Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
52. Metaphysics IX, Readings 7–8: Act Before Ability in Definition, Time and Perfection (The Chicken or the Egg)
Class of 2005-11-23
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/052-metaphysics-ix-readings-7-8-act-before-ability-in-definition/

[0:02] Act in almost every sense of before is before ability, right? But it's not so clear sometimes exactly what senses he has in mind in some cases, huh? Because he'll talk about before in time, he'll talk about before in perfection or goodness. He'll talk about before in in knowing, right? But he doesn't speak of before in being explicitly, right? But I think he understands that when he says before in time because of the proximity of that sense to that.

[0:39] And in the categories, you may recall when he gets through with the four central senses, then he brings another sense, which I name the crowning sense because it's the crowning sense for reason that looks before and after, and the crowning sense for the philosopher, and that's the sense in which a cause is before an effect. But I don't think that sense he brings in would belong fifth in order.

[1:06] I think cause before effect resembles most of all before in being, because what is before in being seems a little bit like a cause, because what comes after depends upon it, so it seems a little like cause and effect, and. And I think when Aristotle says before in time here, he's thinking of not just the limited sense of before in time, but before in being, and even as cause is before effect, and we'll see that in his explanation.

[1:44] So he says, since it has been determined in how many ways before is said, it is clear that act is before ability. That's be the conclusion. And I mean by ability not only that definite kind which is said to be a beginning of change, another as other, but in general every beginning of movement or rest. For nature is in the same genus as what ability, because both defined as a beginning.

[2:15] For as the beginning of motion, but not in other, but in the same, the same. He says act is before all such, both in definition and, more generally speaking, in knowing, right? And in substance, which is Aristotle's annoying way of saying in perfection, he's identified substance with what form, and form is perfection of matter.

[2:46] And there he doesn't distinguish at all; it's just before in both ways. And in time, it is before in this way, but not in that. Okay. There he's going to make a distinction. I see a distinction, right? Okay.

[3:05] Now he says it is clear that it is before in definition, for what is first able is able in that it can act. For example, I say the builder is able to build, and he who has sight is able to see. In the visible, how do you define the visible? What's able to be seen? So you define the ability by the act for which it is able, ability.

[3:40] And the same can be said in others, so that necessarily the definition of one exists before the definition of the other, and the knowledge of one before the knowledge of the other.

[3:53] So stop and think about that a bit, huh? Is ability any kind of ability ever really known by itself? So I say, and you have a baseball player there, or a football player, great player. Do you really see his ability? Or strictly speaking, do you see what he does because of his ability?

[4:23] And you know his ability through what he does. Let's see your stuff. But you're not going to see the ability, right? You're going to see what he does through his ability. If someone says, "And I'm, I'm able to play the piano," okay, well, let's see you do it. Okay. So you don't really know that you have an ability except through the act for which it is an ability.

[4:51] And so sometimes when a man's eyes have been injured or something like that, right, and he's got these covered up and so on, and they won't know until they take the patches off whether he can still what see.

[5:06] And how do you distinguish abilities, huh? My standard example is the ability to talk and the ability to walk the same ability. Well, if talking were a form of walking, or a walking form of talking, they might be the same ability, but the two quite distinct acts, right? Then the ability to walk and the ability to talk are not the same ability, huh? And so you not only know an ability through the act for which it is an ability, but you distinguish one ability from another one, right?

[5:44] By the difference in the act for which it is an ability, and of course you have to distinguish things to define them, so obviously act. Is before ability and what definition? Now that's very important, you know, in particular when you are studying the powers of the soul, right? The abilities of the soul. And Aristotle said in the De Anima, three books of the soul, in the second book there, that you have to know the ability through the what act.

[6:19] So you can see that in Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? What's an ability for? It's ability for a large discourse, looking before and after. We define the ability by the act for which it is an ability.

[6:41] So that's pretty clear. Now, in the third paragraph, bottom of page eight, he's going to distinguish now his ability or act. He's thinking now, especially a passive ability here. Now, in this case,

[7:06] he says, "Which comes first, chicken or the egg? Right? You got to get the answer now. Which comes first, ability or act? Well, his answer is going to be that in the thing that goes from ability to act, right? In that thing, ability is before act in time. Okay, but since it goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act,

[7:43] like the water, say which is able to be hot, goes from ability to be hot to being actually hot. So in time, it has ability before it has act. But it goes from ability to act to something already hot.

[8:00] So simply speaking, act is before ability, even in time. But notice how he's bringing in a little bit there the idea of what cause and effect, huh? Because he's saying that what goes from ability to act goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act.

