Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
31. Book V: The Meanings of 'Beginning' and of 'Being' (By Happening, by the Figures of Predication, as True)
Class of 2005-05-12
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/031-book-v-the-meanings-of-beginning-and-of-being-by-happening/

[0:00] Okay, so let's start to look at this thing. And again, remember what I said before, huh? Remember those two if-then statements. If a man understands the words he uses, then he is wise, true, or false. I would say no. See, the wisdom doesn't consist chiefly in knowing the meanings of the words you use. It consists chiefly in knowing the causes, the first causes, huh? Okay. But now the second if then statement: If a man does not understand the words he uses, right, then he is not wise.

[0:49] That's true, yeah, yeah. So, is anybody wise besides Aristotle? Huh? Unless you've learned these words from Aristotle, like Thomas says. Right? But if nobody else understands these words, huh? I had some students at my house last night, and we're doing the post predicaments, the last part there, the categories, and we're taking up the word opposites, huh? Which is the word taken up here in Book Five, too, under the parts of one.

[1:25] And Aristotle distinguishes four kinds of opposition, four senses of opposites, and so we're going through the text there. And I was remarking how, when I was at Laval, there reading some of the theses that people had done, and of course at that time the Marxists were still empowered, right? there, you know, and during most of the time I was up there, all the time I was up there really.

[1:48] Um, of course the Marxists make a great deal of opposition, right? And the official name of the Marxist philosophy is dialectical materialism. Materialism means that what matter is the beginning of everything, right? Source of everything. But dialectical means that there are opposites in matter, and the struggle of these opposites is giving rise to development.

[2:12] And but they don't distinguish the different senses of opposites, and this is not a secondary thing, but this is the very central aspect of their thought, and it goes back to Hegel, right, the dialectical, The idea of there being opposites in everything, and their struggle giving rise to the development of things.

[2:34] Um, are they wise? You know, they don't even understand the words that they what. Yeah, yeah. Not if you understand those words. Are you wise? But you don't. And you got that far, you know. Time is going against you, as Thomas says, huh?

[3:01] Somewhere in the commentary in the Psalm or the Epistle of Saint Paul, you know, somebody doesn't know the articles of faith, right? You know, time is going against him. This height that I was mentioning the other day, you know, I mean, doesn't even know the articles of faith, So things are going against him. Okay, so let's look at Book Five now. Here in the first word, which is.

[3:28] wanna get a little break now? Yeah, before we begin book five here. Now, in the case of words that are equivocal by reason, there are many ways that they, or many reasons, shall we say, by which the word becomes equivocal by reason. And we've talked about some of them before here, right?

[4:00] But in this word "beginning," huh? I think it's equivocal by reason of a likeness of what ratios, huh? Okay. Um, that's not the way every word would be equivocal here. Okay.

[4:23] Now, usually, when you have a word that's equivocal by reason of a likeness of ratios, um, the first and most known meaning is the one that is clearest to the senses. Okay.

[4:42] And then gradually you move to similar ratios that are less and less like the original one, right? Um. the word before like we talked about before, and that's equivocal by reason, I think, too, of a likeness of ratios.

[5:15] So he says that is called a beginning, whence one would first move over a thing, as on a line and road. Here is the beginning itself, but the opposite limit, the other, the end. Okay. So this is the beginning of the table here. That's the first meaning of beginning, right? And see, the point is the beginning of the line.

[5:44] Here you see how the word "beginning" is broader than cause, right? Because the point is the beginning of the line, but not the cause of the line. The beginning of the table, the beginning of the road, right? Okay.

[5:58] That's the first meaning of beginning. Now, as Thomas explains in the commentary, um, if I was to move down over the top of this table, right, the beginning starting from the beginning of the table, corresponding to the beginning of the table, with the beginning of my motion down the table, right? And that's a different sense of beginning, but it's attached to this first sense of beginning,

[6:32] and then. It takes me some time to go down the table, right? And the beginning of the time would correspond in a way to the beginning of the table. And each later part of the table would correspond to a later part of my going down the table, and the later part of the time it takes me to go down. Okay. So the central meaning here is the beginning of the table, right?

[7:01] But to the side are attached to other meanings that I've made explicit here, but that's where things fit in. Okay. Now the second sense of beginning, right? Suppose you're not the beginning of the road. So if I go to Boston and I take the road to Boston, do I take it from? Do I start from the beginning of the road? Go out to the Western Massachusetts and find the beginning of the road, and you know that would not be very convenient, right?

[7:35] So wherever my entrance is on the road, that's my beginning, right? It's very much like the first one here, but it's not now the beginning of the road, is it? See? And here it's more determined by where it's convenient for me to begin my my trip, right? So the beginning of the road is not to be the fundamental meaning here, but more beginning of my motion, right?

[7:56] Where it's convenient for me to begin my trip to Boston to begin my trip to Boston. Okay. Then whence each would come to be best? And Thomas gives here a beautiful comparison. I mean Aristotle does, just as in learning, right? Sometimes one should not begin from what is first in the beginning of the thing, but from where one could learn most easily. Okay. Now someone recalled to me hearing Monsignor Dion with another professor having a conversation about this, and the professor was thinking that the second meaning was the beginning in learning.

