Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
3. Custom as Tyrant, Method and Matter, and the Logical Division of the Fourteen Books of Wisdom
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/003-custom-as-tyrant-method-and-matter-and-the-logical-division/

[0:00] Thank you. Really reinforce that method upon the mind, and that way of proceeding. So it's kind of pursuing the private good rather than the common good of the mind as a whole. What's the private good sense of it? Why is it taking its own? Well, I mean, I mean, take take take the scientific method, like you know, in our own time, right? Well, people everyone wants to proceed scientifically, right?

[0:29] Maybe this method is not suitable for doing some things, right? And so, if you insist upon using that method everywhere, you are going to be cut off from really knowing other things the way you should know them. And therefore, you are going to be harmed to the the whole life of the mind there, just for the good of this one part of the mind.

[0:54] Aristotle, when he talks there in the third book on the universe, when he talks about the Pythagoreans, the Pythagoreans wanted to proceed everywhere like you do in mathematics, and therefore they wanted beginnings, and therefore not hypotheses, right? Aristotle says, well, that's not suitable here, right? You need a beginning here now, which is justified by its consequences, he says.

[1:27] That doesn't justify them, and they wanted only a beginning that justifies its consequences. And Huygens sees that. He makes a nice contrast in the beginning of the treatise on light that there are some principles that justify the conclusions you can draw from them, other principles that are justified by their conclusions, and but if you have just one of these, the Pythagoreans are coming in to experimental science from geometry, so they want in experimental science the same kind of beginnings or principles that you have in geometry.

[2:11] But we're in the reverse thing now, right? We're immersed in the customs of experimental science and the kind of beginning there that is really a hypothesis, right? And therefore, to be tested by its consequences, and we think that every beginning is of that sort, right? So we're so by custom we think that every thought is an hypothesis to be tested by its consequences. That's kind of the people think, and therefore we're cut off from any knowledge that doesn't proceed in that way.

[2:45] So the good of reason as a whole is sacrificed to the good of this one kind of knowledge that because this method, what it can do is so dominant. It feeds itself, right? But it takes away all the other life of the mind, and therefore it's like enthralling, right? It's beautiful the way he says that, right? And the same way, you know, if you if you have a mistake or an error, it becomes customary now, and you know, keeps on following up the mind, because it doesn't.

[3:25] Even if it follows from this false thing, I be false because of that, right? And therefore, it's harming the whole mind. And true things that are against it are denied. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a real enthralling over the mind,

[3:44] and somebody said that's kind of playing that playfully, but a little bit truly to the way we use words, right? You know, you call the you call the physics the physics, right? And today, of course, the word physics means what one of the experimental sciences, one part of the experimental sciences. And so, he speaks Aristotel's physics. It's a little misleading that way, you know. His physics opposed Newton's physics, or something.

[4:14] That's a absurd comparison, right? You may want to compare the book of the universe a little bit with Newton, right? But not so much the. But then, in the word "physics" in English, you don't see the word "nature" there at all. If they even translated it, gave the title "Nature," that would be better, right? But then you go back to the Greek, and the Greek actually says "natural hearing."

[4:41] So, so the actual title would be the eight books of natural hearing, and the title "natural hearing" there kind of illuminates the work because you're hearing about nature in this book, and you're hearing about nature from nature as a teacher. And hearing is the act of what learning from another, right? And you're hearing things about nature from nature that are very close to what you naturally know.

[5:13] So this is a title, "Natural Hearing," that illuminates the whole work. Albert the Great, when he's talking about the title of Aristotle's book in Dialectica, now in English they call it the Topics, right? That's the title Topics. Every parfle has got topics. Don't lie.

[5:34] Yes, well, but it comes to the Greek word "topos," meaning place, and the real the title of the book should be about places. And Albert the Great says, "If you understand the title of the work about places, it illuminates the whole work." Does the word "topics"? No, but we're accustomed to call it the topics. If we don't call it the topics, maybe at a conference, people say, "What are you referring to?"

