Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
6. Metaphysics IX, Lectio 2: Natural vs. Rational Ability, and Nature vs. Will
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/006-metaphysics-ix-lectio-2-natural-vs-rational-ability-and-nature/

[0:00] of the of the universe, right? Romeo and Juliet, it had to be written, huh? And so Shakespeare, in that respect, is striking my brother Mark a little bit like Mozart is striking Albert Einstein.

[0:19] So maybe this afternoon we can go and look at the second reading, huh? 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, help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. Now you may have noticed how Thomas divides these first four lectios, which are chiefly about ability, but in a somewhat limited way.

[1:03] He divided the first lexio against the other three, because the first lexio is distinguishing the basic meanings of ability or the basic kinds of ability, at least in respect to motion. And now he's going to consider ability in comparison to the subjects in which it's found.

[1:24] But perhaps this next lexio, the second lexio, could be described more simply as distinguishing the first kind of ability, the active ability, into its two main kinds.

[1:46] So let's look now at the second lexio here, second reading of Book Nine. Aristotle is going to distinguish between what we might call a natural ability and the abilities that you find in the soul, but especially in the highest soul, which is the understanding soul, as Shakespeare calls it, the understanding and the willing soul.

[2:22] But to some extent, it's anticipated a bit even in the lower souls. Since he says, there are such beginnings existing in the things without a soul, in the apsychois, and these are in what? Those that have souls, and in the soul itself, and of the soul especially that has reason. It is clear that of the abilities, some are alogoi, irrational or without reason, and some meta logou, with reason.

[3:07] Hence, all the arts and all the making sciences are alogoi, or abilities, beginnings that are changing. Right? Other as other. Right. But now he begins to talk about the difference between these abilities that are in the soul, and especially the understanding soul, and the abilities that are natural. And the main distinction is that the natural abilities seem to be determined to one of two opposites, like the fire is limited to heating.

[3:53] But the rational abilities, like the medical art, for example, are capable of contraries. So the doctor, by his knowledge, can make you well, perhaps, but also could make you sick.

[4:12] And even Aristotle, in the fifth book of the Politics, shows you how to preserve a government and how to overthrow it. And so he first of all talks about the difference, and then explains why there's a difference. And he says those with reason, all of them, are of what? Contraries.

[4:39] But those without reason, you have one of one, as the hot of to heat only. But the medical art, hē iatrikē, is of both what? Sick, for sickness, and health.

[5:02] Now sometimes we contrast nature then as a ability or cause with reason itself, which is of contraries, and sometimes with the will, which can choose between what? Contraries.

[5:28] Shakespeare, huh? Touches upon that difference in a number of places, but the kind of the key one where Shakespeare touches upon that is in the

[5:46] play Coriolanus. In Coriolanus, I don't know if you know the tragedy of Coriolanus, but at one point, Aufidius speculates as to the cause of Coriolanus, and he kind of touches upon three possible causes. And one is more in reason, one in will, and then one is more like nature, is custom, just like a second nature. Just read you these little lines from Act Four, Scene Seven of Coriolanus, where Aufidius is making this observation about Coriolanus, and he says.

[6:29] First, he was a noble servant to them, to the Romans, but he could not carry his honors even. And now he starts to speculate his cause. Whither 'twas pride, which of course is in the will. huh? Whether'twas pride, which out of daily fortune ever taints a happy man. Whither defective judgment? That's in reason. To fail in the disposing of those chances which he was lord of.

[7:06] Or whither nature, not to be other than one thing. There he sees the difference between the pride, the will, and so on, and the defective judgment, the reason, and now the natural thing, or whither nature, not to be other than one thing. Not moving from the cask to the cushion, but commanding peace even with the same austerity and garb as he controlled the war. So it's like custom is a second nature, and like nature is determined to one.

[7:45] So Shakespeare sees that the differences, as well as Aristotle. Now, having pointed out that difference, then Shakespeare asks, "Why is that?" That Shakespeare. I think they confuse these two guys. Aristotle then comes to why this is so.

[8:12] Of course, the basic reason is that the form through which nature operates is a natural form, and you can't have two contrary natural forms. So you're limited or determined to one, but reason operates through a form and through a knowledge which, in some sense, is of opposites. So blindness and sight. To know one, in a sense, is to know the other, and you know one through the other, and therefore it's going back to the famous proposition that there's the same knowledge of what opposites.

