Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
4. Metaphysics Book Nine, Reading 1: Distinguishing Kinds and Senses, and the Meanings of Ability
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[0:01] the other idea that knowing the truth is in some way easy. And there, the main thing he wants to show is not so much why, but that it is in some way easy, right? And he points out, you know, when you go through. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, ordain and illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:34] In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. So, do you have your Greek text with you, or your English text, or some reasonable facsimile thereof? We can start to look at Book Nine, or as the Greeks say, Book Theta. Of course, Theta is same letter that the word God begins with, Theos. And so, this is the most important book for getting to Theos.

[1:11] Now, Thomas says there's a little kind of prologue or proemium to the ninth book, where Aristotle shows how this is continuous with what's gone before, and states what he's going to be aiming at. And so, let's look a little bit at what this is going to say here.

[1:34] And one thing that's useful to know in what he recalls here and what we're going to see today, we've talked before of how distinction is very basic for reason.

[1:49] And when Thomas Aquinas, for example, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, shows that God is responsible for the distinction of creatures and their order, then he goes back and he quotes Anaxagoras. He anticipated this, because for Anaxagoras, the greater mind was responsible for the distinction of things and their order. So Thomas sees those two as going together.

[2:15] Now, there's a distinction of two kinds of distinction. These aren't the only kinds of distinction, but there's a distinction of two kinds of distinctions that are relevant to what we're going to see here recalled, what we're going to see today, at least in the first part.

[2:35] One kind of distinction is the distinction of different kinds of things. And another kind of distinction is the distinction of the senses or the meanings of a word.

[2:54] Now, those two should not be confused. They're two kinds of distinction. For example, when Euclid distinguishes the kinds of quadrilateral, square and Oblong, rhombus, and rhomboid, and then the trapezium. Is he distinguishing different senses of the word quadrilateral? No, he's merely distinguishing different kinds of quadrilateral, but the word quadrilateral has one meaning, and exactly the same meaning, instead of all of them.

[3:40] Sometimes when I talk in class and a student gets a little bit confused and they want to say that dog and cat are two different senses of animal, no, no, dog and cat are two distinct kinds of animal, but they're not two meanings of the word animal. Sometimes I see students so confused that they want to say that.

[4:06] So these are two different kinds of distinction, but when you're dealing with some of the most universal distinctions, some of the most or are the most universal distinctions of kinds of things, they correspond to also a distinction in senses of the word.

[4:36] I'll give you an example you may be familiar with. As we mentioned in the first book of wisdom, when Aristotle recounts the opinions of his predecessors about the causes of things and about the first causes and the reasons for those opinions, he mentions that he's doing this not only as preparatory to an examination of what they said, but also as a way of testing whether the distinction he made in natural philosophy of four kinds of causes—matter, form, mover, and end—whether that distinction is complete, or whether there's some other kind of cause in the real world besides matter, form, mover, and end.

[5:34] And the conclusion of that examination of the opinions of his predecessors is that none of them had ever touched upon any kind of cause other than matter, form, mover, and end. So the emphasis there in that subplot of that part of Book One of Wisdom is that there are only in the real world four kinds of causes.

[6:08] Thomas Aquinas gives a reason for that, but we don't go into that today. Now you get to the fifth book of wisdom, and the fifth book of wisdom is distinguishing the senses, the meanings of the words used, especially in wisdom, but also in the axioms, and also because of their community to some extent everywhere. So the whole fifth book is distinguishing the senses or meanings of words, and among them is the word cause.

[6:52] And the first distinction that he makes of the senses of the word cause is that it has four meanings: matter, form, mover, and end.

[7:06] So the distinction of the four kinds of causes, or the distinction, let's say, of matter, form, mover, and end, is both a distinction of kinds of cause, a distinction of the kinds of causes there are in the real world, but at the same time, it's a distinction and the most fundamental distinction of the senses or meanings of the word cause itself,

[7:41] because the word cause is not said of these four with exactly the same meaning, unlike the word quadrilateral, which is said of square Square and oblong and rhombus and rhomboid and trapezium with exactly the same meaning, right? Or parallelogram is said of the first four, right, with exactly the same meaning. Do you see that? That's kind of interesting, huh? And this is one of the important discoveries of Aristotle that sometimes in distinguishing the most universal kinds of things, and this is a very universal kind of kinds of things, the four kinds of causes, it also is a distinction of the senses of a word.

[8:32] Now we're going to meet a second example of that right here in the prologue. Now, how would you know that? I guess just trying to define cause. Well,

[8:46] let's leave that for aside I'm not going to try to get into explain that today, okay? But you can see, you know, the trouble that people have sometimes in seeing matter and form, especially as being causes. They want to limit the word cause to just the efficient cause, and that's a sign that they recognize somehow that matter and form are not a cause in exactly the same way that the mover is.