[8:39] Well, that's not the second meaning. That's not going to be down until the fifth meaning. Aristotle is giving a comparison here just to help you understand the second meaning. You know, Heisenberg says there in I guess the Gifford lectures, but when we study, we never began the beginning of things. Okay, so where it's convenient for us to start is not the beginning of things. We don't start with the first clause.

[9:06] Okay. We don't start with the proton. although proton means first, but it's not first in our knowledge, right? So that's just a comparison. Aristotle's making to learning, because the beginning of learning is something more hidden now and more remote from the senses. But here you're still fairly close to the senses because I know what it is to not go to the beginning of the road, but to get on the road where I live or next to where I live, right?

[9:31] That's where it's convenient, right? And that's the beginning of my journey. Do you see? Now the third meaning, huh, is very much like the first meanings,

[9:49] in that the beginning is in that of which it is a beginning, but it's not just a limit, like the edge of the desk, but it's the fundamental or first part of the thing. Then, whence first something comes to be existing within it, right, as the keel of the ship, or the foundation of a house. That's the beginning of a house. It's the fundamental or first part of the house, right?

[10:23] And of animals, he says, some people think it's the heart, some of the brain, okay, and yet others, whatever they hit upon, is being such, right? Okay, but it doesn't have to determine which is the fundamental part to see what the meaning is here, right? So he takes these examples from artificial things, the keel of the ship, as that's the main thing, and you build other things out of it, right?

[10:46] And maybe more known to us, the foundation of a house, right? They lay the foundation of the house, and then everything else is built on that. So that's the beginning of a house. You see how it's like in the sense this is the beginning of the table, except it's a what the fundamental part and not just the limit, huh? Yeah. Now in the fourth meaning, he's going to take a beginning that is not in the thing of which it is a beginning, like the carpenter is the beginning of a table, right?

[11:16] Yeah. Okay. Or the carpenter is the beginning of the house. Then, whence something first comes to be, not existing within it, and whence motion and change is first apt to begin, like the mover, the maker, right?

[11:35] As a child from the father and the mother, right? But the father and the mother are not the edge of the table. I mean the child. Nor are they the fundamental part of the child, right? The like the foundation of the house, right? Okay. You see how this fourth meaning is further removed from the original meanings, because you have a beginning that's not in that of which it is the beginning, huh?

[11:59] And the one by whose choice things moved are moved, huh? So Benedict is a beginning here in this sense, Benedict XVI, and President Bush is a beginning, right? And the general and so on, huh?

[12:16] That one by whose choice things moved are moved and things changed are changed, as the princes of cities, right? Now, the Greek word for beginning, of course, is arche, right? Of course, that's carried over to government eventually, monarchy ruled by one man, right? But you see something like that in the Latin, you know, where you might say the Latin word for beginning is principium. And then the prince is taking the same root there.

[12:46] He's the beginning too, but in a different sense, huh? Yeah. Or we used to call the you know the the the nun in charge of the school there, the principal with P A L, right? Okay. And of course they're always telling us the difference in P A L and P L E, because the principal spelled P A L is in the fourth sense here, beginning, but P L E is in this fifth sense.

[13:16] We'll see. But it's kind of the same root, basically. You can see it, huh? And arts are also called beginnings, huh? And among these, especially the chief arts, because they especially initiate or begin. things

[13:34] Now, just make a little side here to the axiom of beginning. Aristotle uses the axiom of beginning there in the first book of Natural. hearing. Nothing is a beginning of itself. Okay. Now, someone might say, you know, well, the foundation of the house is the beginning of the house, isn't it? And the foundation of the house is part of the house, so isn't it the beginning of itself?

[14:07] Well, if you realize the difference here between the third and the fourth sense, right? The distinction between the beginning and that which is the beginning is always found, but differently in different meanings, right? When I say that the there's always a distinction between the beginning and that which is the beginning, right? In the case of the foundation of the house and the house, it's not the distinction of two entirely different things, right?

[14:36] But the distinction between the part and the whole, right? Okay. So we don't say the the foundation of the house is the beginning of the foundation of the house, do we? No. See, we say the foundation of the house is the beginning of the house. Okay. And that is in some way not the same as the foundation of the house, because the whole is not the same as the part.

[14:59] And you're demanding that axiom to be understood only when the beginning is something entirely outside of it. Why, don't you realize that the word beginning is equivocal, and equivocal by reason it has different meaning, and the distinction between the beginning and that which is the beginning will be different, right? When the beginning, like in the first three senses, is in that which is the beginning, right? Because you could say that the point is the beginning of the line, right?

[15:27] But the point is in the line, so is it the beginning of itself? See. Well, the distinction between the beginning and that which is the beginning is different in these first three senses, especially in the third sense, and in the what fourth sense, right? Beginning in the fourth sense is very much entirely outside of that which is the beginning. The carpenter is not in the chair, hopefully, right?