[8:52] So you can see that inductively if you go through the sciences. So in logic, you learn both about what correct reasoning and incorrect reasoning. And as a logician, I know it's going to deceive the students. How to deceive them, as well as how to teach them. And in the end of the symposium, there, if you may recall, there at the end, everybody's kind of slid under the table there, except for Socrates, who's still alert, and Agathon and.

[9:30] Aristophanes, the tragic and the comic poet, have not quite slipped off yet. And the last conversation overheard by the narrator of the thing, Socrates was saying to Agathon, the tragic poet, and Aristophanes, the comic poet, if you guys knew what you were doing, you could write comedy as well as tragedy, and you could write tragedy as well as comedy, because there is the same knowledge of opposites.

[9:57] So Homer and Shakespeare know what they're doing, because they can write both tragedy and comedy. Although we've lost Homer's comic work, but it's another example, right? And the good rhetorician can defend you or prosecute you, so get him on your side. You can be the one. It's the same knowledge of of opposites. So Aristophanes going into this this reasoning,

[10:27] why the natural thing seems to be determined to one, but the rational ability is capable opposites. So he says there around line seven. The aetion, the cause. incidentally, the Greek word aetion is the Greek word for responsible. So to say you're responsible is to say you're the cause of this.

[10:59] I was in church one day with it was your little ones, all the grandchildren, a whole bunch of them. This guy used to work with in the package store. He sees me with all these little ones. He says, "No, you're responsible for this. " Because that's all sense the grandfather is responsible for this. While the English word as we mentioned for cause was ground, so it's quite quite quite different.

[11:25] But the English word for cause, ground, is more related to the old idea of mother earth. So ition is a little more spiritual now, responsible. So wood is responsible for that table there in some way, and another way, the shape of the table is responsible for it. Another way, the carpenter is responsible for it. Another way, the use of it is responsible for it. So sometimes we define cause as what is responsible for the existence or coming into existence of something.

[12:02] What is responsible for the being and the becoming of something? So he says the aetion, the cause, is that the episteme, the practical episteme, is a logos, a thought, and the thought, the same one, shows the thing and the what, privation or lack. And so the definition of blindness is what sight, because it's the. None being of sight and is subject able to have this insight. Except not, he says, in the same way.

[12:42] For it is in some way of both, but more of the positive, right? So he says, and these sciences then are the same of also of contraries, because one contrary seems to be what lacking in respect to the other contrary. That Aristotle teaches in the first book of Natural Hearing, and that's brought out when he talks about contraries, hot and cold, right? Cold seems to involve some lack, then the full and the empty.

[13:22] Obviously, what is very much lacking, virtue and vice, right? But vice involves what some disorder, right? Lack, therefore, the order. So you know one contrary to some extent to the other contrary, just like you know lack the positive,

[13:49] but it's more of the one as such, and the other is not as such, right? And the logos, the definition, is more of one to itself, and the other more kind of what in accidental way. So we think of the metaphors as being more about health than about sickness, but in some sense, it's about sickness too.

[14:14] For by negation and by removal, you might say it shows the contrary is shown. For steresis, lack, privation, is the first what contraries he shows in the tenth book of wisdom. and this is the taking away of the other one.

[14:42] But since contraries don't come to be in the same thing, but the science is a power in having a thought, and the soul is the beginning of it.

[14:58] The healthy makes only health, and the hot hotness alone, and the cold coldness, but the science makes both, right? So it's going back to the basic truth that there is the same knowledge of what opposites, right? If you know one, you know the other. There was a student years ago at St Mary's College. He says, "You guys shouldn't be teaching ethics." And I said, "Why not?" He said, "Well, the same knowledge of opposites.

[15:26] They learn not only about virtue, about vice. They learn not only how to become virtuous, how to become vicious." Since you are inclined to be vicious, he says. That's the best objection I ever had against teaching ethics, huh? Yeah.

