substance. For natural philosophy is wisdom in some respect. It's a wisdom about natural things, right? But it's not the first wisdom, right? Okay.

[12:55] But now he's going to say now. When you take up the axioms, you don't try to prove that they are true, because there is nothing before them by which they could be proven, and furthermore, they are known through themselves, through their parts. But what some speaking about truth attempt and what way it should be received, they do through through lack of being brought up in the Analytics.

[13:23] For they ought to know these things before they come to them and not seek them when hearing them. So he's talking about in the Analytics where he talk about what things can be proven, right, and what things are known without proof.

[13:39] And the axioms are most of all what is known without without proof. So should you try to prove that the whole is more than the sum of its parts? Okay. Now the same thing is true, to a lesser extent, about the private beginnings of reasoned out knowledge. It's like all right angles are equal, right? That's not something you really prove, right? And the so-called fifth postulate of Euclid, right?

[14:12] I don't know if you know the history of that postulate, but you could lay it down without giving any proof of it. And some authors down through the ages have tried to what prove it, huh? Now my brother Mark made a study of those attempts to prove the fifth postulate, and he shows first of all that the proofs are not good, that they're circular, and secondly that they're circular because they assume the very thing they're trying to prove.

[14:47] And by the way, adds as a as a secondary thing there, another thing to see, the fact that they assume the very thing they're trying to prove without realizing they're assuming it is a sign that it is really obvious. It's all evident. Yeah. Okay. We have something like that with with the fundamental axiom of all down through the history of human thought. If you go down through it.

[15:13] Of the principle of contradiction. Yeah, yeah. You have people denying the principle of contradiction because something that they've been studying seems to involve a contradiction, and they can't see any way out of it. So they're denying the principle of contradiction because something contradicts it.

[15:33] So they're accepting it in their very attempt to prove that it isn't so. Yeah. They're saying it isn't so because it is so. It's a little bit like the thing I see in ethics there, where one of the fundamental things you got to know in ethics is that you should live by your reason. And someone might say, "Well, I think you should live by your emotions. I live by my emotions."

[15:59] And so, but now, if a person wants to argue about this, right? Should I live by my reason or by my emotions? He's in a way admitting you should live by your reason, because if reason has the right to decide whether you should live by reason or by your emotions, you're already saying, in a way, that you should live by your reason. Reason must decide how you should live.

[16:23] Maybe, maybe he's planning on arguing from his emotions. So, Aristotle's pointing this out, then, right? You've got to know how to take things. It is clear then that it belonged to the philosopher, meaning the wise man, the first philosopher, and the one considering about all substance, because substance is the main kind of being, right? To also consider about the syllogistic beginnings, the statements that are the beginnings.

[16:53] Beginnings of syllogisms are always statements, right? But the axioms are the statements at the beginning of all statements. Okay. Now we can come to the great turnaround. If

[17:11] you understand the great turnaround, you can understand something of the order of the most of the fourteen books of wisdom. Not all of them, but almost all. In kind of a bird's eye view,

[17:28] what is this great turnaround that I'm talking about? Well, I put down on the board here three, and then three, and you'll see what I'm talking about. In the proemium, we learn that wisdom is about causes, right? And at last, about the first causes. So, wisdom is about the first causes.

[18:11] Now, in the beginning of the fourth book of wisdom, we learn that wisdom is about being as being, and the one and the many too, but we didn't say it explicitly. Wisdom

[18:35] is about being as being, and the one. And then, after this, in the fifth reading. Of before the book, the reading just going over,

[19:01] we learn that wisdom is about the axioms. Okay. Now, you might suspect that you say what wisdom is about. That there's a little bit of what

[19:30] equivocation. Because when you say wisdom is about the first causes, is about being as being about the axioms, it doesn't mean that all three of these are the subject of wisdom.

[19:45] When you say wisdom is about being as being the one, that's as a subject to the subject of wisdom. is Yeah That's why wisdom is less. Wisdom, in the sense of first philosophy, here first philosophy is less wisdom than theology, because theology is about God as a subject. God is the chief subject of of theology, but God is not the chief subject of first philosophy. It's being as being, or you could say, substance, primarily in their substance.

