Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
40. Metaphysics VIII, Reading 1: Summing Up Book VII, Change, and Knowing First Matter by Proportion
Class of 2005-10-06
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/040-metaphysics-viii-reading-1-summing-up-book-vii-change-and/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father and the Son, and the, Holy Spirit. Amen. God God, enlighten 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 and light of the Church,

[0:22] and help us to understand what you've written. Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I know it's by translation, it kind of tones it down, because the Latin says Lumen Ecclesia, which means Light of the Church, right? And in the translation, they are saying Light for the Church. Oh, He's light for the Church, but it's not as strong as what the Pope is saying. He's light of the Church.

[0:48] He's enlightened light of the Church. Christ is the light of the unenlightened. I mean, not the true light. Okay, so the beginning here of Book Eight, the first part here, the first reading, is kind of a recalling of some of the things that have been said already, right? Mainly in Book Seven and perhaps earlier too, and then kind of a continuation of what he's going to do in the eighth book here.

[1:23] So he says, one should syllogize what has been said in the seventh book about substance and bringing things to a head to complete the consideration of substance. It has been said that the causes and the beginnings and the elements of substances are sought. Now notice he had said in the what fourth book that wisdom is about being as being, right? But that being has many meanings, and the chief meaning is substance, and accidents are something of substance.

[2:02] So it's mainly substance that you study, and I think we've spoken before, but let's say it again: the word cause, and beginning, and element are

[2:18] not exactly synonyms. You look at those three words in the fifth book of wisdom. They're considered in the order beginning, cause, element. Those are the first three words in Book Five, and they're in that order because beginning is more general than cause. Every cause is a beginning in some way, but not every beginning is a what? Cause. And the point, for example, is the beginning of a line.

[2:57] Or the edge of the desk is the beginning of the desk or the table, but that's not a cause of the table or the line.

[3:06] That's important to know when you get to talking about the Trinity, huh? Because you can say that the Father is, in some sense, the beginning of the Son because the Son proceeds from the Father, and that which you proceed from is like a beginning, huh? Or the Father and the Son together are one beginning of the Holy Spirit, huh? You really shouldn't speak of them as a cause, huh?

[3:32] Okay. Um. And then cause, of course, is more general than element, huh? Because element, strictly speaking, is said in regard to the first things in the order of material clause, right? Not the very first matter, which is pure ability, but first forms, you might say, of matter. So element is more particular. Now, as Thomas explains, sometimes we appropriate one of these to one of the four kinds of causes.

[4:22] So sometimes you appropriate element to material cause and beginning to the mover or maker, and then cause to the form and the end. And you may have that in mind here because he mentions causes first, and the form and end are the most important causes for the wise man. This cause is the cause of all the other causes, and therefore most of all is appropriate the first cause, and form is the cause of being, and this is the science of being as being.

[5:00] And then comes the beginning, meaning the mover, and the material cause, of course, is least important to the wise man because that's only a cause of material things; it's not a cause of everything, right? Okay.

[5:16] So in every reasoned out knowledge, there we look for the causes of the subject, the subject here is being, but chiefly, primarily, substance. And now he says about these substances, looking at them in reality, and some substances are agreed upon by all, and these are the material substances. But some have spoken privately about some the private position.

[5:47] Those agreed upon are the natural ones, such as fire, earth, water, and air, which the The Greeks thought with the elements, the first elements, and the other simple bodies, which may not be as simple as they thought, right? Then plants in their parts, and animals in the parts of animals, and last the heavens in the parts of the heavens, which they thought were kind of what unchanging material substances, only changing of place.

[6:19] But others, and this would be the Platonists now, right? Say privately that the forms and mathematical things are substances. And one reason that I think we've touched upon before, that Thomas so often alludes to, one reason why Plato posited in addition to the sensible world these obvious substances in them, the reason why he posited a mathematical world, right? And then a world of universal forms was that he had answered yes to the central question, and he was convinced that there was truth in mathematics because it's most certain, and he was convinced through the great Socrates the definitions were the way to know things for sure.

