Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
47. Metaphysics IX, Reading 2: Rational vs. Natural Abilities — Knowledge of Contraries and the Modern Misunderstanding of Reason and Nature
Class of 2005-10-27
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/047-metaphysics-ix-reading-2-rational-vs-natural-abilities-knowledge/

[0:00] So let's look now at the second reading here, where Aristotle is going to begin to distinguish the abilities found in the soul from the abilities that are generally found in the natural world, but especially the abilities that are found in the what understanding soul, the soul that has reason.

[0:27] Since some such beginnings, notice he's called beginnings the what in the definition really of of these abilities or powers, right? Beginning meaning what the origin or source of something, right? So one ability is a beginning or origin or source of change, in another, right? And another is is a beginning or source of being changed by another, right? Okay. But now he's going to bring out a distinction mainly of the active abilities between what we might call a natural ability or power and a what rational ability.

[1:12] or power. And there's some anticipation of the rational abilities or powers even in the lesser souls, huh? And the main difference he's pointing out is that the natural ability or power seems to be limited or determined to to one of two opposites, huh? So the fire, for example, as such, will make things hot or cold, but just what be limited to making things what hot, right? Okay.

[1:59] But the rational ability or power is capable of what of contraries or opposites, huh? So the doctor can heal you or make you sick by his art, huh? Not that both are the purpose of the art, but the art enables him to do both, right? And as a logician, I can reason well and reason badly, and I can teach and I can deceive. Not that I should do both, but I have the ability to do both, huh?

[2:35] Okay. Now there's a kind of anticipation of this, and in the simpler natural science of the Greeks, there Aristotle saw that heavy things go down and light things go up, right?

[2:58] Which is somewhat true, But a tree seems to grow, but a tree seems to grow in what one direction primarily? Well, no, it grows up into the sky, but down in the ground, right? And it's kind of a ratio between the two, so it seems to grow in opposite directions, huh? So it's kind of the anticipation, even in the lowest soul, the living soul there, of being open to opposites, huh?

[3:26] But most of all, the understanding soul, because there's the same knowledge of contraries or opposites, huh? And this is an old truth that that is found

[3:43] in Plato as well as in Aristotle, and one famous one famous text is in the Symposium, right? And if you've read the Symposium, but by the end of Symposium, which means putting together the Greek word, everybody is more or less under the table, but some people talking towards the end there are Socrates and the two poets there, the Aristophanes, the comic poet, and Agathon, the tragic poet, whose tragedy has won the prize this year, and the Symposium is in honor of him.

[4:22] And Socrates was saying at the end there to Aristophanes, the comic poet, and Agathon, the tragic poet, if you guys knew what you were doing, you could both write tragedy and comedy.

[4:40] Now, perhaps Agathon wrote just tragedies and not comedies, couldn't write them, and Aristophanes wrote just comedies and couldn't write tragedies, but Socrates is saying if you knew what you were doing, you could do both, huh? As if there's the same knowledge of what opposites, right? Okay. So if you were writing these things by knowledge, you should be able to write both. And we know that the supreme poet there, who's Homer, wrote not only the Iliad, but the Margites huh?

[5:21] Now the Margites is is lost, although there's some fragments we have of it. But Aristotle, in the book on the poetic art, there says that the Margites is to comedy what the Iliad is to tragic. Yeah, so the Margites was as good a comic work as the Iliad is a tragic epic, you might say. Then Homer could do both, huh? And the same way Shakespeare can do both, right?

[5:53] We're more familiar with Shakespeare's tragedies, you know, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and Macbeth and so on. But he writes very good comedy, right?

[6:05] I remember my brother Richard, you know, seeing some of our Shakespeare's comedies, you know, and saying to me, "I didn't realize Shakespeare could be so funny, you know, and so on." So he can do both, right? Is it?

[6:20] But this is the idea that there's the same what knowledge opposite. Aristotle in the fifth book of the Politics, he shows both how to overthrow a government and how to what preserve it, and he does both of those in the same book as if it's one and the same what knowledge of both. And as we've mentioned before, in the logical works, you learn about correct reasoning and incorrect reasoning.

[6:53] The eight books about places, the so-called topics, and the two books on sophistic reputations form one entire work, right? Which you learn both about correct reasoning, you might say, and the incorrect reasoning. Second tool of the dialectician is to distinguish the senses of a word, and the most common mistake in thinking is mixing up the senses of a word. So it's kind of the same knowledge of both.