[9:20] Of course, sometimes one cause is a cause of the causality of another cause. So the carpenter is responsible for the wood getting to be the wood of a table, and he's responsible for the shape of the table getting into the thing. So he's more responsible in a sense than the wood in the shape, because he's responsible for their responsibility. But then the use of the table is responsible for the carpenter doing what he did.

[9:48] So you see, it's not really equally a cause. And so we say that the end is a causa causarum Okay, but let's leave it at that huh. So let's look at the beginning of Aristotle's text here, and he's recalling what he's done, especially in books seven and eight of Wisdom, the two books before this. About he says the first being,

[10:23] that's the reference now to substance, and towards which all the other categories of being are led back. What has spoken about that? That is about substance,

[10:45] and according to the what thought or definition of substance are said all the other beings. poson he uses concrete form that he does the categories at first the how much right and poion the how

[11:07] and all the other things said in this way. For all have the definition or the notion or the thought of substance in them, as we have said in the first speeches, like back in book four, for example.

[11:29] So this is touching upon what he points out in book four, and then later on in book seven again and eight, that substance is the fundamental meaning of being, and the others are called being because they're something of substance. They're the measure of substance or the size of substance, or the disposition of substance, or how substance is towards something else. That they're always something of substance. So substance is the primary meaning.

[12:03] In Book Seven Eight, he's been talking primarily or chiefly about substance, especially material substance. Since then, he says, "Being is said," and then he gives them again or touches upon them, or some of them. And notice that he says instead of ousia, he says what t. The Greek text, and then he says poion and poson Different order.

[12:39] I might mention that the categories are ten in number, right? And some people, you know, find Aristotle when he refers to them. He often doesn't enumerate ten, and so they say he's not too sure about how many there are, etc. And this is a lot of nonsense. And when Thomas, you know, explains the categories, he always unfolds the ten. But the only places where I have seen and can recall that Aristotle enumerates all ten is in the Categories when he's beginning the consideration of them, and in the book about places, the so-called Topics.

[13:23] And there he gives exactly the same ten in exactly the same order. It's very careful, exactly the same ten, exactly in the same order, with one exception. The first one is called in the Categories usia, and the first one in the book about places is called ti esti. What it is,

[13:54] and this is not in contradiction, of course, because the way you distinguish these ten is by the way something can be said of individual substances. Before he gets to this point, he's already distinguished individual substances from universal substance and universal accident and individual accident. And the way we first distinguish these tens is by the way something can be said of individual substances. And some things can be said of individual substances, like you and me and and and the cows out here in the pasture.

[14:36] In answer to the question, what is it? So you can be said to be a man, and they can be said to be a cow, and we're generally an animal, and all we have to substance. Other things are said of you and me and the cows out there, not by reason of what we are, but by reason of something in us that's in addition to what we are.

[15:01] And one would be our size, right? How much of us there is. Another would be our disposition, how we are, and another relation, and so on. So Thomas, in the third book of of natural hearing, and in the fifth book of wisdom, in the commentaries, will distinguish those ten and explain the ten, which I don't intend to do now, right? But they are distinguished by the way something can be said of you, either by reason of what you are, or by reason of something in you, in addition to what you are, or in the case of the last six of them, by reason of something outside of you.

[15:39] I am said to be clothed by reason of something outside of me. I am said to be in this room, right? I am said to be sitting by reason of my being arranged around this chair, in a certain way.

[15:53] Now, in distinguishing those ten, Aristotle is also distinguishing ten kinds of things in the real world, especially the first four. Substance is one kind of thing out there, and you're an example of that kind of thing. And your size, or the size of the cow out there, is an example of another kind of thing. And your health, or your sickness, or whatever your disposition might be, is an example of another kind of thing.

[16:28] Your geometry, another kind of thing. And your being a what? Father, right? Huh? Or a son, or a daughter, or something? A wife, husband. That's another kind of thing, huh? And so you're distinguishing different kinds of things. But this also appears, as we saw a little bit the other day, in the fifth book of wisdom, as one of the main groups of meanings of being: substance, quantity, quality, relation, and so on.

[17:06] So that's a second example, right? Like example with cause, where the distinction of kinds of things, even in things themselves, in reality outside the mind, corresponds also to a distinction of senses of a word. Now that isn't true, as you go on usually, huh? As you go on to something more particular, then the distinction of kinds of things is not a distinction of senses of the word, right?

[17:44] Especially when you get down to a genus in the strict sense, and you distinguish the species of that genus, those aren't different meanings of the genus, or the word that signifies the genus, right? But there are different kinds of. That genus, huh? But in these most universal things that we talk about in wisdom,

[18:09] those two kinds of distinction come together. They're still a different kind of distinction, but they correspond, huh? And so, in this first reading, as we'll see, Aristotle will be distinguishing a number of kinds of what ability, huh? But perhaps at the same time he's distinguishing different what senses of the word what ability, and he refers back to the fifth book where the word ability also appears.