[7:09] When a definition, you know, universal in separation from the what singulars. In mathematics, you know, sphere and cube in separation from sensible and changeable matter. So if truth requires that the way we know be the way things are, then there must really be separate from sensible things, mathematical things corresponding to the true sciences of geometry and arithmetic. And there must really be universal forms corresponding to the definitions that Socrates is teaching us to pursue.

[7:57] But Aristotle will take up those two positions, especially in the last books, thirteen and fourteen. He was final laying to rest of his teacher twenty years.

[8:20] Now there's another way we sometimes divide substances, or the word substance more, more logical way. And substance often has the sense of what a thing is,

[8:37] and you know, in the old translation of the Nicene Creed, there he said they were what. Yeah, unsubstantial. Well, substance there had the sense of what it is, right? The nature of the thing, what it is. They had the same nature.

[9:01] In the categories, Aristotle is talking about the definition of what a thing is. The Greek would say "logos tes ousias which they translated into Latin "ratio substantiae." Okay, but the definition of what it is—substance—there meaning what it is—that's

[9:27] one of the meanings of substance. And if you go back to the distinction of the ten categories in the logic, there, as we mentioned, I think before, they're distinguished by the way something can be said of individual substances. And some things are said of individual substance by reason of what they are. That's the category of substance. Some by reason of how big they are or how much of them there is.

[9:55] Some by how they are—that's quantity, quality, and so on. So. In the categories where he enumerates all ten of them, and in the book on places where he enumerates all ten of them, he enumerates the same ten exactly the same order, except in the categories he calls the first one substance or Greek ousia, and in the book on places he calls it ti esti, what it is. Okay, so that's one of the meanings of substance, what it is, and sometimes it's used in identifying that first genus, right?

[10:36] And sometimes it's carried over to other categories because you can speak of what virtue is or what the size of the thing is or something, right? But primarily, what it is is said of a substance, and that's brought out as we were saying last time by the fact that the definition of substance doesn't have to bring anything else in, That's why the definition of an accident has to bring in that of which it is an accident.

[11:09] Now, in that fourth paragraph again, he touches upon the way in which some people thought the genus and the species universals are more substances. That goes back to the position that the forms are substances.

[11:28] Now, in the fifth paragraph, he's recounting some of the things he talked about in the seventh book. So, since one of the meanings of substance is what a thing is, and definition is speech signifying what a thing is, we talked about definition in book seven, and we talked a little bit last time about some of the things he learned about definition, the fact that either there's definition only of substance, right?

[12:01] Or if you're going to say there's definition of accident, you're using the word "acc" definition in a somewhat extended sense, and you can see that even in a way from the etymology of definition, which has the idea of limiting something, right? That's a very precise notion. The limits of a body are a tight fit, you might say, huh? And but in the case of accident, you have to go outside the limits of the thing.

[12:32] I can't say what health is without saying bringing in the body of which it is the good disposition, and so it seems to go outside its limits and brings in something else. So either there's no definition of accident, or it's definition in an extended sense.

[12:52] But I mentioned some other things that we didn't mention last time. So since the what was to be. Is substance, and the definition is a speech about this, signifying what something is, signifying its substance. Because of this, it has been determined in the seventh book about definition

[13:17] and about the through itself. We talked a little bit about through itself in the fourth book, if you recall. But you could say all reasoned out knowledge is about what belongs to some subject as such or through itself.

[13:36] And so, what pertains the definition of a thing, right, belongs to the thing as such or through itself. The properties in strict sense belong to the thing through itself. So you might say it belongs to two through itself to be a number, right? Or it belongs to two in another sense of through itself, but nevertheless a a real sense of through itself to be half a four because that's a property that falls upon it.

[14:10] And so, in talking about definition, he talked about through itself. And if you have a chance to study the Posterior Analytics, you'll see this discussion of through itself coming up a lot. Aristotle says that the subject of science has to have parts and properties that belong to it through itself, kata to per se through itself. And so, the geometry never talks about the triangle being green or something of that sort because it doesn't belong to the triangle through itself.

[14:44] I was saying to the students the other day, if you have plumbing problems, do you do you call a pianist? And they say no, no, you call a plumber. I said, suppose the plumber is a pianist, and when you call a pianist, but you can see there's a necessary distinction there, right? Even if the plumber happens to be a pianist, it's not through being a pianist that he repairs your plumbing.