[15:46] So he goes on talking about how the logos, in some ways, are both although not in the same way, and so on. Okay. So he's given as the reason, knowledge is contraries. Yeah. So the form through which you you operate, is is in knowing and knowledge, one contrary doesn't exclude the other, but it helps you to know the other, right? And therefore, you have an ability for contraries through knowledge.

[16:18] By a natural form, it's going to be limited, right, to one of the two contraries, and therefore can only produce one and not both contraries. So the fire as such will only heat, right? It won't cool. A fire engine is going to cool me if it burns down your house, right? But that's not the fire as such. Is the fire as such is going to tend to what?

[16:41] To heat a thing, to warm it, right? It's not going to heat hot or cool. But one can use the medical art to make someone healthy, to save their life, or to kill them, and you know, abortion, so on. They use it for the bad. So it can be that can be done. Is one always positive and the other kind of lack? Well, yeah. One contrary, well, actually, lack is always the non-being of something, right?

[17:07] But one contrary always seems to be lacking in respect to the other, and that's something Aristotle, you know, brings out very much in the first book of Natural Hearing. And it's kind of hinting at the fact that privation of some sort lies behind the contrary.

[17:26] So, and what's the reason why the form of knowledge can be a contraries? It's got to do with the immateriality. Of the mind, yeah, yeah. In fact, that's one way they show that the mind is immaterial, because one contrary excludes the other contrary in matter. But one contrary doesn't exclude the other contrary in knowledge. It actually helps it.

[17:52] So it's interesting, huh? To see that the way in which the mind sees is quite different from the way matter sees. That's one of the arguments they use for the immateriality of the mind that it can receive both contraries together, where matter can't do that.

[18:12] So that's one of the most convincing arguments for the immateriality of the mind. But Aristotle, you know, when he talks about the difference between the soul and nature, in the beginning of the Anima, there in the second book, and even with the plant soul. There seems to be, you know, the tree growing in contrary direction. So you see something of this overcoming of the determination to one that you have in nature, but not as much as you have it when you get to the highest soul, the understanding soul.

[18:50] Now, notice another thing about this. We are comparing the first two senses of ability, the first two kinds of ability, to the mover, if you recall, and matter, those two causes. And now, when we subdivide the first kind of ability to the natural ability or the without reason ability, and then the rational ability, and see this difference and so on, this fits into something else that you find in Aristotle.

[19:24] If you go back to, say, the second book of Natural Hearing, the Physics, and Aristotle distinguishes the four kinds of causes, and when he comes to the third cause, the mover, what does he give as examples of the mover?

[19:40] Well, he gives one example from nature, and one example from reason. He takes the at first, I think, it's the father and the advisor, right? So the father is a cause in the way of what nature, but the advisor is a cause through reason. And then later on, when he comes back to the four kinds of causes and shows he can understand these things more generally, he gives as an example of the mover the seed, which is an example from nature, right?

[20:16] And then he gives example the advisor again, I think, and then the doctor, the medical doctor, okay. And Thomas will note the significance of Aristotle's examples. That one example is taken from nature, and one is taken from reason, and it corresponds to this distinction between these two kinds of ability. So that's kind of like what's known to us. Reason and nature are the two movers known to us in our ordinary experience.

[20:47] Okay. Now, in the very end of this little second reading, there is a short passage where he recalls that other distinction that he made between the

[21:07] ability to do something in any way whatsoever and the ability to do it well. He just points out the obvious order there of those two, right? That you can't be able to do something well, and able to do it all, but you can be able to do it. In some imperfect way, if you can't do it well, right? Remember what Chesterton said: you know, a thing is worth doing is worth doing badly.

[21:31] It's kind of paradoxical, you know, but there's some truth to that, right? Okay. Yeah, it was close. The first, the second reading, right? Right. Okay.

[21:53] Well, let's confuse the issues. That's very good, say. Yeah. Are you going to say? He said there was something difficult. Oh yes, something very, very, very, very difficult, huh?

[22:09] But before I get to that, real difficult stuff, maybe. Aristotle, in a way, is distinguishing between nature as a cause and reason as a cause here, but also between nature as a cause and will as a cause, because will is something tied up with reason.

[22:37] And a little text here where Thomas is in the De Potentia, contrasting now explicitly nature and will, but in a line that's been seen here. And this is from the De Potentia, question three, article thirteen, the corpus. And Thomas says, between the will and nature, there is this difference: that nature is determined to what.