[7:25] I know myself that the fundamental mistakes the mind makes, commonly, kind of in the beginning of trouble for the mind, is not seeing some distinction, right? Overlooking some distinction, or misunderstanding some distinction, huh? So I tell my students, you know, if you understand these kinds of distinctions, you can understand these kinds of mistakes. But likewise, if you see people making these kinds of mistakes, you realize the importance of understanding these kinds of distinction.

[8:06] So I mean, in so many ways, it's important to distinguish the senses of words equivocal by reason. When you see people making all these mistakes when they mix up these senses, then you realize the importance of that. So it's kind of the same knowledge of both, right? And the more you realize the or understand the distinction of the senses of a word, the more you can see how people can fall into these mistakes so easily.

[8:32] Aristotle's going to develop as we go along, right? But there's in something found mainly in the soul, the understanding soul, but there's kind of an anticipation of that, right? In the in the way the tree grows, huh? And you heard my comparison to.

[8:57] The way the tree grows and the way wisdom grows. It's kind of a paradox at first about wisdom because wisdom is going to go all the way to knowing God, right? The highest point, you might say. But it also considers the axioms which underlie all of our knowledge. And when the wise man defends the axioms, like he does in Book Four of Wisdom, especially the axioms of being and unbeing, and when he distinguishes the senses of the words used in the axioms, like he does in Book Five, he's going down, down into the beginning of our knowledge.

[9:47] So it's like he's going in two directions. He's below everybody else because he's going down into the cellar, into the foundation of all our knowledge. more deeply than anybody else ever does. At The same time, he's rising, but above all of us, more right. You see, that's kind of paradox, right? But I say it compares, the way the tree grows, and and in general, the way plants grow, because the higher they grow up into the sky, the more they grow and send roots down into the ground, and I guess the botanists say, you know, it's kind of a portion there, the higher ratio between what's above or how high up in the air and how far you go down in the ground, just like I suppose

[10:35] with with our buildings, right? The higher you want to go up into the sky, the more you have to what have a foundation down in the ground, but it's kind of strange that you're going opposite directions, huh? That's kind of a paradox, huh?

[10:55] So there's really anticipation of what you're going to find more fully in the understanding soul. So that's what he speaks here. Since some such beginnings, these abilities we talked about in the first reading, are present in soulless things, right? Things that have no soul, nonliving things, and you might call those not just negatively soulless things, but natural things, right? They're called natural abilities, and others in those having soul, right?

[11:28] And in the soul itself, and especially in the part of the soul having reason, right? It is clear that some abilities will be without reason, and some with reason, right? Wherefore, all the arts and making sciences are abilities, for they are beginnings able to produce change in other as other. Now he starts to talk about the difference of them in the second paragraph. And all those with reason are the same of what controls.

[12:02] So by grammar, I can say I am your professor, and I can say I is your professor, and you am my students, right? And I know I'm speaking incorrectly there, right? But how do I know that? How do I know it's incorrect to say you is my students, and I I are your professor from a logical grammar? Yeah, yeah. So you might say grammar enables me to speak correctly and what incorrectly, right?

[12:44] And a good lawyer, a good man who has something the gift to persuade, he can persuade for or against, right? Jerry's he's being paid to do

[12:56] it. Um. But those without reason are one of one, and we could call those abilities natural abilities. Nature is determined to one. For example, heat is only of heating, or fire, I might say, is only of heating. But the medical art is both a disease and what Health. health, yeah.

[13:26] So if I put the steak on the grill, you want to cook it so it's still pink. Let's say it's steak, huh? But I also know how to overcook it too, and the knowledge of how much to cook it is also knowledge of how to overcook it. Not that you want to aim at both, but yeah, the ability for both, huh? Okay.

[13:57] Now Shakespeare touches upon that in Coriolanus, huh? When Volumnia is speculating as to why Coriolanus is so tragic, right? And he says, "Nature not being able to be more than one thing." And he's thinking of how Coriolanus is really a soldier, and he can't, what adapt to civilian life. And he continues to act like he was commanding his army and so on, right? When he's got to kind of fight for the people and so on to get honest in civilian life.

[14:40] So sometimes people customs like a second nature, right? It's like nature you're determined to one. Now, why is it that the rational ability is of contraries when the actual one is not? It's

[15:03] because there's the same knowledge of what contraries or opposites. So in the definition, let's say of blindness would be what sight, huh? But in matter, one contrary excludes the other, right? So if you have sight, you can't be blind. If you're blind, you don't have sight, huh? But in our knowledge, one contrary is involved and helps you know the other one. So because of the same knowledge of contraries, and you're acting through knowledge with the rational ability, the rational ability is the ability for contraries, but the nature determined to one.

