Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
54. Metaphysics IX, Readings 9–10: Act Is Better Than Ability, the Transcendentals, and the Ability for Contraries
Class of 2005-12-01
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/054-metaphysics-ix-readings-9-10-act-is-better-than-ability-the/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you're doing. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:28] So we're kind of coming to the end of the tenth, the ninth reading, right? Where Aristotle was showing more manifestly, huh, that act is more perfect than what ability, right? Now you see, in the previous reading, he'd shown that act is better than ability, considering act and ability in one and the same thing. So when a thing is being developed, completed, perfected, you could say, right? Huh?

[1:02] Takes some time, right, to perfect something, huh? To complete it, right? But as you complete it, you're going from ability to act, aren't you?

[1:15] When you're building the house, right? Huh? Okay, the lumber and the bricks and so on, our house only in potency or in ability, and the house is not a very perfect house yet, huh? But as you form the wood, form the bricks, arrange things and so on, then you perfect the house, right? Okay. The same way for making an apple pie, right? Huh? Okay. So what comes later in generation is more perfect, huh?

[1:48] But what comes later in generation is the act. What's before in generation, right, is the ability, the passive ability, huh? That's one way of seeing that act is better than ability, huh? And then he reasons from ability being for the sake of act.

[2:09] So the end is always better and more perfect, huh? That's the third meaning of perfect, by the way, in the fifth book of wisdom, what has reached its end or purpose, right? Okay. So if act is the end or purpose of ability, the ability to see, for example, is for the sake of seeing, right? The ability is for the sake of the act. Well, then the act has to be more perfect than the what ability, right?

[2:37] But notice, huh, in both of those ways of reasoning, there he's reasoning from ability and act in the same thing, right? But then in the ninth reading, he takes what ability and act in different things, huh? And he compares necessary and eternal things, which are clearly better and more perfect than these corruptible things, right? But you could say that the The necessary, the eternal, the incorruptible things are to the corruptible things like act is to what ability?

[3:13] Because the corruptible things are corruptible because they are able to what be and not be, right? Huh? So it's through ability that they are less perfect than the incorruptible and eternal things. He says that's more manifest because you are losing different things. Okay. So, but like if I said, you know, well,

[3:38] the goods of the soul are better than the goods of the body. Socrates argues in the Apology, right? But then you are talking about what two parts of a man: his soul and his what body, right? Huh? You have to see that the soul is better than the body, and that's kind of hard to to see, right? But then you might say, yeah, but the goods of the soul are the goods of the body a bit like man is to a beast, right?

[4:05] Because the beast shares the goods of the body, but not the goods of the soul, right? So it might be easy to see that man is better than the beast, right? And if man is better than the beast, it's because of the goods he has that the beast doesn't have, which would be the goods of the soul. So it's kind of more manifest, isn't it, in that way that the goods of the soul are better than the goods of the beast?

[4:29] Huh? When you compare, I mean, the goods of the body. When you compare a man to the beast, two different things, right? When you are trying to see inside the one man himself that his soul is better than his body, right? Huh? And therefore, the goods of his soul are better than the goods of his what body, right? Okay.

[4:50] And I compare it to what Socrates does in the famous work called the Republic, right? Where he's shown that the soul of the just man is better off than the soul of the what unjust man, right? It's a little bit hard to see this, right? And so Socrates blows it up, right? So large you can see it. He compares the parts of the what city with the parts of the what, or the parts of the soul, I should say, with the parts of the city.

[5:22] Huh? He compares the rulers to reason, right? And the the irascible appetite as we call it in Latin, the thumos in Greek, to the soldiers, right? And then the the concupiscible appetite to the common men, right? Huh? Okay. And then you start to see what the orders of these three parts of the city, and you can see more clearly when there is disorder among those parts that it's bad, right?

[5:51] Than when your soul is disordered, huh? Okay. Or Aristotle, you know, raises the question: should how should reason rule the emotions, right? And our reason, our emotions are kind of mixed up inside of us, kind of hard to consider this question, right? But he asks the question: Should reason rule the emotions, like a father rules his son, or like a master rules his slave, right? And we can see more easily that the way the master rules the slave is different from the way the father rules the son, right?

[6:28] And then we can kind of understand by that two different ways in which reason might try to rule the emotions, and understand which one would be the better way, right?