[8:25] So notice the distinction. What kind of distinction is being made here? huh? distinguish all the kinds of distinctions there are, but there are certain kinds of distinction that are very common, and you should, you know, recognize these kinds of distinctions. And sometimes I emphasize the

[9:03] first two kinds of mistakes in the sophisticated refutations from words, and the first two kinds of mistakes from what things, right? And they correspond to what four kinds of distinction. So the first kind of mistake from words is a mistake from mixing up the what senses of a word, right? And so you're overlooking the distinction of meaning, right?

[9:34] The second kind of mistake in from words is for mixing up the senses of two what speeches. Okay. So geometry is a knowledge. of. Reason, knowledge of reason is a knowledge about reason. therefore geometry is a knowledge about reason, right? Well, when you say you know a knowledge of reason, the preposition of there can be referring to the knower or the known. So when I say geometry is a knowledge of reason, I mean it's a knowledge that reason has, right?

[10:27] When I say a knowledge of reason is a knowledge about reason, right? Then of reason is not talking about the knower, but the known. So I'm mixing up two senses of knowledge of what reason, right? Okay. Or if I say the Bible is the word of God, the word of God is the Son of God. Therefore, the Bible is the Son of God, right? Don't think that'd be right, okay?

[10:58] But more common of those two distinctions that people overlook is the distinction of the senses of a word, right? Like we had in the word before.

[11:10] Then the first two kinds of mistakes outside of words. The first one is the mistake for mixing up what is so. kath' hauto says per se through itself, or you could say maybe as such, right? And what is so to happening or by happening? Okay.

[11:35] And that's a very important distinction, and you make all kinds of mistakes from overlooking that. What did Heraclitus say? Day is night, and night is day. Because day becomes night, and night becomes day. Well, by happening it does, but not as such. You're kind of mixing up what becomes day or night as such with what happens to that, right?

[12:09] The good is what all want. Well, some people want to say that's not a good definition because sometimes we want bad things, right? But the bad is bad, is not wanted. Only the good as such is wanted. The second kind of mistake outside of speech is a mistake for mixing up what is so simply, and what is so what, not simply, but in some imperfect way. And that's the kind of mistake that you find, say, in the Meno there.

[12:43] Meno is asked by Socrates to join a investigation of what virtue is, right? Well, they're going to be looking for what they don't know, right? Well, how can you go looking for what you don't know if you don't know what you're looking for? How would you know if you found it?

[13:04] And that's kind of beautiful, little thumber, right? Socrates, in trying to respond to it, makes the same kind of mistake. You wonder whether Plato did that on purpose, that he knew what he was doing or what. But it's kind of interesting, right? That they both make the same kind of mistake, but one guy trying to answer the other guy's mistake.

[13:26] But sometimes I put that a little more simple way. The students, they say, when the student asks a question, does he know what he wants to know?

[13:38] Well, see Meno says you can't know what you don't know, and therefore you don't know whether you got it or not, right? So how does the student know that you even answered his question? But if he knew what he wanted to know, then he wouldn't be ignorant of it, right? Yeah. So he can't know what he doesn't know, right? Therefore, he can't ask a question about what he doesn't know, because he wouldn't know what he's asking about.

[14:04] And then I say, if you don't know what you're asking about, how can I help you? Well, it's a very it's a very common mistake, right? Or I always take the simple example in class. I always call upon some young lady, and I say, "Do you know my brother Mark? " And she'll say no, and I say, "I all heard you said you're going to contradict yourself a moment.

[14:27] " And then I say, "Well, do you know what a man is? Yeah, Well, that's what her brother Mark is. See, you do know who her brother Mark, right? You see, she doesn't really contradict herself, right? But you can say simply she doesn't know him, but in some imperfect way she does, okay? Aristotle seems to be saying that here, right? Simply act is before ability, right?

[14:59] But not simply, but in some way, ability is for act, because the thing that goes from ability to act, right, that thing is an ability before it is an act. But since it goes from ability to act, because it's something already an act, then simply you can say act is even in time before ability, right? Now this is very important in what you're going to say eventually about the first cause,

[15:32] because if you think the first cause is matter, right, and matter is what is most in ability, then you're thinking that ability is simply before act, but it's only in some way before act, right? Well, if you say the first cause is pure act, as we will say eventually. Then you've got the truth, right? Okay. So the materialists are really making the mistake of simply and not simply,

[16:09] because ability is in some imperfect way before act. Therefore, simply speaking, ability must come first in the universe, just like Meno's saying, you know, because you don't know what you're looking for, and you can't go looking for it, right?

[16:29] You've read my simple example I was taking in class. I say, how many students are in class today? Anybody know? I don't know myself. See, but I could direct myself to knowing what I don't know with the greatest of ease. Then I count them, you know, and say, "Get twenty-three, right? " Now, how did I direct myself with the greatest of ease to twenty-three? I didn't know I was looking for twenty-three.