[15:52] Now, in the third paragraph, you're starting to get that reason, then, right? The cause is that knowledge of reason is thought, and the same thought, in a way, shows the thing and its lack, except not in the same way. Okay, so you might know directly what sight is, and then to know what sight is, you know blindness is. Okay, or you might know what health is, and you might say,

[16:25] "What my blood pressure should be, or what the thyroid should be, right?" Huh? But then you know an overactive or an underactive thyroid has got to be compensated in some way by medicine or something of this sort, or call it a tonic cocktail. You know, I don't think who who's got autonomic tactile is doing pretty bad, but but

[16:48] or an idea of high blood pressure, right? You know, does include the idea of what normal blood pressure should be, right? So the same knowledge of both, huh?

[17:01] Therefore, such knowledge of reason must be of contraries, but of one as such, and the other not as such, but maybe through the first. Okay, so just developing that idea. Okay, now since contraries in the fourth paragraph. Now, now since contraries do not come to be in the same thing, but the knowledge of reason is an ability to having thought, and the soul has a beginning of motion.

[17:30] Therefore, while the wholesome makes only health and the heater only heat and the chilling only coldness, the one with the knowledge of reason can make both, for the thought is of both, but not in the same way. And it is in a soul which has a beginning of motion. That's the basic difference, son. Now, Aristotle doesn't elaborate here too much, but

[18:05] is there anything that the reason naturally knows? In the same way, we get to the will, right? When I go into the restaurant, they give me the menu. I can choose to have steak, or not to have steak, right? I'm not determined to one or the other, right?

[18:37] But does the will naturally will something? Well, if you say that the reason and the will naturally, or the reason naturally knows something, and the will naturally wills something, that there's something that the will is not free to will the opposite, right? Like the case of the will.

[19:07] Is my will free to choose between, say, happiness and misery? Can I really want to be miserable? I can choose between having steak and not having steak, or having steak or having chicken, right? But can I choose between happiness and misery, or do I naturally want to be happy?

[19:36] Or what does Aristotle say at the beginning of the first book of Wisdom there in the Premium, all men by nature desire to know, or all men by nature desire to understand," right?

[19:51] Um. Did I choose, you know, to like the beautiful? And not like the ugly, or did I naturally like the beautiful and dislike the ugly? What do you think? It'd be natural. Yeah, yeah. So it seems there's something of the natural even in the will, right? Okay. And there's something of the natural in reason. So is reason really free to think, say that the whole is not more than the part?

[20:32] Okay. Or is reason really able to to think that something can both be and not be the same time in the same way? Okay.

[20:45] Well, if you look at Thomas, he talks about reason knowing some things naturally, where it's determined, right, to one side of a what contradiction, right?

[21:02] Or the will is naturally turned to something. What happens to this distinction that he's making here, right? You see, because the distinction here between a natural ability and a rational ability that he gives here in the second reading is that the rational ability is an ability for contraries, right? And the natural ability is an ability that's determined to one of the two contraries.

[21:32] Would it simply be that, say, my reason has a nature? I have a nature. My reason has a nature, and consequently, it will know something by nature, not just by, okay, by reason alone. Nature's what's first in the thing, right? Okay. But now, like I was saying earlier,

[21:55] we're talking about mistakes there. If you were in the room, we just talked about mistakes. But the beginning of trouble in our thinking, I was mentioning before, seems to be not seeing some distinction, right? Or misunderstanding some distinction.

[22:15] So the man who's deceived, say, by the fallacy of equivocation, he doesn't see the distinction, the meanings of the word, right? Okay. I was mentioning for the Melissus too, right? They mix up two different senses of of infinite, right? Okay. You heard my little sophism there about whole and part, didn't you? You know, where I say that man is an animal, but he's not just an animal.

[22:54] A animal that has reason. So animal is only a part of man, right? And then I say, but animal includes besides man, dog, cat, or elephant. So sometimes the part includes more than the whole. Well, when I first presented the class, the students, yeah, yeah, gee, sometimes the part is more than the whole. You see, but you're mixing up two different senses of whole and part. The fundamental distinction between the composed whole, right, and the composed whole in this sense is the definition of man, right?

[23:31] And a part of the definition is less than the whole definition, right? So if the definition of man is a animal that has reason, animal is only a part of the definition, and the definition is more than just animal. But then when you compare animal and say animal includes besides man, dog, cat, horse, you don't mean that animal is composed of man, dog, cat, and horse. Um, but that animal is said of what these, right?

[24:01] This is the universal whole, and the universal whole is always said of more than one of its parts, and the composed whole is always composed of more than one of its parts. So you're mixing up those two different senses of whole and part. Um,

[24:18] so someone who overlooks the distinction of meanings there of whole and part is easily what deceived. Okay. Um, I know when I teach the beginning of of natural philosophy, and Aristotle shows that the general is before the particular, right?