[6:40] I say it's more clear in the sense that the man and the the master and slave are two different men, right? And the father and the son are two different people too, right? Okay, but my reason, my emotions are not two different people, right? But they're inside of me, right? So he does something like that here, right? More manifest in that way. Okay.

[7:07] And notice how in the third paragraph on page eleven there, he's hinting there at the argument that we give eventually for the existence of God in the Summa Theologia to be the third argument, right? The one from what reasoning from contingent things to necessary things, and then to the one who's necessary through himself, namely God, right? But Aristotle speaks here that the necessary things are the first things, right?

[7:35] Huh? He's hinting at that, huh? Okay. So the necessary things don't have an ability to not be, right? So necessary things are better than the contingent things, but the necessary things aren't the contingent things like act is to what ability, right? Yeah. So if the necessary things are better than contingent things, then act must be better than what ability, right? Okay.

[8:06] Now in the tenth reading, and in the eleventh reading, he's going to be going a little bit more into the idea of what is better and more perfect, and perhaps we can recall something that Thomas kind of touches upon in the in the fifth book of wisdom,

[8:36] but something you know that takes a while to really see clearly, but when you go back to to let's say the first article in the first question of the disputed questions about truth, right? Where Thomas, following Avicenna, distinguishes the so-called transcendentals, And this means the most universal thoughts, the most universal words. And I don't know if you ever seen that text, but

[9:18] he quotes Avicenna saying that being is what the mind first understands, right? Then he talks about the word thing. Then he talks about the word one, and then the word adequate, which perhaps we can translate something.

[9:41] And then the word true and the word good. He distinguishes the six most universal thoughts, most universal what words, right? Okay, and. These aren't simply synonyms, although they are referring to the same reality, huh? Okay. But being is taken from to be, okay, from existence. Okay. So whatever it is in any way whatsoever could be said to be a being, right? Huh? Even if it is said to be only in our mind, right?

[10:33] At least it's a being of what? Of reason, right? Okay. Like nothing, huh? Okay. Nothing is something to talk about. But something only in the mind. There's nothing outside the mind, right? Okay. So being is completely universal, right? Could there be something that doesn't come under being? That would be a contradiction, right?

[11:03] Could it be something that doesn't come under being? Because it would be. That's what being is made from to be, right? Okay. Now, what's the difference between being and thing?

[11:29] Well, being a thing. Can't be a thing. Well, essentially speak of a thing of reason too, right? Oh. But thing is named more from what it is, right? See.

[12:00] So you could say that reason wants to know what is, right? Mm-hmm. And what it is. Okay. Well, that kind of refers to its first two things, huh? Being and thing, right? And kind of a sign that the word "thing" is taken more from what something is is that when we define definition, which makes known what it is, right? We sometimes say definition is speech making known what a thing is, right?

[12:52] Rather, what a being is, right? Even though being has a nature too, right? Huh? Okay. But being is named more from the from existence, from the act of to be, and thing from what it is. Okay.

[13:15] Now, one in something, as Thomas explains them, the word might not be adequate here. Say one of a better word translates as something. But these add a what? Nothing real to being and thing, but they add in thought a negation. So one adds the idea of undivided.

[13:49] Okay. But something adds the idea that is distinct from all other things. Now distinction has in its very meaning, negation, because things are distinct of which one is not the the other. So the words one and something are not adding anything real to being and thing, but they're adding in thought a negation, right?

[14:52] And Aristotle in the fourth book of wisdom after he shows that wisdom is about being as being. He goes on to show it's about what one, right? But he shows how the being of the thing and the unity of the thing are what inseparable. The being of this chair, for example, it would cease to be if I what separated the parts of it, right? So as this is a thing tries to hold on to its being, it tries to hold on to its what unity, right?

[15:27] And you want to destroy the army, you what destroy the order, the unity of the army, right? Okay. If you separate my soul from my body, I won't be anymore, will I? Yes, sir. So the unity of the thing and it's what it is as being and so on seem to be the same thing, but this is adding the idea of what negation, right? Okay.

[15:56] So. Aristotle speaks of these first four, but especially of being in one, as the very subject of wisdom. Wisdom is about being in one, okay,

[16:16] and that's why the the books here, in book six through ten, right. In book six, we talked about accidental being, right? Type of being, the sense of the true, right? Being in the mind, right? And then in book seven and eight, we talked about being in the sense of what substance mainly, of course, the figure predication, but substance mainly, right? And one meaning of substance, of course, is what a thing is.