[18:49] You see that? That's an interesting thing to to see, huh? So, since the being has been spoken about in sense of what it is, or how, or how much, and so on, then that, according to what ability, right, and act, huh? And according to let's say deed for IV, we ought to determine, right? Okay. Excuse me, I didn't mean that correctly. Since being is said in one way, we distinguish the meanings of being by what and how much and how.

[19:35] Another way we distinguish the senses of being by what ability and act, right, and so on. Let us now determine about what ability and about what act, right? Okay.

[19:51] As I said before, huh? Somebody might say, you know, Aristotle is just distinguishing the meanings of words. No, no, no, no. He is distinguishing the meanings of words, but he is what sometimes at the same time, right? Distinguishing kinds of things that are distinct even in the real world, right? And the point is, he sees that they what kind of come together, right? Okay. So it's an example of killing two birds with one stone, right?

[20:24] When you distinguish matter, form, mover, and end, you're distinguishing at the same time the kinds of causes that there are in the real world and all the kinds that there are. At the same time, you're distinguishing the basic four meanings of the word cause.

[20:44] Amazing, right? And it's not inappropriate that wise men should kill two birds with one stone, huh? It's a good thing to do, when you can do it, huh? To be two stones, that's okay too, but but if you can do, you know, one stone, two birds, that's Shows marksmanship, huh?

[21:07] Okay. And now he talks a little bit about the order in which he's going to talk about these. And actually, he's giving, as you'll see when Thomas divides the text after this, he's giving kind of the distinction between the first and the second part of Book Nine.

[21:32] And first, he says, we're going to talk about the ability, which is said most of all, or most chiefly, but perhaps is not the most useful for our present purpose.

[21:50] For ability, now what he's going to do? He's going to talk about the ability that is first named ability, and this is the ability in reference to motion. And motion is what is, in a way, first known to us almost, because our knowledge begins with our senses. And Shakespeare says, "yes, he says, in Troilus and Cressida, things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.

[22:19] " So motion kind of is the first thing that grabs our attention. So in the philosophy of nature, I tell students, if you don't understand motion, you don't understand moving things. If you don't understand moving things, you can't understand unmoving things because we know those by the negation of them. If you don't know moving things or unmoving things, you don't know anything. So from first to last, if you don't understand motion, you don't understand nothing.

[22:47] No, he was. I don't know what good does anyway. But now, in the next line, there right, he's going to kind of unfold why this is not what's most useful to us. So we're going to begin there. But then he says, in the next line, epi pleon right? gar estin hē dunamis, and that's Aristotle's way of saying it's over more, right? It's said of more, right? Ability is said of more, right?

[23:22] And likewise, energia or act of those said only according to motion, right? So not only is motion said to be act, right? And the ability for motion, some way, ability, but ability and act are both more universal in this, as we'll see, right?

[23:51] But he says, having spoken about this, maybe about the ability in reference to motion, in our determinations about act, we will also show. About other kinds of ability.

[24:09] So you're going to see ability in the first part of Book Nine, only in reference to motion, and therefore he has in mind only one kind of act, namely motion itself. Then, in the second part of the book, beginning in five and five and six of the lexios of Thomas, in the second part of the book, he's going to understand act in a much more universal way, where things other than motion can be said to be an act.

[24:48] Things like form can be said to be an act, to be an act and activities that are not really motions in the strict sense, like understanding and loving and so on, We're going to see act in a completely universal way. And since ability is, for the sake of act, we'll at that point see other senses of ability besides the ones we meet in the first part.

[25:14] So he's ascending, huh, from the less universal, from a less universal consideration of ability and act, as they're found only in moving things, huh, to a completely universal consideration of act and ability, huh, but certainly a more universal consideration of them in the middle part. And that's why I say that the ninth book here, most explicitly, right, reveals this order of wisdom, which is to some extent from the less universal towards the more universal.

[25:56] But that's true in a way in the study of substance, because you begin from material substance and then rise to kind of a general understanding of substance, huh, which is useful to know when you finally turn to the immaterial substances, and the culmination of wisdom. And something like that we said is also found in the study of one, because you begin with the one, the undivided, continuous thing, huh, the beginning of number, right, and then you try to ascend to the one that is convertible with being, huh.

[26:31] At the same time, this corresponds in a way to the other statement we had about the order of wisdom, that as Monsignor Dionne first taught us, it goes towards the immaterial. And you can kind of see how those two go together, right? Because we begin by knowing things that are material, and we have to get to something more universal to be able to talk about something immaterial.

[27:00] So in a way, to go from the less universal to the more universal. Is to get to something that's more useful in talking about what is strictly speaking, and only immaterial.