[23:09] But now he makes a little distinction there. As regards that which is produced by the power of nature, he says. And as regards this, which is to produce or not to produce. So you put the piece of paper in in the what fire? And the fire is determined to burning the paper. It can't freeze the paper. Okay. It's just determined to burning rather than. It's not open to freezing it.

[23:47] But likewise, it's not free to burn it or not to burn it. It must burn it if you put the paper right next to it. So there's a double determination to one. And that's making it more distinct what Aristotle's saying there. You can say nature is determined to one. In two ways, huh? It can only do one of two contraries. The fire can only burn; it can't freeze.

[24:16] And, is not open to burning the paper or not burning it. It can only burn the paper. You see that? So that makes it a little more explicit, huh? Than than what you see in the text of Aristotle. Then he says the will is found to be determined in neither of these ways, huh? For one can make through his will, one can make this or that through his will, right?

[24:47] As the artist can make a box or he can make a table or something, right? And he can make it or he can cease from making it, huh? So it's a kind of a double indetermination, huh?

[25:05] I can make steak or chicken or pork chops or something else, but I can make steak or not make steak, you know? It's a kind of a double indetermination there.

[25:18] Fire, he says, is not able except to heat. If what is the subject of his action is what present, right? But if the steak is there or the pork chops are there, we can cook them or not cook them, right? We can cook the chicken or we can cook this, the spaghetti. What else we got there? I think we have a few choices out there. Nor can the fire induce in the matter an effect other than what is like itself.

[25:48] It's got to heat the thing, huh? Now another little text where Thomas talks about this distinction between the will and nature, and maybe adds a little bit, so nothing terribly new.

[26:09] Nature, he says, and will, in this way, differ in causing, because nature is determined to one, but the will is not determined to one.

[26:23] The reason for this is because the effect is likened to the form of the agent by which it acts. But it is manifest that of one thing there is not except one natural form through which a thing has its existence. Whence such as a thing is, such does it do. But the form through which or by which the will acts is not one only, but there are many, according as there are many what?

[27:01] rationes, he says, many reasons, thoughts understood, huh? Whence what is done through the will is not such as the agent is, but such as he wills and understands that to be.

[27:24] Of those things, therefore, the will is the beginning, which are able to be thus, or otherwise. But of those things which are not able to be except thus, the beginning is what nature, right? So nature seems to be responsible for it cannot be otherwise, and the will seems to be responsible for things that can be one way or another. They are saying not only has, can have the same knowledge, but can have many thoughts.

[27:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just kind of expanding upon the form, which operates, huh? But what gets you through one form of knowledge to another? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[28:16] Enables you to do both, right? So I say to students, you know, I can by the art of grammar say that I am your professor, right, or I is your professor and you are my students, and I know how to speak incorrectly and ungrammatically, and I know so because of our grammar, right? But somebody didn't know the art of grammar, even though he's speaking correctly or incorrectly he wouldn't know whether he's speaking correctly or incorrectly, sometimes happened to be doing one or the other, but he wouldn't know what he's doing.

[28:43] But by the art of grammar, I can do both, and by the art of logic, I know what they're going to accept, right? I again, this syllogism, I say

[29:04] every mother is a woman, no man is a mother. I know they're going to say it follows, but yeah, yeah. Does that follow? I know they're going to think that because it's true that no man is a woman, and it has some connection to the fact that he's not a mother, he's not a woman, right? But actually, it's not a syllogism. And if you said, you know, every dog is an animal, and no cat is a dog, it's an exactly same form, but they wouldn't be deceived by that because you know a cat is not a what animal, right?

[29:46] But because they know that it's true that every a mother is a woman, and they know it's true that no man is a mother, and they know it's true that no man is a woman, one must be following from the other, right? Because I know exactly how to get there, right? You know how to deceive.

[30:13] Now, where is the the big difficulty in this distinction between nature and reason? Or nature and will, either one. And I think I said before how distinction is so basic for reason, and perhaps every mistake comes in part, at least, from not knowing a distinction or from misunderstanding a distinction.