[15:15] That's accidental, right? It's a plumber as such who has the art of plumbing, right? Who can repair your what plumbing, okay? And the house builder is a pianist. He doesn't build the house as pianist, but as possessing the art of house building.

[15:39] Then he goes on to other things we talked about in the seventh book. Since the definition is a speech, and we defined what a speech is as opposed to a name, right? A name is vocal sound, signifying by human agreement, no part of which signifies by itself, but speech. Is made up of at least two names, huh? So speech is vocal sounds signifying by human agreement, having parts and signified by themselves, having at least two parts and signified by themselves.

[16:14] So white man is speech, right? Animal just a name, and statements are speeches, and definitions are speeches. So a definition is never just one name, as Thomas says in the commentary in Book Seven. There, you can sometimes use a synonym, right? That's more familiar for a word, like you know the students saying desiccation is a greater problem with land animals and water animals, but you could get a synonym, drying up, isn't it?

[16:49] But a definition is not a synonym. A definition is speech that makes much more distinct. But the thing is, and because it has parts that signify something by themselves, huh? So when I define the square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, that makes much more distinct what a square is than the word square can do. And quadrilateral and equilateral and right-angled, each of the three words in there are names, bring out something about the square.

[17:22] And so, since he says a definition is a speech, then and a speech has parts, it was necessary in the seventh book to consider about the parts. What are parts of the substance, and what are not?

[17:40] And if they were the same with the definition and the thing. Further, too, we saw in the seventh book that neither the universal nor the genus is really a substance. Okay. But we must inquire later about Plato's position about the forms and mathematical things, as he does in the thirteenth and fourteenth books. For some say these are substances as well as the sensible substances. But that's sort of a private position of the Platonists.

[18:09] Interesting, sometimes when Aristotle is discussing the position of Plato, he says, "We Platonists," like he's he's one of them, isn't there? Still twenty years, but now he's he's you know disagreed with some things.

[18:26] But let us now, and this is now referring to what he's going to do in the eighth book here now. But but let us now go through the substances which are agreed upon, namely the sensible substances, the material substances, huh? And these are the sensible substances you call them, okay? Or the material substances. Of course, later on Aristotle will talk about immaterial substances, huh? And the philosophers usually call them separated substances, right?

[18:58] But separated means separated from matter, okay. So they don't really use the word angels in talking about them, but we use the word angel because in the Bible the angels are sent as messengers to us, right? And the word angel means what? Messenger, yeah. Actually, they're called ministers and angels, right? But ministers of God and angels being sent to us, but that's because of the way they become known to us in the what scripture, right?

[19:36] An angel, when a separated substance is sent, you know, a message, the Mary or somebody, right? Okay. But the philosophers will call them separated substances. I sometimes fall into you know calling them angels myself because of my so I don't think I have my somewhat Christian background, but. I don't invoke my separated substance, right? I might be misunderstood if I'm invoking my separated substance.

[20:10] Okay. Separated substance, my guardian dear there is. That was a TV show, especially my separated substance. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, what is going to do in the rest of Book eight here after this kind of recalling some of the things that have been done and tying up what he's going to do now? He's going to distinguish between matter and form in the genus of what material substance

[20:47] and the composite of the two. Okay. And in the rest of this first reading, and in the second reading, he's going to say there's these two things in material substance. There's the matter underlying it, and there's the form. It's maybe more known to men that there's matter, right, than the form, but he's going to kind of show that there are these two in the rest of reading one and reading two.

[21:27] The rest of reading one, more that there's matter, and then reading two, that there's what form in the sense of substantial form, whatever that is. Okay. Okay. And

[21:42] then in the third and fourth readings, he's going to consider each of those two individually. And in the third reading, he's going to consider form in the genus of substance or act in the genus of substance. And then in the fourth reading, matter. And then in the fifth and last reading, the the union of the two, the composition of putting together the two.

[22:11] Ah. Makes sense. Okay. Just like in the book, the Peri Hermeneias he talks about the noun and the verb, right? And then he talks about the combination of the two in a statement. Okay.

[22:37] So at the bottom of the page here, in the paragraph at the bottom of page one, he's kind of anticipating that you can speak of matter and form in the genus of substance and the composition of the two, right? Okay. So he says all sensible substances have matter.