[27:14] And so when he's, that's why he said here, you know, we're more interested in knowing act and ability in a more universal way, where by we can talk even about the separated substances and about God Himself at the end.

[27:31] And if you know the the the the contrary of that, like we mentioned, that natural philosophy goes from the general to particular, from the more universal to less universal, and it goes towards matter, right? Now, and if you go through natural philosophy, you see how those two kind of go together. If you go towards matter, you tend to get more and more particular. Something like that in political philosophy too, when you go towards the kinds of government, right?

[27:56] You have to go down to the classes that make up the city and so on to get a more particular idea of what this or that kind of government is. So as you descend more towards what is more material, in the city, you tend towards something more particular too. So you see kind of the contrariety in the way these two proceed.

[28:20] But incidentally, talking about that custom, that tyrant custom, the men who who jump into the latter parts of natural philosophy, of natural science, they're so towards matter, right? That seems to them the only reality that they can't get out of that. They can't get out of that.

[28:46] That's why the eight books of natural hearing, the three books about the soul. If you can't understand those books, you can't begin wisdom really. If you can't stand the universality of the eight books of natural hearing or the three books about the soul, how can you understand the universality of wisdom? So you can't rise to that, right? It's interesting that that in the eight books of natural hearing, you ultimately go to the unmoved mover, right?

[29:18] You go a little bit towards the immaterial, contrary to what you do in the whole of of natural science. And in the De Anima, to some extent, you go from the you know the second book to the third book, from the senses to the understanding. You're going a little bit towards the immaterial too. And that's how you discover that there is something immaterial. So those books are absolutely necessary for

[29:47] the threshold of wisdom, right? If you go beyond this, you go beyond the eight books of natural hearing, down through the four books of the universe, to the books on generation, corruption, and the other books that are lost, and the minerals of Aristotle. You're going down towards matter, deeper and deeper into matter, right? And more and more particular, you know, and therefore the. universality, and the immateriality of wisdom is completely foreign to you.

[30:12] You never, you never get there. That's why I think you know, even the great physicists you know that I admire a lot, they all tend to be kind of agnostics, if not atheists. You know, it's kind of so immersed in matter. There you see, you know, the great Shakespeare. You know, tells us that tyrant custom. You know, it's not always a tyrant, obviously, but it's tyrant enough to be called that.

[30:43] I know a lot of Thomists, academic Thomists these days, deny that you need to study natural philosophy before metaphysics, but I don't think of them as materialists. I mean they don't like Gilson and these people. They don't. Yeah, yeah. But you can see the difficulty there would be. The first time I met Monsignor Dionne he'd come down on a lecture tour to in Sicilia and so on, and I old teacher Kasurik, you know, was going to do some me and so on And Dionne was saying something about logic preparing for wisdom more than natural philosophy.

[31:26] Kasurik says, "Now that's not right, Dwayne, huh? " Because obviously, it's in natural philosophy that you learn that there's an unmoved mover that's immaterial substances, right? Aristotle says explicitly in the sixth book of wisdom, if there are no immaterial substances, then natural philosophy is wisdom. That's it. And you have to know that there are immaterial substances, and how do you know that through natural philosophy? So it obviously prepares for wisdom more than logic, right?

[31:51] So Kasurik calls me on the phone, and he confirms me in the in the two faiths, and so. And then he said, "You're going to see Monsignor, right? " And I hear the thing, and of course I repeat, you know what I've had a conversation with Kasurik again, and Dionne says, "Well, we're not talking about about the propositions, " he says. "We're talking about the the the mode, right?

[32:17] " And of course, logic is more like wisdom because it's more immaterial. It defines without matter, right? And that's why you know the whole approach to being, according to the figures of predication, you're being led in by what logic, huh? Okay, so the minute I saw it, I realized Kasurik hadn't seen the point, you know, but. But

[32:43] the first time I met De Koninck, you know, I had these questions, and Kasurik couldn't answer me. He says Well and De Koninck comes down and asks him, you know. So I asked him, De Koninck answered them very carefully, fully and all. But see right away is this priority, huh?

[33:01] So I mean, he began with that remark of Proclus, I think it is, that Heath has in his notes there. That mathematics purificat oculum mentis, they had in Latin. But mathematics purifies the eye of the mind. Well, mathematics is more of an immaterial thing than natural philosophy, and therefore, in some sense, it purifies the eye of the soul, the eye of the mind. And Dionne says that's true, but logic even more, because logic is even more immaterial than than geometry, and so it purifies the mind to some extent from the material world and opens it up to the study of the immaterial.

[33:47] So, I could say in in Kasurik's defense, though, that when Dionne would come down every few years and he'd pay his way down and see what's on his mind and so on, he said everybody was at the same point they were when I was down before, except for Kasurik Kasurik was always advancing in knowledge, so I thought it was quite a bit of compliment to Kasurik, but Anyway, some of our references.