[30:52] I've written about this a number of times, actually entitled "A Misunderstood Distinction," and I'm referring to the distinction there in the second reading, right?

[31:16] So, in the beginning of this paper, I talked about the distinction that's made there in the second reading of the ninth book, and I kind of expanded a bit upon it, and I say the division appears exhaustive

[31:38] because it's by opposites. An active ability is either determined to one of two opposites, or it is not. Is either capable of both opposites, or it is not? So there's no other alternative.

[31:57] Now, reason reasoned by dialectic and rhetoric can argue to opposite conclusions, and sometimes Aristotle, when he's defining dialectical reasoning, he says it's reasoning, you know, from probable opinions. But sometimes he say it's reasoning from probable opinions, even to contradictory conclusions. And you look at the great dialogue with Plato there, which is called the Mino. And Mino wants to know whether virtue can be taught. And Socrates says, "Well, I don't know.

[32:37] I don't even know what virtue is. In fact, I never met anybody who does know what it is." Mino says, "Why know what is? " And so they have a conversation, and it appears that Mino doesn't know what virtue is. Socrates says, "I don't know either." And then Socrates says, "Let's put our heads together and try to find out what virtue is." And at that point, Mino makes a sophistical objection.

[33:00] You know, how can we investigate what we don't know? And there's a whole other part dealing with that. Oh, who ended up? But they still don't know what virtue is. Come the third part of the dialogue, and now Mino says, "Still wants to know if virtue be taught." Socrates says, "We don't even know what virtue is yet." Well, he says, Socrates says, "Can we know? " But let me look at both sides and see what can be said for and against virtue, and then he constructs a probable argument that virtue can be taught.

[33:33] And then he turns around and he constructs a probable argument that virtue cannot be taught. Well, there you have a perfect example of dialectic, right? Socrates reasons with probability that virtue can be taught, and then he reasons with probability that virtue cannot be taught. Now the mind can't rest in a contradiction, but it seems the mind is open to what contraries like that. And rhetoric enables a man to, he said, you know, to persuade somebody that it is so and it's not so.

[34:05] He's guilty and he's not guilty. I know when my my sister-in-law was talked into being in the high school debate team and so on. Well, that's a standard practice. You have to be able to defend both sides. It's a topic that's chosen. Maybe some of you have had the experience, right? And actually, sometimes in those tournaments, my old professor Casiraghi used to run some of the college debate tournaments.

[34:29] The same team has to take the affirmative in this debate, and then they have to defend the negative in that debate, and and so on, and so.

[34:43] And men often come by reason to opposite conclusions, as we know. And even sometimes the same man goes from affirming to denying, and vice versa. I know I've done it myself. I sometimes affirm things that I now deny, and I sometimes deny. The truth is true. And the will, like reason, is capable of opposites, right? So we can will to do or not to do it in this way or even opposite way.

[35:14] Now, some thinkers, you see, seeing that distinction, has been pointed out there. Some thinkers understand this distinction between nature on the one hand and reason or the will on the other hand, such that there is no part or side of any contradiction. Neither the affirmative nor the negative, which reason must assent to, and cannot agree to its opposite, because then reason would be what determined to one of two contraries.

[35:52] And that's the difference between reason and nature, that nature is determined to one of two contraries, but reason is not. So the understanding is to mean then, right, that reason cannot

[36:11] definitively right adhere to either half of a contradiction. But it always remains open to further conversation about it and further things. And likewise, as regards the will, they assert, some thinkers, that there is nothing that the will must will, and cannot will its opposite.

[36:40] Like John Stuart Mill, for example, right? In the essay on liberty, his defense of liberty of thought sees such liberty as respecting reason, which he thinks is nowhere determined necessarily to one side of a contradiction. So there's eternal conversation back and forth, and there another reason here, another reason here, but you you never are determined necessarily to one half of a contradiction, because that would be contrary to what reason is.

[37:09] So we have to respect the liberty of reason, always, because reason is never determined to either side of a contradiction. And Jean-Paul Sartre, taking another example, sees man's will likewise with no determination to any object. There's nothing that the will necessarily wills, because it's open to both opposites. So, okay.