[20:28] But what, sense then, is wisdom about the first causes? Well, that's really the end or the goal of first philosophy to know the first causes, right? To know the first causes of its what subject? Do you see that? So when you say wisdom about the first causes, you are talking about the end or goal of wisdom, huh? Okay. And in general, every part of philosophy is about some subject, and it seeks to know the causes of that subject, right?

[21:06] So, in a sense, the end or goal in any science is to know the causes of that subject. Okay. But now, when you say wisdom about the actions, this is kind of something unique to wisdom, and you don't find something like that in the other parts of philosophy. In the other parts of philosophy, you'll have some subject that that part of philosophy is about, and you'll be seeking the causes of that subject, right?

[21:36] Okay. But wisdom, if you go to the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle distinguishes the virtues of reason, and in particular the virtues of looking reason, and he'll distinguish between natural understanding and episteme or reasoned out knowledge, and then he'll distinguish wisdom from both of them, as if wisdom is something not just one other form of reasoned out knowledge, but it has a certain excellence that gives it a new name, makes it stand out against all the other ones.

[22:22] And Aristotle will say that wisdom is the head of all understanding, It's the head of both of every other reasoned out understanding and even of what natural understanding. So the wise man, in some way, embraces both nous or natural understanding and episteme. He knows the cause of the causes, right? The very first causes, but he also knows what natural understanding knows, but in a more distinct way and in a way more able to what defend it than natural understanding can't do that.

[22:58] Okay. Everybody is natural understanding, but they can't defend. My students can't defend by sophistical objections against the whole being greater than the part. They're convinced. Rarely until I try to show them that they shouldn't be convinced. Okay.

[23:14] So that wisdom can be about not only a subject and seek the cause of that subject, which is common to every kind of reasoned-out understanding, but that also in some way embraces natural understanding too. Shows that wisdom is the unique virtue of looking reason. It's the head Aristotle says the nous, the head of all understanding. Okay. So wisdom is about the action this is something that belongs to wisdom insofar as it's not just another reasoned-out understanding, right?

[23:50] It's something more. It is a kind of reasoned-out understanding, but not just that. It embraces natural understanding too. Because really remarkable thing, reasoned-out understanding. I mean, wisdom kind of that embraces, huh? And perfects both every form of reasoned-out understanding and natural understanding too. It's really something, the highest of all the virtues of reason, right? The greatest of all the human virtues, huh? Okay.

[24:23] Now, what we've learned up to this point is what wisdom is about, right? Now we got to take these things up. Now, in the rest of Book Four, he defends the axioms of being and non-being.

[24:53] Defense of the axioms. Aristotle spends his time mainly defending the axioms of being and non-being. Then, the way Thomas divides the things in books

[25:21] five through ten, he considers being as being and the one and the many. Okay. Consideration of being as being and the one and the many. In other words, in books five through ten, he's pursuing a reasoned-out understanding of being as being and of the one and the many.

[26:00] Then, in the last books. The last four books, in books seven through fourteen, he's investigating and determining the truth about first causes. This is a quite common, you know, in the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, when he's contrasting philosophy and theology. He says God is the last thing to be considered in philosophy, but in theology, he's the first thing to be considered, huh? So that the order of philosophy and theology, in a way, is just the reverse, huh?

[27:01] The contrary one to get. Of course, the order of theology is much more like the order of. You can speak of an order of God's knowledge, right? It's much more like God's knowledge because God knows all things by knowing Himself. And so, in theology, we imitate that in kind of human way, right? By considering God first and nothing else except in comparison to God as their maker or their end, huh?

[27:32] Okay. Now notice the order here, right? The order in which we learn what wisdom is about, and the order in which those things it is about are taken up, is just the reverse, right? I for the fun of it call that the great turnaround, okay? And to put it in kind of

[28:01] simple language, you could say you learn that wisdom is about A, and then you learn that wisdom is about B, and then you learn that wisdom is about C. But then he takes up C first, and then he takes up B, right? And finally, takes up A, right? That seems kind of screwy at first sight, doesn't it? Now, if somebody's saying, "No, I'm going to talk about A, B, and C," He's telling you what he's going to talk about.