[34:18] Okay, now Aristotle beginning now the first main part here of the ninth book, and he recalls that in the fifth book of wisdom, the book on the senses of the words used, especially in wisdom, but also in the axioms and to some extent everywhere, he said that dunamis is said in many ways in to dunasthai. Now, how should one translate the word dunamis? That's the word where we get the word dynamic in English from, dunamis, dynamite comes, I guess, from that word dunamis.

[34:59] Sometimes we translate the word dunamis by the word power. Okay. And the only difficulty in translating dunamis by power here in this reading is that the English word power seems to stay or be stuck, you might say, on the first meaning of dunamis in Greek. The first meaning of dunamis in Greek is going to be the ability to act upon another, the ability to move another, and power seems to have that sense, powerful, right?

[35:44] The ability to act upon others. And Aristotle is going to, or has, or sees the Greek word dunamis as being moved also to the the passive ability, the ability to be acted upon by another, the ability to undergo, right? The ability to be moved by another, right? Okay. And so, if you want to have an English word where it can be carried over, right? The word able can be what.

[36:13] Carried over. Now sometimes you translate by the word potency, right? But potency we sometimes use in talking about the passive ability of matter, so it's not in some ways as unmoved, but potency and potent and impotent, you know, have more the more stuck you might say with the active sense, huh? So I like to translate it by the word what ability, and you can see with the word ability, still what Aristotle's saying here, that the first meaning of dunamis or ability is the active sense, huh?

[36:54] A stock example is Berkus gets into the ring with Cassius Clay, right? And before they mercifully stop the whole thing, you say, well, Berkus shouldn't be in there. He doesn't have any ability. He he hasn't got a punch in at all, and Cassius and he's getting battered, huh? Okay, so you might say Berkus has no ability as a boxer, right? You see only Cassius Clay has ability there, right?

[37:20] But then you can say, but Berkus is beatable. He is breakable. He is bustable. And you use the word able there, don't you? Breakable.

[37:33] And you're able by some what ability, right? So Berkus is breakable by a different kind of ability than Cassius Clay, surely, right? And the piece of paper is burnable, right? And it's able to be burnt, right? But by different kind of ability than the fire has. But the first meaning of ability is ability to to act upon another, huh? Okay, and the other senses of ability, in some way, involve a ratio back to that active ability that I'm able to be acted upon by the fire or by Cassius Clay or some of that sort of.

[38:19] Or if you see a great pianist, you know, sit down the piano and play the piano, and you see his ability, right? You wouldn't think of the piano as having an ability, would you? Everyone's talking about the ability of the of the pianist, but you could say the piano is playable, right? And you know a piano's got a stuck key. It's not really playable. It doesn't respond to your fingers.

[38:45] So the piano is playable. That able there is by some ability, but it's an ability to be acted upon by the pianist, huh? But suddenly you think of the pianist as having the ability first, and it's only in some other sense that the piano is is playable by the great pianist, right? So its ability, its playability, if you want to put it that way, refers back to the ability of the great pianist, huh?

[39:15] So, but Aristotle goes back to what has been pointed out in the fifth book already. That some of the meanings are said homonymous, okay? Some of them are said what? Equivocally, huh? Use the Latin, huh? And let those be set aside, he says, right? Let us just take the meanings of ability. That, as Thomas says in the commentary, are by analogy, right? Okay. Now, you've got to be careful here about these words, huh?

[39:54] And this is an example of it. The word equivocal sometimes, in general, means simply to say that a word is equivocal is to say that the word has many meanings. Now, sometimes we divide the word equivocal into two kinds: equivocal by chance, when there is no reason why those many things have the same name, just happen, right? And then equivocal by reason, where there is some reason why those many things have the same name, even though the meaning is not exactly the same.

[40:41] There is some kind of order among the meanings, a connection among meanings. Now, notice that the name equivocal by reason adds something very significant to the general meaning of equivocal. Equivocal in general means simply has many meanings.

[41:07] While the equivocal by chance has nothing but simply many meanings, huh? Was the name of that young lady who was here the other day? Her name was Hillary, wasn't? I have to think of Hillary Clinton. They said, "Well, that's obviously equivocal by chance. There is no connection between these two women."

[41:29] But the name equivocal by reason adds something to the common meaning of equivocal. Not just are there many meanings, but in addition, there is a order, a connection among the meanings.

[41:46] Now, sometimes when you have something said of two things, and one of them adds nothing noteworthy to the common meaning of that word, but the other has something noteworthy in addition to that. The one that adds nothing noteworthy keeps the common name as its own, and the one that has something noteworthy in addition gets a new name. Now there are all kinds of examples of this through philosophy.