[37:37] Indeed, the many who think in accord with scientific customs that every thought is an hypothesis to be tested by its consequences, as Claude Bernard, for example, taught, would hold this position. Especially when it is realized that even the confirmation of an hypothesis does not force reason to accept the hypothesis.

[38:00] One cannot affirm necessarily the antecedent because the consequence has been affirmed, right? That's not a syllogism. So if every thought is an hypothesis to be tested by its consequences, and even the confirmation by the consequence doesn't give you syllogism, well then, as Claude Bernard says, doubt is intrinsic to the experimental method, right? The mind is never determined.

[38:28] And these positions would at first sight seem to agree with the above distinction of a natural and a rational ability going back to Aristotle, if not before. Indeed, it seems to be a case of the excluded middle. Either an ability is determined to one of the opposites or it is not, right? And so Aristotle seems to be agreeing that the difference between will and reason and nature is that nature is determined to one of the two contraries, and will and reason are not.

[39:05] So reason never knows anything, and the will never wills anything necessarily. And this is behind, of course, you know, all the Elizabethan stuff that we have today, right? But you find these things. Yeah.

[39:25] You could go along with those guys, but then you you'd be misunderstanding basically the distinction Aristotle has made. It seems to agree with the distinction he's made. Aristotle himself says that, huh? The devil can quote scripture, huh?

[39:46] Now, how does this problem arise in Thomas? How does Thomas face this? Well, the problem of the distinction of nature and reason, or nature and will, either one, right? As causes, arises in those texts of Thomas, where he maintains that reason knows or understands some things naturally, and Aristotle maintains the same, right? There are some things that reason cannot not know.

[40:27] And likewise, those texts where he maintains that the will naturally wills something, like happiness, and cannot will its opposite. The will naturally wills happiness and cannot will its opposite, misery or wickedness. But those are contraries, right? How can you maintain that the difference between the will and reason, and nature, is that nature is determined to one of two contraries, and now you're saying the will is not determined to one of two contraries, and happiness and misery are obviously contraries, huh?

[41:01] That's as far as you can get. And so, how can you say the will necessarily wills happiness and cannot will misery, huh? In the same way about reason.

[41:20] The will can will something only if it is good in some way. The reason naturally knows and assents to the axioms, especially the statement about contradiction. Now, having distinguished between nature and reason and between nature and will, how can one assert that reason really knows something or assents to them naturally, and the will wills something naturally? What's happened to your distinction, right?

[41:48] Now. Reason seems to depend on nature. Yeah. Yeah. Now there are two ways in which Thomas explains how this is possible, but it seems like a contradiction, right? Having distinguished between nature and reason or nature and will, how can you come back now and say that reason naturally knows some things, and is naturally determined to one half of contradiction in these matters? And likewise, how can you say that the will, which is distinguished from nature, naturally wills some things?

[42:28] Now I say there are two ways in which Thomas explains how this is possible, and the first way is in the Summa Theologiae, in the Prima Secunda, question ten, article one, objection one and

[42:47] ad one. Now this is the objection because you can see how it comes out of a reading in a sense of lectio two there. Agentes in natura, the natural agent, is divided against agentibus voluntaria, as is clear in the beginning of the second book of the Physics. Therefore, the will is not moved to something naturally.

[43:17] Now, as Thomas Thomas's objection says, to the first it should be said that the will is divided against nature, as one cause is divided against another, as some things come to be naturally, and some things come to be voluntarily.

[43:38] And there is another way of causing that is proper to the will, which is the Lord of its own act, apart from the way that belongs to nature, which is determined to one. Now he seems to go back to that difference.

[43:57] And now he tries to solve in this way, but because the will is founded in some nature, the will is, after all, what a second species of quality as you mentioned before, right? It's an accident, right, of something that has a nature, and because the will is founded in some nature, it is necessary that the motion that is proper to nature, quantum quantum to some extent, be partaken of in the will,

[44:38] just as what pertains to a prior cause is partaken of in the later cause. What he's saying now, you've got what the will is found in something that has some definite nature, right? And so you have two causes here: nature and will, and the nature is more fundamental than the will,

[45:08] and the what comes before enters into what comes after. And he gives us a reason why nature is before will, that in each thing he says. Ipsum esse existence right, which is through nature, is before to will, which is through the will. So obviously, nature, in which the will is founded, is a cause before that, and the prior cause influences the secondary cause. So, the will partakes of nature,

[45:49] the nature that it's founded in, right? Okay. This is one way he's trying to solve it, right? And hence it is that the will naturally wills something. That's interesting, right? Very subtle, huh? Yeah. Now I'm kind of paraphrasing this. I say, in this text, Thomas says that the will is founded in some nature, the nature of man, or the or the soul itself.