[28:29] You'd expect him to talk about A first, and then B, and then C, right? So why this complete contrary order, right? In which we learn what wisdom is about, and the order in which we take up and determine the truth about those things that it is about. What's the reason for this? Huh? Because the

[28:55] axioms are the causes of our knowing about these other things. Yeah. So you would begin there, and then those are things would be most common for all to begin. Well, what is the thing underlying? Both of these orders, because once you understand the reason why for each of these orders, and it's actually the same reason, basically, once you see that reason, you realize that wise man's order is right there.

[29:29] That this order is the only order in which you'll be wise. Finally, isn't it because just given the mode, the mode of human understanding, because I'm having, I'm having a problem with when I put the with the with the axiom. I I agree with. Well, no, no, no, no, it's down here. It's perhaps easy to understand the order in the second part here, right? Since the axioms are the statements known. To themselves, by all men.

[30:02] These statements are the most known of all statements, right? Why the first causes? You might say would be what are least known to us, right? So the basic principle that we're following there in the second half, right, is starting from what is more known to us, right, and proceeding towards what is less known to us, and that's the inborn road in our knowledge, huh? From what is more known to us towards what is less known to us, huh?

[30:36] Okay. Being as being is in between, right? It's less known to us than the axioms, but more known to us than the first causes. Just as effects are usually more known than causes, right? But now the paradox, right? You want to pause the paradox a bit. The paradox is that what is most known to us is least known that wisdom is about, it. and that what is least known to us is most known that wisdom is about.

[31:13] it. Why should that be just the reverse? I mean, at first sight, you say, "Well, if the axioms are most known to us, right, would it also be most known to us that wisdom is about them? See, what is there?

[31:34] What principle is he following up here? Is he still following up here in the first three when he said the wisdom is about the first causes, and then showing it's about being as being, and then it's about the axioms? Is he still following up there the rule of going from what is more known to us towards what is less known to us? What would you say? Yeah, It would be most known to us that wisdom is about the first causes, than that wisdom is about the axioms.

[32:05] Yeah, yeah. Now, if you stop and think about it, what seems at first to be a paradox is not so paradoxical. The fact that the axioms are so well known to us that everybody seems to know them, right? And there's even a question that he saw. Why consider the axioms at all? Just use them, you know. The fact that they're so well known is in light of the fact that that's the least thing or the last thing you think wisdom is about.

[32:32] See, because you look to the wise man as being what more knowing than the rest of us, huh? Above all the rest of us in his knowledge, right? Huh? That's what's you know. I mean, when I start sometimes the introduction to philosophy, I ask, you know, classroom of freshmen, do you think wisdom comes to the beginning of our knowledge? Well, none of them think that. Does it come in the middle, or do you think it comes at the end?

[32:58] And they'll usually say it comes towards the end. Almost everybody in this class, right? So having the haziest notion of what wisdom is, they think of it as something ultimate, something highest, something last in our knowledge. So the last thing you think of wisdom is about is what everybody knows, right?

[33:20] So it's least known to us that wisdom is about what is most known to us, right? Why, if you take the first causes, somebody might be skeptical as to the possibility of our knowing the first causes, right? But no one would be a doubter. If someone did know the first causes, that he should be considered wise, you see.

[33:48] So everybody thinks wisdom is about something most difficult to know, something most worthwhile to know, and so on, huh? And to say definitely wisdom is about the first causes, that very well known, huh? But to say that wisdom is about being as being, you know, that sounds kind of general, doesn't it? Doesn't seem at first sight to be anything like wisdom, does it, huh? You know, you gave me something to drink here.

[34:16] You know what is it? Well, something. Not nothing. Well, that's very general, right? If I say, "Give me a glass of water to drink," my knowledge is more advanced, right? Give me a glass of dry red wine to drink, and they say, "This is dry red wine." You say, "What is it? Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir?" Say, "Well, it's Cabernet Sauvignon, not the Valley Nanty." Ah, see. So, man can tell you it's Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

[34:50] His knowledge is goes beyond the man can just tell you it's a dry red wine, right? So that the wise man should be about what is said of all these very general things, right? Like being, you know, it is called that wisdom, you know. We think of the man whose knowledge is more advanced as having a more particular knowledge, don't we? See, so it's less known to us that wisdom is about being as being than that it's about the what first causes, huh?