[5:59] You know, and. We get that title. Is not the title that illuminates the work, but impedes you from understanding the work, right? So it's a kind of a tyrant. Custom is a tyrant there, and I use the word because that's the word they're using. So we're accustomed to using that word.

[6:26] But you know, you know what? Go back to Albert. Does illuminate the whole work. So I rather call this the fourteen books of wisdom than the fourteen books of metaphysics. Most people don't know what metaphysics means anyway, and means all kinds of crazy things. You know, you get Kant's metaphysics, and you know, and I know you know a lot of philosophy professors. You know, they teach a course in metaphysics.

[6:50] Well, I'd say, well, some Aristotle's metaphysics, some Kant's metaphysics, and some else's metaphysics. And just just the the name is is is tyrannizing over them.

[7:07] So Shakespeare really, you know, hit the nail on the head when he says that custom, the tyrant, can be not necessarily. It often is a tyrant, though.

[7:19] Get accustomed to doing things a certain way, you know, and you keep on doing them that way. And I said, "Why do you do that way? " I don't know. Always do it that way. Always done that way. And so else comes in, you know, who's new to the organization? You know, say, "Why do you do it that way? " Then back I said, "We do it that way.

[7:37] " Oh yeah, Aristotle. I've always done it this way. I mean, Thomas also has pretty strong praise for custom though at times too. Yeah, you can. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, Shakespeare, I mean, too, sees that, huh? When Shakespeare, when Hamlet's talking to his mother there, right? You know about staying away from that uncle's bed and so on.

[7:59] He's very strong there about that, but there, there, he's talking about custom as what custom you do what is virtuous and therefore to virtue.

[8:15] Are there intellectual customs that can be good? I suppose it can be. I like reading Thomas, reading Aristotle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and our custom is here. No one does Aristotle say about this? Aristotle say about that, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Shakespeare knows that too. Well, you can't avoid custom. You're always in custom. Yeah. And most intellectual customs bad. Yeah. It fits in very well with what Aristotle says in the second book there.

[8:49] The people are accustomed to one method; want everything to be said this way, you know. And. What Novalis say? The more poetic it is, the more true it is.

[9:06] Other people want to proceed mathematically everywhere. So, Max Born has some interesting things here. You know how he was deceived by the clarity of mathematics as a young man. You know, ancient contemporaries they have that clarity of mathematics, and later on he realized this was a mistake in his part. It was pretty good for him to see that. For him to see that.

[9:37] Heisenberg saw that too, you know, before Max Born. It's kind of natural, right? Because mathematics is the first thing you can really do. Yeah, yeah, and and their clarity and certitude are one. Yeah. So they make the mistake.

[9:58] You don't distinguish. But there you see, when one method comes to seem the only method, right? Then you see that the private good is being what. This is rule for the private good, rather than for the common good of the mind.

[10:24] I mean, what reason for a liberal education? Be introduced to many different matters with different ways of proceeding, right? So that your mind will not be enslaved to to one way of proceeding. It's kind of fun, you know. You're teaching in college, and you get all these stupid committees. This professor coming from that discipline, he is one way of proceeding the problem. This guy's got another way of proceeding the problem, and you know, and they're all wanting to proceed the way they proceed in their own private discipline.

[11:01] Is there any kind of method in determining which method you choose for particular circumstance? Well, that's that's right out in the second book there, yeah.

[11:15] That the method has has to fit the matter, right? Boethius adds the relation of our mind to that matter, but there's also a nice likeness there in the Nicomachean Ethics. where he speaks of he, compares it to the practical arts, the mechanical arts, the servile arts, where the tools and the way of working have to fit the matter. So, what kind of methods are appropriate for committees?

[11:44] That's a joke. It's funny. I I met one time, you know, with some professors and some businessmen, you know, in one of these. And businessmen actually much more orderly than professors, right? You know, you know, and if you get out of order, they'll they'll tell you you're out of order.

[12:10] Professors, you know, they walk all over the place, you know, and that's the way you find a businessman. We're not committee meeting that way.