[24:41] And he has a very good reason for saying that because we know things in a confused way before distinctly. And so when you get more particular, you're getting more distinct, right? What are you drinking? You're drinking a dry red wine. Well, what kind of a dry red wine? Well, it's carboné sauvignon. I'm not as sure that I'm drinking carboné sauvignon as I'm drinking a dry red wine.

[25:05] And so they you get them to agree that we should that we know the general before the particular. And then I turn around and say, yeah, but the senses come before reason, and the senses know only particulars.

[25:21] Can't see man in general, I always see a particular man or a particular dog. So if sensing comes before reason, then particulars come before the general. So Aristotle is obviously contradicting himself, right? Well, they think he is, right? But the word general and particular have two senses. So when Aristotle says the general comes before the particular, he means general in the sense of more universal before particular in the sense of less universal.

[25:54] But what he says other places that particulars come before the general, particulars means what singulars and general means universal. So since our knowledge begins with our senses, and senses know only singulars, right? Singulars come before any what universals. But among universals, the more universal comes before the what less universal. The confusion comes because we use the word particular sometimes for singulars, and sometimes less universal. So when I say Socrates is a particular man, particular means an individual man, right?

[26:38] When I say dog is a particular kind of animal, particular doesn't mean a singular there; it means something less universal than animal. So I say the beginning of trouble for our mind is not seeing any what distinction or misunderstanding it. So what is the distinction here between the rational ability and the reasonable ability? Huh? What's the difference? Well, you can just understand that distinction, right? Okay.

[27:17] And it goes back to a kind of of equivocation by reason that we saw before. We talked about it. Sometimes, sometimes when a name is said of two things,

[27:41] sometimes one of those two things keeps that name as its own, and the other gets a new name, right? Okay. An example of that is the word animal, right?

[27:56] Now we might say now that animal is said of animals with reason. We can call those men, right? And animals without reason, we might call them a beast. Let's say, right? Huh? Okay.

[28:16] But sometimes instead of using the word beast for an animal without reason, we'll just keep the word animal for the animals without reason, huh? And so sometimes we distinguish man and animal, right? Because they're not the same thing, right? But just a minute now, before we say that man is an animal, well, I go back and say my mother didn't like it when I would say man is an animal, and I'd say, well, Mama, I don't mean he's just an animal, okay?

[28:54] His animal has reason. Okay, that's better. She'd say, you see. So sometimes we use the word animal, right? With this precision, right? But it's just an animal. See, but since man has something very significant in addition to being a living body with senses, namely that he has reason, right? He gets the name, right? Okay, but you have to be careful. You see, maintaining the distinction, because if you distinguish man against animal, do you mean by animal is distinguished from man, living body with sensation, or man is a living body with senses too?

[29:42] So you mean what is just an animal, right? Okay. So when you distinguish between nature and reason, or between a natural ability and a rational ability, huh? It's like this distinction between animal and man, because the natural ability is something that is just the natural ability, right? Okay. By reason is not just the ability to know something naturally, right? But to know things naturally. by reasoning and so on, when the mind is kind of opening up to opposites, huh?

[30:25] Okay. In the same way for the will, right? What is you contrast nature and will? What doesn't mean is not nothing of will, nothing of nature and will, but why does will then get the name will and nature keep it? But what is just a nature keeps the name nature, and what is not just a nature but has something in addition to that, the ability to choose and so on gets a new name and called the will, right?

[31:00] Okay. You see the point? Now it goes back a little bit. We could explain a little bit going back to the eighth book of wisdom, right? Where Aristotle compared the definitions to what numbers, right? Okay. Now, so suppose you are contrasting two and three, right? Okay. Well, is there a two in three? Yes. Yeah. See. So you got to understand that when you distinguish two against three, you are not denying that there might be in some way two in three, right?

[31:45] But three is really, as we saw before, two plus one. That's what it is, right? So three is not just two. Okay. So it's almost like we're dividing two into what two and three? Okay. Two into what is just two, and what is two plus one? And two plus one, because not just two, it gets a new name, three, and what is just two keeps the name, yeah.

[32:23] You see what I mean? Okay. So you don't want to misunderstand the distinction between two and three. There is a distinction between two and three, right? But you don't want to misunderstand it and deny that in some way there is a two in three, okay? But you want to understand that that three is not just two, but two and something more, right? You see, that's kind of a subtle thing, huh?

