Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
35. Metaphysics Book 6, Part 2: Natural Philosophy, Mathematics and First Philosophy; Introducing Accidental Being
Class of 2005-09-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/035-metaphysics-book-6-part-2-natural-philosophy-mathematics/

[0:00] Now let's look at the subdivision here a bit of the looking sciences, huh? You could say natural philosophy is about things that have matter

[0:35] and that change. Okay, and it defines these things with matter or change. So, if you wanted to talk about the difference between, say, your teeth and your tongue, or between your bones and your muscles, right? You'd have to bring in some understanding, at least in general, of the kind of material that the tooth is made out of, the tongue is made out of, right? The bones and the muscles are made out of, right?

[1:30] Okay. And because the kind of material that they have, and because they are material, they're subject to some kind of change, right? Can be a change of place or a change of quality. Could even be growth and things of this sort, right? Nature itself is defined by change, right? Okay.

[1:51] But now, mathematics is kind of an odd science, huh? Because you could say that mathematical philosophy, like say geometry, fundamental science, for example here, mathematical philosophy is about things also that have matter and change, huh?

[2:38] But this is a strange thing, but that can be defined without matter or change, huh? Now, take a couple of simple examples to illustrate this, huh?

[3:10] And you've probably played with a rubber ball, right? Which is more or less a sphere, right? And they tell me that the Earth is kind of a sphere, and the Sun is a sphere, and maybe played with marbles that are spheres, and maybe seen these little steel balls, right? Maybe throwing a snowball at somebody, huh? Okay. So all these spheres have matter and they change, right? The snowball melts, right, and so on.

[3:40] Rubber ball bounces off things and so on. But is that shape of a sphere? Can that be defined and understood without rubber, without glass, without snow, without steel, without the Earth?

[4:03] Yeah. And if you ever look at the solid geometry books of Euclid, he gets to talk about the sphere. This is long after he's talked about the circle, right? He to help your imagination, imagine a sphere, right? He said, "Well, imagine a circle and the diameter of the circle, right? And then rotate the circle around its diameter. Now you've got a what sphere? But it's all imagination.

[4:38] It's not really what made out of anything, and there's no matter there, at least in the ordinary sense of matter. And therefore, there's no reference to change.

[4:54] If I had a lead balloon and let's go over there, it would go down, right? If I had a helium balloon and let's go, over, it would go up, right? But a geometrical sphere, you couldn't say it goes up or goes down because it has nothing that refers to what motion, right? If I threw a rubber ball against the wall, it would probably bounce back, right? If I threw a glass ball against the wall, it might shatter, right?

[5:20] If I threw a steel ball against the wall, it might stick to the wall or go through it. But you couldn't say anything about a geometrical sphere but do any of these things, right? Because it's neither brittle like the glass, nor solid and heavy like the steel ball, or elastic like the rubber ball, right? It has no matter whereby it could be said to bounce or shatter or anything like this, right?

[5:48] The same way for a cube. As a little child, you might have played with a a wooden block, right? A little wooden cube. I have a plastic cube in my desk. It's kind of like a paperweight, huh? An ice cube originally was supposed to be in the shape of a cube. They don't always come in the shape of a cube now, but they originally were in the shape of a cube, right?

[6:09] But is that shape, that figure called the cube, can that be understood without ice, without plastic, without wood, without any sensible matter? And consequently, there's no reference to change. The ice cube has a melting point and a boiling point, right? And I suppose the plastic cube has got a melting point too, right? But you couldn't speak of the geometrical cube as having a boiling point or a freezing point, right?

[6:45] Any of this sort. So, in natural philosophy, huh? You get something out of what individual flesh and blood and bones, right? Okay, your flesh and my flesh and your bones and my bones are not in the definitions of natural philosophy, right? But you have to keep The kind of matter a bone has, and the kind of matter that muscles have, and so on. In your definitions, at least in general, right?

[7:22] You have to keep sensible matter, right, in general, and you have to talk about change, at least in general. You can't even define what nature is without motion, motions in the definition of nature.

[7:38] But these things in math are even more what removed from matter, right? Because not only have the general here, but you've left out the sensible matter, right? Now sometimes they'll speak of there being a kind of matter in geometry, this extension called intelligible matter, right? Imaginable matter, called right. It's not really matter in the original sense, the sensible thing, huh? And so Proclus, huh? The famous Neoplatonist says that you know mathematics purificat oculum mentis.

