Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
32. Metaphysics V, Reading 17: The Senses of Being – Being by Happening, the Ten Categories, Being as True, and Act and Ability
Class of 2005-05-19
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/032-metaphysics-v-reading-17-the-senses-of-being-being-by-happening/

[0:01] In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, Order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand what you've written.

[0:23] Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So we're in the ninth reading here, which is the most central reading on the names of the subject of wisdom. The main name there is the word "being," because wisdom is about being as such. Being as being,

[0:48] what Aristotle does here is to begin giving a distinction into two accidental being or being by happening, and then three groups, you might say, of meanings of being as such, being per se,

[1:13] and the accidental being, it being by happening, he distinguished three kinds of that, but perhaps it's easiest to see with the most accidental, right? When two things happen to a third thing, like it happens to me, I happen to be a Christian and I happen to be a geometer, right? So then you can say that there is now a Christian geometer in this room, but

[1:46] this is what we would call being by happening, because really what makes me a Christian and what makes me a geometer are quite different, and they don't really come together to make one thing, do they? Is that really anything a Christian geometer? To be a Christian is something, right? To be a geometer is something, right? And both of those would be under being as such or being per se, kata to per se.

[2:17] But to be a Christian geometer is no such thing really. We do speak of there being a Christian geometer because why? Because to be a Christian and to be a what geometer, happens to the same what subject? Or I am a white geometer, okay? But my color white and my the art of or science of geometry in me, they don't come together, right? My science of geometry is not painted white or anything like that.

[2:55] You see, and so there's nothing by which one could be a white geometer. Nothing by which one could be a Christian geometer. unless there was a white geometer. unless there was a Christian what Geometer, right?

[3:16] Aristotle, as we'll see in the sixth book of Wisdom, is not going to spend too much time in being by happening. But one interesting thing that Thomas points out is that in God, God is altogether simple, and yet He's universally perfect. He's lacking in nothing, as we'll see when Aristotle touches upon that in the chapter on perfect. But it's all what in a simple way. So God's substance is also His knowledge and His justice and His love.

[3:54] Right? There's no distinction of these. A thought was kind of anticipated by the philosopher Greek philosopher Xenophanes who says the whole of God sees, the whole of God hears. Okay, it's not like His ability to love is one thing, and His ability to understand is another. Like they are in me, not exactly the same thing, right? Um,

[4:25] but you and I, we don't have our whole perfection in our substance. If you take away from me my being a geometer and my being just and my being Christian and my being many other things, I'd be extremely imperfect, right, and incomplete. So all these things that are added to me, right, make me a more complete man. But it's accidental what being, huh? Okay, this is the condition of the what creature that he has his perfection in actually many things, huh?

[5:07] Many things have to happen to me. I had to learn geometry. I had to be baptized. I had to be brought up to be just by my parents and so on before I got a little more perfection than I had just by reason of the fact that I'm a human being.

[5:23] But when you go back to God, all these things are something what one. And the reason why we have many thoughts about God is because we start from creatures, where these things are really many, many thoughts corresponding to them. But although we say God is just and God is love and God is wisdom and so on, these aren't different things in God. But the one substance of God is all of these.

[5:54] But let's leave God aside for the time being. But we can see that accidental being is important for the perfection of. The creature. God doesn't have anything like that, though. Nothing happens to God. Okay.

[6:13] I just happened to be reading chapter nineteen, you know, where the young man I guess he is comes up to Christ and what must I do? And he calls him good Master and so on. Christ says, "Why do you call me good? One alone is good, right? " But in the Greek, it's you know, with an article, right? Ho Agathos, right? The good one, right? It's like being said by what?

[6:36] antonomasia. Just like when Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," you have the article there. I am the life, okay? Just as Aristotle calls Homer the poet, or in the Federalist Papers they quote Shakespeare, but they call him the poet, right? As the poet says, you ought to know that. You've heard the story of how Alcibiades, you know, was talking about Homer, and he happened to be next to a school, so he wanted to get a copy of Homer, and the teacher didn't have a copy of Homer, so he just knocked the teacher right to the ground.

[7:19] Now, if I had that, yeah, you know, going, "I see a copy of Shakespeare," and I say to the high school teacher, "Well, I don't have a copy of Shakespeare." Whack! Down he goes. But that's that's what we call antonomasia. That's the name of that figure of speech, huh? We've talked about that. How important that figure of speech is for the Bible, right? The word Bible, the word Gospel, the word Christ—they're all said by Antonomasia.