[33:00] Now. Aristotle when he distinguishes the rational ability from the natural ability, right? He's doing so by what the rational ability has that the natural ability doesn't have, right? Okay, and that is that in some ways it's open to opposites, right? Okay,

[33:34] so Shakespeare can write a tragedy or a comedy, right? Huh? Okay. One can use the fifth book of the Politics to overthrow it or to preserve it, right? So,

[33:54] for that, in many things, reason has a difficulty knowing the truth, right? And it has reason to think it is so, and reason to think it is not so, right? Okay. So Socrates and Amino reasons that virtue can be taught with probability, and can reason the reason that virtue cannot be taught with probability, huh? Okay, so you can the way open the opposites, huh? And I can choose to do something or not to do it, or to do it this way or do it that way, right?

[34:31] Okay. So you want to distinguish the rational ability from the natural ability. You do so by what the rational ability has that the natural ability doesn't have. Okay, it's almost like saying that the rational ability is not just a natural ability; the natural ability plus something what more, right? Okay.

[35:05] So in my desire, I have a natural desire to know, right? Okay, and I don't naturally desire to be ignorant. I suppose that's a desire to that, right? So it's not. I choose. You know, should I choose to to know things or or to be ignorant? No, I naturally want to know. Okay, so that sense I'm not open to those two opposites, right? Okay.

[35:39] I suppose in some way I naturally want to be wise. I don't want to be a fool. You know, in there King Lear, I mean, Othello, right? Where Othello realizes that his wife is innocent, he's been deceived by Iago. You know, fool, fool. He's done. He's killed his own wife, right? Now he realizes.

[36:03] So he wants to be a fool, right? Okay. But now, does my natural desire to know mean that I will study now natural philosophy tonight,

[36:19] rather than say studying geometry tonight or studying theology, right? You see. So I'm not just determined to one or two opposites in my life, right? Okay. I can choose to study natural philosophy tonight, or not study natural philosophy, or study natural philosophy, or study geometry tonight, right? Or study theology or something, right? You see? Okay. I can read the Gospel Saint John tonight or not read it, right?

[36:57] Or read the Gospel Saint John or read the Gospel Saint Matthew, right? Okay. So I don't. I'm not just determined to one, right? So I'm not my reason or my will. Either one is not just a natural ability. It's a natural ability.

[37:19] Something, right? You see. But when you you distinguish them, you distinguish them by what one has in addition to the other. That's what stands out. Okay. So when you distinguish the will and nature, you might begin to distinguish them by saying the will is the ability to choose. Okay.

[37:44] Okay. And and reason is the ability for opposites and so on, right? The idea for that, but it's not just that, right? Okay. That'd be like saying that in no ways are two and three. It can't be two and three because three is not the same as two. Okay. Now the modern philosophers, huh? When you read them,

[38:09] they some of them very explicitly deny that reason naturally what knows anything. Okay. So like John Stuart Mill, take an example here, right? I don't know if you know what called on liberty, right? Okay. Um. The moderns are very interested in liberty, huh? And John Stuart Mill's work called on liberty, right? But one of the chapters is on liberty of thought, right? He's defending liberty of thought, free thinking you might want to put it that way.

[38:47] But part of this, right, defense of this, is something that Aristotle would admit, right? That there are things where we don't know whether is or isn't so right. We can give maybe reasons for saying it is so, maybe the saying isn't so, right? Maybe the reasons we can give for it is so are stronger or more numerous than the ones we give for it's not so, right?

[39:15] But maybe somebody else will come up with some better reasons for it's not being so, you know? So we got to kind of keep an open mind, you might say, right? But where Mill disagrees with Aristotle is that there's nothing we really what are determined to say it is so and cannot not be so, right? Or it's not so and cannot be so, right? There's nothing, in other words, that reason is naturally determined to say, so that for Mill we'll go on talking forever but never really but anything, never definitely say, you know, it is so and cannot not be so, right?

[39:54] Okay. So he's denying um uh that there's something of nature. In reason, right? Okay, so he's misunderstanding the distinction between the natural ability and the rational ability. See, just like if you distinguish between the animals and man, right? As we sometimes do, right? But it would be to misunderstand the distinction, to not realize that man is in some way an animal, right? See, and that we distinguish man from animal because man is not just an animal, right?

[40:34] In the same way, we distinguish three from two, not because there isn't a two in three, but because three is not just two; it distinguishes from two. See, now the same way with the will. You see, you take somebody who's crazy about freedom, like like Sartre. They've just changed his name.

[41:05] Well, for Sartre, there's nothing that the will necessarily wills, okay? And that you know you're copying out if you think that your will is necessarily willing something, right? That that this kind of absolute what indetermination of the will, right, is completely free, huh? And is that really true? See.