[16:51] Well, I knew twenty-three in some way, didn't I? Because twenty-three is the number of students in class, and I knew I was looking for the number of students in class, and that was enough to tell me I should count, right? And therefore, I arrived at what I didn't know simply, but didn't know in some way, right? So, in a sense, Meno's saying, "Hey, you can't investigate at all what you don't know, because then you'd be knowing what you don't know."

[17:19] Okay. It was kind of a controversy between Hegel and Marx, right? Because Marx, I mean, not Hegel and Marx, but Hegel and Kant, huh? Because Kant says the thing in itself is unknown. Then why are you talking about it?

[17:33] Now they can't either really see the distinction too clearly. That kind of distinction comes up again and again and again in what philosophy, right? And that kind of mistake, right? So, as I say, understanding that kind of distinction helps you to understand that kind of mistake, and seeing that kind of mistake being made everywhere kind of keys you into the what to the kind of distinction that is being overlooked in that mistake, huh?

[18:01] But this here is kind of supreme example, you might say. This is maybe the most fundamental difference about the first cause, right? Is the first cause most in ability, meaning in a passive sense, right? Or is the first cause most in act?

[18:24] Well, the first cause is before everything else, right? So the question: what comes before? Act or ability? And Aristotle says you have to distinguish, right? In some way, right? In some limited sense, you can say ability is before act,

[18:43] but not simply. Simply, act is before ability. So, therefore, the first cause must be most in act. And therefore, it's a mistake to think of matter as being the first cause. That's really kind of a profound thing, you see it, huh? So you see, Mino making that distinction, making that kind of mistake in logic at the beginning of philosophy, and now you see materialists making the same kind of mistake here at the end of what philosophy, about the first cause Let's look at Aristotle's words here.

[19:18] Then we'll talk a little bit more. In time, it is before in this way, the same in kind acts before, but not in number. I mean this: that the matter and the seed and the visible, which are in ability, the man and the grain and the seeing, but not in act, are before in time. This man and this grain and this seeing, not existing in act. But before in time, to these are other beings in act from which these come to be.

[19:49] Now you see, it seems to me that Aristotle, without saying it, there is bringing in also what something of before as a cause or an effect, right? because he's thinking that what goes from. Ability to act does so because of something already in act. So you're talking about because the the cause being is what the word because means, doesn't it? Because the cause being, and perhaps also before in being, right?

[20:19] That act can be without ability, right? But ability cannot be without act. But he only uses the word before in time, right? So I think you've got to kind of look at this with the help of the text and the categories and elsewhere. Okay.

[20:39] And the principle he uses here: for always, from what is an ability comes to be what is an act. But what is an act? As man from man, and the knower from the what? Knower. And then he's hinting there: there being always a first mover, for who is already an act. He's hinting out the first mover, the first cause, as being what just an act. And that was manifested a bit.

[21:10] He makes a reference back to the seventh book. It has been said in the discourses about substance, and it's in the seventh book which we didn't see. That everything which comes to be comes to be from something, right? And that's the matter which is something in ability, and by something an act, right? Which is the mover and the maker. And this is the same in kind, at least in the approximate sense, it is, right.

[21:36] So a man produces a man, right? Or a dog produces a dog, right? Okay. So what came first then, the chicken or the egg. Haven't you heard that all your life? But it really is a question that's solved in wisdom, right? You'd say that in the individual, right? Individual is an egg before he say what chicken, right? Okay. But the egg came from what? Chicken. Yeah. So it begins with something that's already actually chicken, or something that's even actually more perfect than chicken.

[22:17] Okay. So simply speaking, the chicken came for the egg. The actual, the perfect, right? But in some way, you've got to say, you know, the egg does come for the chicken.

[22:32] See something like that in our statements, huh? A statement that's a conclusion in geometry. say, the theorem geometry. It's able to be known before it is actually known, right? So you didn't say reason is able to know this statement before it actually knows it, right? But it goes from the ability to know the statement to actually knowing it. Through other statements that are already actually what, Knowns, right.

[23:05] So simply speaking, the actual comes before. Okay? Now, notice, stop and think a little bit upon the idea here. One of my, I've been in seminary. Used to speak with an old seminary professor seminary professor, right? I may have told you this before, but I think it's kind of good myself. But he used to, you know, call upon the students to answer questions, so on. And it was usually the students, you know, usually didn't know the answer, you know.

[23:40] And I suppose in those days they used more Latin, right? So he'd always say when the student couldn't answer the question, "Nemo dat quod non habet. " No one gives so he doesn't have, and so you could learn anything from not being able to answer the question. You learn the nemo dat quod non habet. Okay, so

[24:03] how can ability, now in the passive sense, right, be able to be an act, right? But lacks the act, right? How can it give itself the act which it doesn't have? Nemo dat quod non habet. You see, it would have to have the act that's going to give itself. It's going to give itself the act it doesn't have. Since it doesn't have it, it can't have, but it's going to give itself, right?

[24:31] Or you are claiming will give itself. So what goes to ability to act must be given that act right by something already an act. So simply speaking, then act is before ability.