[8:20] It purifies the eye of the mind, right, huh? Okay, and it kind of frees you from what the material world to some extent, huh? And so the Pythagoreans, who are very much into this sort of stuff, they're kind of like a kind of religious order on this, huh? The Pythagoreans, in Italy, huh? And it's interesting that at the University of Paris in the Middle Ages, huh, when you wanted to go to study theology, probably the most famous place to study theology, University of Paris, right?

[8:54] Um, you had to know at least the first book of Euclid before you could be admitted into what theology, right? Okay. So it has a certain

[9:09] freeing the mind to some extent from the material world, right? Not entirely, because you're dealing with things that outside the mind exist in matter and with change, right? But in the mind they can be understood without matter and without change, huh? Okay.

[9:32] Now for 200 years the Greek philosophers pursued these two kinds of living philosophy. So the first philosopher is usually considered to be what Thales, right? Um, Thales of Miletus,

[9:52] huh? And Thales is famous as an actual philosopher. In fact, the attribute to him, the famous statement that water is the beginning of all things, especially living things. But he also is held As being the first man approves of the geometrical theorem, or something. They attribute to Thales, for example, the famous theorem that in a circle, you take the semicircle and you inscribe an angle there. Take any point other than the endpoints here, the diameter, and draw straight lines from that point to the ends of the diameter.

[10:30] This angle here will always be a right angle. Any point you take on there, huh? And draw lines, it'll always be right angle. It's a beautiful theorem, right? You could have a proof of that, right, in the third book of the Elements huh book of the elements, huh? But they attribute that theorem, the strict proof of it, to what? Thales, huh? Okay.

[10:53] And when Euclid, you know, after he defines circle and diameter, he says that the diameter of a circle divides the circle into equal parts, but he doesn't try to prove or manifest that. Well, they say uh Thales, is the first man to manifest that, right? Because once you know what a circle is, well, every point is on the circumference is equidistant from the point in the interior called the center.

[11:23] Well, then if you take the what diameter line from one point on the circumference to the center through the middle, if these two sides are not equal, then if you imagine one side flipped over the other side, if they coincide, of course they'd be equal. If they, if one went outside the other or below it, then all the radii would not be equal, right? So, kind of like the fourth theorem of Euclid, the one about the angle and two sides of a triangle being equal, you can see the imagination, but you can see this way, right?

[12:00] You flip it over, right? It's either going to coincide or not. It does coincide, then they're obviously equal. If they don't, the radii are not equal. It's not a circle. Okay. So these are the two kinds of looking philosophy, right?

[12:19] Until you got to the man called what? Anaxagoras, right? And Socrates was a young man, and the man whom Aristotle says seemed like a sober man among drunk men,

[12:38] and we read the great fragments of our friend Anaxagoras, like the DK twelve, especially. Anaxagoras had the came to conclusion that there is a greater mind than our own behind the order that you find in the natural world, and then he gave a very good reason to say that this greater mind could not be mixed up with matter.

[13:08] And then you get to Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, they begin to see reasons to conclude that the human reason is not what material, and then when they're studying motion, they begin to understand that motion is dependent upon a mover, but the mover is that we know are moved movers, right? But a moved mover doesn't move to itself, but to another, right? And before what is to another, there's something to itself, right?

[13:46] So there must be an unmoved mover, right? But then they said an unmoved mover can't be a body, because bodies don't move another without being moved themselves. So I can't move this bottle here, right? By my what briefcase here without my briefcase itself moving, right? So if there's an unmoved mover, it's not a body.

[14:10] And if the human soul, as Socrates argues in the Phaedo, and Aristotle even better in the third book on the soul, can exist without the what body, right? If understanding is not in the body, well, then there are what? Not only things that what depend upon matter for their existence, right? Although some not from the definition, right? If there are things that are immaterial and we can know them, then there is going to be another kind of looking philosophy, okay?