[35:25] Okay. So what seems a paradox at first sight, right, is actually makes a lot of sense when you stop and think about it. The fact that the axioms are what is most known to us, that they are in at least a confused way evident to everybody, makes it least likely that that's what wisdom would be about but everybody knows.

[35:53] Now, sometimes I compare this to. A tree, right? And you say, well, of all plants, the tree is above all the rest of them, right? Okay. But also, the tree is what? Used. Yeah, which is more known to us that the tree is above all the plants. Yeah, we we we give the tree a special place among the plants because above all the rest of them, right?

[36:22] Okay. But is there a connection between the fact that the tree is above all the other plants and its roots go down below all the other plants? Yeah. Right. Because it's got to have that foundation, right? So, in a sense, the wise man is like that, right? He's above everybody else, especially in knowing the first causes, huh? He rises above everybody else in his knowledge, but he also goes back to the beginning of knowledge and goes much more deeper into it than anybody else, huh?

[36:55] Okay. I guess biologists or botanists would say, you know, that the the height of the plant or the size of the plant above ground and the root system down below are kind of proportional, right? So I compare the wise man to a tree in that sense, huh? The way his mind grows, huh? And shouldn't we be paradoxical that the what is higher than all the rest, the tree, should be lower than all the rest too?

[37:23] There's kind of a reason for that, huh? The exact same reason. is here. There's a reason why, huh? The man who's above everybody else in knowing causes and reaching the end and goal of our knowledge should also go down the beginning and know that better than anybody else, huh?

[37:42] And you find that you know the further you want to go, even in other sciences, other forms of knowledge, you got to go back to the beginnings and and know them better, right?

[37:53] Um. After you turn to those beginnings, you know them better. The defense of the axioms then would be an expression I've heard of wisdom is that it's glorified common sense. This sounds. In that in that way, the defense of the axioms at least would be that. I mean, some of these arguments are very difficult. I think I referred to this beautiful quote by Charles De Koninck there in the Laval Théologique et Philosophique.

[38:19] It's in French. But the paradox, the devenir part of contradiction, the paradox, right? The apparent contradiction of becoming what? Paradoxion means from being to not being, right? Well, Hegel, you know, in the 19th century, there he gives an argument that in becoming there is a contradiction: the same thing both is and is not. And that thing has been solved by Aristotle in the sixth book of Natural Physics, but it's a very difficult thing to solve, huh?

[38:55] But the kind of an article shows the difficulty of cause all through the Middle ages in trying to understand the Eucharist and so on. And Thomas could solve those difficulties because he knew Aristotle and he could solve things So it's difficult, right? It's not just common sense. In that sense, it's difficult to solve some of these apparent contradictions. But you should begin, like say, in natural philosophy, with the first book of Natural Hearing, where Aristotle unties the apparent contradiction in change that Heraclitus was pointing out, right?

[39:26] You know, Heraclitus says day and night are the same thing because day becomes night. Becomes means comes to be, right? And the hard becomes soft, and soft becomes hard, right? Becomes means comes to be. So one contrary comes to be the other one. And what is the other, right? And so that that one is easier to solve, huh? And solved in the first book of Natural Hearing in the eleven reading, okay?

[39:56] But this other one is much more difficult the one that's solved in the sixth book. Of course, if you heard Zeno's paradoxes, right, about motion, most people can't solve those, right? So it's possible to give an objection to something we all know is true.

[40:18] Zeno's saying, you know, I can't walk out that door, right? You've got to walk half the way before you can walk the whole way, right? Before you can walk half the way, you got to walk half of the half, and before you can walk half of the half, you got to walk half of the half of the half, and this goes on forever because it continues to divisible forever.

[40:35] It's never going to get out that door, aren't you? And again, you know, Achilles, the fastest runner, is not going to ever catch up with the little turtle or something, right? If you give the turtle a little head start, right? Because you give him a head start before Achilles can what surpass him, he's got to catch up to where the turtle is, and that's going to take some time, however little.