[42:34] You'll see, for example, in the Nicomachean Ethics that Aristotle distinguishes episteme against sophia, two different virtues of reason, or in Latin scientia against sapientia.

[42:52] So episteme and sophia, or scientia and sapientia, are the names of two different virtues that are distinct one from the other. But then, in in the book on sophia, in the book on sophia, Aristotle calls sophia an episteme. How can he do that? So episteme is sometimes said of sophia, and it's obviously said the episteme that's divided against sophia. Well, now you've got a good example, right?

[43:28] Sophia is an episteme that adds something to the idea of episteme, which is knowledge of things through their causes, let's say. And every episteme is knowledge of things through their causes, but wisdom, huh? That's a knowledge of all things through the very first causes. Oh, that adds something to just being knowledge of things through causes, right? This is a knowledge of all things through the very first causes of all things, right?

[43:57] So that episteme gets a new name, sophia, and all the other ones just keep the common name episteme. You see that? So this happens sometimes with the word equivocal, right? We can divide, you know, equivocal name into name equivocal by chance and name equivocal by reason. But since the name equivocal by chance adds nothing noteworthy to the common meaning of equivocal, having many meanings, it keeps the name equivocal as its own, and we give sometimes a new name, or Thomas does, huh, to the name equivocal by reason, and he uses the word analogous, huh?

[44:49] So you might have noticed in the text of Thomas, he'll say equivocal and analogous, right? Although in some others, meaning of the word equivocal, the analogous word is equivocal It has many meanings. Do you see that? Okay. Maybe sometime I'll give you the, if you haven't heard it before, the distinction that I give of different kinds of names equivocal by reason.

[45:15] Because we'll meet many of these ways, but I've already met here at least a couple of meanings, right? Because when the name being, for example, said of substance and quantity, it's said of quantity by reason of its ratio to substance. It's the measure or the size of substance. But when equivocal is said in these two different senses, equivocal is opposed to analogous, and equivocal is including analogous.

[45:51] That's another kind of name equivocal by reason. Even analogous. Well, Thomas will use the name analogous as the name of name equivocal by reason, right? I think there is a certain danger in that, right? And the analogous means originally proportional, and so on, and that's only one kind of name equivocal by

[46:22] reason, right? But then uses it to name all of them, right? So I like to go back sometimes to the to the phrase name equivocal by reason when I divide these up. Maybe I'll do that, but at least before I go into the fifth reading, because you have another kind there, and so I keep on reading these meanings here.

[46:46] So he says, let's set aside the meanings that are said purely equivocally, right? He just calls them homonumos. Some are said, he said, by reason of likeness, but likeness, it's almost you might say metaphorical, as we see in geometry. You know, to the second power, right, or the third power, right? Okay, well, that's not one of the senses we have in mind here, right? Okay, because that's said in their being some way, right, or not being in some way.

[47:18] But whatever ones are said towards the same what form, right? All are what beginnings in some way, right? And they're said towards one that is first, and that's the ability to move other things. And this, he says, and now this is the first meaning. Now, ability said by analogy as. Thomas says in the commentary. Thomas Aristotle doesn't use that right here, but Thomas does the commentary. Or you might say the first meaning of what ability among a group of meanings of ability, where it's being said by reason, right?

[47:59] Okay, as being said reference now to this one sense. What's that first one? This is now this is the definition he gives. Arche, right? A beginning, metaboles of change, right? Now, as you may notice, if you have a uh uh a Greek text with alternate readings. The Greek text I have here says, "The beginning of change, beginning meaning a source, that from which something proceeds, right? A beginning of change in another, or as other, but the way Thomas' text has it, which is the way we'll take it, it's a beginning or a source, huh, of change in another, as other, right?

[48:53] It's the ability, therefore, to move another, right? The ability to act upon another, right? The ability to change another as other. Now, the second meaning he gives is the ability to what? Undergo, right? To suffer, right? To pathein, huh?

[49:21] And this is in the one suffering or undergoing. It's a beginning, a source of change, in a what? Passive sense of being moved, therefore, or being changed by another? And we'll again take the other alternative text as other, right?

[49:42] So this second meaning, these are the two most important meanings here, perhaps, refers back to the first one, right? The second ability is an ability to be acted upon by that first meaning of ability, right? What is that first meaning of ability? Now the third meaning he gives also refers back to the first one,

[50:10] and this is the hexis, the form, the word of not undergoing from another, right? And especially to something that is worse and to be corrupted, huh?

[50:24] By a changing beginning. So when we speak of something as being durable, right? Durable by able by some ability. What ability is it? What's the ability to resist, right? Being changed by another, huh? So the second and the third meaning refer back to the first meaning, huh? So the name ability is not being said purely equivocally here, but equivocal by reason, right? And seems like with the word being there, said of substance and quantity and quality, it's said of the second and the third and so on by reason of their ratio back to the what?