[14:50] And and this is going to be what we call first philosophy or wisdom. First philosophy or wisdom, and sometimes they call metaphysics. But metaphysics is writing together three words in Greek, right? Meta ta phusika, right? Which means literally meta after, right? Ta is the article "the," and phusika means the books in natural philosophy. So the

[15:35] editor in Andronicus of. Rhodes, right, correctly saw that the fourteen books of wisdom or first philosophy in the order of learning, right, are after the books in natural philosophy. And you buy even today that book we call the basic books of Aristotle, which is you know selections of Aristotle with some of the major works. You will find that they put the books and the selections from natural philosophy before the books called metaphysics, huh?

[16:07] Okay. But first, philosophy or wisdom is about things that do not depend upon matter for the. Yes. Now, sometimes we make a a distinction. In fact, that's important. Make a distinction. There are some things that can be in matter but need not be in matter, and these are sometimes called the communia, the common things like being and substance. Once you realize that there are immaterial substances, right, as well as material substances, then you realize that substance need not be in matter, right?

[17:04] But then there are things like what the Greek philosophers would call the separated substances. We might call the angels, and then God Himself, right? Which can't be material, right? Okay.

[17:18] And that distinction is before understanding something of the order of wisdom, as Monsignor Deian would teach. You know, it's towards the immaterial. So you begin with those things that need not be in matter, right? But can be in matter, like being itself, substance,

[17:47] act and ability, and so on. And you go towards those things that cannot be in matter, right? Because the things that can be in matter but need not be in matter are more known to us, who start with material things, right? And then we go towards the things that cannot be in matter. And we'll see this beautifully, especially in the ninth book of wisdom, because the ninth book of wisdom, Aristotle will talk about being as it's distinguished into act and ability.

[18:20] And he'll begin from act and abilities are found in material things and things that move, right? In the first part of Book Nine, and then he'll ascend to a completely universal consideration of act and ability, where it can be found even in the immaterial world in the middle part. And then, in the third part of the ninth book, he will show the order there is between act and ability, and this is the beginning to reason at the end of Book Twelve, right?

[18:52] That God is pure act. right? So, we'll leave it until I get to it now, right? now. I think I mentioned before. Sometimes we crisscross two divisions into two,

[19:16] and sometimes we end up with four members, as you'd expect. And sometimes we end up with only three. Give an example. You can divide human beings into good men, bad men, good women, bad women, right? Okay. Now, how do you get four kinds of human beings? Well, you can divide human beings into men and women, right? And then in another kind of division into good and what bad.

[19:52] You crisscross these, and you get what four: good men, bad men, good women, bad women, right? Okay. But now, take another example. When Aristotle is distinguishing the composing parts of a plot in the Book of the Poetic Art. And he says that the great Homer, the supreme poet, Homer taught all of the other Greeks. He says how to make a good plot, and he mentions that Homer realized that a good plot was not a story about one man,

[20:33] because all kinds of things that happen to one man that maybe don't have any connections with each other, really. But a good plot should have a beginning, a middle, and a what? End. Okay.

[20:50] Well, now Aristotle defines beginning, middle, and end. He does by two pairs of what? Opposites, not by man, woman, and good and bad, but he does so by

[21:08] before. Something and not before something and after something and not after something. Right? Okay. Now, what is before something but not after something? Beginning, middle or end. Middle beginning. Beginning, right? The beginning is before something but not after, right? Okay.

[21:51] What's after something but not before something? The end. Yeah. Yeah. What is both before something but also after something? Middle. Yeah. Okay. Now, the fourth possibility would be something that is not before anything and not after anything, right? But is that a real possibility for a part of the plot?

[22:21] Without any connection, right? It doesn't come after anything. It doesn't come before anything. So there's no connection to anything else, right? So it can't possibly be a part of the what thing, right? You see the point? Okay. Yeah. We're probably trying to take a break. Oh, okay. Okay. A little break. Sure. Permission, right? So he put the recording thing in his briefcase, and he came the first day.

[22:50] He reached down, he turned it on, recorded the whole lecture. And the second day, class, he came in. He reached down, and he got the wrong button. And yesterday's lecture came out of the briefcase. Oh no! You got the button all red. You can't access. I guess I have to say something different. He says. I made the guy an error. Oh wow! It's interesting. Yeah, right. These French people—they have, you know, they were afraid to ask him, you know, because kind of a shy guy that he wouldn't give permission, you know.