[12:23] So I always say my my my wife, when she makes a dress, she doesn't get the hammer and the saw, and so on. And my brother in law when he makes a table or house; he doesn't try to sew the boards together and so on. And the glassblower, he knows hammer, you know.

[12:42] But they all take the tools that are adapted to the matter and the way of working that matter. One of my other examples out of the, you know, my father's factory there, the forge shop, they would heat the metal and then bend it, right? For the woodshop, to heat the matter and then bend it.

[13:02] So when you have a a matter like wood or metal or glass or cloth that requires different tools and and way of working, then you have a separate art, right?

[13:16] And Aristotle compares that, right? Other comparison is kind of interesting too. Is is the ones where, um, uh, the imitative arts. You know, I don't know if you ever read some of these books of C. S. Lewis, like The Allegory of Love, where he's talking about a form of fiction to which we are not accustomed, but a form of fiction that had a longer life than the novels had and was enjoyed by people for centuries.

[13:43] The Allegory of Love, but we have to be taught in a way how to approach this kind of a work. It's not the customary kind of work that we have.

[13:55] And then he has another little work called the Preface to Paradise Lost, which is a little bit about how to read Paradise Lost. Well, then there's an interesting thing that Henry Fielding, right, one of the first novelists there, major novelist in English, in one of his early novels there, Joseph Andrews, right, he's got a preface, right, where he's trying to explain the kind of work he's writing and how the author may expect a pleasure other than that intended.

[14:24] I mean, the reader may expect a pleasure other than that intended by the the author. So he's trying to explain to you what to look for in this kind of a work, and that, in a sense, is what something like what Aristotle's saying in the sciences, huh? But you shouldn't seek the same kind of pleasure from a novel and from a lyric poem or something that's right, or a novel and a epic and so on, right?

[14:54] And I think everybody knows some experience that you're more accustomed to certain literary forms and other ones, huh? And I know people can only read detective stories after all. Everything I mean, poetry, you know, I couldn't read Homer and so on. I remember the first time I tried to read Homer, you know, just in Lattimore's translation. There, I bought a marketed copy of it, and I couldn't get into it.

[15:16] And then, a few years later, there a friend of mine bought us a book club, and they offering a real gift edition, you know, a big Lattimore translation. Well, I tried again, you know. So I'll sit down and read a book a night, you know. So read a book first night. After a night or two, I couldn't put it down, you know. You know, and suddenly I, I, I got it right.

[15:40] But in a sense, the principle here is pleasure, right? And you shouldn't seek the same kind of pleasure from, let's say, Sherlock Holmes and and the Iliad, right? And regardless, with the pleasure of Sherlock Holmes, you know, Conan Doyle stories, right? Or Homer's Iliad is greater, right? It's a different kind of pleasure, right? And same when you go to read a tragedy, you don't look for the same pleasure as a comedy.

[16:12] And Aristotle, you know, speaks of those who want the tragedy to end happily. You know these horrible things in the 18th century there, where they would take King Lear and try to make a happy ending there. Cordelia survives, and she marries the good brother, Edgar, Edward, and you know all this terrible stuff, and finally went back to the to the true Shakespeare. But you're seeking, you know, the pleasure is inappropriate.

[16:37] And the example I use to just to illustrate that is the principle there. Very funny one from used to be an advice column in the St. Paul paper, kind of a, but advice for teenagers, opposed to adults, you know, and so-called adults. And I remember the girls writing in one day, saying that her boyfriend wants her to wear candy-flavored lipsticks, right? But she wants to wear adult lipstick, right?

[17:06] Apparently, these you know strawberry-flavored lipsticks and so on. And well, this is her problem, right? Okay, what does she do about it? And the answer is very short: buy a lollipop.

[17:20] Well, I hope the the answer is. If he wants his girlfriend to wear strawberry lipstick, it's because he's seeking the pleasure of a lollipop. Yes. And regardless of which pleasure is greater, it's just not the the same, right? Huh? See. Or like I say, you know, if you if you have a guy a filet mignon, he puts you know a slab of ice cream over it and so on.