[41:35] Um. So, in a sense, what they're saying is that there's nothing that we naturally will, and there's nothing that we naturally understand, right? So, in the case of the will,

[42:05] everything you will is a choice, okay? And everything you think is a result of some kind of reasoning or something less than reasoning, right? And there's nothing that you naturally think.

[42:22] So the moderns are misunderstanding the distinction between the two, huh? Okay. Now, if you just look at Aristotle's text here by itself, you might think that that

[42:37] because he distinguishes the rational ability, right, the natural ability, because the rational ability is capable of opposites, and the natural ability is determined to one of two opposites, right? That he's making what? An error. Yeah. But Aristotle talks, you know, and he talks about the in the fourth book, and he talked about the axioms, like the whole is more than the part, and so on. He speaks there of the mind naturally knowing these things.

[43:12] So the mind can't really think that something both is and is not. It can say this, but it can't really think that. And and someone can say that well the part can be equal to the whole, but if you give him part of a celery, he'll rave and rant, you know, because he knows that the part is not equal to the whole. And so,

[43:39] so to say that the rational ability is capable of contraries is not to say that it has what no determination at all. It doesn't naturally understand. In the case of reason, I naturally will some things. Okay. So I take this example; they're not unique. I mean, I know the text pretty well. The text of Mill and the one of Sartre, right? For Sartre, there is nothing that we will naturally; everything is a choice.

[44:15] Okay. And for Mill, there is nothing that we naturally what understand, right? Okay. But you'll find that running through the modern scientists a lot too. You see, the force here of custom, right? But they think that every thought is a what hypothesis, right?

[44:42] Um, to be tested by its consequences, huh? Well, if you know a little bit of logic, you know that the confirmation of an hypothesis is not a what syllogism.

[45:00] Well, the scientist says, "You know, if my hypothesis is correct, then he he says, 'What will be so? ' He makes some kind of prediction, right? Some kind of consequence. " And if what he predicts by his hypothesis is found to be so, then that's a confirmation of his hypothesis, right? If what he predicts doesn't take place, then that's refutation of his hypothesis. But notice, if you look at what he's doing logically, um, the there is more strength in the rejection of an hypothesis than the confirmation of it, right?

[45:43] And so, if you want to put it here in in like a formula, you might say that when this hypothesis is confirmed. you're in a, sense arguing, if A is, so then B is so.

[46:05] B is so, but you now with logic, you learned it doesn't follow necessarily that A is so. Okay, using my example, I use logic class all the time. If Berkus dropped dead last night, then Berkus will be absent today. That's my prediction. My hypothesis that he dropped dead last night. My prediction is he's absent from class. He is absent from class. Does it follow necessarily that he dropped dead last night?

[46:33] No. No, I tell us do this. That's wishful thinking. It's not logical thinking, is it? Okay, but now if I argue this way, A is so, then B is so, and B is not so.

[46:53] Then it follows necessarily that what he is not so. So, the more strength in the what rejection of the hypothesis than the confirmation of it, right? Okay. Now Einstein says there he's talking about the Newtonian physics and relativity physics. He said Newtonian physics predicted so many things that came true or found to be true, right? That the physicists began to think Newtonian physics must be true, and then along comes Einstein with the relativity theory, and by a different theory, different hypothesis, he can predict the same things that Newton predicted.

[47:36] Plus something Newton didn't predict, right? So then became crystal clear. He says to the physicists that they never know. But just some simple logic, you can see that the fact that if A is so, then B is so. Even if it turns out B is so, it doesn't follow necessarily that what A is so, right? It's not a syllogism, huh? That can be considered fallacy and logic to conclude that A is so.

[48:09] Um. Now you can say the more things you predict that, aren't shown to be so, the more probability there is that A is so. And the more precise those things are, right? Numerically, the more what probability there is, right? But the form of the argument is never such that A is necessarily so. So the physicists became accustomed to this, right? As I quoted Claude Bernard, if you're one of our lectures, Claude Bernard sees this, right?

[48:43] And he says, doubt is intrinsic to experimental method, right? That no matter how many times an hypothesis has been confirmed, right, you can still doubt it to the extent of what testing it again, right? Then. And maybe now something that you predict will not be so, and then now you've got to reject or modify your hypothesis. So

[49:09] they're used to working them with ideas that are what hypotheses, huh? And so they they they accustom. They think that every idea is an hypothesis to be tested by its consequences, huh? Like Shakespeare says in one place, "Their thoughts are but dreams until their effects be tried." Just imagination, right? Well, if that's what you think every idea is, then there's no idea, no thought that our mind is what certain.