[16:48] Bringing in thing in your discussion of being, right? And and then acting ability in this ninth book, but then book ten is about the what the one, okay.

[17:05] Now there are many texts of Thomas and Albert which I have studied and so on, where sometimes he takes the word one to involve both of these, right? Okay. So to say that I'm one man, right?

[17:23] I'm not only undivided, my parts they're united in me, right? But I'm distinct from all you guys, right? Okay. To be one man, right? My body and soul and other parts have to be united, right? And not divided, but divided

[17:44] from all you guys, and distinct from all you guys, right? You see? Okay. So although Aristotle is saying more explicitly that wisdom is about being in one as a subject, you could say that kind of included in being is what we call thing, right? And that becomes very clear in the seventh book of wisdom, when Aristotle takes up substance, and one meaning of substance is what a thing is, right?

[18:15] Okay. And substance is the fundamental thing, right? The fundamental being, okay. And then, as I say, often you take one to include distinct from other things too, right? Okay. What about true and good? What about true and good? Well, when Thomas tries to explain how true and true and good have the universality of the other ones, he goes back to what Aristotle shows us in the third book about the soul, that the soul was in some way all things.

[18:58] And so, in terms of our reason and our will, right? And their being in a way infinite, universal in their object, right? Because about every being, in or outside the mind, right, there can be what knowledge and truth, right? Okay. And as we'll see more clearly as they go on, being as such is what desirable, right? Therefore, has reference to the good and the and the will.

[19:34] But he doesn't seem to speak of true and good so much as being the subject of wisdom, right? He speaks of being and and one as the subject of wisdom. Well, then, how should one regard true and good in this reasoned out knowledge called wisdom?

[19:58] Now, speaking logically, you could say that. They kind of have the place of what properties, right? Albeit unusual properties, right? Properties which don't really differ in reality from that which they are property, right? Okay.

[20:23] What you're going to see now a bit here in the tenth reading, but kind of expand a bit. We're kind of going to see that being as such is what good, right? Okay.

[20:43] But good is not simply a synonym of being, right? But being as such is good. Can I see that? And being as such is what knowable and therefore can be true, right? We'll see this as belong to being as such, right? So just as the shop, the geometry, right, shows that the triangle as such has its interior angles equal to right angles, right? That's a property of the triangle, right?

[21:17] So in a way, to be good and to be knowable and true are like properties of being as such. Okay, kind of a subtle thing to see that, huh? Okay. And when Thomas divides the words in Book Five, he says these are the words that are used especially in wisdom. But he divides those words into three groups, huh? He says every reasoned out knowledge has a subject, right?

[21:56] And every reasoned out knowledge shows certain properties of that subject to what the causes, right? So there's three things in every reasoned out knowledge: a subject, its properties, and the causes of the subject and its properties. So the words Aristotle distinguishes in Book Five are divided into those three groups. The first words Aristotle takes up are words that are names of beginnings or causes. So in that first group of words, we have the word beginning, right?

[22:35] The word cause, the word element, right? The word nature, which is name of a cause, right? And then the word necessary, which is a kind of condition of the cause, huh? Because a complete cause has an effect following necessarily, right? Okay. So that first group of words—beginning, cause, element, nature, necessary—all pertain to causes in some way, right? Okay, then the second group of words that Aristotle takes up are the words one and being, and the parts of one and being, huh?

[23:11] Okay, like quantity, quality, so on, substance, right? Okay, and then the third group of words begin with the word what? Perfect. Remember that? We took up some of those words, right? Usually in class, I don't take up all these words because spend the whole semester on Book Five, right? I usually take up the word beginning, which is the first word in the first group, right? Then the word being, which is perhaps the most key word in the second group, right?

[23:44] And then the word perfect in the what? Third group, right? Okay. Well, I think that kind of fits in with seeing true and good as perfections of being, right?

[23:59] And therefore, names of what? What functions here in the science more like a property, right? Than a what? A um a subject, right? Okay.

[24:16] I see. It takes a little while to see that that's perhaps the the best way of relating these sex, right, to the subject and the properties that we expect to find in reasoned out knowledge, right? That the first ones here, being and one, including and since these are the two, signify more the subject, and the other ones more the what? Properties, right? Okay.