[23:19] So they came in, you know, with their coat and thing, recorded lectures, you know, say. And they finally guessed he probably knew, you know, but they were afraid to ask. And he didn't want to know that they were doing this stuff. Eventually, they take them up, and they brought them to you know, you know, you know, because sometimes those taped up things you have little errors and so on.

[23:39] Perfect. So let's go back. I was mentioning right how sometimes we crisscross two divisions by opposites, right? Like in the division of human beings into good men and bad men, good woman, bad woman, or we crisscross the division of human beings into male and female, and into good and bad, right? And you end up with four members, right? Okay. Aristotle, in a way, is using two pairs of opposites, right, to distinguish the beginning, middle, and end of a what plot, right?

[24:15] And he says that the middle is before something and after something, right? The beginning is before something, but not what after something, right? The end is after something, but not before something, right? Okay, so you got before and not before, after and after, and you should have a fourth member, right? But the fourth member you realize is not a true one because could there be a part of the plot that is not before anything and not after anything?

[24:53] Okay, it's not a real possibility, right? But it has no connection, right? Okay, now Thomas does something like this sometimes with these here. He says,

[25:07] "In looking, science is either about things that depend upon matter for the existence, right? Or it's about things that do not depend upon matter for the existence. That's exhausted, right? And either it defines with matter or it defines without matter, right? Now you crisscross this, and you would get four members apparently, right? Now what science is about things that depend upon matter and defines with matter. Well, that's natural philosophy, right?

[25:46] Okay. What science is about things that do not depend upon matter and does not define with matter. That's wisdom or first philosophy, yeah. What science is about things that depend upon matter for the existence, but can be defined without matter. That's mathematics. That's mathematical philosophy. Okay. Well, now is there a fourth one? A science is about things that do not depend upon matter for the existence, but you define with matter anyway.

[26:22] That makes any sense? Is it? Because if the things in themselves don't depend upon matter for their existence, right? And reason, which is knowing them, is immaterial, right? There's no reason why matter would be brought into their definition, right? Okay.

[26:42] The odd example is mathematics, right? That there are things like rubber balls and marbles and so on, spheres that depend upon some kind of matter for the existence, right? But their shape can be considered without matter, because the mind is what immaterial, right? So it's not altogether it's unusual thing, right? But it's not something impossible that an immaterial power like the mind should know a material thing in a what immaterial way.

[27:19] Yeah. But there's no reason why an immaterial power should know an immaterial thing in a material way. There's no reason on the side of the what thing being known, or on the side of the what knower. See, so that's not real possibility, right? Okay.

[27:40] So there can be only three and not four. Two different ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, incidentally, that same thing is used in talking about the Trinity, right? Okay. Because you have to proceed from someone, or have someone proceed from you, to be distinct from him in the Trinity. So the Father what

[28:14] doesn't proceed from anybody, but someone proceeds from him. The Holy Spirit is the reverse. He proceeds from someone, but no one proceeds from him. The Son both proceeds from someone and someone proceeds from him, right? Now the fourth possibility be one who what neither proceeds from anyone nor anyone proceeds from him. Is that real possibility? No, no. You see, same thing, right? Now, you have two opposites: proceed from someone, do not proceed from someone; have one proceed from you, not have one proceed from you, right?

[29:00] And then you get four boxes, right? But you realize one of these boxes is what? Not a real thing. Yeah, yeah. There couldn't be a person in the Blessed Trinity that neither proceeds from anyone nor anyone proceeds from him, because there'd be no basis to distinguish him from the others. Okay,

[29:27] that's part of the reason why we had the filioque, right? Huh? You know that if the Holy Spirit didn't proceed from the Son, he wouldn't be distinct from the Son. Okay, so the only kind of distinction you can have in the Trinity, I mean, Thomas, you know, will break this down. The only kind of distinction you can have among the persons is that of proceeding from someone, right, or having someone proceed from you, right, or not proceeding from somebody.

[29:56] But then you realize that that the fourth box can't be any real possibility, huh? Okay, but I think it's easy to see my my first example is the Trinity, right? Now, example there in Aristotle's definition of the beginning, middle, and end of a plot, right? Okay, why does he have two pairs of opposites but gets only three members? One member is not what real possibility. There couldn't be a part of a plot that is neither before anything nor after anything, because such a part would have no connection with any other part, right?