[23:00] The underlying subject is substance, but as we'll see more clearly, it's considered by itself substance only in what ability. For in one way, he says, the matter is substance, and I call matter here what is not this something an act, but is this something meaning an individual substance only in ability, huh and sometimes just the Latin words in potency, right? Okay.

[23:37] And in another way, is substance the thought of what it is in the form, which being this something is separated in thought. And third, what is from these of which alone there is generation and corruption, and is is without qualification the reality separated one thing from another, right? Okay. So material substance, at least for the most part, the matter and form don't exist by themselves, right? Okay.

[24:13] That's only the combination of the two that exists by itself, but nevertheless, you can distinguish between the matter and the form in them. And as you point out, and Thomas will be very insistent upon in the commentary, you know this only through the fact of substantial change. And we'll come back to that because it kind of was first seen in natural philosophy, right? In the first book of natural hearing, if you recall.

[24:45] Now, for of substances according to the thought of what it is, he's talking about form. Some are separable and some are not. And Thomas says there's at least two different things Aristotle might have in mind here. Okay. He could be thinking of the fact that what there are some forms that can be defined without matter, and these are considered in what geometry, right? Okay. Or there's a strange form that you and I have that can exist right apart from matter, as Plato began to show there in the Phaedo, right?

[25:27] But Aristotle more fully in the third book about the soul. And then there are some substances which are not material at all, the separated substances, and they're like pure form in a sense without matter. So he could be hitting at all these things, right? But from the text here, you can't say which one he is trying to emphasize at this point.

[25:55] Now, in the paragraph at the top of page two. Where he's showing that there's substance and sense of matter, and after stating that, he goes a little bit into what makes us see this, and you can see referring to the fact of what change. Okay, so let's go back a little bit to natural philosophy. You had

[26:34] a little natural philosophy, didn't you? From me. So remember the big scandal Heraclitus said. You know, everybody admires Hesiod. He didn't even know day and night.

[27:03] He thought day was one thing and night was something else. You get up in the day and do your work, and then you go to bed at night and sleep. Right? It's if day was one thing and night something else. Well, they're one of the same thing, right? Now Heraclitus was pointing out something that everybody who's thought about change has seen to some extent.

[27:32] Aristotle points out in the first book of Natural Hearing, first book of the so-called physics, everybody was trying to explain change by contraries, by opposites.

[27:46] And although Aristotle would not know it, even the Chinese at the same time were trying to explain change by contraries. And although he would not know it, the modern scientists are trying to explain change by contraries. As Einstein said, Helmholtz is trying to explain all change by attraction and repulsion between unalterable particles. So these are contraries, attraction and repulsion. Okay. Now more particular than that, people see the change is between contraries, huh?

[28:32] And they even speak as if in change one contrary becomes the other. So they say day becomes night, and night becomes day, and the hard becomes soft, and the soft becomes hard, and the hot becomes cold, and the cold becomes hot. Now a little bit of grammatical analysis there reveals that the word becomes means comes to be, right? So if the hard comes to be soft, then the hard would be soft.

[29:18] And if the healthy comes to be sick, then the healthy would be sick. And if day comes to be night, right? Then day is night. And so it seems as if one opposite or one contrary is the other. Now you might say, you know, well, that's impossible, right? But then, if the sick do not become healthy, then you're sick, you'd always be sick, right? And if you're healthy, you'll always be healthy, right?

[29:57] This obviously is not so, right? And if it's Day it's going to always be day, because day can't come to be night. And as night is going to be always night.

[30:10] So to hold on to the reality of change which is what strikes the senses the most of anything. In fact, you had to admit that day can come to be night, and the hard can come to be soft, and so on. And if you don't think it does come to be that, well, why do you say that it becomes? You even hear people saying, you know, love turns into hate, and sometimes hate turns into love, right?

[30:41] Okay. Now, this led Parmenides to say, well, if that's what change is, day being night, and the hard being soft, and the white being the asleep, and so on, then it's an illusion. There's no such thing.