[17:44] Regardless, with the pleasure of a filet mignon or the pleasure of ice cream is greater. I mean, you don't even resolve that. You shouldn't look for the pleasure of ice cream in eating a filet mignon. You're going to miss the pleasure that's appropriate to a filet mignon, huh? So.

[18:03] The same way, you know, when you, you know, people who want to visualize something when they hear music, they're kind of looking for a visual effect of music, right? Why the pleasure of the music is is is in the ear.

[18:20] And but that's analogous to what Aristos was talking about, right? And of course, when you first say approach wine, let's say, if you try to drink wine, where you drink soda pop, soda pop, you.

[18:40] And if I drank wine that way, I would be coughing and gasping and spitting it up, and I want to drink this junk, you know. And but ridiculous to put my, you know, root beer, you know.

[18:54] You really have to learn and be taught how to drink wine, right? You don't drink wine in the same way you drink what. Root beer. Yeah, yeah. Or cranberry juice, something like that, right? I think you can make these nice likenesses, right? To see, get the principle principle across.

[19:21] And wine and beer, too. Yeah, but again, you know, I'd say you know, go to kind of reduction to observe. There, almost, I'll say, you know, if you have both sides ears, and your ears are that sensitive, you know, you really hear things, you know. But you go to the art museum, you know, and you put your ear up to the painting, right? Well, that's ridiculous, right?

[19:42] In the same way, if you should try to, you know, see the music, right? Huh. The eyes, right? See. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now that was kind of because of a fantasia, you know, that sort of thing, you know, that that you're trying to make something should be mainly a pleasure of the ear, right? Maybe something something visual. It's kind of funny, though, you know, how they they teach the chefs now, you know, to arrange things they look nice on the plate, huh?

[20:15] And that doesn't make a lot of difference, you know. And it doesn't look nice on the plate. You're not you're kind of you're not as attracted to it, huh? Yet the pleasure of food is not primarily in the way it looks on the plate, but you know, helps a little bit, you know. I know, man. You know, Warren really likes Indian food a lot, right? Huh. And I'd rather go to Thai restaurant myself, you know.

[20:39] The Thai restaurant, the food always looks much nicer. Indian restaurants, you know. You know, when I talked about my wife Rosalie about that, too. I think the Indian stuff, you know, is that kind of a mess in that Indian food, you know, kind of, you know, they look like it's dirty almost, you know. Yeah, it's not attractive to the eyes. You don't think the Indian food by by the the Chinese food, you know, tends to be kind of attractive in some ways.

[21:01] And the Thai, especially, huh? It's the tide drew upon the Chinese and the Indians. so they combined the two and Thai very good Yeah yeah

[21:19] I always end up going to the Indian restaurant in Warner. You want to go to the Thai restaurant? You want to go to the Indian restaurant? Let's say we say you know it's primarily the taste, right? It's not primarily the way it looks on the plate, or

[21:41] well, now it's time for lunch, right? Logical and understandable division of the fourteen books of wisdom, and the logical and understandable division of the fourteen books of wisdom is into two: the premium, occupies the first part of book one, and then the treatise or tractatus, as they call it in Latin, the drawing out of the work, which occupies rest of book one to book fourteen.

[22:20] Now, how is the tractatus, the drawing out of the work, divided? And usually, if you understand the division, you can see the reason for the order, right? Just like if you realize the division of Romeo and Juliet into the proemium or prologue and play, and kind of see why the prologue would come before the play, the same way you can see why the premium would come before the drawing out of the work.

[22:53] Um. Well, the tractatus is also divided into two parts, and the rest of book one after the premium is divided against books two through fourteen. Because in the rest of book one, he looks at what his predecessors said about causes, especially about the first causes, to see if what they said was sufficient, right?

[23:28] But he finds out that what they said was not sufficient, and therefore it's necessary for him to make a investigation, not without their help, though. And so, you could say the rest of book one is looking to see whether he can learn wisdom from those who have pursued wisdom before him, as if it's more reasonable, right, to learn wisdom from those who already possess it, if there are those who already possess it, than to try and discover it all by your lonesome self.