[49:42] Yeah, no one where it's determined, right? Okay, there's only more or less probability for some idea, and well, that would confirm this way of thinking or this this thinking that. That

[50:03] reason is determined to nothing, and and this absolute freedom of thought that reason has. But is that really the way we should understand the distinction between reason and nature? That reason is determined to nothing. That's kind of a common thought, huh? I think I mentioned how

[50:34] Claude Bernard there with his kind of simplistic understanding of the distinction between science and philosophy and theology, right? That the the scientist has the full power. His ideas, he deduces the consequences of them, and then checks to see if the consequences are in fact so. Right. Uses that to confirm, reject hypothesis. The philosopher has ideas. He deduces the consequences of them, whenever he tests them. The theologian just has ideas.

[51:11] So I mean, it sounds like a character, right? But he was a great physiologist, right? And and the only method he can understand is the experimental method, right? And so the philosopher has two of the three parts, and this the theologian just one of the three parts that are essential. You see, but you know you can see how how he's determined by what he's accustomed to, and it's kind of funny, huh?

[51:39] Because custom is sometimes said to be second nature, huh? And I can even musical, you know, she's second nature to me now, breathing out and breathing in. So they get some determination, but it's from custom. What the determination they have from custom that every idea is an hypothesis to be tested by its consequences. That determination they have by custom makes them or leads them to reject the determination by nature.

[52:13] And now, one thing they do, without maybe realizing it, is that if what they predict is contradicted by experimental observation, right? Then they're really making use of the fact that something cannot both be and not be, right?

[52:47] So if I predict there will be an eclipse of the sun, but my theory will be an eclipse of the sun at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, and ten o'clock tomorrow morning there's no eclipse. Well, they they won't say well. There wasn't an eclipse, but there is an eclipse. We won't say that, right? And they use

[53:10] the impossibility of something both being and not being without realizing that they're accepting that, and they can't accept as an hypothesis and test it by whether it's contradicted or not, because then they'd be what accepting it to what accept it. He said, "What you doing there? " You know, I mean, can you treat the axiom about contradiction? It's impossible to be or not be the same time the same way.

[53:43] Can you treat that as an hypothesis to be tested by whether its consequences are are not contradicted? Well, then you are assuming, right? Yeah, yeah, that something is contradicted. It isn't so. But if you are assuming the truth that it can't both be and not be, right? So you can't, you don't, you can't really treat the axiom about contradiction as an hypothesis. And now you've got a thought that's not an hypothesis, something that we naturally know.

[54:10] Okay, so they don't kind of see what they're doing, you know. And I always think, you know, my brother Mark, you know, when he talked about the fifth postulate, right, there in Euclid, and some people, you know, try to prove it, right, if it was an obvious. And my brother Mark would say it's less obvious than the other ones, right? But where it's first used is kind of obvious, but in examining the attempts to prove the fifth postulate, my brother discovered that the attempted proofs actually assume the very thing they're trying to prove,

[54:55] and that makes the proof invalid, of course. But it also finds out that they really do know it because they assume it without question when they're trying to prove it, which is you know they don't, right? And in a sense, if someone tried to prove or confirm the act of contradiction by its consequences, right, and whether observation contradicts or not, they would be assuming the very thing they are trying to confirm without recognizing they're doing this.

[55:31] It was kind of a sign that they really do know it, huh? But so strong, huh? Is is custom, huh? I've been just got through teaching the apology, during the introduction to philosophy, and Socrates in his speech there, the apology's defense, he replies to his so-called anonymous. Accusers, as well as those who are trying to prove in court that he's a bad man, and Socrates says more than once in the apology that he's more concerned about his anonymous accusers than he is about the men who are trying to prove in court that he's bad,

[56:18] and he's more concerned about the anonymous accusers than those who are trying to prove in court that he's bad because anonymous accusers are going to influence the jury more. Well, the reason for that is that for the most part, custom is stronger than argument in our thinking, and so if you're accustomed to hear something from the time you're a little boy, it's very hard for someone to change your thinking, no matter how good his arguments are against what you think.