[7:44] and now he's said to be what the good one, huh? Ho Agathos. But your goodness or my goodness requires that anything happen to us, right? Okay. And so, faith, hope, and charity, for example, these are three different things in us, and they happen to us, huh?

[8:10] Okay, so don't you know? Don't have too much contempt for accidental being, huh? That's the way you got to get whatever perfection you have as a human being, huh? By this, huh? What

[8:29] they used to say in the catechism, you know, why did God make me to know Him and to love Him and to serve Him, right? And to be happy with him forever in the next world. But to know God is one thing; to love God is another thing, right? And you should have both of those perfections in you. But these are things now happening to me.

[8:52] Now that was in the first big paragraph after the opening line. The opening line is proposing that distinction between being by happening and being by itself, right? kata symbebekos kata to, and then the first big paragraph there is subdividing being by happening. Now the last three paragraphs are dealing with three, you might say, groups of meanings of the word being, but they all come under being by itself.

[9:24] And the first group of meanings we are led into mainly by what logic, right? As Thomas explains in the commentary, the ways of being said of are proportional to the ways of being. So some things are said of me by reason of what I am, and some things like I am a man or I am an animal, I am a substance, most generally, right? Other things are said of me not by reason of what I am, but by.

[10:00] reason of something in me in addition to what I am, like I'm five foot ten. That's how much of me there is. Okay, that's how big I am. How tall I am. Other things are said of me as regards how I am. Right, I'm healthy. Um,

[10:19] or I'm white. Okay. Ah, and some things are said of me towards another, like I'm a grandfather, or I'm a teacher. Right. Okay. And some things are said of me by reason of something outside of me, like I am clothed. Right. I am in this room, and so on. So, there's a different kind of being, a different kind of thing, you might say. corresponding to each of these different ways, in, which something is said, and to some extent, the man in the street realizes that what a thing is is not the same thing as its size.

[11:02] When we say somebody was in your knee high to a grasshopper, you see, if you really grew up, right, you're a human being, but your size was what changing, right? Huh? And your qualities are changing, right? Huh? Okay. And your relations are changing, and so on. These are different kinds of things, huh? And probably this distinction of being, according to the figures of predication, according to the ten genera that we first meet in our studies in the first book in logic that's come down to us from the father of logic, Aristotle, the Categories.

[11:44] This could be said more than the other division of being to be division of the kinds of being or the kinds of what things there are. Okay. The substance of a thing, what it is, is a different kind of thing than its size, and the disposition and the habits of the thing is another kind of thing, and the relations of the thing, what it is towards another, is another kind of thing, huh?

[12:08] And so on. Um. Now, the second kind of being, as such, he says, it's a kind of being you have when you say a statement is what true, right? Huh? And then none being would mean false. Okay. And that's what we say in life, huh? You know, you say something, and I say that isn't so. Okay. And even if you made an affirmative statement, right? You say Purpose is standing now.

[12:46] I say that isn't so, but it is not. What does that mean? It's false, right? Okay. Purpose is sitting. It is so, right? It's true. Okay. Now, this

[13:02] kind of being could be said to be. In some ways, more inclusive than being according to figures of predication, because we can bring in those beings according to the figure predication. You can say, "I am a man. I am five foot ten. I am a geometer. I am a father, and so on."

[13:29] Because the mind can think about all those things, right? So, my humanity and my geometry and so on are not only real things in reality, but they can also have being in my mind. Okay, but in addition to that, there are some things that have being only in the mind, and outside the mind, they're nothing or they're none being.

[14:02] And we took the example last time of to be blind, right? We use the word to be, don't we, right? But to be blind is that really to be, or is it not to be, or to be dead, right? Is that to be? When Hamlet comes out on the stage in the famous soliloquy there in the play, and he says, "To be or not to be," He's thinking it was going to end it all right.

[14:32] Life is pretty bad, right? And so he's thinking of death as not to be, right? Okay, but the mind says you can be dead, and he's the word to be there. And it's true to say that John Paul II is dead, right? Or someone else is dead, right? It's true. So some things have being in the mind

[15:09] and outside the mind, but in addition, some things have being only in the mind and not what outside the mind. So in some sense, this is more what universal. The second division of being, huh?

[15:30] But notice if you're interested in the being that is in things outside the mind, the division of being according to figures of predication is really what you're interested in, huh? The fact that man and the size of a man and the knowledge of a man can have being in his reason too is kind of secondary.