[15:53] Okay. But notice this fourth sense is still closer to the senses than this fifth sense, huh? Then, whence a thing is first known, is also called the beginning of a thing. It's what underlies demonstrations. And so the Latin word principle is really the word beginning, right? But spelled p-l-e, it means the beginning in this sense here, huh? So the axioms are what? Common beginnings of all reasoned-out understanding, and every reasoned-out understanding has also private beginnings, which Euclid calls the postulates.

[16:36] There, right? Okay. This is the beginning that's more hidden. It's more in the mind. So when I was in college, you know, I was known as a pretty good philosopher. So this guy comes up to me and he says, "What do they mean by first principles?" Purposed? Well, they used to mean the first beginnings. Oh.

[16:57] But you know, there's a certain danger for us in learning our philosophy and other things from the Greeks, right, or from the Romans, that we sometimes take over the Greek or the Roman word in the later meanings of the word, right? And then we lose the connection and the order to the earlier meanings, and now we're out of order. You see, and that's what happens, right? So when we hear the word principle, p-l-e, we speak of the principles of sociology, principles of this, the principles of economics, and so on, right?

[17:31] We don't see the word beginning in there, do we? So either we have to go back to the Latin and say "our principle" was, you know, basically back to principium, the beginning, right? Or else you'd have to extend the English word, right, and say instead of principles of economics, the beginnings of economics, right? But it's a simple thing like that that gets the mind out of order, and as we say, you know, when a machine doesn't function properly or work well, we hang up a sign saying "out of order," right?

[18:04] Well, the modern mind you can hang up a sign saying "out of order," even the use of words, right? That's a very serious thing. You're not quite sure what these words mean that the people use, huh? And we use the word method, right, huh? Well, the original meaning of method there, hodas, road, is something very sensible, right? And the Greeks took the word road and then they spoke later on.

[18:33] of a road in the mind, right? Well, that's an equivocal use of the word road, but the road in the mind is in some way like the road you walk on, right? When I walk from here to there, I come to one thing before another, and one thing after another, and so on, and so there's something like a road in my mind, right? So you one thing you prove, and then you we saw the road today, right?

[18:58] The road of the whole wisdom to some extent, right? Okay, but that's not road in the original sense of the word road, but it's much clearer if you could carry over the original sense of the word road, or right? But people don't do that. They don't say, "oh, systematic," that's all crazy word that doesn't have any sensible origin, and so we don't know what we're talking about, huh?

[19:21] Most of the time, serious state to be in, huh? It's just a fundamental. Defect in our in our mental life. Now the sixth and last sense is where it's generalized, where any kind of cause can be called in some way beginning. And to see how this comes last, well, you could say even the end is a beginning in this sense.

[19:57] That sounds very crazy, doesn't it? That the end can be a beginning. Just like with the word, you know, back in the fourth book there, the word "being" there, where you apply the word "being" to substance first, and then to accidents, and then the coming to be of a substance or an accident. And it's kind of strange to say coming to be is is one way of being, right?

[20:23] Sounds like a contradiction at first, right? And then finally, we even speak of being, non-being, to be blind, right? Is that to be or not to be? That's the question, huh? To be ignorant, right? Is that to be or not to be? So even non-being, in some sense, the word is stretched to have some sense of being, right? So the word beginning here is stretched all the way, so that even the end is a beginning in a way, huh?

[20:58] Because you desire the end first, right? And then you try to find the means and so on. So the end is the beginning, and all practical things and so on. And hey, that's strange, right? You see how far you've moved, right? This is the beginning of the table. That's the end down there, right? But now the end, in some sense, is being said to be beginning. Any cause, in some sense, is a what?

[21:23] The beginning, yeah. But notice, not every beginning is a cause, right? Aristotle is kind of following the order from the general to particular. He takes up beginning, cause, and element. And Thomas often explains that he uses those three words. His commentary here, just like I say, you know, distinction, division, definition, right? Same order. Every definition involves a division, but not every division is a definition. And every division is a distinction, but not every distinction is a division.

[22:02] That's the way beginning, cause, and element order here. Now after he's given these six meanings, huh? You notice the the likeness here is one of ratios, huh?

[22:18] See, I go from here to there, right, with my body. That's the first meaning, right? Beginning here, so I begin and I go down there. And I begin with the premises, and I go to the conclusion. Right? It's a likeness, there, right? It's not the same thing, is it? But it's a certain likeness, huh?

[22:41] Wonder is the beginning of philosophy. Remember that? In the proemium, and Plato says it in the Theaetetus. Socrates says there's no other beginning of philosophy than wonder. What sense of beginning is wonder, the beginning of philosophy.

[23:03] Something, something first comes to be non-existing. Yeah, yeah. The beginning in the fourth sense, right? Philosophy is a kind of knowledge, reasoned-out knowledge, right? So wonder is not a part of that knowledge, is it? So it's not a beginning in the thing, right? Like those first three senses, and it's not going to be a beginning in the fifth sense, which is in the knowing, right? So the Axioms are, in that sense, beginnings of philosophy, right?