[46:21] What man is, or what the soul is, and what a thing is, is one. And that it partakes of the proper motion of the prior causes, as any secondary cause partakes of the motion of the primary causes.

[46:38] Now the same could be said of reason. Huh? You could say that reason is different from nature, but is founded in some nature, right? And that nature, which is founded, is before reason, huh? Just as to be is before to reason, huh? And the prior cause influences the secondary cause. Okay. So reason partakes of nature, right? And therefore, it adheres to something natural, naturally, right? Okay.

[47:15] Now, as Kasurick said, the business of the teacher is to confuse the issue, right? Okay. But first of all, make a little comparison now. Now this solution could be compared to right, and manifested by the way that reason is moved by the will, or the will is moved by reason. Of course, the will and the reason are two different causes, huh?

[47:43] Reason can be moved by the will, as well as by nature, huh? Thomas speaks of this, for example, in the De Potentia, question two, article six, sub one. Nothing prevents some power to be commanded to some act by the will, right? And to be inclined to some, to another one by nature. Just as our understanding is inclined to believing by the will, right? And to understanding the first principles, it is led by nature, huh?

[48:20] So there, Thomas is making comparison, right? Okay. Why does my reason ascend to the articles of faith? Well, not because of the evidence that it has, right? But because it's moved by the will. Okay.

[48:39] So Augustine's very clear on that. Thomas follows Augustine. Why does reason adhere firmly to one side of contradiction here, compared to axioms? Well, it's moved by the will, right? Then, okay. So something else is responsible, right?

[49:00] Now, expanding on what Thomas says there, one would not say that reason is a will, because it is moved by the will, would you? No. Likewise, one would not say that reason is a nature, because it is moved by nature, right? So one way of trying to avoid the apparent contradiction is saying that reason, in being determined to one side of a contradiction, there, is a nature now, right?

[49:30] Because that's what nature is—to be determined to one, right? You're saying no, no, no, it's not. It's being moved by nature, right? That doesn't make it a nature, does it? Anybody that's moved by the will, it's a will.

[49:47] And one could say in the reverse, one could also say that when the will is moved by reason, or partakes of the order which is proper to reason, it's a reason that looks before and after. When you have this order in our willing, you can say the will is partaking of reason, right? Reason says, you know, if you want to get rid of headache, you got to get aspirin.

[50:08] So now I want aspirin, right? Okay. So there's an order in my willing because of reason. So my will is partaking of reason, but that's not to say that the will is reason, is it? Okay. So you're avoiding the the thing, huh?

[50:27] Okay. So when the reason knows something naturally, it is not a nature, although it partakes of the movement proper to nature, because nature is a prior cause, as he says. And when the will wills something naturally, it is not a nature, right? But partakes of the movement proper to nature, as a second cause partakes of the motion of the first. Now, in this way, one can maintain that both reason and the will do something naturally, in which they are determined to one, as is nature, right?

[51:06] Without denying that nature and reason, or nature and will, are distinct causes, huh? Okay. Did you follow this? Okay. Now, there is a difficulty with this first solution that will lead us into Thomas's second solution and the correct understanding of the distinction between these kinds of causes. This way of saying is difficult, right? It's difficult to properly understand this distinction of these causes, and you can see that the way in which, say, John Stuart Mill, or the way in which he understands the reason, or the way in which, say, Sartre understands the will, right, is certainly not the way Aristotle and Thomas understand this distinction.