[24:50] We can see as Aristotle's hitting there in the top of page nine there. Well, then the first cause must be most in act. A little bit like Plato thought, when he spoke of the forms, at least they're acts, right? Rather than like the early Greeks who thought of matter as being the beginning of all things, that ability is what is first.

[25:13] It's interesting that pure act can be used to show all the attributes of the divine substance. huh? I see. that when you get to the Summa Theologia, right? That's really kind of the key thing.

[25:36] Now, what's he talking about in the last three paragraphs? Well, remember there was another kind of strange ability there, right? Ability that's acquired by repeated acts. Well, there is a special way that act is before ability.

[25:56] Whence it seems impossible to be a house builder without having built anything, or a harpist or a pianist, right? Never having played the harp or the piano, right? He didn't know about the pianist. For the one learning to play the harp, learns to play the harp by playing it, and likewise the others, right? How did you guys acquire the ability to speak English?

[26:27] Yeah, yeah, and that's how you acquired the ability to speak some other language, right? It'd be by speaking it, huh? By imitating those who speak it, right? Huh? You know, get these tapes or something like that. Generally, we have a native there reciting the words, right? And you repeat after him, right? So you can say more or less the way he says it, right? And so it's by speaking French that you acquire the ability to speak French.

[26:53] Well, then Aristotle says, "Whence the sophistical refutation arises, that one not having knowledge would do that which it is the knowledge for the one learning does not have it." Now, of course, this goes back to the objections in the in the ethics too. Aristotle says, "How do you become courageous? Well, by doing courageous things. How do you become just by doing just things? Right? How do you become temperate by doing temperate things?

[27:22] That's why we call these moral virtues because moral comes from the word for custom. Well, if I become just by doing just things, aren't I already just? I'm doing just things. What's the answer to that, right? You're still struggling. Yeah, yeah. You're not able to do just things before you have the virtue of justice and the way you do it afterwards, right? And maybe the struggle to to do it, right, to to screw your fortune your your nerves up to do it and the instability, right, in you doing the this thing, right, but the virtue gives it some stability, right, that you have before, and now it becomes more what agreeable, right, to do what is just or moderate or courageous, huh?

[28:23] Then would have been, or at least less painful, than would have been before you acquired the the habit, huh? But Aristotle goes back to something that is shown in the sixth book of Natural Hearing that when something is coming to be, it already has come to be. When I'm driving up here, I have driven some way already, and so I have some act already, even when I'm driving up here, right?

[28:59] What he shows in the sixth book of Natural Hearing is that before having driven any distance. You are driving some distance, right? And before driving any distance, you have driven some distance. So there is always a little bit of act there, right? Huh? Okay.

[29:20] In the same way, in learning, ah, he is learning must have something of knowledge, right? So there is some knowing before learning, as well as as a result of learning. Hence, too, then it is clear that act is thus before ability and generation, and in time.

[29:56] Okay. Now, in reading eight, he is going. to say,To go to the third sense of before that emphasized in the proemium right? He's going to talk about before in definition, right? Before in what time in one way, another way not, and then before in substance, right?

[30:22] Now sometimes I have my students, you know, put in parentheses after substance in perfection. This is Aristotle, annoying way of speaking, right? But it's

[30:39] a reason for saying this, huh? Because you find out that substance is both matter and form, but primarily what form, right? And a little bit like what you show in the second book of Natural Hearing, where Aristotle takes up what nature is, right? And nature is defined there as a beginning and cause of motion and of rest, and that which it is first as such and not by happening.

[31:11] And then after he's defined nature, then he says nature is both matter and form, right? But first he says matter because all the Greeks would see matter as being nature,

[31:26] and then he says form. Well, of course he's shown in the first book of Natural Hearing that everything that comes to be is something like matter, something like what form, right? And so you have the combination of matter and form in these things. So they're both intrinsic, right? And therefore agree with this idea that nature is a cause of motion and of rest. in that which it is, right, an intrinsic cause, and maybe an active cause or a passive cause, And I always take the example of the harassed mother, you know, to show this understanding of nature, you know, if the little boy says to his mother, "Why does the tree grow?

[32:10] Why doesn't the stone grow?" Right? Was the same sunshine both of them, the same rain coming down both of them, the same soil with the same elements? Huh? Everything on the outside is the same. The tree grows, the stone doesn't grow. Well, the harassed mother says, "Well, it's the nature of the tree to grow. It's not the nature of the stone to grow." Well, you might say she's not really answering the child's question fully by any means, right?

[32:41] But does she have something in mind when she says it's the nature of the tree to grow; it's not the nature of the stone to grow. Well, she's thinking of something within the tree, right? Within the stone, right? But here's the cause within. In a kind of active sense, because the tree is kind of building itself up into the sky. But then, when the mother turns around and says, "Our little boy, rather, says, 'But Daddy put the log in the fire and that burnt up, you know.