[23:34] And there are beginnings that are private to each form of reasoned-out knowledge. Those are beginnings in the sense here, right? So if I say wonder is the beginning of philosophy, it's a beginning in the fourth sense, right? If I say that the axioms of being and non-being are the beginning of philosophy, that's a beginning in the what? Fifth sense, right? Of course, the fourth sense comes before the fifth sense.

[24:01] That's partly why, partly why, you know, one is more apt to say that wonder is the beginning of philosophy than what the axioms, right, of being and non-being. But those are beginnings of philosophy in some sense too, right? Okay.

[24:22] And what about the knowledge of the road to follow in philosophy, or the knowledge of the roads to follow? Is that a beginning of philosophy? Yes. Yeah. Where would you place that?

[24:42] Second sense. Well, I mean, is it is that road there the? Third, third. More, more like the third sense, isn't it? Although it has some likeness to the to the fifth sense, right? Yeah. I mean, if I say wonder is the beginning of philosophy, that clearly belongs to the to the the fourth sense, right? If I say the axioms are the beginning of philosophy, or the private beginnings, you know, in science, that's more like the what?

[25:16] Fifth sense, yeah. When I say a knowledge of the road to follow. Well, it's a little bit of the fifth sense, you know, a little bit of that, right? But but it's a different kind of beginning in a sense, right? Um, than

[25:37] the axioms here, the postulates, right? So knowledge of the road to follow in geometry, that you go from the simple to the composed, from the equal to the unequal, and so on, right? That's a little different than the axioms and postulates, isn't it? Different kind of beginning. Considering the axioms and postulates seem to be more within, right? They're the premises of the syllogism, so much you, you know, get your geometry right.

[26:04] But in knowledge of the road to follow, in some way, is a beginning in our knowledge too, right? A little different thing, huh? A little different meaning, a beginning.

[26:19] Okay, so nothing is more necessary in philosophy than to begin well. But you can distinguish some of the senses of beginning here. In philosophy, now

[26:34] if a man doesn't wonder, he doesn't have one of the beginnings of philosophy, right? He thinks he doesn't know the axioms; he lacks another beginning. He doesn't know the road to follow; he lacks another beginning, right? Okay. Now he gets a common notion of the beginnings. It is common to all beginnings to be that first when something is or comes to be or is what known, right?

[27:08] That's kind of a common notion of beginning. Aristotle will use that common notion of beginning in later on in Book Five when he talks about the word before. Because beginning is kind of the source of before and after, right? Yeah.

[27:28] That's what I was wondering: if these senses of beginning are related in some way to the senses of before. Yeah, they are. Yeah, yeah. But but even here, when he defines it as that first when something is or comes to be or is known, first means before all the rest, right? So, in some sense, before and after comes first, right?

[27:50] But that's why I like to begin with the chapter in the categories because he distinguishes before and after by themselves, right? Without begin, right? In the fifth book of wisdom, he distinguishes the sense of before and after by this common notion. That leaves out the fourth sense, but it's better. Okay, that's kind of more remote.

[28:15] One thing: make a theological footnote here. When you get to the study of the Trinity, you find out that the Father is the beginning of the Son, but he's not before the Son. So Thomas what says that what Aristotle is saying here refers to the beginning in what creatures, right? The beginning in creatures is always of creatures is always first before, but the beginning in the Trinity is not before.

[28:46] That's a very subtle thing, right? And so, you know, the real idea of beginning then is the origin of something. But Aristotle, knowing nothing about the Trinity, sees this as being always first. That's a little, a little, very subtle thing you get into into the state

[29:06] of the Trinity. But we can excuse Aristotle for not knowing the beginnings in the Trinity, right? Okay. I suppose so. But when we say God is the beginning of creatures, then God is before creatures, right? Right.

[29:21] So this fits every beginning that Aristotle could know by natural reason, but doesn't fit the beginning he could have known by natural reason. So Thomas often quotes the the Athanasian Creed, you know, there is no before and after in God, and it's interesting when Thomas shows there is no before and after in the Trinity. He goes back to read the four senses in the categories and shows that in no sense is the Father before the Son, right?

[29:55] Not before him in time. Not before him in being, he can't be without the Son. The Son, you know, he's not before him in knowing because he, you know, relates together, and he's not before him in the sense of being, right? In no sense of before is he is he is he before him. Okay, so therefore, although he's the beginning, the origin of the Son, because the Son proceeds from him, he's not first, because first would imply that he's before.

[30:33] Okay, but some of these are within, like we saw in the in the first three meanings, right? And some outside, like in the fourth meaning, and so on. Whence nature is a beginning, right? And also element is a beginning, and understanding and choice are even beginnings, and even substance, huh? And last of all, but not least, that for the sake of which the end is even a beginning, right?

[31:02] Okay, for the good and the beautiful, he says, are often the beginning of knowledge and motion, right? So the beauty of of Juliet is the reason why Romeo beginning was climbing over the wall, right?

[31:19] So the good, the beautiful are often the beginning of knowledge and motion, Okay? beautiful the way he's wording them, right? So any question here about the word beginning?