[31:04] So you have this great dichotomy between Parmenides and Heraclitus. And often I'll say to students, whom would you follow? Because Parmenides is saying you're admitting that something both is and is not, because the day or night can both be light and not be light, and both be dark and not be dark. Well, that's impossible. So you're admitting that it's possible for something to be and not be.

[31:44] That's impossible. And therefore, change is all illusion. And Heraclitus is saying all things change. Change is real. Most real thing there is, I guess.

[32:06] But then day is night, and the hard is soft, and hot is cold, and the healthy are sick, and those who are awake are asleep. So, whom would you follow? Would you say change is real, and it's possible to be and not be? Or do you say it's impossible to be and not be, and therefore change is not real? Who would you follow? What? Parmenides. Well, most students, you know, tend to follow Heraclitus, and probably down through history, right, you'd find more people following Heraclitus, or following his words, anyway.

[32:49] You find, you know, very clearly Hegel and say in modern times, or or Marx, you know, they want to insist upon the reality of change, of movement, development, evolution, whatever it is, and they're willing to admit a contradiction. So Hegel said there's a contradiction in becoming something both is and is not.

[33:14] I suppose people tend to follow Heraclitus because change is what most strikes the senses, and that's the beginning of our knowledge. On the other hand, in the great dialogue called the Parmenides, Plato has Socrates say that he's a man to be reverenced, to be feared. Okay, and in the great dialogue called the Parmenides, Plato represents Parmenides as teaching Socrates as a young man the Socratic method, because he questions Socrates, and Socrates gives him the contradictions and so on.

[33:52] And whether that's historical or not, whether Parmenides ever came to Athens and talked to Socrates, no one really knows because they're not sure the dates of these people, right? But I think that's beside the point. The point really is that the Socratic method of examining people to see if your ideas fit together, or see if they contradict each other, and therefore mistaken somewhere, is in fact based upon what Parmenides insisted upon: the impossibility of both being and not being, right?

[34:25] Now, I say probably most people like Hegel and so on would follow Heraclitus, okay, because of the senses, huh? But maybe think twice, huh? Because Parmenides and Heraclitus at first seem to have nothing in common, right? The one says that contradiction is impossible. The other, in words, is admitting contradictions, right? The one says that all things flow, nothing abides, changes everywhere. The other guy says that's illusion; there's no such thing going on.

[35:08] Okay, so all you see at first is disagreement, right? Now, how does the human mind, if it can at all, how does it go forward when two men disagree?

[35:28] Well, one man can say, "You know, you're mistaken because you don't agree with what I say." And the other can return the compliment and say, "No, you're mistaken." And then they don't go anywhere, do they? The only way that two men can go forward when they disagree is to go back to something that they both have, what? In common. Yeah, which they can use to decide about the disagreement, huh?

[36:00] And so, two experimental scientists might have a different hypothesis, and if one says, "You know, your hypothesis is a lot of hogwash," because my hypothesis must be the truth, and vice versa, but nowhere, right? But they might be able to think of an experiment in which their two hypotheses would make different predictions, right? And they could both perform the experiment and see what happens, and maybe one would be confirmed, the other one contradicted, right?

[36:30] And therefore, they could decide because of the common experiment, right? Okay. Now, at first sight, here is nothing these two guys have in common, right? Is what the one affirms, the other guy denies, and vice versa, okay? But think twice.

[36:52] What they have in common, at least in their words, is that you have to choose between the impossibility of contradiction, right, and the reality of change.

[37:08] They're incompatible, right? That's what they have in common, right? Now, why do you have to choose between the two? Well, change involves a contradiction,

[37:28] then it contradicts the impossibility of contradiction. So, in making a choice between the two, what they have in common is the principle of what contradiction, right? Okay, the ball game is over. Parmenides has won. Yes, sir. Further, you could say

[37:56] that in admitting in words that something can both be and not be, rather strange thing to admit in words. In order to save what the reality of change, but Heraclitus doesn't even save the reality of change because of day and night. We're reading the same thing. Would there be any change from day to night, or night to day? No. And if the healthy and the sick were the same, there wouldn't be any change from health to being sick, or from sick to being healthy.

[38:38] So he doesn't even save what he's trying to save by giving up the obvious, right? Incidentally, you have something like this when people go down to the. Years, huh? They run into what seems a contradiction in something they're studying, right? And then they start to think that the axiom about being and non-being is not true, right? But they're saying it's not true because it is true. They're saying it's not true because something contradicts it.