[24:51] Now you know it takes a mind of talents, you know, to figure out, right? Um, the division and distinction of those names in Book Five, right? But you see, in a way, here, right? He just got through in the ninth, eighth, and ninth readings here in showing that act is more perfect than what ability, right? He's been discussing the perfection of being, right? And now in the tenth, eleventh readings, he's going to be talking about goodness and then about what?

[25:29] Knowable and true, right? Huh? You kind of you start to understand being, and especially you begin to understand being in terms of act and ability, you begin to see that being is such as good, huh? And the other great truth on the other side is that the bad is what?

[25:55] No, the bad is fundamentally a non-being, right? Okay. Now Augustine, huh? He saw that, right? But Aristotle saw it a long time before. Augustine saw it, huh? But Augustine, sometimes, you know, exaggerating a bit, the way of saying that, he'll say, "Sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing." Right? Okay. Now,

[26:31] later on, you come to realize that God is "I am who am." Right? Okay. You find that what you learn here in Book Nine that being as such is good, and the bad is a kind of non-being. Right? But exactly the kind of non-being it is, Aristotle will bring out. Now, they could be a little more explicit here than he is, right? But if you know the first book of Natural Hearing, you can fill in what he's not so explicit about right here.

[27:07] Once you realize from this tenth reading that being as such is good, and that the bad is fundamentally a kind of non-being, right? This will harmonize, right, with what you learn later on about the first cause. That the first cause is "I am who am." Right?

[27:30] Now, as you know, there's nothing bad in God. God is only good, right? So, other things, insofar as they have being, are like God, and therefore, what? Good, right? Huh? It harmonizes that, right? And therefore, the bad must be kind of non-being, right? But we don't reason from God here because God is less known than act and ability, right? Okay. But we discover that act is is better than ability, right?

[28:04] But ability, being capable of act, is also in some way good, right? But not as good as the act itself. And that the bad is first and fundamentally non-being in the sense of a what lack. Okay. Now, lack is not non-being, period. It's a non-being of something you're able to have

[28:33] and should have, right? And when you should have it, right? Okay. That's what the bad is. That's the fundamental meaning of the bad, right? Okay. So it's not non-being, period. I mean, you can say, for example, that this mug here doesn't see, right?

[28:55] But this mug not seeing is not really something bad. Because the mug, by reason of what it is, is not apt to have the ability to see, right? So it's not the non-being of something is able to have and should have. But if you or I were blind, or the dog or the cat was blind, right? There'd be the non-being, right, of something you and the dog are able to have and should have, right?

[29:27] And therefore, there'd be something what bad, right? Okay, not morally bad, but bad in some sense, right? Okay. But even when you get to moral badness, and you say to somebody, "What is a bad human act?" For example, right? What is a bad human act?

[29:53] Non-rational. Yeah, yeah. It's lacking, right? The measure or the order of reason. So it's an unmeasured or disordered act. huh? Example I always give in class is, You know, if the house is on fire, right? Do I rush in and grab my books, and then if time, go back and get the baby, or do I get the baby first, and then if time allows, go back and get the books?

[30:22] Well, they, think you know, I'm opposing that I go get the books first, right? But that would be a disordered act, right? The disordered love, right? Okay. Because the reason to save the baby is better than the books, right? And you should save the baby first, right? Okay. Or if you eat too much, you drink too much, right? So on.

[30:46] This would be a what an act lacking the measure of reason, right? So, now that's morally bad, but but notice the badness there consists in the act lacking what it's able to have, right? The ordered measure of reason, and it should have, right? That's what the badness consists in. Okay. Now sometimes you use the word bad for something that is not just a lack, right? We can call bad what has the lack.

[31:22] We can be said to have a lack, right? Okay. So if blindness is bad, then secondly you could say it's bad to what to be a blind man, right? Okay. But that's because blindness is bad. That's a fundamental meaning, right? And then a third meaning of bad would be for me to poke your eye, okay? Because that would cause you to be blind, right? Okay.

[31:48] But my poking your eye is bad because it blinds you, and it's bad for you to be blind because blindness is bad, right? So the fundamental meaning of bad is a kind of what non-being, huh? Okay. So Aristotle will see here in this tenth reading that act is better than ability, right? But ability is also good because it's capable of acting. Okay.

[32:21] Let's look a little bit at the reading ten here. Aristotle's way of showing this you got to be careful of because if you misunderstand it, you won't see later on what the bad really is. Okay.