[31:43] Good place to begin. Interesting. He begins with the word beginning. It's interesting that the first group of words are words pertaining to beginning and cause and so on, which he began from in the proemium right? The wisdom's about causes and about the first causes, alas, and then in the rest of Book One, he

[32:16] recalled what his predecessors had said about the causes and the reasons they gave for it and so on. To see if they had arrived at the first cause, so but you also at that time learned that there are four kinds of causes, or you get confirmation, so. We've kind of been introduced to the idea of causes and the senses of cause and so on, and so we're already into that.

[32:39] So he begins with those words, huh? So that's interesting what he does. Plato and Aristotle—they're often quoting the Greek proverb, you know, "Arche hemisu pantos." The beginning is half of all, and and Plato says, I think it's more than half.

[33:07] And so you could say that nothing is more necessary in fact. Philosophy then to what? Begin well. Begin well. yeah, Yeah. Deconic said, "You know, a man should read some good literature, and that means Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, before he's into philosophy, right?" But The idea is to say that the the wonder that that Homer gave the Greeks was a stepping stone to the wonder that is the beginning of what a philosophy.

[33:44] Well, the kind of fiction we read nowadays is just not going to lead anywhere. Down. Yes. It's usually kind of pornographic to some extent, you know. It's going to lead to immorality, but it's certainly not going to lead to philosophy. It's it's pretty hopeless. In our movies, are, you know more and more corrupt too, you know. So.

[34:12] We don't have the beginning, huh? We've got the end. Yes. Because Aristotle compares, you know, a mistake in the beginning to a guy who takes the wrong turn at the fork in the road. He's not very far from where he should be at the beginning, but the further you go, the further you are. So the famous statement that a little mistake in the beginning is a great one in the what end.

[34:45] With with astronomy, just just a material thing in astronomy. Yeah. You point your telescope to look at something. You might only move the lens fraction of an inch, but you might move about 400 light years out. Sure. You're looking. Sure. It's even worse with a gun, right? You move a little bit then, try to get over there, you're way off. That's a little mistake here in the beginning.

[35:08] So you have to be very careful about it. So it's the beginning. Okay. Now we come to what is perhaps the most difficult word of all, right? And nobody Aristotle could have figured out all these meanings of the word being, now, okay.

[35:40] And actually, in the text there, he takes up the word "one" before, which is in some ways easier than the word "being," now, and you get kind of prepared for this, right?

[35:55] And this distinction between being by happening and being by itself. This distinction, this kind of distinction between by happening and by itself, you meet this in many other places, even in the fifth book, when Aristotle takes up the causes, for example, right? He distinguishes between the cause as such or by itself and the cause by happening, right? So, if the cook is a violinist, right? Okay, we could say the violinist cooked my dinner.

[36:27] But was it as violinist that he did so? Was it through his knowledge of how to play the violin that he cooked me a delicious meal?

[36:38] No, he would be the cause of my dinner by happening, because the what cook happens to be a violinist. We can say that a violinist cooked my dinner, but it's not through being a violinist. It's not through itself or by itself, right? As such, that he did so, right? So you get used to that kind of distinction, right? It's as cook that he cooked the meal, right?

[37:03] Okay, but now if he you know entertains me by playing the violin after dinner, then the cook played the violin, but that again is what accidental to use the Latin word or by happening to use the English word, right? He's not the cause as such of the playing of the violin, huh? Okay, so Aristotle talks, you know, in the first part I mean, he takes up the word cause about accidental cause and various senses of accidental cause, huh?

[37:35] Okay, and so in this distinction, this kind of distinction is not something altogether new, but it's kind of hard to see with with being, huh? So he says this is called being by happening, and that kath' auto or per se or through itself or by itself or as such, right? Okay, by happening, as we say, the just is musical, and the man musical, and the musical man.

[38:10] Notice he compares it to what we saw here in the case of cause, huh? Speaking in the same way as a musician builds a house, because it happens to the householder to be musical, right? Or it happens to the musician to be a housebuilder.

[38:30] For this to be that signifies this happens to that, huh? Okay, so that's the most accidental, the most by happening, the first kind he gives. Likewise, in the fourth said, when we say that the man is musical and the musical man, or the white musical or this white, is because both happen to the same, or because one happens to what is. For the musical is said to be a man because musical happens to it.

[39:00] Thus, also, not white is said to be because that to which it happens is. Thus, what are said to be by happening are thus said either because both happen to the same existing thing, or because it belongs to that existing thing, or because it is itself that to which belongs what is said of it, huh? Okay, so if you say, let's take the most. Accidental, because you can see it better.

[39:28] You know, what's most accidental. You are looking at a Christian geometry over here. I am a Christian geometer. Okay, what kind of being is it to be a Christian geometer What is that? First I would say that's being by happening, right? Because to be a Christian is really one thing, and to be a geometer is another thing, right? And because to be a Christian happens to me, and to be a geometer happens to me, then you can say that you have a Christian geometer now, right?

[40:13] Was that really anything? It's hardly anything. It's not very much. Yeah. See, and as he'll point out when he when he takes up this kind of hardly being,

[40:29] he might say, "There is something by which I am a Christian, by baptism or by grace or something like this, huh? There is something which I am a geometer, huh? By the science or knowledge in my head, huh? But is there anything by which I am a Christian geometer?