[39:22] So how absurd their their attack is, huh? Now, Aristotle coming on the scene afterwards, huh? Agrees that what Parmenides has insisted upon is the natural beginning of all the axioms, huh? It's the most known of all. You can kind of see that because every statement either is affirmative or negative. Every statement says it is so or it is not so. It Doesn't say both. So every statement presupposes that it isn't both.

[40:00] But at the same time, it's absurd to deny the existence of what change. Therefore, there must be a way of understanding change that does not involve a what contradiction. Okay.

[40:20] And so going back to what led to apparent contradiction, let's say the change between healthy and sick, or the change between the hard and the soft in either direction, right? Or the change between a sphere and a cube. Let's say, huh?

[40:52] Well, wouldn't the healthy become sick? Does health itself become sickness? No, health could never be sickness. The good condition of the body could never be the bad condition of the body. Okay. Could health become sick? If health is that by which the healthy is healthy, right? Could health itself be sick? No. So there must be something in this change between healthy and sick besides health and what sickness.

[41:41] And that's the underlying right subject of both health and sickness. So let's say the body, okay. And the body is not the same thing as its health. If the body were the same thing as its health, it could never be sick. And the body is not the same thing as its health sickness. But health or sickness can be in the body, right? But not both at the same time.

[42:19] Or you could say the body is able to be healthy and able to be sick, able to be both, but not able to be both at the same time.

[42:33] So this leads us to what something underlying any change which is between contraries or opposites. The same way the change between hard and soft does hardness itself

[42:52] come to be softness in this change. No, that would be a contradiction, right? Does hardness itself become soft? That, whereby things are hard, is itself soft? No. So it must be a third thing, huh? Like butter, I would say, huh? And the butter is not the same thing as its hardness, although it's the subject of hardness, right? And the butter is not the same thing as its softness, but it's the subject in which the softness is.

[43:34] You could say the butter is able to be both hard and soft, but not able to be both at the same time. And when it's actually hard, it's able to be soft, but if it becomes actually soft, it loses its hardness. Likewise, the change from sphere to the cube cube. Does the spherical shape now become a cubical shape?

[44:00] Or does the cubical shape become a circular shape? Universally, no. So there's a third thing. Let's say take clay as an example, and clay is not the same thing as either one of the shapes, but it's the subject in which these shapes exist, right? But never existed at the same time, right? Or you can say it's able to be right a sphere and a cube, but not at the same time.

[44:36] And when it's actually one, it remains able to be the other one, so. So here you get the idea of the underlying subject, right? And the idea that its inability towards the what? Two opposites, right? Okay.

[45:00] You see how this unties the apparent contradiction chain, huh? Now, why do we say that healthy becomes sick? If health cannot become sickness, health cannot become sick. Even the healthy, as such, cannot be sick, right? Why do we say that? Well, because to be healthy is something that happens to what becomes sick.

[45:30] Just like I could say that a pianist built my house, but not as pianist, right? But because to be a pianist happens to the housebuilder, I could say, in some sense, a pianist built my house. But I'd be speaking by happening, right? It's not through itself. It's not through being a pianist that he built the house. It's not as pianist that he built the house, right? So we can kind of explain why we speak this way, huh?

[46:03] We're speaking kind of by what happening, and not saying what really as such is becoming sick, huh? It's the body as such is becoming sick, huh? Okay.

[46:17] When the ignorant come to know, ignorance now become knowledge. The lack of knowledge is now knowledge. Don't happen. That would be impossible, right? There must be a third thing, right? Which is the mind, right? It's able to be ignorant and able to know, right? But it's not both in the same way at the same time. You see that? Okay.

[46:47] But now, the changes that we've mentioned here are exemplified here are really what we would call accidental changes, right? Okay. And not what we call substantial change.

[47:08] Health and sickness are in the category of quality, right? The first species. Hard and softer in the third species, right? Shape is the fourth species of quality, right? Okay. But now suppose we feed Boethius to the lions, huh? Okay. And so now you have a change between man and what lion, right? A man has become a lion, and not figuratively. A man has become a lion, right?