[40:57] And that time, the turtle goes a little further, and he's got to catch up to that part before he can catch up with him. The turtle goes a little further. Aristotle unties those in the eight books of natural hearing but most people cannot what untie them, and so

[41:16] Aristotle in the rest of book four he would show where these doubts arise, and a lot of them arise from motion and from change, right? In other ways, they arise too, but those are some of the most important ones, and he would show how they're solved, right?

[41:39] So if you understand the great turnaround, and you see that it's the same reason in both, right? Why they go in that order, right? And the reason is in order we should go from what is more known to us to what is less known. You can see the order cannot be otherwise, okay?

[42:04] And this explains the order of most of the fourteen books. It doesn't explain why the rest of book one is there or book two or three, right? But does explain the proemium and books four to the end. So you can see kind of as a whole that Aristotle is perfectly what ordered. Now, not only is the order perfect, but to some extent, you could say these things are continuous.

[42:38] Not continuous here, not in the original sense of continuous, but imitating the great Euclid, right? Now Euclid says sometimes a proportion is continuous. What does that mean? No, you can you can keep on going going up. So, like, if I got two is to four, four is to eight, as eight is etc. Yeah, if you got the end of one, the beginning of the next. Yeah. So four is to six, as six is to nine, right?

[43:14] So the end of one is beginning the next ratio, right? As opposed to, let's say, two is to three as four is to six. These are not continuous because three is not four, right? Okay, they're they're proportional, but it's not continuous proportion. Okay. Now, sometimes I speak of syllogisms in imitating what Euclid's doing there as being continuous when the conclusion of one syllogism is a what premise in the next thing right?

[43:49] Okay. And I was remarking you know I was, taking this great delight in the 14th theorem in the second book of Euclid, where in part of that theorem he's showing how to make a square or to find the side of a square equal to a given what oblong, right? And he uses the Pythagorean theorem, right, which is proven at the end of Book One, and he uses that wonderful theorem fifth about cutting a line into equal and unequal segments, and so on.

[44:23] Okay. So the conclusion of those arguments, right, are starting points for seeing this. Okay. So I call syllogisms continuous when the conclusion of one is the beginning of another, right? Okay. And if you wanted to, you could call definitions continuous, right? Let's see the definition of quadrilateral and what square, right? Okay. What's defined in the definition of quadrilateral? Then quadrilateral is actually just a square, okay?

[45:00] Well, if you looked at the reasoning we've seen so far, Aristotle reasoned from wisdom being about first causes, reasoning from wisdom being about the cause of all things, to wisdom being about what is said of all. Remember that. We were pointing out that if you consider a more universal cause, you talk about what is said of more, right? Mm-hmm. So the science about the king is going to talk about what is said of more than the science about the general.

[45:33] Mm-hmm. The science about the general is going to talk about the soldier, and the science about the king is going to talk about the citizen. The citizen is said of more, right? So the cause of all things, the most universal cause, the first causes, right, will have a subject which is said of all, right? So he reasons from wisdom being about the first causes to wisdom being about being as being.

[46:03] So you can see these are continuous, right? Which is shown in the premium. he reasoned out that wisdom is about the first causes. So your conclusion there is the beginning for showing this next thing, beginning of book four. And once you concluded that wisdom is about being as being, now you have the beginning for showing that it's about the what. About the axioms. Yeah, because he reasoned that the axioms are about being as being, right?

[46:33] And so the sciences about being as being is the one that should pick up the axioms. So he reasons from the conclusion that wisdom is about being as being. He uses that conclusion as the premise for reasoning that wisdom is about the axioms. Okay. That shows you how tightly knit these things are, right? Because if the end of one is the beginning of the other, then there is nothing to put in between, right?

[47:04] You know, if the end of the United States is the beginning of Canada, that line up there, right? Is there some country between the United States and Canada? It's very tightly one. You see, so as you go from Mexico, let's say, to United States to Canada, right? Well, the end of Mexico in the northern direction, right, is what the beginning of United States. And then the end of the United States in the northern direction is the beginning of Canada.

[47:33] You see, so at the very so nothing between Mexico and United States, nothing between United States and Canada, right? So it's very well ordered, right? Just like when Augustine and Thomas, you know, trying to understand creation, there being in six days.