[40:54] These two things happen. at the same thing. The happening, the coincidence. of those things. Yeah, But but there's no such thing as Christian geometry, and that's the only thing by which I can be a Christian geometer. right? So in a way, there is nothing by which I am a Christian geometer. So am I really a Christian geometer? Or am I simply a man who is a Christian and is also a geometer?

[41:19] To be a Christian, that's being as such, right? To be a geometer is being as such, but to be a Christian geometer see, as Aristotle will point out in the sixth book, there is a way by which I become a geometer. maybe by reading Euclid and studying under him, right? There is a way by which I become a Christian by baptism, right? Okay. Now I wasn't always a Christian geometer.

[41:54] I wasn't born a Christian geometer. And is there, some way by which you become a Christian geometer There's a way but you become a Christian right There's a way by which you become a geometer. but is there a way by which you become a Christian geometer Not as such. You become those two things but you don't become that one. So if I wasn't always a Christian geometer, and there is no way to become one, am I really a Christian geometer?

[42:22] You see. And yet, in some sense, we say that such things are right. See, This is a very weak sense of being, though, isn't it? So, but if you know the Christian Academy wants me to hire a Christian geometer, I suppose I can find one out there. I'm one myself. You see what I mean? An affirmative action, you know, going after this kind is based on this kind of being, right?

[42:47] Yes, sir. Do you see the idea? Yeah. So Aristotle is taking into account even that kind of being, right? But as you'll see in the sixth book, he'll say that we don't have to talk too much about this kind of being, because it hardly is, right? Okay. Okay. Now, what about the lesser sense of accidental, but still accidental? What about a geometrical man? I mean, geometrical man, right?

[43:22] And that's not because these two things happen to a third thing, like in the case of the Christian geometer, but because one happens to the other. Right. So geometry to be a geometry happens to a man. But do they come together and form one thing, geometry and a man?

[43:45] That's one kind of man, a geometrical man. No, but in some sense there are geometrical men around, right? There are scientific men, right? There are artistic men, right? There are logical men. I'm a logical man, somewhat.

[44:03] Or the reverse of that, we say, are there human geometers around? Who do you think? But there, there, the adjective is the subject, right, of the other one, right? Well, you do have people with the aptitude, but yeah.

[44:23] So this is what three kinds of of being by happening, right, accidental being we call it. And you'll see in book six he's going to recall this sense of being, but give reasons for not talking too much about it. But yet you'll say something about this, okay? Because he's complete universality, right?

[44:54] And of course the the historian like to talk about this kind of being, huh? That can influence your life, right? So if they want to hire a black logician, right, We gotta. Or the old days, you know, they've got to hire a black, and they've got to hire a woman. So find a black woman, and you can kill two birds with one stone. So the black woman might be hired, and this could be important, you know, being hired for your job in her life, right?

[45:22] So if I'm writing the the the biography this black woman, I got to take into account this kind of of being, right? Isn't it? Styles Bridges, there, huh? Senator from New Hampshire in the old days became the Republican leader, I think. But they see was being considered, you know, for the vice presidency one time, and but the Republican candidate was for presidency was Landon. He says we can't nominate him because the Democrats put the two names together, Landon Bridges.

[46:01] Everybody knows the song "Landon Bridges" falling down, falling down. So they they said he wasn't he wasn't you know made vice presidential candidate because Landon was the presidential candidate, right? Well, that's wholly accidental, isn't it? But it means you're not going to be the vice presidential candidate, maybe not the vice president, right? So if I'm writing a biography of Styles Bridges, you know, I'm going to have to take into account what happened to the poor guy because you know that's that's.

[46:32] Historian, right? Interested in the singular, huh, the individual, huh? But philosophy's not going to have much interest in this kind of being, huh? Now, under being by itself, he's going to distinguish three different groups of meanings, huh? And the first group of meanings, we're going to get some help from logic, right? Okay. By itself, are said to be whatever signify the figures of predication. Now, I was talking about that in the break here, I think the figures of predication are sometimes in the Latin.

[47:18] I translate the modi predicandi, but when you distinguish the figures of predication, you distinguish them by the way something can be said of individual substances, huh? And the Greek word "category" there means, you know, predication, said of. So some things can be said of individual substances like you and me. An individual substance is a thing that exists, not in some other subject, right? It's not said of some other subject.

[47:50] So you or me or Gene Autry's horse Champion or the dog Lassie that was so famous in the movies, right? These are examples of individual substances, right? And some things can be said of them by reason of what they are, like you and I are a man, or Lassie is a dog, or Champion is a horse.

[48:10] I saw Champion as a child. huh? Gene Autry came to our town, and of course Champion got Champion at the end, and Champion sidestepped all around the whole auditorium, and you know he doffed his hat, you know, so we're all cheering and so on. But beautiful horse, magnificent horse, absolutely beautiful. Um, but some things are said of you and me and Champion not by reason of what we are, but by reason of something what in us that is not what we are.