[33:16] I put a stone in the fire and didn't burn. Well, it's not the nature of stone to burn, right? But is the nature of a log to burn in the fire? But now, nature is in the passive sense, right? Because it's the same flames, you know, they're licking the log and stone, but the one burns up and the other one doesn't, right? So there's something within the log that enables it to be what acted upon by the fire in this way, and something else in the stone that makes it resist being acted upon in this way.

[33:54] So you have the two senses of nature: the active and the what passive sense, huh? But then Aristotle goes on and says, 'But form is more nature than matter, ' and he gives a good reason for saying that. The nature is that by which something is natural, right? But by the matter, you have a natural thing only in ability. But by the form, you have a natural thing in act.

[34:24] So form is more what nature than matter, right? Okay. In that sense, your soul is more nature than your body, or something like that—a substance, right? Substance, you know, is material substance, and he says composed of matter and form, right? But which is more substance, matter or form? Matter only is substance in ability, right? And form is either substance in act or that by which a substance is an act.

[34:59] So substance is much more what form is much more substance than than matter, right? Okay. So it's in terms of actuality and perfection that he's thinking of calling form more substance, right? So he carries that word over there, right? Okay, but still, might be easier to say it's also before in what perfection, right?

[35:27] Now, it's interesting that he will bring this out, thinking more of two of the four kinds of causes: form and what end, right? Okay.

[35:51] Well, in the very beginning, in the first part of the book, he's talking about ability, and he distinguishes the active ability, right? Ability to to move another and the ability to be moved by another. He is thinking more of the what the mover or maker and the what matter, okay. But now he's going to argue more from the form and from the what end that act is what more perfect.

[36:22] Now, in the generation of a thing, right, or even in the in the coming to be of a house, right, which is more perfect? What comes first, or what comes afterwards? Is the house more perfect when they first lay the foundation, or when they later on? What's later in generation is more what perfect, right? What's later in generation, the matter or the form? Yeah, the matter comes at the beginning, right?

[36:56] The all raw materials there, right? Now you've got to induce a form, right? Huh? So if what comes later in generation is more perfect, and what comes later in generation is form, which is act, then act is more perfect than what ability. Makes sense, okay?

[37:22] And then he's going to argue that what ability is for the sake of act, that act is the end or purpose, either. Okay, and therefore it's going to be what more perfect, huh, more better. And because everything that comes to be goes toward a beginning, huh, and end. That's kind of usually you can see that, right? But notice, huh?

[37:50] If you go back to the chapter on beginning, the first meaning that Aristotle gives us of beginning is the beginning of the desk here, the beginning of a magnitude, right? Okay.

[38:03] And the second meaning he gives is well, sometimes you don't start from the beginning magnitude. So if I want my water here, I go to where the water is, and somewhere along the magnitude, right? And so the beginning is where it's convenient for me to begin to bring the water to my lips, right? Okay. And then the third sense of beginning is the fundamental part of a thing, the foundation of a house.

[38:30] And then the fourth sense he gives of beginning is the the maker, the mover, the the king, the general, and so on, the principle. And then the fifth sense is the what starting point in knowing. And then sixth and last, he says, and every cause is some way of beginning, and even the end, therefore, is a what. Beginning, yeah, and sometimes they say the end is what first in intention, last in execution.

[39:02] But in some way, it's first, right? In some way, it's the beginning, right? So that's kind of strange. That shows you how far the word beginning has moved when the end is now called a beginning.

[39:18] But certainly, the sense in which the end is called a beginning is not the first meaning of beginning, Right? You can see how Aristotle has ordered these things perfectly, huh? And he's the you know my famous thin statements, right? If a man understands the words he uses, then he is wise. No, no, wisdom is not chiefly knowing the meanings of the words you use, right? But then the second statement: if a man doesn't understand the words he uses, huh?

[39:51] Then he is what? Yeah, yeah. I happened to read across a text here the other day of David Hume. There, you know, he's talking about what's. natural you know, and said this that's got a lot of meanings at four or something like that. But he can't sort that out, right? And so striking to a man who knows the chapter in the fifth book on nature that David Hume does not understand the word he's using, and you can you know take examples like that all the way through modern philosophy.

[40:22] These guys don't understand the words they're using, and so they're not wise. Don't give Aristotle the benefit of the doubt because he does understand the words he's using, so he might be wise. Although wisdom consists more than that, right? But these guys basically know and not wise. You understand the very words they're using. Friend of mine, the comparison there between you know, Kant uses the word nature, you know, on the natural, and so it's fused and abstract and abstract, you know, and and so far away from the original meaning, which is birth.