[47:57] Of course, Euclid has taught Augustine and Thomas that six is the first perfect number, right? And so it doesn't necessarily mean six days in the ordinary sense of days, but the six there symbolizes the perfection of what God has made, right? What's remarkable about number six is not only that everything that measures it adds up to six, because it's measured by one and two and three, but it's not measured by four or five.

[48:24] And one, two, and three together add to six, but there is nothing between one, two, three. It's perfectly well, you know, in that way. Without perfect numbers, we wouldn't have that, right? You know, I mean, twenty-eight is the next perfect number, right? Yeah, before and then you jump seven, you know, and so on to one, two, three. It's just very, very tight. So it's really a number to to symbolize the perfection of what God has made.

[48:54] That's why every six days he rests. It's easy. So if the conclusion shown in the premium is the premise for showing what is shown in the fourth book, and the conclusion there is the premise for showing the reasons about the axioms, it's very tight fit. Okay. Now, the same thing is true down here, because the axioms, one reasons from the axioms, from those statements to all the statements that you ever know.

[49:30] Not only from those statements, right? Like Euclid doesn't reason, say, only from the axioms; he reasons from things that are private, right? But you do reason from the axioms. So the axioms, although they're not conclusions, they're premises for reasoning out an understanding of being as being. And the reason out understanding of being as being will be the premises. Will give you the premises for reasoning out what the first cause is.

[50:00] And The book I emphasize in here, especially, is Book Nine, right? The book on act and ability, and it's in that book, and in fact, in the third part of it, that you get the premise for reason to what God really is, that God is the beginning of things rather than matter. So we'll see that just see that same what, continuous, huh? Right? Okay.

[50:31] The axioms are the beginnings of which you come to understand being as being, and the understanding of being as being is the beginning for understanding the first causes. So it's perfectly taken that, huh? Like one, two, three, huh? Okay.

[50:53] So not only do you see that the order in both is from what is more known to us to what is less known, right? But also you see in the reasoning process, right, that what is shown in the first is a beginning for what is shown in the second, and so on, all the way down the line. Okay.

[51:18] I know this explains most of metaphysics. It doesn't explain why the third book is there, right? Okay. But the reason why the third book comes before the other books was given at the beginning. The third book, the reason why dialectic comes before trying to turn the truth. The reason why the rest of Book One was there was another reason, right? The rest of Book One, after the premium, was there to find out whether you should what

[51:53] try to learn wisdom from your predecessors, or whether you have to discover it on your own. Yeah, with their help, but nevertheless discover it yourself, right? Okay. Now, in the second book, huh? A little different now. In the second book, he starts with wisdom being about the first causes,

[52:19] and reasons out that it belongs to the wise man most of all to consider truth. In the middle there of the second book, right? If you recall, he wanted to show that consideration of truth belongs most of all to the wise man, and he did it in two steps, right? It belongs more to looking knowledge than to practical knowledge, right? Because it's the end of looking knowledge; it's not the end of practical knowledge.

[52:49] And even if the practical man wants to know some truth, it's often a contingent truth, huh? Okay. And then, among the looking sciences, he argued that the cause is more true than the effect.

[53:06] Because of the old reason, right? Which I kind of expand on. When the same belongs to things, but to one of them because of the other, it belongs more to the cause. So, if true belongs to cause and effect, but the effect is true because of the cause, which is more true? The cause. And therefore, the first cause is most true. And as the philosopher says, "as a thing therefore is in being so is it in truth being, so is it in truth."

[53:38] And and as a Catholic, you know, I like to look at God called Moses, "I am who am," and then Christ sometimes saying, "I am," meaning "I am who am," but then also saying, "I am truth itself," right? Okay. And then Aristotle gives that as the reason why it belongs to the wise man to consider how man is towards knowing truth. Okay, and you can give all the reasons for that, perhaps too, but that's the reason he gives there, right?

[54:12] So he reasons from the same starting point, but he goes off in a different what direction? Direction, yeah, yeah. And in my article there, I call that the secondary things. Wisdom is about, right? It's primarily about these three things. It's about the first causes. It's about being as being. It's about the axioms, right? Okay. But in the secondary way, we can say wisdom is about how man is towards knowing truth, how the road to truth in any reason of knowledge should should not be determined, right?