[47:48] Okay. Now, what is the subject underlying change from a man to a lion? Because here you have two what substances, huh? Aristotle says in the first book of natural hearing that the subject underlying man and lion, which you might call the very first matter, because it's not just underlying accidental change, but not substantial change. He says this first matter

[48:23] is knowable by a what proportion? A proportion, now in the Euclidean sense, huh? A likeness of what ratios, huh? Okay. Now, let me speak to proportion, right? And then we must understand the proportion.

[48:50] You can say the first matter is to man and lion, like And take one example you had before, like clay. Is to sphere and cube. Okay.

[49:13] Now, likeness is a slippery thing, says Plato. And these are the dialogue of the Sophists. Aristotle in the book on mistakes in thinking, the book called Sophistical Refutations apparent but not real reputations. And likeness is the cause of deception.

[49:42] People eat poisonous mushrooms because they look like them. Now, as a little boy we used to get these little pieces of metal looked like ink spilled. Right? People always spill their ink, you know. Put that on your mother's white linen tablecloth, and she'd put it in, and then she'd go light your little paddy or something for scaring the wits out of her But you're deceived by likeness, son.

[50:16] If I put, salt in your sugar bowl, and put that in your coffee, and then you discover when you're drinking it, well, you were deceived by the likeness, right? Okay. Now, I go back to you know a very simple example in in arithmetic. that when you first see the portion, son. If I say that four is to six as two is to three, and someone says, "Well, two is an even number and three is an odd number, right?

[50:53] Four is an even number, and then six should be a what? Odd number? Say, "Oh, no, no, you misunderstood the proportion, huh? Four is to six as two is to three, not because four is to six as a what? Even number is to an odd number, right? That's not where the likeness consists. Okay, let me try again. Two and three are prime numbers, right?

[51:21] So it's a ratio of a prime number to a prime number. So if four is to six as two is to three, four is to six must also be the ratio of a prime number to a prime number. How's that?

[51:35] Well, that's not the way in which they are alike, right? These are all differences, huh? Two and three are prime numbers. Four and six are what? Composite numbers, right? Three is an odd number, but six is an even number. I don't see any likeness here. Okay. Well, in what way exactly is four to six like two is to 3?

[52:00] Well, you'd say in geometry or arithmetic that four is the same parts as six, that two is a three, right? And if someone has a hard time seeing that, you'd say, "Well, think of four as being two twos, and six as being three twos, right? So four is two of the three parts of six, right? Oh, yeah, nice. Okay, that's nice how they're alike. You see, that's a simple example, but you know you have to.

[52:31] There can be many differences between the different members of a proportion, right? And exactly what way they are like. Now, notice in the example here that the first matter is to man and lion, as clay is to sphere and cube, huh? That's a proportion. But notice, son, clay is an actual substance.

[53:00] The first man is not an actual substance. It's substance in ability you say but it's not an actual substance. So that way, the first matter is not like clay, is it? It's different. And sphere and cube, you've got two shapes there, two accidents, right?

[53:24] Man and lion, are two substances. Oh, these aren't alike, are they? You're comparing an actual substance with a substance ability. You're comparing two substances with two accents, hasn't it? Don't say like this, do you?

[53:46] Well, in what way are they alike? We can say they're alike in this way: that just as clay is able to be a sphere or a cube, right, but not both at the same time, right? And when it's actually one, it's able to be the other. But if it becomes the other, it ceases to be. So likewise, the first matter is able to be a man or a lion, but not both at the same time.

[54:15] And was actually one; it remains able to be the other. But if it became the other, it ceased to be the former. That's what the likeness consists in, right? But we make known the first matter by its proportion, because

[54:33] of the fact that it's really pure ability considered by itself, and therefore it's not really knowable by itself. You can only know ability in comparison to what? So if you tried to know the first matter by itself, you'd be trying to know the unknowable.

[54:53] But everything else in the proportion here, right, has some actuality. It's either an actual substance or it's an actual accident, and so on. Okay, you see that? So Thomas was explicitly in his exposition of the text there. The way that Aristotle is indicating that we come to know the first matter, which is matter in genus of substance, is through the fact of change, right? Through the fact of substantial change.