[24:05] See that. In other words, by the end of the premium, you know what wisdom is aiming at—the very first causes. You know it's the best and most honorable and most desirable knowledge there is. But there's two ways of acquiring the knowledge that you don't have. One is is to learn it from someone who already possesses it, if there is such a person, right. The other is to discover it yourself.

[24:44] And is it reasonable to try and learn it from someone who already does know it, if there is such a person, right? Then to try to discover it by yourself.

[25:01] Better to learn it easier to learn it Yeah, because it would take you much longer time to discover it by yourself. And if you wanted to to try to discover it by yourself, even though there's someone who already knows it, this would seem to be in your part not so much a desire to know, but a desire for the glory of discovering it yourself. And therefore, to be a bit sophistical.

[25:35] That's interesting that Aristotle, in the two kinds of wisdom that there are, the political philosophy, which is wisdom about human affairs, and then the fourteen books of wisdom here, that in both of these he's very explicit about showing that he has need to make some investigation himself. And in the second book of the Politics, when he looks at the governments that have been praised among the Greek city states, when he looks at the governments that have been proposed in words like that of Socrates in the Republic and so on, he's very explicit about saying that

[26:22] there really are defects in those governments. And therefore, it's necessary for him to say something on his own, so to speak. But he wants to show that there really are defects in what Socrates proposes, right, in the Republic, and and the kind of government that Sparta has, which is so highly praised by the other Greeks, unless it be seen that he be what sophistical, right? And he wants to show off his wisdom to others, right?

[26:55] Now, as you know, the modern philosophers don't usually do that, right? But that shows the humility of Aristotle and the wisdom of Aristotle that. He doesn't

[27:09] try to discover something by himself, but is someone who already possesses it, and that's why they say Aristotle didn't write a book in geometry because he could already learn geometry from some of the Greek minds even before our friend Euclid

[27:34] So you see the reason then why Book One comes where it does, and Book One after the premium is divided into two parts itself. In the first part, where he narrates the opinions of his predecessors and the reasons they had for those opinions, and then the second part where he examines the sufficiency of what they said, and the conclusion in that second part is that it's not sufficient what they said.

[28:05] They didn't even understand well the four kinds of causes, let alone arrive at the first causes. Now he mentions a second bird he's going to kill by narrating the opinions of his predecessors about the causes and the reasons for those. Not only is that going to set the stage for an examination of the sufficiency of what they said, but it also will be a kind of a test to see if they touched upon any kind of cause in addition to the four kinds we already recognize in natural philosophy: matter, form, mover, and end.

[28:50] And the conclusion in that respect is affirmative that there doesn't seem to be any other kind of cause touched upon by those who looked for causes except one of these four kinds, although they didn't touch upon them too thoroughly by any means. Huh? Recognize their distinction that clearly.

[29:16] Now, you might want to jump from the end of Book One to the beginning of Book Three, because at the end of Book One, you know that you cannot, or Aristotle knows that he cannot, simply learn wisdom from those before him.

[29:45] That he must, in some way, discover wisdom himself, and how does Book Three begin? Well, the beginning of Book Three talks about how we discover. it It's sort of beautiful to see the way he goes from the end of Book One to beginning of Book Three. Either you learn from another, if you can't do that, you have to discover it, right? And if you find out you can't learn it some from another, then you've got to say, well, how do you discover these things, right?

[30:23] And that, in a way, is the beginning of Book Three. And so some people seeing a little connection there between those two, might think it's kind of immediate, right? Maybe that Book Two is just what interjection by somebody or something of that sort, right? They call it Alpha the Lesser, you know. I'd rather call it the Second Book of Wisdom.

[30:53] But I don't think that's necessarily true. And sometimes I approach it from a little distance, and I say, put yourself in Aristotle's shoes. You know from the Premium what the goal of wisdom is. You know that this is the most divine knowledge there is. You know, therefore, this is the best knowledge there is, the most honorable knowledge that there is. You really want this knowledge, but you also know from the Premium that wisdom is about things that are difficult for man to know.