[32:38] That the act is also better and more honourable than the good ability is clear from these things. Now as you call it, whatever is said according to ability is capable of contraries. Just talking about the ability to be and not to be, right? For example, it is the same which is able to be healthy, and at the same time, it could also have been sick. Right? It can't be healthy and sick at the same time, but is capable of both.

[33:10] For there is the same ability for being healthy and sick, for being at rest and in motion, for building and knocking down, for being built and falling down. The ability for contraries then exists at the same time, but contraries can't exist at the same time, right? Okay. My body is able to be healthy or sick at the same time. What does that mean?

[33:38] Can't be both healthy and sick, right? Okay. But I could be healthy now, or I could be what sick now, right? Have an ability to be both them, but not together.

[33:59] Okay, so he goes on to point that out. Therefore, while the good must be one of them, the ability is both alike or neither. The act, therefore, is better. Okay, that's kind of put that a little more clearly. See this?

[34:16] Sometimes we make a little chart. We say okay to be healthy and to be able to be healthy, to be able to be sick, and to be sick. Okay.

[35:02] Now, to be healthy is good, right? To be sick is bad, right? Um. But in a way, it's the same ability to be healthy and sick.

[35:21] So you might say that in the good, the act is better than the ability, right? But in the bad, the act is worse than the what ability, right? Okay. But in a way, the ability to be healthy and ability to be sick are the same, right? Okay. So can ability be as good as act? No, no, no, because in some ways it's it's an affinity to the bad, right?

[36:05] Because it's the same ability to be both, right? Now, but isn't to be sick equally as much an act as to be healthy? Well, this is where you get to be careful. Because strictly speaking, the bad, as I've mentioned already, is going to be seen to be a what? Negation. Negation. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And therefore, strictly speaking, it's not an act at all. Okay.

[36:36] Now, if you go back to the chapter on perfect, Aristotle will speak of the three main senses of perfect and so on. But then he speaks of a kind of metaphorical sense, right? Okay. And he says people will say, you know,

[36:59] my house has been completely burned. Okay, I'm completely ruined. He used the word complete, right? When he's now most incomplete, right? And I notice we have an expression, you know, when the car gets into a accident and so on, and we say sometimes the car has been totaled. Now, what the heck does that mean? Total comes from the word whole, right? As Aristotle points out, whole and perfect mean almost the same thing, right?

[37:32] So why do you say when the car is kind of completely wrecked that it's been totaled? You know, was it kind of a extremely metaphorical, extreme distant likeness, right? Um, it's just as when something is complete, it has all its parts, right? So when something has none of its parts, it's completely what ruined, right? Okay, it's kind of strange way, right? But you don't say that's really what strictly speaking complete.

[38:06] You use the word in kind of metaphorical way, huh? And it was kind of funny this morning. I was happened to be reading Thomas's commentary there on was it the fifth chapter? I think it was of of the the epistle to the Romans, right? And there's one reading there. At the end, Saint Paul says, "I remember the Latin, the Latin text there, that Adam is the forma futuri, the form of the future, right?

[38:43] " And Thomas, what does he mean by saying this, right? Well, he's pointing out a certain likeness between Adam and Christ, right? And there's several likenesses that Thomas points out. But the one that's been most prominent there is that just as through one man sin and death entered into the world, right? So through one man, what redemption, right? Okay. What kind of likeness is that? Through one gave, what sin and death, right?

[39:15] And through that one, what redemption and and and in life, resurrection, so on, right? Yeah. But in some way, huh? There's a likeness of Adam to what? Yeah, in the sense that just as Adam is the source of our troubles, in a way, or the beginning, you might say, as the source of all our troubles, Christ is is the beginning of all our redemption and all of our of our the good, huh?

[39:46] You see? Do you see that? Okay. So, so, but like you know, if you say. That the human mind is able to be mistaken, okay.

[40:11] And then you say, "Well, is that an ability that God lacks? God is not able to be mistaken, is he? Can neither deceive nor be deceived, right?

[40:29] But man is able to be deceived, able to be mistaken. Is that really an ability? I'm kind of using the word almost metaphorically, right? Okay.

[40:47] Because maybe strictly speaking, the ability to be mistaken is a lack of ability, right? You see. But yeah, people get you know mixed up with these things, right? They think that man is more free than God because man is able to what sin, right? You know. Does that make us more free than God? He lacks that freedom to sin. You see me? So you got to be careful here, right?