[40:59] You know, but you just alongside each other and say, well, that one guy doesn't know how to understand the word he's using. They're not even wise enough to play the fool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[41:21] And because everything that comes to be goes towards a beginning and end, because that, for the sake of which, and that's the definition of end, that, for the sake of which, is the beginning, right? And the becoming is for the sake of the end, but the act is the end, right? And the built is taken for the sake of this, and then he starts to manifest this backhand induction.

[41:46] For animals do not see in order that they may have sight, but they have sight that is to say the ability to see, so they may see, right?

[42:00] And likewise, men have the art of building so that they may build and looking knowledge so they may look. But they do not look so that they may have looking knowledge, except what those learning, right? And these do not look except imperfectly, or because they look not out of any need.

[42:30] So when you acquire geometry, just put in the shelf there and forget about it. No, no, you think back about that wonderful theorem, and it becomes actual again, right? And you can think about the theorem maybe more easily now because you you kind of retain something of the demonstration, and so kind of kind of cyclical knowing, right? Goes through the summa and you get to the end and you start over again, right?

[43:00] Go through it again. Because the ability to think about God is for the sake of what? Thinking about God. Yeah, you don't think about God for the sake of having the ability to think about God. Then you say, well, a person who's learning French, right? Aren't they speaking French to to gain the ability to speak French? Well, I suppose it's it, right? But why not the ability to speak French?

[43:28] For the sake of speaking French, okay. Further, matter is an ability, so it may come to form, and when it is an act, then is in form, and likewise in the others, and those whose end is motion. Hence, as teachers showing their pupils acting, think they have achieved the end. So nature, what? Likewise.

[44:02] Okay, I know he's taking matter there as being for the sake of form, and there is a beautiful manifestation of this in the second book of natural here. But what he does is to compare three arts.

[44:25] The art that uses the finished product, and the art that forms the product, and the art that prepares the matter, and he compares these three arts in terms of who commands who, right? And this shows a way of manifesting the order here between the use of the product, the form, and the what matter.

[45:24] But when you use the product, you may discover a what defect in the product, right? So in Detroit or something, road test an automobile, right? You may discover certain defects in the construction of that one, huh? And then they'll go back to the drawing boards and redesign the car or part of the car, right, to avoid the difficulty. And that's why you get all these notices about a recall.

[45:52] You know, bring your car to the dealer to get the such and such thing replaced, right? So the one who uses the thing, right? Commands the one who performs it, yeah, okay. And

[46:12] I was seeing a documentary there where I guess when the Americans and the Russians got into Germany at the end of the Second World War, there was a scramble to steal as many scientists as you could. Oh, yeah. And to steal the plans, right? Because the German scientists were really, in some ways, ahead of us. You see, in terms of rockets and even some airplanes, they were developing, huh?

[46:39] And there was two airplanes that they stole from the Germans, huh? One really wasn't as good as they thought it was at first, so they could do some remarkable things. But the other one, they you know found very useful. They got the original plans for it, and they made an American plane just about that, right? Apparently, the Russians got hold of the same exact plans and designed, you know, one of their bigs, you know, exactly like that.

[47:08] And then, but they met over Korea. There are the battles over Korea, and the American pilot said, "You know, we thought we'd be attacked by our own airplanes. It's so similar, right? Our own airplanes, and you open up the sky, you don't know. But

[47:26] when the Americans got these plans, then they discarded the plans they already had, right? So when a guy gets up there using these airplanes, then he discovers the what defect in them, right? If your gun is jamming on battlefield, right, it's got to be designed differently, huh? And so the the one who uses the product commands the one who what forms it, right? But the one who forms the product is the man who gives orders to the what those who prepare the raw materials, huh?

[47:57] So in my father's company, they made among other things farm wagons and things, right? And they go out to a farm and they test it, right? And if there appears some defect in the use of it, right, then they go back and redesign it, right? So my father's engineer used to say, well, got some interesting ideas, and I want to see if they're any good.

[48:22] But that's because the use of the product is the end or purpose of forming in the first place, and the formed product is the end or purpose for preparing the raw material for that product, huh? And so we would give orders to the wood people or to the steel people as to what kind of wood we wanted, or what size of wood we wanted, or how thick we wanted it, the same way for the steel bar, right?

[48:48] Because we're going to make the wagons, and we know how much steel you need, so it won't snap and bend in the farmer's field, huh? Okay, but you might discover that this amount of steel snaps and breaks. In the use of it, right, and therefore you need something thicker here. It will not do that. So you can go through the different arts. The proof of the pudding, we say, is in the eating, right?

[49:13] Okay. So, in sense, the chef will say what raw materials he wants for his meal, right? But the ultimate judge is made by what the man who tasted it at the end. Maybe the cook himself tastes it, right? But he's not asking me if I cook so much as as by a connoisseur. So the use is the end of the formed product, and the formed product is the end of what the material.