[31:43] And then you go through those who have pursued wisdom in the rest of Book One, and you find out that none of those who went for this goal, so desirable as it is, was able to arrive. It's a little bit what discouraging, right?

[32:03] And would you just then begin merely to set off on your own to find wisdom? When I think about this from my own perspective, I say now,

[32:19] wouldn't it be reasonable at this point, Mister Burquist, seeing how great it is to be wise and how desirable it is to be wise and how wonderful, godlike it is, and yet how difficult it is, and how everybody who's tried to get it has failed, right? Shouldn't you ask the question, well, how do you get wisdom? How do you get it? Would that be the question that would come to you?

[32:50] Well, Aristotle sees that question as one you have to answer. How does one get wisdom? But that's not the question he answers in Book Two. How do you get wisdom?

[33:08] He doesn't answer that fully, maybe, until book six. Not even book three. Well, as we know, one man is wiser than another because he sees something before or after what the other guy sees, or because he sees a before and after that the man doesn't see.

[33:40] Is there something that really comes before? Trying to answer the question, how do you get wisdom? And would that something that comes before belong to the wise man to consider?

[34:05] Well, long before you ask the question, how do you get wisdom? You might have asked in Nicomachean Ethics, how do you get ethics, right? And before that, you might have asked in Natural Philosophy, how do you get Natural Philosophy? And maybe you could ask that same question about geometry: how do you get geometry? Maybe even about logic: how do you get logic? So there is a question here about wisdom, like the question you have to ask about ethics, right?

[34:41] Natural Philosophy, Geometry, Logic: a question that is similar and, maybe more difficult, right? And then you begin to see that there is a more general question that has to be answered before all those questions I just mentioned, and that is: how do you determine the road to follow or the way to proceed in any science? How do you go about determining that? Isn't that question presupposed

[35:22] to the particular question? How should you proceed in geometry? How should you proceed in Natural Philosophy? How should you proceed in ethics and so on? How do you determine the way of proceeding in any particular kind of wisdom, adult knowledge? How do you determine that?

[35:44] So yeah, yeah, I never thought about that. I guess that question does come first, right? And sometimes I give a homely likeness there. Someone says to me,

[35:59] "How do you find the road from from Shrewsbury, where I live, to to Boston? . I say, well, look up in the map, you dummy. And how do you find the road from Shrewsbury to Springfield? Looked up in the map, you dummy, right? And it might describe some. Might say, okay, you can find the way to get all kinds of places by looking up a map, right?

[36:20] But now, how do you read a map, right? So you have to be taught, in a sense, or as presupposed, how do you read a map, right? And once you know how to read a map, you can read a map to get to Boston, to Springfield, to get to New York City. You can do all kinds of places, right? But that's kind of presupposed, okay? I have a relative who can read a map, so.

[36:44] And he's trained not to be able to read a map. But seems to be got to know how to read a map, and then all these other doors will start to open up.

[36:57] Now, that more general question is presupposed to all these particular questions, not just to the question, "How do you proceed in wisdom? " Right? But is there a reason why that more general question, which has to be answered by somebody, should belong to the wise man to answer, and not to the geometer, or the natural philosopher, or the logician, or the moral or political philosopher?

[37:36] Well, if you stop and think, the geometer is directed in geometry by knowing how to proceed in geometry. The natural philosopher is directed in natural philosophy by knowing how to proceed in natural philosophy. The moral and political philosopher is directed in moral and political philosophy by knowing how to proceed in practical philosophy.

[38:09] But the man who knows how to find those roads is going to, to some extent, be directing everybody, right? And to whom does it belong to be directing everybody else, and not himself?

[38:28] It must be the wise man, right? But that's one of the attributes of the wise man, right? He directs everybody else, and is directed by nobody.

[38:37] If he's directed by somebody else, that could be the wise man, right? So there is a more general question. Then, how do you proceed to get wisdom, right? Or how do you proceed in wisdom? What road should you follow within wisdom, right? And that is, how do you determine the road to follow, the way to go forward, in any reasoned out knowledge? And that's what Aristotle takes up.