[55:27] And we have to understand it kind of by seeing that it is to substances something like clay is to sphere and cube, or the body is to healthy and sick, right? Or the butter is to hard and soft. Is one of those other ratios, right? But the likeness would be right that just as the butter is able to be hard and able to be soft, not at the same time, right?

[55:53] And when it's actually one, it's able to be the other. If it becomes the other, it ceases to be the former. Well, the same way, the first matter is able to be man or lion. But not both at the same time. What's actually one is able to be the other. If it becomes the other, it ceases to be the former, right? So that's where the likeness consists, huh?

[56:22] And in the high energy experiments in modern physics, there they're very close to first matter. Kind of very strange, one at that level. But Heisenberg will compare what they're doing there, right, with the first matter of Aristotle, because the high energy experiments seem to reveal the complete mutability of matter.

[56:44] You see why the early Greeks and the early moderns thought of the first matter as being some actual substance, but the first matter is actually only substance and ability. Okay. So what modern physics calls the elements that is sort of just like a stepping. Well, what what the high energy experiments seem to reveal is that there's no form of matter that is permanent.

[57:18] So if the first matter was an actual substance, it'd be some form of matter, right? That would be eternal, right? Okay. And it would never cease to be or come to be, right? Okay. But what the high energy experiments seem to reveal was that there was no such form of matter, right? And since you can't get something from nothing, right? Then you're forced the idea that the underlying matter is substance only in ability, but it's never going to be isolated by itself, right?

[57:54] Because it's always under some form that couldn't be there, It could actually be there, right? Without some actuality which it has to the form. Now you can say in a way substantial form is going to be known by a proportion too, because you can't sense or imagine substantial form. You can only sense or imagine accidental forms, and so you have to understand a substantial form by a proportion too.

[58:25] But you can see, kind of, you know, once you understand this basic proportion, right? There's got to be something in the man and the lion, right? Like these two forms over here, the sphere and the cube, Let's go to the substantial form rather than accidental form, and you can talk about the differences between substantial form and accidental form eventually, but there's a certain analogy, right? So if the clay is able to be sphere and a cube, but it's actually a sphere.

[59:00] Through this form, it's actually a cube. Through this other form, right? Well, then, likewise, in the first matter it's able to be a man or a lion, but it's actually a man through this form and a lion through this other form. What we call a substantial form because man and lion are substances. Okay.

[59:22] And I think the most interesting part here of of the eighth book is the the third reading, right, where he talks about substantial form, and it's very interesting. we have to talk about it. you'll find out when we do that. when. We spend the whole next next week's class on the third chapter. Maybe do the fourth and the fifth the week after. But today we want to see the first and the second here.

[59:47] Okay. Now the last paragraph from the first reading. there He's alluding a bit to his position about the heavenly bodies because Aristotle didn't think that the sun the moon, and the stars underwent substantial change, right? Or they even underwent alteration, or growth, or even death. They only underwent what change of place, right? And maybe we know better than that now, okay? That they have really the same kind of matter, right?

[1:00:25] But Aristotle complains about the distance between himself and the what sun and the moon and the stars, huh? And in the biological works, talks about how

[1:00:38] he wanted to know better the sun and the moon and the stars, but they're not accessible to him. Why the animals? He can cut them open, and he was doing a lot of anatomy and things of that sort. But he couldn't do anything like that the sun, the moon, and the stars. Didn't have obviously a telescope or anything like that in those days, right? And other more subtle instrument than even a telescope.

[1:01:01] So that last paragraph, if you want to spend too much time on, he's kind of alluding to that position, right? That a body could have what change of substance, like you and I are subject to with death and so on, and also have what change of place, right? But maybe the reverse isn't so. Anything that changes place doesn't have any change of what of substance, huh? If the sun, moon, and the stars, right, change place, but don't what change their quality or their substance, it seems, huh?

[1:01:37] When Thomas talks about that, he says, "Well, maybe it takes them longer than the lives of many men for a change to take place." You know, so Thomas is aware of the fact that you're not together sure about the sun, moon, and stars, okay? But we

[1:01:55] don't have to dwell on that too much, okay? Let's take a little break here, since it's a natural place to get in the first and the second meeting.