[51:07] First one, right? Is there some reason he calls the last one a hexis rather than? Well, he's thinking of hexis. Often has the sense of what? A form, right? Okay. So it's opposed to matter whereby you undergo, right? So he's contrasting them with the second sense.

[51:29] It's interesting that you raise that because in the third book on the soul, there when Aristotle is distinguishing the acting upon understanding, right, the active understanding from the undergoing understanding, and he speaks of the active understanding as a hexis, right? And Thomas has to come down and explain what does Aristotle mean by hexis there, right? He doesn't mean hexis in the sense of habit, the second species, the first species of quality, see?

[51:57] But he's using hexis as opposed to what matter, right? And privation, as he often does. So he's thinking of it as being form or what act, then, as opposed to the second ability, which is more the ability to what undergo, and therefore, therefore, is more like is based on matter, really, right? See, but this is is opposed to that.

[52:23] And when I go into some of those little texts of Thomas that cast some light upon this, Thomas will speak of how this third kind of ability, in a way, goes with the first ability, because the ability to move other things,

[52:43] if that ability is impeded, you don't really have the ability to move other things, right? So you have to have the ability to resist other things that would stop you from acting upon the things you want to act upon.

[52:55] And of course, hexis fits the fact that the first ability is based upon act, and the second ability upon ability in the sense of the passive ability. Okay. And He points on in the 15th reading or 15th line there. In these, in all of these definitions, there is the definition or the thought of the first ability, right? The ability to move another, right? The beginning of change in another as other, right?

[53:39] And then finally, he gives a little different distinction. Further, he says these abilities are said sometimes from your being able to do something in just any way whatsoever. Other cases are said to have ability only if you would what? Be able to do it well, right? Okay. Of course, you find that distinction in daily life, right? Like Warren Murray will say to me, "Dwayne, when are you going to learn how to speak French?

[54:11] " Well, am I able to speak French? Warren say, "No, because I'm not able to speak French. " Which doesn't mean I can't get a few words, you know, and a few sentences, and maybe you know, survive in some French environment a bit, you know. And maybe somebody you know who can do a few little things on the piano, but not much, right? Is he able to play the piano?

[54:33] We'd say no, he's not able to play the piano, right? Only if you can do it well, are you able to to do it, right? Okay.

[54:44] So we have that distinction. It's a little different kind of distinction from the first three, but you can apply it both to the what

[54:55] ability to move another anyway whatsoever, and the ability to move them well. A little difference in meaning there. The ability to what? We might say that wood is burnable only when it's dry, right? And it's a little bit, you know, perfectly dry. It's not really burnable, right? But maybe it is burnable to some extent and smoky and all that sort of stuff, right? And so that's a little distinction in meaning there, right?

[55:23] Okay. But obviously, in the meaning of the ability to do something well is included the ability to do it. Period. Right. So all these meanings are what linked and linked back to the first meaning, which is the ability to move another as other.

[55:54] Now, when Thomas speaks of the next sentence here, starting with phonera, it's clear it's kind of like a consequence of what has been said. So in a way, there's one ability here. Another way, there's what two abilities. There's one ability because of the way that they're ordered together,

[56:17] right? So it's clear, he says that in one way there is one ability of what acting upon undergoing, because the thing that is able to what undergo is able to be acted upon by the other, right? And so you bring in the other ability, it seems to be like one ability, right? The ability to be acted upon is the ability to be acted upon, the one is acting upon you.

[56:46] So it seems to be almost one ability, right? And yet the one ability is in the mover or maker, right? And the other ability is in the one being moved or undergoing.

[57:05] So that shouldn't be too hard to understand. Aristotle says, in pointing out that they are really a different one, there. Then down at line twenty-seven, right, he says the fact that one is in the mover or the maker and the other in the thing moved. Then he says, as kind of a consequence of that,

[57:31] that deal there around line twenty-eight. Sum pefuken. Nothing undergoes itself from itself, right? Now you know the Greek words poiein and paschein, which I translate in Latin as actio and passio, but in the superior language of English, right, they can be translated by acting upon and what undergoing.

[58:05] Now the concrete understanding of acting upon undergoing was first brought out to me by my nephew Thomas, and my brother Richard and Dolores had come to St. Paul and were looking for an inexpensive place to stay that they could afford much. And they would look in the newspaper for the advertisements and so on. And when they saw something, they would shoot out the house so darn fast because they wanted to get look at that place before someone else did, right?

[58:38] And so they left little Thomas with me, right? So I'm amusing Thomas in the in the playroom there, and I start to build things up, but he'd like to knock them over, and he'd laugh, you know, knock it over in contempt for what I built. But if I got him distracted, looked in the other way, and I built a thing up so it was taller than him, he'd go, oh, oh, oh!