[30:34] Okay, and there couldn't be a fourth person of the Blessed Trinity that doesn't proceed from anybody nor anybody proceeds from him, because there'd be no way to distinguish him from the other persons. If the only way of distinguishing in the Trinity is by what procession, right? Okay,

[30:57] so the same thing here, right? You see, Thomas will, you know, in the beginning see the commentator in the physics. He'll come back to the distinction that Thomas Aristotle gives here, right? And he'll divide looking philosophy by whether it's about things that depend upon matter for the existence or things that do not depend upon matter for the existence, and then those that define with matter and those defined without matter, right?

[31:31] And that gives him four boxes, right? But then you point out that there can't be any part of philosophy which is about things that don't depend upon matter for the existence. But they're defined with matter, is it? Because the things known have no matter, and the knower has no matter, so there's no reason to have any matter there, right? Is it? It's a very subtle thing. So here's three places where you have this, right?

[32:03] In the definition of the parts of a plot, and the distinction of the three parts of looking philosophy, and even in the distinction of the persons of Trinity, right?

[32:17] That's quite another examples, but two of this. Very striking. You almost got one of that in numbers, right? You got odd and even numbers, and prime and composite numbers. You crisscross them, you get four possibilities. Hey.

[32:39] You almost didn't get it though, right? Because there's only one even number that's prime. There's one, so you have four boxes, right? But all the other even numbers are, I'm sorry, there's one, two. It's the only prime even number, two. It's all four boxes there, right? But notice how different here is the way in which looking philosophy is divided, right? And the way practical philosophy was divided, doing sciences, and the way the what making sciences.

[33:22] They're all divided a different way, right? Aristotle and Thomas saw that, right? Quite different the ways they're divided. Of course, Thomas explains the reason for the basis here. It's because the mind is immaterial, right? The reason is not a body, and the whole purpose of this is to get something into the mind, right? And that means to get it out of matter in some way, right? Okay.

[34:01] And each of these has a different relation to matter, or just trying to understand, right? And you know the old problem, Heraclitus and his followers that said all things flow and nothing abides. Well, how can you understand something that doesn't stand still?

[34:24] So something has to be, to some extent, removed from motion, right? Okay. In natural philosophy, you abstract from individual motion, but you keep motion in general because that doesn't change. Okay. The definition of time is what timeless, huh? Time in concrete is always flowing, which for no man, right? But the definition of time is timeless, huh? And the definition of motion and change never changes. The great discovery the Greeks was that change is between opposites, right?

[35:06] That never changes. So, and even if you say a thing that's changing, that's changing is always different, right? That never changes. But nevertheless, you

[35:22] keep motion or change in general, right? Here, although the things are found in changing things, they're defined without change at all, right? And here you deal with things that will not change, huh? Necessarily, or not, or they can't have change, huh? So, because you're trying to get something to the mind, which is immaterial, because you're trying to understand things, right? These are distinguished by how they are towards matter and towards change.

[35:54] So, unique way of distinguishing these. So, in the last paragraph here on this first page, he talks about the what the way these different sciences what define, and some define with matter and change, and some without. Now, sometimes Aristotle will speak though of it being a kind of intelligible or imaginable matter in geometry, that kind of extension, right? Okay, but something quite different from matter in the ordinary sense.

[36:47] So he speaks then of the natural science there at the bottom of page one, and then the mathematical one. But he hasn't fully cleared up the difficulties of Plato. I mentioned those, and we talked about the central question of philosophy. Plato thought that in order to have truth, the way you know has to be the way things are. Okay, and Aristotle said no.

[37:17] And you only gradually see that Aristotle is correct there. Most philosophers down through history are mistaken about this. And you have to admire the subtlety of Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy, because when he gets to the fifth book there, although he's announced in the first book that he's in the Academy, the school of Plato, right? In the beginning of the fifth book, Lady Wisdom introduces Aristotle as her true follower, and he's about to take up what God's eternal knowledge, right?

[37:54] This is where the famous definition of eternity that you have in theology comes from. And of course, God knows what is in time, but His knowledge is not in time. And how is this possible? That God truly knows things, right? How can the past and the future be present to God? And now you've got to follow Aristotle. You've got to begin to understand that the way you know doesn't have to be the way things are.

[38:24] And he has kind of a faint imitation of this in man, when you and I remember the past now, we can talk about the past now.