[49:41] So, notice he begins with operations, then we're like use, and then he comes to form being the end of what matter. In the chapter. In Book Five on Perfect or Complete, Aristotle gives three meanings of perfect or complete in creatures. He distinguishes the sense in which God is perfect from creatures. But the first meaning he gives of perfect or complete is what has all its parts. Okay, so I'm a complete man if I got my two arms and two legs and so on, all my parts.

[50:31] And I used to notice in Quebec there when I was a student, you'd have in the menu there sometimes or in the advertisement for the restaurant repas complet. What did that mean? Well, it mean you know this is the price for what some kind of appetizer, the main course, and and some kind of dessert, right? That was a repas complet, had all the parts of it. Okay.

[51:02] Then the second sense he gives of perfect, what has all the ability of its kind. And in that sense, we could say that what Homer is a perfect what poet, right? Because Homer taught all the other Greeks how to write a good plot, as Aristotle points out. And his characters are very perfect, as Hegel pointed out. And his words are very good, as Hegel and Aristotle point out.

[51:38] So he has the whole ability of the what poet, huh? Dickens had trouble writing plots, as he admitted, right? So he wasn't a complete or a perfect poet, huh? But notice that resembles the first sense in some way because

[51:56] when when Dryden was hearing the plays of of Fletcher and Shakespeare as a young man, his work plays of Fletcher performed than Shakespeare at that time. But then he began to realize that Shakespeare was much better than than Fletcher, and he said Fletcher was just a limb of Shakespeare, like an arm or a leg, right? That's kind of a metaphor, almost speaking, but it's it's looking back to the first sense, right?

[52:22] But Shakespeare has the whole ability of the playwright. Fletcher has some of that ability, but not all of it. So he's like a man who's missing an arm or a leg or something. That's all right, huh? Okay. Then the third meaning Aristotle gives is what has what reached its what end or purpose, huh?

[52:46] Now myself when I talk about what is better, and I said we've got to talk about what's better now in this class, and we've already shown that something is not good because you want it. So we have to exclude them in this. Better because you want it more. Okay. So it says you want to look at this in general because you got to look at things in general before you can know them in particular.

[53:13] And so I usually bring forward, kind of, the help of that chapter on perfect. Two kind of almost obvious statements here: that the whole is better than the part. Most people admit that right away, don't they?

[53:32] Yeah, yeah. And then that the end is better than what is for the sake of the end, right? And so, in a way Aristotle's coming back to that here, isn't he? Because the first thing he gave there was in terms of the form, but the form is like the whole, right? Now, if you go back to the to the proportion that Aristotle gives, he's talking about the four kinds of causes.

[54:06] And he's distinguishing matter, form, movement, and end, and so on. But then, after corollaries, he comes back and shows how they can be understood more generally. And he says that matter is to form as parts are to the what? Oh, right. So matter is defined as that from which something comes to be existing within, right? And the whole would seem to come to be from the parts, right?

[54:39] And the parts are in the whole, right? So parts are like the matter, but the form is like the what? The whole, the order, the

[54:51] distinction of parts that they put together. So they kind of go together, right? So just as the whole is better than the part, form is better than matter, right?

[55:05] But perhaps you could say, though, that the parts for the sake of the whole, right? And therefore, matter is for the sake of form because matter is to form like parts is to whole, right?

[55:24] But in some sense, the most basic statement for the good is that the end is better than the what? Was for the sake of the end.

[55:37] You know, at first definition of the good, the good is what all want. And you go through a dialectic. I think we've done that here a little bit before. But you go through a dialectic to show that it's not good because we want it. Otherwise, the last drink of the party would have to be good for you, right? Because obviously, it was bad for you the last drink.

[55:58] Um. Uh. But then they realized that. As I show inductively, that you want it because it is good, right? So the good, in a way, is a cause of your wanting it. But then, which of the four kinds of causes is the good? Say, matter, form, mover, end. Well, it's not too hard to see that it's the cause in the sense of the end. So you see the connection there, right, between

[56:30] the end being more perfect, right, and being better, right, than was for the sake of it, huh? So if ability is for the sake of act, right, then act is the end of ability, right? Therefore, it's what better, is for the sake of act, right? And the second paragraph is kind of obscure there on page ten. There, I always forget the exact sense of that second paragraph.

[57:10] But you know, if act was no better than ability, then the what? The school, the the teacher would not try to show the recital, the student playing the piano, right, or the ballet school would not try to show the girls actually doing the ballet steps, right, on the stage, huh? But obviously, this training is for the sake of the act.

[57:38] Now, in this next long paragraph, the third paragraph there on page ten, he's touching upon that distinction between doing and making, huh? That in doing, as opposed to making, in doing the activity itself is the end, but in making there is a product, huh? And the making is for the sake of that, okay?