[56:58] You're going to follow custom, right? and part of the reason for that is that the customary seems to be known naturally, right? And they're to be unquestionable, right? It shows a tremendous force of custom right? in these things. Shakespeare uses the word "use" sometimes, as we do for custom, right? He says, "Use almost can change the stamp of nature." That's what he says, almost, but it shows you how strongly he sees use or custom is,

[57:44] and so men who are accustomed to the experimental method and only that, like Claude Bernard and so on, and and because of the dominance of the experimental method in modern times, it seems to them that that every thought is an hypothesis to be tested by its consequences, huh? Never anything can be questioned. You get that kind of universal idea that we we never really know anything, and there's no determination at all,

[58:20] and that leads, you know, to what misunderstanding, huh? The distinction between reason and nature, and these two misunderstanding the distinction between will and nature,

[58:42] but this is this is the true understanding of the distinction that the you divide nature against reason, and you're dividing nature what is just a nature against something that is a nature and something more. And this is a terrible problem in the moderns now. they say, that they misunderstand that distinction. That's may say the cause of all their troubles in a way, right?

[59:22] So they don't follow nature anymore. Really, really, the problem in philosophy is to follow what we naturally know, and to judge where we can, what we don't naturally know, by what we naturally know. And so for Aristotle and for Thomas, it's a kind of circle in our knowledge, right, where we begin from what we naturally know. And then we go towards those things we don't naturally know, and then we try to judge those things we don't naturally know by coming back to what we do naturally know, right?

[1:00:12] Okay. And you can see that, you know, most easily in geometry, right? See, I take take this sixth theorem, say in in Euclid. If you recall the sixth theorem, say in the first book of Euclid, he has

[1:00:34] just shown in the fifth theorem that a triangle, if the what two sides are equal, he's shown that the what angles opposite those sides equal, right? Okay. Now, according to that proof, that's proved in a way. But now you get to the sixth theorem. It's kind of reverse, where you're given if two angles, right, of a triangle are equal, then the sides opposite them will be equal.

[1:01:07] How did Euclid show that? You may recall that it's a reduction to the absurd, isn't it? Yeah. What he does is to say if these two sides are not equal, then one of them is longer than the other, right? Mm-hmm. Now, whichever one is longer, let's say AB is the longer one, AC, right? Okay. Well, then

[1:01:34] starting at the base here, B, cut off AB, a line, let's say BD, equal to the what lesser one, right? Okay. And then draw a line from D to the other corner, right? Mm-hmm. Now you've got what is obviously a smaller triangle inside a bigger triangle. Mm-hmm. So DBC is smaller than ACB, right? Mm-hmm. But

[1:02:07] DB is equal to what AC by construction, right? Mm-hmm. And BC, of course, is common to both triangles, right? So DBC is a triangle with two sides equal to what the two sides of the triangle ACB. And they're equal sides are containing equal angles, so the two triangles are equal. So now the what? The greater is equal to the smaller. Yeah. Or you could say to make more clear the connection between the axioms, the part is equal to the whole.

[1:02:46] Okay. So now you've done that to something we naturally know that the part is not equal to the whole. The whole is always greater than the part. So you're seeing that this cannot be the case because it goes against. The part ever being equal to the whole, was against the whole always being greater than the part, and so now we've gone back to what we naturally know, And the modernist don't think we do that anymore, because they don't think it's anything we actually know, right?

[1:03:17] Okay, so that for them, you know, the word axiom now means something we just what assume, postulate, right? An hypothesis, or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you see what's consistent with the thing you've done, but the whole thing is a game, right? You see, you see that with the modern logicians to some extent too, you know, they think that thinking is really a game, right? You can be consistent with the rules of this game or not, but the rules are really arbitrary.

[1:03:46] The rules of monopoly or whatever they are are arbitrary, and so it's really a terrible thing that's happening. But you could say the beginning of this trouble is misunderstanding the distinction, right? And thinking that not realizing that the distinction between reason and nature is between something that is just a nature and something that is a nature and something more, right? See, and the same distinction between nature and nature and law I guess we're.

[1:04:22] Running out of time right now. Okay, but I think I'd like to stop here a little bit in this text here in the second reading here, because you might misunderstand the distinction that Aristotle was seeing here, right?

[1:04:38] Now you're thinking of of the distinction between nature and reason, or natural ability, rational ability, is like the distinction between, say, virtue and vice, right?

[1:04:58] Well, virtue is not really but a vice plus something else, or a vice a virtue plus something else, right? Have an absolute distinction in virtue and vice, right? And and if you think that this being that kind of distinction, yeah, or they're they're totally different, so to speak, right?

[1:05:24] Like the distinction between sweet and bitter, let's say, right? And there's no sweetness in bitter, and no bitterness in the sweet, right? And is that what we mean here, right? The one is is determined to one of two opposites, and the other half east is east and west is west, and every grain shall meet them. So it says, but your misunderstanding in that case the distinction.

[1:06:05] It's like thinking that three in no ways are two and three, right? No, but it's not not that same kind of distinction. No, so I'm glad I'm glad you brought you brought.