[38:39] We can have a knowledge now in the present. Present of the past, are we false? Now, if I think that yesterday is today, I'm not mistaken, right? But am I false in talking about yesterday today?

[38:59] Yesterday is in my knowledge today, and if we talk about tomorrow, what we do tomorrow, tomorrow is in our what knowledge today? How are we false?

[39:15] But more particular to to the example of the math here, Aristotle realizes that things that exist together can be truly known in separation sometimes,

[39:34] like I'm a philosopher and a grandfather, right? And both of these are in me, but can you know one of these without knowing the other? Yeah, you can truly know I'm a philosopher without knowing I'm a grandfather and leading out of which I'm a grandfather. And the nurse at the hospital can truly know I'm the grandfather, this new little one, knowing nothing about my being a philosopher.

[40:02] But falsity would come in if you said this philosopher is not a grandfather, or this grandfather is not a philosopher. So to know me to be a philosopher without my being a grandfather, you can say your knowledge of me is incomplete, but it's not false. You see,

[40:28] and even though sphere cannot exist without rubber or glass or steel or some other matter, right? It can be understood without glass and rubber and so on.

[40:46] And then later on, you say that you can know things in the reverse order that they are. My stock example in class of the students is that I know you before your parents. Is my knowledge of you false because I know you before I know your parents? Yeah, but in reality, your parents came before you, so the order in which I know reality is reverse, right?

[41:15] We knew water before we knew hydrogen, right? And maybe we didn't know water fully until we knew hydrogen, right? But can't you know something true about water without knowing about hydrogen? We generally know the effect before the cause. We have to reason backwards, as the great Sherlock Holmes says. Says to Watson, "We got to reason backwards. What do you mean? From the effect back to the cause, right?

[41:44] But is your mind false? In knowing the effect before the cause, in knowing that there's day and night before you know the earth turns on its axis, if that's the reason why,

[42:03] because in reality the cause is before the effect. But the falsity would come in there. Aristotle says, if you said that the order in my knowing is the order in things, then you'd say that the effect is before the cause because in things, because it's before the cause in my knowledge. Right? That's a great mistake of the rationalist, right? You know, Spinoza says the order in thoughts and the order in things is the same.

[42:38] That's the terrible thing that Hegel gets from Spinoza, right? So Hegel identifies what? The first thought we have, which is the confused thought of being, right, with the one who said, "I am who am." See, he's identifying what's first in our thoughts. What's first in what? Things being. Yeah. As if the order in our thoughts had to be the order in things, otherwise, it would be what false, right?

[43:11] And then, in the second paragraph on page two, he's talking about wisdom or first philosophy, right, which is about things that are what eternal and immovable and separated from what matter, right? Okay.

[43:31] And then he concludes in the third paragraph: hence, there will be three looking philosophies: the mathematical, the natural. Notice he used the word theological, but I usually avoid that because of our use of the word theology, right?

[43:46] And incidentally, if you call first philosophy theology, theology, you could say that it's about God as its end or goal, right? Okay, but God is not the subject of first philosophy; it's being as being. But in revealed theology, I can assume theologiae. God is not only the goal, but also the very subject of science. Okay,

[44:23] so again, comes back to what he says in the proemium there, and it's the most honorable science, right? Because most honorable science is what

[44:36] about the most honorable kind of thing? And notice what he says though at the bottom of the page here too. He said, "If there were no immaterial substances, right? If there are only material things, then natural philosophy would be what? First philosophy. Yeah, and be wisdom. As it is, it's second philosophy. Okay, but for two hundred years at least, the Greeks identified wisdom with natural philosophy. If all that existed was material things, natural and artificial things, and the artificial things depend upon the natural things, right?

[45:18] Then the one who knows the first cause of natural things would know the first cause of all things. So if someone says, "You know, if I say wisdom is the best knowledge," and people say, "Oh, you just say it's the best knowledge because you like it the most," I says, "No, because we first thought that natural philosophy was the best knowledge, right? And then we realize there's something, you know, before this.

[45:45] Then we realize that was wisdom more, right? Okay. Now, at this point, Aristotle just stepped up around what 430 maybe in Mark or something Um. At this point, now Aristotle has finally determined what wisdom is about, right? And he separated wisdom from all the knowledge. Now he's ready to really begin, wisdom, Right? Now he's ready to begin the study of being as what being, right? Okay. And in a sense, he knows how to proceed, right?