[48:40] So Champion was beautiful, right? Champion was healthy, right? Maybe Champion was what father or son, right? Okay. So things are said of us by reason of something in us, and Thomas distinguishes those eventually into how much and how and towards what, right? And then some things are said of us by reason of something outside of us, huh? Like I am said to be clothed, right? I am said to be sitting, right?

[49:11] I am said to be in this room, and so on, right? As you go from substance along, you get less and less being, right? So to be a man,

[49:24] to be healthy, to be five foot ten, to be a father. To be a son, or my to be a geometer is not as full being as my being a man, right? But my being a geometer is more than my being in this room. Or my being clothed, right? Because these are being said of me by reason of something outside of me, right? So Aristotle distinguished a number of senses of being, but according to the figures of predication.

[50:05] Of course, the fundamental one, as we saw in Book Four, was substance, right? Okay. So this is going to be a very important division of being, right? By itself, is said to be whatever signifies the figures of predication. For in as many ways being is said, in so many ways it signifies. So as Thomas will say in the commentary, the ways of being said of correspond in a way to the ways of being, right?

[50:36] Okay. So my being a man, my being a geometer is a different way of being, right? But to be a man, or man is said of me in a different way than geometry is said of me. Man is said of me by reason of what I am, and geometry by reason of how I am, right? Okay. And father is said of me in another way, right? By reason of what I am towards another, right?

[51:05] Okay. And this shows the likeness here between logic and wisdom, okay. And of course, Thomas will often point that out in various contexts as a likeness of logic to geometry to wisdom, partly in terms of its universality, partly in terms of its immateriality. And this is a very important help you get from logic. Since then, some predicates signify what it is, and that's in the genus of substance, right?

[51:37] Somehow, and that's the genus of quality, right? Somehow, much like quantity, right? Some towards something, right? Some to act upon or to undergo, right? Some where, some when. For each of these, being signifies the same. Okay.

[52:02] It shows, you know, that grammatically speaking, when you what have a noun and a verb, you can always resolve the verb into the verb to be and something else, right? So you can say, "Man gets well," and "Man is getting well," right? Or "Man walks," or "Man is walking," right? Okay.

[52:27] So that's one group, you might say, of meanings of the word "being," right? And they're distinguished according to the figures of predication, and the fundamental one is what is said of you. Be reasonable. What you are, substance, right? But then there are other ones that are somewhat lesser, right?

[52:49] And later on, in Book Five, there's a chapter on substance, and a chapter on quantity, and a chapter on quality, and a chapter on towards something. He doesn't bother with the last six, right? Because that's you know being present something outside of you, right? Okay.

[53:07] But yet, that some sense real though, isn't it? Though for me to be in this room, isn't that real? I really am in this room, right?

[53:17] The guy's in prison, right? He's very much aware of the fact that there's something real about to be in a prison cell, right? It's not just it's not simply unreal, is it okay. It's not as real as to be a man or to be wise or, to be wicked, or whatever it is. But it is, you know, to be in the 20th century or the 21st century. I'm

[53:48] not in the 16th century, or the 13th century. You might want to be, but I'm saying that. Okay. Now the next meanings of being that Aristotle gives here

[54:09] are in terms of something kind of strange, and in a way it corresponds to the last thing in Book Four, but it goes all the way back to the problem that Plato raised there in the dialogue, the Sophist.

[54:43] How can you talk about falsehood? And the Greeks would say to say what is false to say what is not. Well, that doesn't say anything. It's what is not is nothing.

[54:58] Can you say nothing? Or what does it mean to be blind? Can someone truly be said to be blind? I think you can say that. There are miracles there where our Lord cures somebody of being blind, right? So, I'm just going to deny a miracle. You've got to say that he was truly blind, right? What kind of being is that to be blind? Well, you're finally affirming something primitive of him, so you're finding more.

[55:35] It's more of a denial of a reality than an affirmation. Yeah, yeah. We really being blind is not being something, right? Yeah. To be ignorant, huh? As a professor I'm not aware of the fact that? The students are ignorant, right? But is that to be?

[55:59] Fine. It's it's the same. It's something primitive, I'm sure. It's more affirming something. Because it seems, in reality, outside my mind, being ignorant is really not being. It's not knowing, right? So how can non-being be being? But yet it's true to say that this student is ignorant.

[56:30] It's true to say this man is blind, right? So this is what Aristotle says. Further, being and it is signified that is true. None being that is not true, but false.

[56:45] See. So this includes what we call sometimes beings of reason. Okay. The ancient Greek said, "You can't get something from nothing." Would you agree? King Lear says that, right? Nothing will get you nothing. He says to Cordelia, and Julie Andrews singing and nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever did, right? So,

[57:25] but what does the word "nothing" mean there? Does it mean anything? Let's talk about nothing, shall we? No, no. Teaching the Seri is a joke, and you can get paid for talking about nothing, philosophy.

[57:47] But obviously, you distinguish when you're saying you can't get something from nothing. Yeah, philosophy. Yeah. But when the philosophers say you can't get something from nothing, they must have meant something by something and something by nothing too, right? Right. How can nothing mean something?