[15:55] But they can also things that have no being outside the mind can have being in the mind. Now, if you look at Plato's dialogue there, the He says the sophist and so on, and where he was talking about a man who's mistaken or saying false, and the Greeks would say he's saying what is not. And you find that phrase sometimes in Shakespeare, right? I mentioned, I think, that Anthony and Cleopatra, the steward is being asked, "Is Cleopatra given up all her possessions?"

[16:30] Well, like a woman, she's hid some of her jewels from Octavius Caesar, the winning winner of the battle. And the steward's not going to lie to protect Cleopatra now because he knows where his toast is butter now, right?

[16:49] He's not going to say what is not. okay, He's not going to say that Cleopatra when he's asked, you know, by Octavius Caesar, He's not going to say Cleopatra is turning everything over to him. He's just giving up everything because he knows that is what is not. So they had that same phrase, right? Well, then Plato or Socrates raises the problem: how can you say or think what is not?

[17:12] That isn't saying or thinking at all, is it? Now you could, you know, change it a little bit and say, "Can you think of nothing? " Is that not thinking at all?

[17:35] Of course, and I was quoting what was a common opinion of all the Greek philosophers before Aristotle. You can't get something from nothing. It's kind of a common thought that men have, huh? Nothing gets you nothing, and so they must mean something by something, and they must mean something by nothing, right? But now that sounds like a contradiction, right? How can nothing mean something? How can nothing be something to talk about?

[18:03] And I was telling you about the joke there. My old undergraduate teacher, at Kassarik, said, "You know, philosophy is the only subject where you get paid for talking about nothing. " What are we doing right now? Talking about nothing, yeah.

[18:18] And I was telling you how as a little boy I used to wonder, you know, what if there was nothing? I don't know how I got thinking about that, but can't you think about nothing? Hmm? Can't you? See? So when you think about nothing? Are you thinking about something or not? Or you're not thinking about anything. Because you're not thinking about anything, you're not thinking, right?

[18:43] If you're thinking about something, when you think about nothing, well, then aren't you saying nothing is something. Well, nothing is something in the what mind, right? Okay, and so I can say that nothing is nothing, right? What is nothing? Well, it's nothing, right? And is that true or false? It's true, right? So it has this being of reason, huh? It's a rather strange thing, huh? But it is a being of reason now.

[19:19] So there are some beings of reason, like nothing or blindness, right? They're not being in things at all, right? There's nothing out there corresponding to nothing, is there? Is there? See, might seem to be something more corresponding to blindness, but really that's a non-being too. It's got a subject there, in, which it is, right? An animal or a man that that by nature should have sight, right?

[19:51] But doesn't, huh? But it's really a non-being a not having? huh? Can you have blindness. You have not? to have something, See but we speak as if you know we could have blindness, like we could have health, or have knowledge, or have love, or something else, right?

[20:15] So, in some sense, this second sense of of being kath' hauto, being as such, being by itself, through itself, in some senses, in some ways, it's more universal than the division of being according to figures of predication. Yeah.

[20:37] Now, the third distinction, you might say, of a group of group of meanings, and that's the last paragraph from this page, is between being by ability and being by what? An act, huh? distinction of being and act and ability, right?

[21:05] And to some extent, this is the most universal of all because it is going to include both. It could be used as a division of being according to figures of predication because there's something that is able to be a man, right? But it's not actually a man yet, and then there's something that is actually now a man, right? And there's something that's able to be a geometer, and there's something that's actually a geometer, right?

[21:38] And I was able to be five foot ten, and now maybe I'm actually five foot ten. I haven't shrunk. Let's say he shrinks as he gets older. Okay.

[21:51] Or I was able to be a grandfather, right? And now I'm actually a grandfather. Okay. And you see the same thing about being in the mind, right? It's able to be there, and then it's actually there, right? So, in some sense, this last division is the most universal. And later on, you know, when we study act and ability in the ninth book, and we find out that act is simply speaking before ability, we're on our way to seeing the first cause as pure act.

[22:32] So, to some extent, this can be extended even to God. I'm speaking about God. So it's kind of interesting how, if you look at these three divisions in the last two paragraphs, Aristotle, in a way, is ascending from the less universal to the what more universal, and that's kind of appropriate to wisdom. I think we've talked before a bit about this, but we'll come back to it when we get to the sixth book.