[41:21] Okay. Because although you could say this is ability and this is act, the ability to be sick is ability, right? And to be actually sick is an act, right? Strictly speaking, to be sick is

[41:42] something bad, and therefore is a lack of an act. It's something bad because it's lacking something it should have. You see me? Okay. I think Aristotle speaks this way because he wants to use this as a way of showing that

[42:04] in good things the act is better than ability, because ability, in a way, is the same as ability to be what bad, right? So it seems to have some affinity with right the bad, right? You see me? Okay.

[42:25] It's closer to the bad, you might say, right? It's ability to be healthy, ability to be sick. They're not two different abilities, like the ability to walk and the ability to talk, right? I can walk and talk at the same time, right?

[42:43] I can walk and see at the same time, right? Because the ability to walk and the ability to see are two different abilities. I can see and hear at the same time, right?

[42:57] But I can't be healthy and sick at the same time, right? That's kind of the sign that they're not really two different abilities. In the way that the ability to see, the ability to what walk, are two abilities. Okay. Even though we say, "Hey, the same argument," we know ability to act, right?

[43:29] And so, if the acts are different, then the abilities are different. You might kind of think that, right? So the ability to walk and the ability to talk are different because to walk and to talk are different acts. Isn't to be sick and to be healthy two different acts? Is it? Well, then shouldn't the ability to be healthy and the ability to be sick be two different abilities?

[43:53] And then why can't I be healthy and sick at the same time? Obviously, I can't be, right? Okay. And you start to rethink now. Hey, just a minute. What you have here is a strange kind of ability—an ability for what opposites, an ability for contraries, right? Okay. Yeah. Could that be possibly related, or could the reason be partly that those are undergoings? Yeah. Would that be the reason why you can have the ability for for both?

[44:28] I mean, you can have one ability for both and not two abilities because to be sick and to be healthy are more like undergoings than to walk and to speak. Yeah. Yeah. But they're they're opposed in the way that to walk and to talk are not opposed, right? Or to walk and to see are not opposed, right? Right. So you realize that these are two possibilities of the same ability of the same ability, right?

[44:54] And that's the reason why I can't be healthy and sick at the same time. Why can walk and talk at the same time, or walk and see at the same time? Okay. So if, in a way, it's the same ability, although described differently, right? The ability to be healthy, the ability to be sick, right? But in a way, it's the same ability.

[45:20] Then the way the ability to be healthy is in a way the ability to be sick too, and the ability to sick has some connection with being sick, which is bad, right? Well, how can the ability be as good as act? It can't be.

[45:37] No. There's no connection in being healthy and being sick, right? One excludes the other, but it seems to be the same thing in us that is able to be healthy and to be sick, right? Yeah. And that that goes back to you know the understanding of matter that you get in natural philosophy too.

[46:00] So you say, for example, you have a piece of clay there in the shape of a sphere, and you mold it into a cube, and then maybe you mold it into a pyramid, and so on, right?

[46:13] Well, does the clay have one ability where by it's able to be a sphere, and another ability where by it's able to be a cube, and another ability where by it's able to be a pyramid? If These are really separate abilities in reality. Then why can't it become a sphere and a cube and a and a pyramid at the same time, right? But seems that's one the same ability for all of these, but not an ability to be all of these at once.

[46:46] But when you are one of them, you are able to be the other, right? But if you became the other, you would cease to be the former, isn't it? So you see the idea that that passive ability is in a way an ability for opposites, okay? And therefore, it's not cut off from the bad entirely, isn't it? So it's an ability to be healthy in reality in a way is the same as the ability to be sick, even though to be healthy to be sick are not the same thing, right?

[47:19] So this has more affinity with the bad, and therefore it can hardly be as good as it is to be what healthy, right? Isn't it?

[47:31] So, or take a different example with matter, but a little bit like it in our mind, because understanding the way is an undergoing too, right? You say, well,

[47:43] I have ability to know, and I have an ability to be what mistaken, right? Huh? And you take the slave boy and the Meno there, right? And Socrates says to him, "How do you double a square that you have? Would it be the side of the square twice as big? So you double the side, right? Well, he's mistaken, right? He doesn't realize it at first, but he's mistaken, right?