[54:49] Okay. It goes over secondary, right? Because you can see another sciences. I mean, you say, "What is geometry about?" But primarily, it's about lines, angles, plane, and solid figures. But you see, it belongs to geometry. to know something about how geometry proceeds, doesn't it? Yeah, that's that's something secondary, though, right? That's for the sake of knowing lines and angles and plane and solid figures and so on.

[55:22] So, could the order be otherwise? No. Now you got to pass out the little thing from Book Five. Have you passed it already? Everybody has Book Five reading. Oh, brother, brother doesn't have. Can you give me a copy? All right. Can you give me a copy? Oh, I'm sorry. Denying the professor. Yeah. Now I mentioned how how Thomas Aquinas. In his exposition here of the fourteen books of wisdom, actually I only listened to the first twelve.

[56:08] which gets to God and satisfy. He puts Book Five as the first book in this second part here, consideration of being as being and the one and the many. And the reason he gives is that as we learned in the beginning of the fourth book, when we learned that wisdom is about being, we learned that being is what equivocal, right? And that raises the question: I mean, can you have one science about what is said equivocally?

[56:43] Well, if it is said equivocally by chance, if there is no order or connection among these meanings, then there wouldn't be one reason that knowledge of being is being. If being was like the word bat, my example, right? There is no reason to talk about the baseball bat and the flying mouse, huh? The flying mouse in the common German in the same knowledge, is there? Just because they happen to be named that, right?

[57:12] Okay. If your name is Fox, like who is it? Is it like so? Yeah, yeah. The reason to talk about him and the fox in the same might be a reason. Maybe. All my old foxes. There is no reason to put him in that. So Thomas recalls that right and says, "Look, all the words pertaining to being and being are equivocal, but they're equivocal by reason, not by chance, huh?

[57:51] " And therefore, Aristotle places first in Book Five, where he takes up all these words that pertain to being as being, and distinguishes and orders their meanings as a kind of preliminary to his consideration of being as being, huh? Okay. So that's the reason why Thomas puts Book Five as the beginning of consideration of being as being, huh? But you could also say that, in a way, Book Five is the end of the way defense of the axioms, because these words that are distinguished in the fifth book are also not only the names of the subject of the science, but also the names in the axioms.

[58:38] So they're also useful for a distinct knowledge of the axioms and for defending the axioms against the most common attack from equivocal words, right? Now he's giving that example, you know, equivocating in two different meanings of the word "part," right? Yeah. Okay. So Book Five is useful both to understand. More distinctly, and to defend the axioms, and to have a clear idea of the words you're going to be using in talking about being as being and the one and the many.

[59:14] Do you see that? Okay. And that shows again how continuous these two considerations are. Right? Did Book Five, right, right after the rest of Book Four, right? Although perhaps it's more a beginning of the consideration of being as being and the one and the many, is also very useful and necessary for understanding distinctly the axioms and for defending them against attacks from equivocation. Do you see that?

[59:52] So the end of one is the beginning of what? The other. Yeah. Okay. This is kind of the culmination there of the three books about the soul, and what you find also in Plato's dialogue, the Phaedo, is the immortality of the human soul. Right? That's kind of the culmination that the human soul can exist, right, without the body. And a sign of this is that it has an operation; it does something not in the body, right?

[1:00:30] That's kind of the culmination. And you can see at the end of Natural Philosophy and the beginning of what wisdom, right? You know, sometimes we call the science metaphysics, but most people don't know what that word means, meta ta physika But especially after the showing that there is the human soul is immortal, okay, or the same way you show that the unmoved mover is not a body, then you're at the end of Natural Philosophy and the beginning of what wisdom.

[1:01:04] It shows you how nicely ordered these things are, right? That in the order of learning, you know, wisdom comes after after Natural Philosophy, meta ta physika, after the books of Natural Philosophy, but especially the eight books of Natural Hearing, the three books about the soul, but they're all useful in some way.

[1:01:27] Okay, so I'm not contradicting Thomas when I say that Book Five could be also considered to some extent as the end of the consideration of the accidents.