[23:03] But it's mentioned here now in passing. When Aristotle talks about the order of determination, they call it sometimes in Latin, the order of consideration in natural philosophy, and then we look at the order of consideration, say in geometry, and then the order of consideration of wisdom. You have three different orders, right? And there's perhaps at least two things that can be said regard to each of the orders.

[23:34] Well, if you may recall in the very first reading of Natural Philosophy, the very beginning of the eight books of Natural Hearing, Aristotle shows that we should consider the general before the particular.

[23:56] And so Aristotle, in the eight books of Natural Hearing, he talks about natural things in general. He talks about change in general, and then in the later books he descends to change of place, to change of quality, to growth, and so on. So he goes from the general to the particular. But the other thing he does is to go towards matter. Okay, so as he goes from the eight books of Natural Hearing to the four books of the Universe, to the books of Generation and Corruption, he's going towards matter.

[24:35] And then he does this again in the state of living things, Because he goes from the soul towards the body, right? And the further he goes on, as Thomas explains in the order of the books in the beginning of the book on Sense and Sensible, the more he goes into matter. So this is what characterizes the order of natural philosophy.

[25:00] Now we don't mean that it always does or always goes in that order, right? Or that natural philosophy only is the only one that does these. But most of all, it does proceeding towards. matter. Now you go to a mathematical science, and let's take geometry. Well, there the order is different. There you go from the simple to the composed. You see that even the definition, the first thing he defines is the point, and then the line, and then the angle, then the figure, and so on.

[25:35] So, but generally, you can see geometry goes from what is called plain geometry to what solid geometry, from the simple to the composed. So you go from the circle to the sphere, or from the cube, I mean the square, to the cube, right? That's not general particular, is it? The cube is not a kind of square, is it? The sphere is not a kind of circle, but you are going from the simple to the composed.

[26:07] Now, the other thing that geometry does, and this again for the most part, it takes up the equal before the what, unequal. If you look at the definitions and the axioms and so on that Euclid gives, he gives the equal before the unequal. If quantities equal to the same to each other. If equals that subtracted or equals these ultimate equals on, and then the whole is more than the part.

[26:36] He goes from the axioms of equality to the axiom of inequality. So the equal before the unequal. When he defines the species of triangle, you define the equilateral triangle first, then the isosceles, and then the scalene. He defines the particular kinds of quadrilateral, the square first, and the trapezium last, right?

[27:05] You see that in the beautiful theorems, you know, the first book of Euclid ends up with the Pythagorean theorem and the converse of it, and that's a theorem of equality, right? That the square on the side opposite the right angle is exactly equal to the squares of the sides contained. But then, at the end of the second book of the Elements, he shows that in an obtuse angle triangle, the square on the side opposite the obtuse angle is greater than the ones on the sides contained.

[27:41] And then, in the acute angle triangle, the square on the side opposite the acute angle is less than. So he goes from the equal theorems to the unequal theorems, and if you look at the proofs of twelve and thirteen in Book Two, he uses the Pythagorean theorem to prove both of them. So he not only considers the equal before the unequal, but he proves the what? Unequal one the equal Yeah, To the equal theorem.

[28:08] And notice in the mathematical sciences of modern times, the fundamental thing is the equation, right? It's a name for equality, right? And he talks about unequal things sometimes, but to equations, everything goes back to the equal, huh? Now, this is not characteristic of of wisdom or of natural philosophy, right? Like, for example, water is more known to us than hydrogen, right? And hydrogen is more known to us than proton.

[28:44] But the proton is simpler than hydrogen, and hydrogen is simpler than water, right? So we don't go from simple to composed, do we If anything, we're the reverse. And in wisdom, wisdom is all aimed ultimately to know the first cause, and the first cause is God. And God is the what simplest. So you're going from the creatures who are composed towards God, and so it's just the reverse of this, I don't know if anything.

[29:11] Okay, Like St. Teresa of Avila says, God is altogether simple. The closer you get to God, she says, the simpler you get. Like the martyrs they said. Now, how does wisdom proceed?

[29:32] Well, as you'll see in the State of Wisdom, perhaps the most basic thing you can say is that it's going towards the immaterial. Okay, so we start off with material beings that are known to us, right? And we work our way towards these immaterial beings. You can see that even the dialectic of Book Three, Aristotle takes it for granted that matter is a cause, right? But then the question is, there's some cause besides? Matter, and if it is, is it only in matter, or is there, you know?

[30:04] Now there there are purely material substances, but now there are also these immaterial substances, right? So as you go in wisdom, you're going towards the immaterial.