[46:27] And he mentioned something already about the order of consideration. So we have to consider the common things, right? Like being and one before we consider the angels and God, right? Okay. We've got to consider the things that need not be in matter, but can be in matter, right? Before the things that cannot be in matter cannot be material.

[46:58] So he's going to begin now in the third reading, or excuse me, the third page, the second reading. He's going to begin by recalling the distinction of the senses of being in Book Five, Okay.

[47:17] And we'll have to recall that. And he's going to consider in Book Six briefly two of the four kinds that he talked about in the fifth book. He's going to consider briefly what we call accidental being, like a Christian geometer, for example,

[47:43] that kind of being, and being as what true being in the reason, right? Okay. And he's going to say something about both of those kinds of being, but he's going to set them aside as not being the main concern of the wise man. And then he's going to talk about in Book Seven, Eight, and Nine the division of being according to the figures of predication, substance, quantity, quality, and so on.

[48:18] But mainly about substance in Book Seven and Eight, and then being as act and ability in the ninth book, right? Okay. Now we'll look at the brief consideration of accidental being and being as true, right, in Book Six here, and look at part of the consideration of substance in Book Eight. And then look at Book Nine, where he talks about what. act and ability, huh? okay. But you should probably look again, and you'll recall that.

[48:53] huh? If you recall, in book five, he first distinguished between being as such, being to itself as he calls it, kath' hauto in Greek, and being by happening or through happening, being kata symbebekos in Greek,

[49:18] and the most accidental kind of being by happening is when two things happen to a third thing, right? Okay. I say, I'm a what Christian geometer, right? Okay. To be a Christian happens to belong to me, and to be a geometer belongs to me, right? And therefore, you have a Christian geometer, right? But does my Christianity and my science of geometry come together and make one thing?

[49:59] No. Is there really such a thing as a Christian geometer? Well, there's a way you become a geometer by studying Euclid, I suppose. There's a way to become a Christian by baptism, right? But is there a way of becoming a Christian geometer?

[50:26] Is there a geometrical baptism? No. See. Now was I born a Christian geometer? No. And there's no way to become a Christian geometer. There's a way to become a Christian. Mm-hmm. There's a way to become a geometer, but there's no way to become a Christian geometer, is there?

[50:56] And there's something by which I am a Christian, grace and so on, right? There's something by which I'm a geometer, right? Is there anything by which I'm a Christian geometer? So I hardly, I'm hardly a Christian geometer, right? And yet, you know, affirmative action, right? And if the Christian academy wants to hire a Christian geometer, I suppose you could find a Christian geometer, right? Okay. They want to hire a black geometer.

[51:25] I suppose you could find a black geometer, right? You know. But this is hardly, it's hardly is, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So I was going to talk a little bit about this this kind of being because it's it hardly is, right? It's not the main concern of being as being, right?

[51:50] But you know, sometimes we talk about but the influence or importance of accidental being in our lives. I used to say, if you're a black woman, you might get hired because you're black and because you're a woman, right? So someone else, a white man, might not get hired. You see, so this can influence your life a lot, right? Accidental being, you see. And

[52:22] maybe a white man wants to marry a you know a Christian white man wants to marry a Christian white woman, right? So the black woman doesn't get get married to him, right? Okay, by some cases, right? So if you're writing the biography of somebody, accidental being might be very important, and you know The tragedy of Othello, you know, has something to do, I suppose, with his color of his skin, right?

[52:49] You know, you see. So the poets make a big deal about this, huh? And you know, Romeo and Juliet, the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, has, something to do with the fact that the man she loves is the son of her father's enemy, right? Something accidental about this, isn't it?

[53:11] Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? can't figure this out. You see. So accidental being, to some extent, it is right, But it hardly is. But he shows the universality of Aristotle's mind, right?

[53:41] He doesn't neglect any kind of being, right? But he also sees, you know, what kind of being we're going to be mainly concerned with, right?

[53:52] Of course, in the end, the goal is to know the one who said, "I am who I am," right? But we start from accidental being, but hardly is.

[54:13] So next Thursday, we'll start with the second reading here.