[1:01:42] And sometimes I say Book Five is useful for a third thing too, and that is that all of the other parts of philosophy will, to some extent, use these words,

[1:01:56] and so it contributes something, you know, to not being confused about these words when they come up in the other sciences. Okay, I take the in the Ethics, for example, I take the word "perfect," which we'll meet here, is one of the words I take up in order to understand what's better. Or the word "nature" is one of the words Aristotle accepts.

[1:02:28] Now we could spend a whole chorus on Book Five, but Thomas has figured out the distinction of Book Five, the division of Book Five. Now, as you gentlemen know, who follow this rule of two or three, Book Five is probably divided into either two or three, right? Okay,

[1:02:58] but which is it? In the Gospel of Matthew, divided into three parts. Gospel of Saint John in two parts. So you know it's going to be three or two, right? So how is Book Five divided?

[1:03:15] Why have I chosen out of many, many words there in Book Five, I chosen three words? What do you think Again, I think I've chosen three words. Love two or three. What you say? Love two or three. Huh? The rule of two or three. Yeah, yeah, yeah, three though, because it's divided into three parts, right? Okay. Thomas says, "What you have in every science, in every reason of understanding, is you have a subject, right?

[1:03:58] And you have certain causes of that subject, right? Then you have certain properties of that subject. So some of these names pertain to causes, some to the subject, and some to the what? Properties, right? Now, under causes, the first word he takes up is the word beginning.

[1:04:34] And then he takes up the word cause, and then he takes up the word element. And then, strange as it may seem, he takes up the word nature. And as Thomas will explain, one meaning of nature is what a thing is, and that's common to all things. Everything is what it is, right? So he takes the word nature, even though it may seem to be more particular word.

[1:05:11] Now the order here, beginning, cause, and element. Every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause. Every element is a cause, but not every cause is an element. Okay. And this here seems a much more particular name, but it has as one of its meanings something very general: what a thing is. And then he takes up the word what necessary. Okay.

[1:05:39] Which is seems to be titled cause, because something necessarily follows a cause that's complete and unimpeded. So the word I've chosen out of this whole book is the first word, beginning, right? Okay. We talked a bit about the meanings of cause, matter, form, mover, and end, and so on, right? Okay. We could spend time on each one of these words, right? But I've taken one here from the first group, right?

[1:06:07] Okay. Now, in the second group, he takes up the names of the subject. He takes up the word one and the word being and the word substance huh, those three words, and then the parts of one, the parts of being, he takes up on. Okay. In that whole second group, the word I selected, of course, is the word being. That's the most key word today.

[1:06:44] Now, in the third group of words, the first and fundamental word is the word perfect. Okay. And you'll find out that perfect and imperfect, the opposite, are very aspects of being. In the very first divisions of being, like substance and accident, or act and ability, right? One is perfect, and the other is imperfect. Okay. And this is tied up with the idea of the good, right? Okay.

[1:07:12] So, if I can assume with theologia, when Thomas shows that God is perfect, and to that he attaches the consideration of the goodness of God, right?

[1:07:23] So, I've taken one word from each group to kind of give an idea of what Book Five is. It takes up names pertaining to beginnings or causes, names pertaining to the subject, names pertaining to the properties, right? But I've taken the first word in these two groups and the most simple word here in the second group. Okay. And you get a little taste on. We had a course at Laval after my time, you know, where somebody would teach the whole course was on Book Five.

[1:07:59] The first course I had at Laval was on Book Four, the last part there on the defense of the first axioms. And the guy was going to Europe, so they kind of punched up the course, you know, extra times each week. So that was the first course I had, the first exam I had, and so on. But but you can spend a whole semester in Book Five, you know, and in Book Four, and so on, right?

[1:08:27] Okay. So we got to realize that Aristotle was the first man to fully realize that the words in the axioms are all equivocal by reason,

[1:08:49] and that those words are also the words that name the subject of the science and are used in talking about causes or properties, and they're all. Equivocal by reason, okay. And to some extent, these words are used everywhere. So Aristotle's done an enormous task for us, right? In distinguishing these words, he's helped us to understand and defend the axioms. He's helped us to, but speak clearly about the things we want to talk about in wisdom.

[1:09:21] And to some extent, he's helped us in all the sciences. When I talk teaching natural philosophy, I go back to this thing on nature here to explain what nature is and what sense we we mean it when we talk in natural philosophy.