[39:08] In the last part of Book Two, he shows in the in Thomas's editorial division in the fifth lectio the last lectio, in the last chapter of the reference division, right? How the road to follow, the way to go forward, should and should not be determined in any particular means of knowledge, right?

[39:40] But that's the end of Book Two, right? Must be something before that. What escapes me? I mean, something they should know before that. Well, you know, it's kind of discouraging to think that all these men who sought wisdom have failed to get it, right? To find out the truth about all things, and especially the truth about the first causes, huh?

[40:20] Maybe there is an even more general question, which is, how is man towards knowing truth? And does he know truth only by demonstration and so on, right? How is man towards knowing truth? And that's what Aristotle takes up in the beginning of what Book Two, right? How man is towards knowing the truth?

[40:52] And very interesting the way Aristotle proceeds there, because he never asks the question, "Can man know truth? " What you think a modern philosopher would do, right? No, no. He assumes without question that man can know truth,

[41:23] but how much is he able, right? Or how is he towards that particular thing? Aristotle knows that there are some truths that we can't avoid knowing. Of course, I like to take sometimes the truth that statements exist.

[41:53] So even the man who says statements do not exist, right, has made a statement, right? So it's obvious that we know this to be true: that statements exist.

[42:08] Aristotle is a very interesting way of beginning. Is it easy or difficult for man to know the truth? Right? I always say to my students, go down the mahogany halls they call it there, and knock on these doors there, and ask each professor, right, this question: Is it easy or difficult to know the truth? What answer did you get? Yeah, they'd all say difficult, or difficult, if not impossible.

[42:39] That's about the answer you'd get, right? And finally comes the last door, and on the door it says Aristotle, right? So you'll say, well, I've also asked this guy, asked everybody else. Aristotle, is it easier difficult to know the truth? Aristotle says, well, in one way it's difficult, in another way it's easy.

[43:03] How different, right? And then, what does he do? He doesn't spend much time showing that it is difficult to know the truth, huh? Because that's kind of obvious.

[43:26] But what he does is to show why it's difficult, huh? And he points out that the difficulty in knowing, like the difficulty in other things, can be in the thing itself, or it can be in what? Us, okay.

[43:50] That's a very interesting distinction, and you can make it in other things, huh? Like in loving, right? It's difficult to love wisdom, really, the way you should love it. It's difficult to love the common good. It's difficult to love God, huh? But is the difficulty there because the thing isn't very good? No, the difficulty is in the defect of our heart.

[44:21] What's difficult to love? Let's say, take an obvious example, cancer, right? You know, is that defect in my heart? The weakness of my heart that can't. Do you love cancer? No, the problem is in the cancer, right? Okay.

[44:40] And sometimes I take a you know simpler example. I say, knowing, it's easiest to understand people are just like yourself. And I seem so reasonable, you know. And anybody who's just like like breakfast, wants his philosophy, wants his wine, so on. The guy's pretty understandable, reasonable, you know.

[45:03] But every day I pick up the newspaper and I read about somebody doing some crazy thing, and it's hard to understand why he did it. Now, is it difficult to understand why they're behaving the way they are, in me or in them?

[45:21] But they don't have much reason for what they're doing, right? And so the difficulties in them, right? Okay. But then I turn around and you have the saint there, and it's hard to understand the saint, huh? But the difficulty is in me because he's more reasonable than I am, right? And so he says to me, you know, Burkwist, he says, "I give you, you give me twenty dollars, give me one dollar bill, I give you."

[45:51] I said, "I'm stupid, huh?" He says, "Well, you're doing something much more stupid than Burkwist, you know, because you're doing some temporal little thing, you know, for eternity, right? That's not one to twenty; that's one to infinity, right?

[46:10] So unreasonable, right? But I can't understand him because he's he's more reasonable than I am. There are the difficulties in me, I'm not? reasonable enough? But people who are less reasonable than me, the difficulty I have in understanding them is in them. They don't have much reason for what they do, huh? And then Aristotle turns to