[30:22] Towards the separate, towards the immaterial, and so we call them the separate substances. But notice, just the reverse. And to some extent, in act in wisdom, we go from the less universal towards more universal. Now we're going to see this very clearly in the book that emphasizes being,

[30:52] the book entitled the ninth book of it, the book which is about act and ability, right? You'll see in that book that in the first part he talks about act and ability as they are found in motion, right, in reference to motion. And then in the second part he goes to complete the universal consideration of act and ability. It's beautiful the way he does this. But he's ascending from something less universal to something what more universal.

[31:24] And you'll see when Aristotle studies substance, he begins to material substance, right? Then he's trying to get an understanding of substance that is applicable even to the immaterial things. He's going from a less universal to a more universal consideration. In a way, you see how these two go together. Because the more universal something is, the more it is apt to be able to be said of immaterial things as well as what material things, huh?

[32:00] So as you're trying to know immaterial things, and to know them in part by what can be said of them, right? You want to move towards something very what universal.

[32:18] Like we say about God, God is one, right? Very fundamental there, huh? In the Bible, even that God is one, but one is a very universal thing, and can in some sense be said of all things in some way, right? Although it's equivocal by reason, right? But it's very universal, right? So you're going to move towards the more universal. Now I mentioned that, which you'll see better when you get to book nine, was kind of interesting in these three meanings or these three groups of meanings of the word being, being as such or being by itself, kath' auto in Greek, per se in Latin.

[32:58] He's in a way going from the less universal towards the more universal. Because the second division, there being in reason, in a way includes all those beings according to figure predication, because they can be in our reason too. I can think about substance or quantity or quality relations, so on. But I can also think about nothing. I can also think about blindness, right? I can also think about ignorance.

[33:28] Although ignorance is really not being, but the non-being of knowledge, right? Okay, but I find this all around my students, you know, the ignorance, and myself too. Okay.

[33:40] And Socrates is always saying that, right? He knew that he did not know, right? Huh? He knew his own ignorance, and the other Greeks apparently didn't, right? Okay. Well, you know your own ignorance. Are you knowing something?

[33:56] Is that something ignorance, or is that the lack of something? Well, if you're talking about real being, being in things, it's not being at all. It's it's an unbeing of something, right? But ignorance is ignorance. There's a lot of ignorance around. You know, the reason, huh? And talk about ignorance, right? Ignorance is not knowledge. What is it? It's ignorance. Okay.

[34:32] And then the division of being according to act and ability can be said both the real being, right? So I can be able to be a geometry if I'm actually geometer, right? I can be able to be five foot ten if I'm actually five foot ten. Something is able to be a man, right? When I sit down to dinner, there's something in my food that's able to be human flesh and blood and bone or something, right?

[34:56] That's not actually that yet, right? In the book about the soul, Aristotle says it's food like the fed or not. Well, he says in the beginning it's not like the fed, but eventually it's like the fed, right? After it's been digested and so on, huh? Okay. So there's an elementary truth in saying you're fed by what's unlike you, and also elementary truth in saying you're fed by what is like you.

[35:25] Okay. So he's kind of descending here to the more universal. Okay. Now, perhaps there's another reason for the order here too, besides this going from the less universal to more universal, as far as the first two ones are concerned, huh? And that is, if you recall, going back to Book Four, right? Huh? In Book Four, when Aristotle was showing that wisdom is about being as being.

[36:03] And gave a reason for saying it is, but then he raised a question: Doesn't being mean more than one thing, right? So just because you have one word doesn't mean you have one knowledge, huh? About that. And if the word, you know, just happened to cover different things, like the word "bat" covers the baseball bat and the flying mouse, right? There'd be no reason to have a science of "bat" as "bat," right?

[36:31] To talk one part about the baseball bat and the other one about because there's no connection between these two, right? One doesn't help you to understand the other, huh? But there is one part of philosophy called political philosophy, which is about everything called political, right? And that's because there's an order or connection among these meanings, huh? And there's a reason for studying the city or the nation and the government in the same way.

[37:02] knowledge, right? Because the government rules the city or the nation, right? It has other connections too with the city or a nation, huh? You get the government you deserve this, but anyway, it's about the customs of people and so on, right? But the basic connection is the government rules the city, right? And then makes sense to talk about what revolution in the same knowledge you talk about government.