[59:00] He looked up and put his little finger at it, oh, oh! Instead of contempt for it, admiration, right? And he didn't try to knock it over, right? Once was taller than him. And why? He sensed, I suppose, that he hit it. It could come down on top of him instead of him acting upon it. It would be what acting upon him. So you get that first idea, right?

[59:22] That the one who acts upon something is above it physically, right? The one undergoing is underneath it. Of course, that doesn't have to be necessarily so. I mean, spatially, that you have to be physically above what you are acting upon. But there is some truth to that, concrete, isn't there? And I don't know if you've ever hammered something into a ceiling. And you go along, and how tiring it is to hammer something into a ceiling compared to hammering something down below you.

[59:55] So the English is kind of good the way we stick on that upon and under, right? To act upon and to undergo. But that very concrete way of speaking, how could you act upon yourself? You have to be above yourself, right? And you couldn't be above yourself and under yourself, could you? What is above something and what's under it? Not the same. That's not the most profound or best reason for saying you can't act upon yourself.

[1:00:24] But it makes it kind of very concrete. You see how superior English is in that respect, the Greek erlato, the way of speaking. So I usually usually translate the last two categories, which in Greek are called poiein, which means kind of to make, and paschein to suffer. I translate them as you know to act upon and to undergo, or you could say to be acted upon. I like to use the word undergo.

[1:00:54] Nothing acts upon itself. Now, in the last part of this reading, he talks about the opposite of ability, which is inability, right? And how inability involves kind of a lack of ability. And the Aristotle touches upon the meanings of the word "what lack."

[1:01:25] And actually, I think the best way to see the different meanings of the word "lack" are equivocal by reason, right? Is to see the full meaning of lack, and then you can understand the lesser meanings of lack that drop out something of the full meaning. The full meaning of lack is not having, right? What you are able to have, right?

[1:02:06] When you are able to have it, and when you should have it, okay. Now, if you drop out one of those elements, or more than elements, then you get lesser senses of lacking.

[1:02:23] So, you know, you give the example there: the dog, right? Just doesn't see before a certain number of days. You might say, if you say he's blind before that, you are not using the word "blind" in the full sense, as he's not apt to see at that time, right? And a fortiori, if I said the table is blind, that would be a very loose sense of of blind.

[1:02:44] And strictly speaking, the table is not blind, as it's not the sort of thing that's able to see, right? So it's not the non-being as something you are able to have.

[1:02:55] And so you'll see words like that, where what we define is the fullest. Give an example from logic. When Porphyry defines a property, right, he puts three things in the definition of property: it belongs to only one species, to every member of that species, and always, right? So half of four, for example, is a property of two. It belongs only to two to be half of four.

[1:03:35] It belongs to every two to be half of four, and every two is always half of four. So half of four is a property of two, right? Now, is less than ten a property of two? Well, not in that sense, is it? It belongs to every two to be less than ten. It belongs to two always to be less than ten. But does it belong only? No.

[1:04:09] So this is another meaning now property when you say less than ten is a property of two. But is it equivocal by chance? Can we call that a property?

[1:04:21] You see, the word "property" now is taken a new meaning by dropping one of its three elements. I suppose we say it's a property of man to be a geometer. Is every man a geometer? No. Is man always a geometer? No. But man is the only thing that is a geometer, right? So in some sense, right, and not a purely equivocal sense, to be a geometer or to be a logician, right, is a property of man.

[1:04:58] You see that? When I define marriage, I've just gone through the four clauses, right, so I am showing how it can be used for all kinds of things, right? And so I define marriage as the stable union. Of a man and woman by mutual choice for the sake of children, and so I say to the students, how many causes are involved there? Right, all four. So you say stable union, you are talking in a way about the form of marriage.

[1:05:38] When you say of the man and the woman, you are talking about the parts, and parts are like matter, so that's that kind of cause. You say a mutual choice, you are talking about the mover, the maker. When you say for the sake of children, you are talking about the end or purpose. But then someone comes along and says, "Well, I know a lot of marriages aren't very stable.

[1:05:58] Yeah, but then they're defective as a marriage, right? Huh? You can still call them a marriage, but you know they don't have the full, right? Or I know these people got married, but they didn't intend to have kids or something, you know? Well, they don't really have a marriage in the full sense, right? What about these old people getting married and she's no longer, you know, fertile or whatever it is, right?

[1:06:19] Well, that's that's not the full meaning of marriage, right? You say it's a marriage, I don't, I don't say it is a marriage, you know, but but but it's in a lesser sense, right? So as you as as you descend, right? If we didn't have a man and woman, it would be purely equivocal. It would be would be as a you know exclude the Aristotelian that's like you know a faith postulate in a way, right?

[1:06:43] That's that's purely equivocal. Okay, so that's the first reading of Book Nine, right? Okay. Now,