[58:09] Yes means no. See. So when you talk about nothing, you're talking about something or not, or not you're not talking about anything. Well, this is a problem that Plato has in the Sophist, in the dialogue called Sophist. Um, you know, how can you talk about nothing? And yet we can say that nothing is is nothing, right? It's true, right? True or false? Nothing is nothing. See, and Parmenides says nothing is more true than you say something of itself, right?

[58:47] So nothing is nothing. In some sense, nothing is. It is nothing, right? How can nothing be? Any sense? See, that's a strange sense too, right? Very.

[59:01] Well, finally, it comes down doesn't it to what you said a minute ago about it's a being of reason. We're considering nothing as something. Yeah, yeah. Intellectually, we're giving it a reality, which it doesn't have an in-reality. And we're kind of, you know, I could say that I'm healthy by my health, right? By the health of my body, that I'm called healthy, and he's called blind by the blindness in him, right?

[59:27] But blindness is not really like health. It's not really a form, something that you have, right? You don't have something when you are blind, right?

[59:39] So, how can what you don't have be said to be to be had? Right? It's kind of strange. So this this is kind of a being a reason. Now, most beings a reason are negations of some sort or lacks. They're kind of non-being, right? But in reason, they have a kind of being. Okay.

[1:00:11] So when the mind thinks about nothing, it's thinking about something, right? But something only in reason, not something outside the reason, right? Outside the reason, nothing is is nothing, right? Right. But nothing is something to think about, right? I remember as a little child that I used to think, you know, what would it be like if there was nothing? Nothing. Nothing worse, you know, just nothing. You know, it's kind of you know, the imagination is doing.

[1:00:45] You think about nothing, you used to wonder about nothing. It's just strange, you know. There is nothing. No God. None of us. Nothing. You know, absolutely nothing. You say, is I thinking about something or not?

[1:00:59] Reason can do that, right? Take the statement Socrates is Socrates, right? Socrates appears twice in that statement, and then the statement Socrates is Socrates is the statement Socrates is Socrates.

[1:01:25] And that whole statement is itself, right? So I can get as many Socrates as I want, but I am multiplying Socrates in my mind, right? And so these are beings a reason. In reality, there is only one Socrates, huh?

[1:01:46] So this this is how De Koninck refuted Bertrand Russell, right? Because Bertrand Russell is saying the part is equal to the whole, and he says, you know, I can take all the numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and put an even even number against opposite. You know, one, two, two, four, three, six, four, eight, five, ten. You can always have an even number corresponding to any number.

[1:02:08] Oh. Therefore, therefore, the even numbers equal all numbers. Therefore, the part equals the whole. But Deconic says I can do much simpler. I can say one, two, two, two, three, two, four, two, five, two, six, two. Right? You are multiplying what? The beings of reason there, just like I can put Socrates, right? I can say Socrates as much as as all men, right? I can say, "Rip was Socrates, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Socrates, Benedict XVI, Socrates."

[1:02:43] You know, I can have many Socrates as there are men in the world, right? So Socrates is as many as rest of us. That's what you're taking these beings of reason, right? So I mean, he's he's confusing real being there, right, with the beings of reason, huh? And you have as many Socrates as you want in your, huh? Because the mind is built to reflect upon itself.

[1:03:08] I know, and I know that I know, and I know that I know, and I know that I know that I know that I know, so I can go on forever, right? So, But Aristotle, notice the comprehension of Aristotle's mind, right? He takes into account every sense of being, because this is a strange sense of being, right? But people are said to be blind, right? So people are said to be ignorant, right?

[1:03:29] Hm In fact, we wouldn't say that somebody's. dead, right? What is it to be dead? Is that is that some kind of being? No, no. We to to to be dead is not to be, right? Right. But we still say to be dead. He's dead permanently. Yeah, the the hospital where he died, he's pronounced dead. You know, to be dead. He's dead. He's dead. Yeah. But is that to be?

[1:03:54] In some sense, it is. It's true that he's dead, right? It's not been. Right. Because there's a you know a lot of people who haven't been born yet, but they're not dead. No, no, no, no. So it's true to say John Paul II is dead, right? But is that to be? Minimal. Huh? Minimal. But to be in this sense here, right? What sense is to be, right?

[1:04:19] Aristotle is distinguishing the sense of being from that according to the figures of predication, right? To be a man, right? Is to be in the first according to the first figure of predication, right? To be a geometer, right? In in in how, right? To be five foot ten, to be a father, right? And so on. But to be dead, that's to be in this sense here. It's true, but that's not to be in reality, right?

[1:04:50] Outside the mind, right? You know, so it's very subtle. We've got to stop here, I guess, when we're over here. But one more class before I go to California. I'm going out to California. to TAC for five weeks. So. So next week you'll be. here? I'll be here. Yeah, I'm going. I'm going away next a week from the Saturday, on the 21st, you know? Okay. I start teaching out there on the twenty third, so.

[1:05:11] on the 21st, so. Maybe we'll, uh...