[37:31] If by revolution you mean a change of government, right? How can you talk about the change of government without knowing about government, right? And so on, see. Well, Aristotle wants to point out, then, if you recall in the fourth book, that being is like the word political; it's equivocal, or is equivocal by reason. And what's the fundamental meaning of being? Well, he says it's substance, right? And then he points out that other things are called being, not because they are substance, but because they have some connection with substance, huh?

[38:10] And he gives a plethora of meanings enough to confuse the student a bit, but Thomas, there, having pity upon us, says this plethora of meanings can be reduced to four basic meanings, right? And they are what substance, right? Then accidents, huh? And the accidents are not substances, but there's something of the substance, right? Quantity is the size or the measure of the substance, right? Quality is the disposition of the substance, right?

[38:46] Relation is how the substance is towards another, right? How I'm towards this person, a husband, or towards this person a father, or towards this person a teacher, right? Or towards this person a grandfather, and so on, huh? Okay.

[39:06] And then he says, the third sense is the coming to be of one of these things, or the ceasing to be too. But let's take the coming to be as an example. Might say, well, that's kind of strange. Coming to be, as Plato said, you know, Plato often distinguishes being, becoming, and non-being, right? And science is about being, and dialectic is about becoming, and sophistry is about non-being, right?

[39:36] Okay. And you might say, well, there we distinguish between being and becoming, right? And you might say to yourself, becoming or coming to be is not being, is it? Is coming to know the same thing as knowing? If it were, the student would be done before the course is over, right? And yet, if you stop and think, when you're coming to know, you have in some imperfect way that knowing already, don't you?

[40:13] Okay? And there's a relation or a connection between coming to be and being, right? And doesn't coming to be and coming to know, in some sense, exist in this world? Isn't there such a thing as coming to be?

[40:30] I'm chewing my food and digesting it. You know, this is kind of important to me, right? This food is coming to be what human, huh? Flesh and blood and bone, but it takes a while to get there, right? Otherwise, I'd be, you know, looking like a carrot or broccoli or turning green or something, right? Eating broccoli and so on. I don't eat much that's white, except chicken, maybe.

[40:58] But I don't become like what I eat, right? You know. So this process of digesting and coming to be human flesh and blood and bones, it goes on me every day, just about. Um.

[41:14] That exists, doesn't it? And I've been learning all my life, coming to know, still coming to know. That process of learning exists too, doesn't it? There's some learning, you know, a little bit of learning behind the schools today, I guess. Yeah. A little bit. of that. Not too much, but a little bit, right? So in some sense, coming to be is, right? They learn how to be ignorant.

[41:41] Yeah, but see, in lesser sense, right? Okay. But notice, is a relation. You're coming to be a man, a substance, or coming to be a geometer. You know, is it coming to be of a substance or an accident, right? Coming to be five foot ten or something, right? Um, coming to be a father or something. Um. And then the last sense is where even what none being of some sort, like blindness, and even nothing, is said to be, right?

[42:12] Now, how could you move the word further than that? Hmm. You know, the word "being" is now being said of what is none being. Okay. That's like you've gone from the being in the fullest sense, substance, to being now that. Okay. In some sense, nothing is right. Hmm. Nothing is nothing. Nothing is something in my mind, right? So I move the word as far as I can, but it's still connection, right?

[42:47] Blindness is a none being of sight, which is an accident, right? Okay. So in order to understand these things, you have to understand. A negation as a negation of something, right? And so it's understood in reference back to these other things. So, see how far you move there, right? Now I recall that teaching there in the fourth book because, in a way, these first two meanings here of being as such—if you consider this being of reasons that are not also in things, right—that's the last sense of being in the fourth book, right?

[43:27] So it's appropriately put after that, isn't it? Okay. He doesn't mention becoming in here, but that would be in between, right? Okay. So the fourth book casts some light upon those two being put together, right? Okay.

[43:51] It's kind of interesting the way the mind works there. The mind is a great difficulty in understanding becoming. I think I mentioned how how Hegel, right? Very influential in modern times. How Hegel thinks that becoming is a kind of union of being and non-being, right? Okay. So you kind of see being and non-being, and then becoming what's a little bit of both, huh? Okay.

[44:19] You know what what is learning? Is it knowing or not knowing? Well, it's a little bit of both, isn't it? The one who's no, who's learning is not entirely ignorant, right? But he doesn't in a full sense know, right? And in the part we didn't read there, in the defense of the axiom of being and non-being, something cannot both be and not be. Most of the objections come, or you know, probably the most from what motion?