[48:10] Because if you double the side, you get a square actually four times as big, right? So square two by two, you double the side four by four. Well, four by four is sixteen, and two by two is four, and sixteen is not double four. But first, slave boy, it sounds reasonable, right? Double the side, you get twice as big a square, wouldn't you? Seems reasonable. So he's able to be mistaken, right?

[48:40] And he's actually mistaken, okay? As a teacher, you know that students are able to be mistaken, right? And when I when I taught him the chapter on the meanings of the word before, right? I said, now later on the course, you are going to mix up those meanings.

[49:00] I know they will, right? Because later on the course, you know, I always ask them, you know, which is better to breathe or to philosophize, and everyone raises their hands that to breathe is better than to philosophize. And then I say to them, now why do you say that to breathe is better than to philosophize? Well, if you're not breathing, you won't be doing anything else, right?

[49:20] Well, that shows that to breathe is before to philosophize in the second sense of before. It can be without philosophizing, but not vice versa. But that's not the fourth sense. But so you're like saying Chaucer's better than Shakespeare because he came in the 14th century and Shakespeare came later. That's obviously you know you're mixing up those senses. But I know they're going to make that mistake.

[49:48] So, but you know yourself, you have to mistake it, right? Okay. But the slave boy then later on Socrates right asks some questions and he recognizes his mistake, right? And Socrates. asks him more questions, and eventually the slave boy comes to see that the diagonal of a square would be the side of a square twice as big, huh? So,

[50:14] the slave boy has the ability to be mistaken about how to double square, and his ability to to know how double a square, right? But is it two different abilities or powers of his soul, whereby he is it right? No, it's the same ability. It's his reason, right? Which is able to be mistaken and able to know the truth,

[50:42] and he goes in this case from one to the other, right? Now he's not knowing the truth and mistaken at the same time. Now more often, I suppose, people go from being mistaken to knowing. Well, sometimes they know, and then someone deceives them, and then they're all of a sudden mistaken, right?

[51:09] And so I give the student a sophistical argument, right? And they start denying what they they already know, right? So they're able to be mistaken, right? But it's really one and the same ability, right? Well, now to know is good, and to be mistaken is bad, right? Which is better, to know or the ability to know? to know? Yeah, but a sign of that is that the ability to know, in a way, is also the ability to be mistaken.

[51:41] So it seems to be what closer to the bad, right? Than to be actually knowing, right? Okay, so this is the way Aristotle is showing that. But if you misunderstand this, you might think Aristotle thinks that

[52:01] act can be just as much bad as what good, right? Okay, there can be a bad act just like there's a good act, right? But maybe strictly speaking,

[52:20] bad fundamentally is not an act at all. It's not being at all. It's not being right. You and I, for example, are able to be blind, right? Okay, and if you fall into what's his name there, King Lear,

[52:45] the Duke there huh Has him blinded, right? Right Terrible thing, huh? Okay, but now if you went from being able to be blind as you are now to be actually blind, right? Would that really be an actualization? Stiffy speaking, No. We might by kind of metaphorical likeness, say this, right? Okay. I was able to be blind, right? And then after they put my eyes out, the thing, right?

[53:19] I was actually blind, right? But strictly speaking, is that an actualization of something? No, I'm really losing something, right? Right? Okay. It's a little bit like you know when you say

[53:39] use the word has, right? You know. That we might say someone has blindness, right? Or someone has ignorance, right? But in the strict sense, do you have something when you're ignorant? Or is ignorance, strictly speaking, not having? Not having something you're able to have and maybe should have, right? And blindness is not really something you have. But strictly speaking, it's not having something you're able to have and should have.

[54:19] You see that? Okay. So you got to be careful about that kind of a metaphorical use of the word, huh? Okay. I was kind of struck by. I have to check the Greek there, but they say the Latin was in St. Paul there. But Adam is the forma, the form of the future, right? And is referring to what? Adam, in a way, being in a way like Christ.

[54:48] You see? But Adam, in in regard to sin, it's a little like Christ in regard to redemption redemption, right? There's a kind of universality of Adam, right? We all contract, you might say, original sin through Adam, right? Through one man, this came through. And then we're all in some way redeemed through one man, Christ, right? Okay.

[55:22] It's almost like saying you and I are alike because you emptied the mug and I what? Filled it, right? You poured all out, and I filled it all. up. In some way, you're forma futuri. You see what I mean? So in St. Paul's, you know, speaking that way a bit, huh? Okay, Thomas explaining him.