[58:12] But in some, he says the use is last. For example, seeing a sight, right? So seeing is what? Not making of something, is it? And nothing other comes to be from the operation, but from some something comes to be, as from the art of house building, a house besides a house building. Yet nonetheless, here the act is the end,

[58:42] while there it is more the end than the ability. For the act of building is in the thing that is being built, and at the same time it comes to be and is as the house. So the act of building is what transforming the matter, right? Not the builder as such, huh?

[59:03] Ah, in those things where there is something. Other which comes to be besides the use, the act of these is in the thing that is being made. For example, the act of building is in the thing that is being built, and that of weaving in the thing that is being woven, and likewise in others. And in general, the motion is in the moved. But where there is no product apart from the act, the act is in these.

[59:30] For example, seeing is in the one who sees, looking is in the looker, and life is in the soul. Right, and soul is happiness for a certain life. So you could criticize Marx there in trying to make man's ultimate perfection consist in what activity of making, because making, as such, is a perfection of the what. Thing. The what? The thing. Yeah, the made yeah, yeah. And see, Marx tries to argue that man perfects himself in making the things.

[1:00:11] But he's making what kind of mistake there in his thinking? Well, I think it's a mistake of the accidental. It's accidental to the maker that he be perfected by his making.

[1:00:39] God is in no way perfected by its making. Okay, you see. Now, sometimes by making you learn to make, right? Okay. But if you're learning how to make, you're not quite fully making yet. Okay.

[1:01:00] And so, it's accidental to the one who's making that he's learning how to make. He's not a maker, insofar as he doesn't know how to make. Right. Okay. And so, if I make McDonald's hamburgers day in, day out, day after day, right, I'm probably not learning anything about making hamburgers, right? But I'm making them very good, you know, time after time, right? Is it? Um. So this is a perfecting of hamburgers, but not a perfecting of the maker by any means, huh?

[1:01:41] Okay. And I think Marx is deceived because it often happens that the maker is what. Perfecting. Is is being perfected at least to his ability to make, right? Okay. But you'd say making as such, half elbow, um, is a perfecting of the making, not of the maker. Right. In the same way with teaching, right? You know, most teachers or all teachers will tell you that they they learn when they teach, right?

[1:02:18] Or they see the matter more clearly. And and I used to hear these stories. You know, I was little. You know, and we finished the course. He said, "Now, if I know what I I knew at the beginning of the course, I know now, and I would have taught the whole thing differently." Which means that he was to that extent not yet fully a teacher, right? Okay.

[1:02:39] And so, given the imperfection of human mind and how long it takes us to learn anything, um, you can say that probably the teacher is perfecting his understanding of the subject that he's teaching. He's teaching it, not just because he's staying ahead of the people, and the book, and that may be true too. But does

[1:03:06] it belong to the teacher as such to be learning what he's teaching? No, you can say insofar as he needs to learn what he's teaching, he's not yet fully a teacher, right? That may be that may be the human situation, the human condition, right? You see, but it's still accidental the teaching as such. You teach what you know, okay? You don't teach what you're coming to know.

[1:03:35] The builder here, he said, he said, I like to scare people when I come to work on a project in their house. I ask him, "Do you have a video machine? Why? " says, "Well, I got, I just got this video on how to do this, and I want to see it before I start. " Well, I don't. Our house, we had already kind of bought the house, so they still finish it, right?

[1:04:02] And downstairs there, there's a split level house, and there's a brick fireplace, you know. And the guy was laying bricks, right? My mother-in-law was a very, you know, severe judge of these things. She's there, kind of watching him, you know, taking a look at the time, you know, and so he's kind of kidding my mother-in-law, saying, "This is my first job." He's.

[1:04:30] So, but I think one is deceived. Aristotle says he talks about that kind of mistake that that even the wise are deceived by the fallacy of the accidental. And I think you're deceived by the fallacy of the accidental, but seems to be always there, right? Okay. So you might say almost always the teaching as he's teaching things very simple. Always, the teacher is coming to know what he's teaching, right?

[1:05:05] To some extent, okay, or he's coming to know better in some way what he's teaching. Therefore, it doesn't seem to be accidental, right? Say, and you have people talking, you know. Well, the teacher just just just the biggest student. That's all. Well, there may be some truth to that, but still accidental, even though it takes place all the time, right? Okay. Now Hegel speaks of the pretentious power of the negative.

[1:05:37] The negative is always there at the beginning of doing anything, but does negative as such give rise to anything? No, he's kind of deceived because it's always there and seems to even necessarily be there.

[1:05:57] So. So even if the human maker or the human teacher, right, is almost always attempting something very simple, perfecting himself in his making and his teaching, right, it's still accidental. It does not have such that he's doing that he's making and teaching, right?

[1:06:29] He's not a maker insofar as he's come to know how to make the thing. He's not a teacher insofar as he's come to know what he's he's teaching, right? He's only a teacher in what he knows, really. Okay, should take a little break. But time, time to be.