[44:51] Like Heraclitus said, day and night are the same thing, right? And Hegel says, you know, becoming involves being and non-being, huh? And so you have to know natural philosophy to be able to answer those objections, right? So I mentioned an article by Charles De Koninck, right? The paradox de devenir par la contradiction. When what is not a sphere becomes a sphere, right?

[45:20] Well, is the last instant in which it is not a sphere, and the first instant in which it is a sphere, are they the same instant?

[45:31] Well, if they're the same instant, then you got a contradiction that instant, right? And both is and is not a sphere. If they're not the same instant, that little period of time there, right? What is it in that period of time? It's got to either be a sphere or not a sphere, right? So you can't have a period of time in between those, right? So it seems that the last instant in which it is a sphere or not a sphere, and the first moment it is, are the same instant.

[45:55] And therefore that instant, is a contradiction. Whereas Thomas solves that in a very interesting way in the sixth book of Natural Hearing, by pointing out that there's no last instant in which it is not a sphere. When that period of time, in which it is becoming a sphere, is complete, it has become a sphere. So, there's a first instant in which it is a sphere, but there's not a last instant in which it is not a sphere.

[46:23] It's very subtle, right? But there's a way out of that apparent contradiction, right? But most people couldn't see it. And De Koninck in the article, apart from you know describing Hegel's problem with it, huh, points out how it caused problems in the theology of the Eucharist down to the Middle Ages, because there's a period of time where, under the appearance of bread and wine, there is bread and wine, right?

[46:48] Then there's a later period of time where, under the appearance of bread and wine, there's the body and blood of our Lord, right? Now, if there's a last instant in which it is what bread and wine, as well as a first instant in which it is the body and blood of our Lord, would those two instances be the same?

[47:13] Well, there's no time in between those two instances if they exist, because there would be neither bread and wine nor the body and blood, right? So, if you make those two instances the same one, then you've got a heresy, right? You've got the body and blood at the same time as the bread and wine, right? You know transubstantiation, right? Okay. But when the priest completes the words of the what consecration, it has become the body and blood of our Lord, right?

[47:44] So, there's a first instant in which it is the body and blood of our Lord, but not a last instant in which it is bread and wine. Very subtle, right? But Thomas can solve that difficulty that puzzled the theologians of the Middle Ages, right? By his knowledge of the sixth book of Natural Hearing, huh?

[48:04] So, it's beautiful. So, as far as the order of these three groups of meanings, right? The first order that I see is that, to some extent, you're going from the less universal to the more universal, right? And the other one is that the first two, if you look back at the fourth book of Natural Wisdom of Wisdom, you can see that in a way there's continuity there, right?

[48:31] Because when Thomas distinguishes those four basic senses of being—substance, accident, motion, right—and then non-being like blindness and so on, he's tapping on what is unique in the sense of beings of reason. They're not found in the real world. onto the original division there—substance, accident, and then. Motion, right? And motion is kind of a funny thing, you know, because when does motion exist, right?

[49:13] So it takes me some time to walk from here over to the wall there, and you know, part of my motion is gone by, and part of it is still to come, right? Well, the part that's gone by doesn't exist anymore. There's a part that's to come, right? Well, how much of my motion is ever actually there, all at once?

[49:37] Well, if any part of my motion was there all at once, I'd be two places at once. So all of it is there. Motion in the fully actual sense is what indivisible. So motion hardly exists, right? It's like the problem with time. You know, time hardly exists because the past doesn't exist and the future doesn't exist. And in the now that is between the past and the future, there's no length of time at all.

[50:06] So in some sense, time hardly exists, right? So you get an odd kind of being, right? Between substance and action, on, the one hand, where something is altogether there, and non-being, where it's not there at all, you get something that is somewhat there and somewhat not there. You know, it's a very strange kind of of being, motion. That's why you know the modern mind broke down there in Descartes, and Descartes couldn't understand what motion was, so he says, let's forget about it, let's forget about defining it.

[50:46] And Locke, you know, said the same thing for other reasons. And so they gave up trying to define motion, which is, you know, the main starting point for knowing existence of the unmoved mover. You have to know the definition of motion. So you're really cutting off the knowledge of God in a way, yeah. But is it a kind of emotional being, and then it's just, I mean, or I guess some of them is that it's just the way in which we consider it.

[51:11] I mean, when Aristotle talks about time, he says that time would not fully be without the numbering soul, right? Which takes into account the past and future, right? To number them, yeah. So in time, you consider it a being of reason, then, or? Well, it's not. It has a little bit of that mixed in with it, yeah. Yes. Yeah, you see. Because, yeah, see, three hours don't exist like these three men on the other side of the table, right?

[51:39] Because those three men are all together, right? But one hour and the next hour and the next hour, they're never together, right? So where do you get three hours, right? The mind has to take this into account, right? But there's a foundation for those three hours in reality. So it's not simply non-being like blindness or a void. Zero is not simply like nothing, right? Nothing. There's nothing there.

[52:05] But so is motion the same as considering? I mean, has also has being of reason mixed in at the same way as time. Yeah, a little bit like that. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't have full existence, you see. And and part of the idea, you know, that I I move from here to there, but when did I do that? And there was a time when I was, or now, when I was moving from here to there, right?

[52:36] And so those things are hard to understand, see. But you can see that this is a diminished sense of being, right? Okay. Um. See, when am I moving from here to the wall, right? You know, it seems always when I'm quote moving from here to the wall. Part of my motion has gone by, parts to come, and none of my motion is ever actually there, fully, right?

[53:05] Only the indivisible, right? A motion which is no motion at all. So it's hard. It's hard to realize this is a diminished sense of being. Yeah. But um, like where you your existence at any given point is objectively true. I mean... Yeah, well, that's being in a sense of substance, right? And likewise, my being a geometer, or my being a father or my being five foot ten, right?

[53:31] Huh? That's all here, right? Right. But my walking from here to the to the wall, when is that here? But the whole idea of just is your walking doesn't doesn't involve also like some type of observation or somebody having the having an inner. You know, that's interesting because you know, I'm always quoting what Ulysses says to Achilles there in Troilus and Cressida, right? Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, huh?

[54:00] So if one person is moving and other people are are not moving, the person moving would get your attention, right? But motion, although it grabs attention to senses, motion has hardly what? It hardly is. It barely is. See. See, if you look at my walking from here to the wall, when does it exist? Right. Does it exist now? Well, you say now it exists, right? But you say now it exists.

[54:28] Part of it's gone by, and part of it's to come. And how much of my motion is here all at once? Well, if any part of my motion, you know, was here all at once, I'd be in two places all at once, right? So all at once I'm only one place, and as long as I'm in one place, where is my motion? Is it? So that's that's a very puzzling thing, huh?

[54:57] But anyway, I recall this this beautiful distinction of the main senses of being, right? Thomas says this plethora of meanings that Aristotle gives there to make life difficult for us can be reduced perhaps to four main meanings, right? And substance is being most fully of these, okay? And so when I was conceived or something like that, I came to be, right? When I learned geometry, I didn't come to be.

[55:31] Although you could say I came to be a geometer You wouldn't say I came to be? Would you? Um. Just like if I forgot my geometry, you wouldn't say I ceased to be, would you? I cease to be a geometer, maybe, right? But? If I die, then I ceased to be. Okay.

[55:52] So substance is being in a fuller sense than accident, right? And so, when Hamlet says to be or not to be, that is a question. Everybody understands. I'm referring to life and death to a substantial being. But then, motion has even less being than accident.

[56:13] My being a geometer is all here now. But my walking from here to the wall is never all here. Why? My being dead is not being here at all. It's not being at all, right? But yet, in some sense, it's said to be being, right? But it's being in the sense of true, right? Okay. I am dead. That's true. But but the kind of being of reason, it doesn't have being outside the mind corresponding to it.

[56:57] The same way, if I'm blind or I'm ignorant, right? That seems to be a little nearer to being because you you have a subject there, right? There's have to know or subjects have to have sight, right? But the being blind is really a non-being of something there, right? The being ignorant is the non-being, the non-existence of knowledge and something able to know.

[57:22] Okay. So the fact that Aristotle puts being as true right after being, according to predication, you can say, well, that that fits in, right, with the order and the meanings of being that Thomas gives us in the fourth book of Wisdom, huh? Okay. But you're also, to some extent, if you take being of reason to include everything can be a reason, and even real being outside the mind can also have a kind of existence in the mind, then you're going from the more less universal to the what more universal, huh?

[58:01] It's amazing this guy can do this, huh? Absolutely amazing. You know, the more you you read him, the more you realize how how orderly he is, right?

[58:13] It's amazing. Let's turn to the word perfect. We take a little break now, being that we're going from the 18th meeting, right? Okay.