[52:02] And we can probably guess that who's misunderstanding the distinction, right? We're trying to ourselves understand the distinction correctly. So, as I say, there's a difficulty with this first solution that will lead us into Thomas's second solution and the correct understanding of the distinction between these kinds of causes. Now, the difficulty in Thomas's first solution is that in maintaining the opposite ways in which these causes work, nature being determined to one, right, and the reason and the will being opened opposites,

[52:44] the way in which reason is determined to one in assenting to the axioms, or the will to one in willing happiness, seems to be a violent, huh, or forced necessity, huh? A little bit like you know when the will moves reason to assent to faith and leading the reason into captivity, as Saint Paul says, huh? Okay. But Thomas speaks of this determination to one, in the case of the reason, the will, as being natural necessity, not a violent or forced necessity.

[53:20] Why should not this determination to one of reason and will, those things which naturally understand and naturally will, be not more like Saint Paul's description of faith, huh? Where reason is led captive by the will rather than by a natural what necessity, huh? Now, a second solution of Thomas involves seeing that reason is a nature and the will is a nature. This sounds very strange, huh? Here, one understands nature in the broadest sense, where everything that is has a nature.

[54:00] Thomas touches upon this broad sense in many places. In the Summa Theologica, for example, prima supunde, question ten, article one. Just as Boethius, huh? Thomas putting Thomas now. Just as Boethius says in the book about the two natures. Trinity, I guess. And the philosopher in the fifth book of the metaphysics, nature is said in many ways. Sometimes it is said to be the intrinsic principle in mobile things, and such a nature is either matter or a material form, as is clear in the second book of physics.

[54:43] But in another way, that is said to be nature, any substance, or even any what, being, huh? Okay. Now, nature in the second and broadest sense means what a thing is. But what a thing is is first said in substance, and then extended to the other categories, as you learn in the seventh book of wisdom. Hence Thomas says, "Pelibit substantia, velitiam quod libidens."

[55:15] Now to really enforce that thing upon you, in the sentences, right? Scriptum super libera one of the sentences, distinction seventeen, question one, article one, eight. Thomas even says that grace can be called a nature in this way. That's very striking, right? I'll just read you the text there. Natura digitur multipliciter secundum Boethium de quibus naturis. Nature is said in many ways, according to Boethius. The Boethius in the book of the two natures.

[55:50] It is said in one way, nature, everything quaedest, either substance or accident, and in this way, grace is a natura quaedam, ratione natura quaedam.

[56:04] Alio modo digitur natura quae principia multa creatis. So, into the question asked. And in the De Veritate, question twenty-five, article two, eight, Thomas says that every power or ability of the soul is a nature. And this is the text now. Each power of the soul, libit potentia animae, is a certain nature, and is naturally inclined towards something.

[56:36] And about the will in particular, he says in the De Veritate, question twenty-three, article four, corpus, voluntas natura quaedam est, and naturalum ordinem ad aliquod habet. And this sounds like a contradiction, right? You know, how can you hold a distinction? But notice he's he's giving a different solution than he did before, right? Nature in this broad sense is what a thing is. Everything is what it is, and what a thing is is one.

[57:10] That's behind this determination to one. Hence, everything has a determination to one. Hence, in this solution, the will or reason can be determined to one, in so far as each is a nature. Thomas replies, for example, to the common objection in the De Veritate, question twenty-two, article five.

[57:37] That contra five and not five. Okay, and here's the objection. Five criteria before more rational powers say habenda posita. They have themselves to opposites, right? According to the philosopher, right?

[57:54] But the will is a rational power. For reason, reason, as is said in the second book about the soul, or the third book, I guess. Anyway, therefore it has itself to opposites, and therefore it is not necessarily determined to something. That's the objection, right? Okay, it's a rational power. This is solgism, right? Rational powers have opposites. The will is a rational power. Therefore, it's not determined to one, right?

[58:22] Okay. To the first, to the fifth, it should be said that the will, in so far as it is rational, right, has itself to opposites,

[58:39] and this is to consider it according to that which is praecepta, inappropriate. But in so far as it is a certain nature, nothing prevents it to be determined to one.

[58:56] So you can consider the will as a certain nature, right, and that's determined to one. Or you can consider the will as what? Will, and that's not determined to one. You can consider likewise reason as a certain nature and that's determined to one. Or reason as reason, and that's not determined to one. Strange, huh?

[59:26] Thomas also points out one way in which determination to one from the nature of the will is understood to be compatible with the known indetermination of willness in metaphysics. That's a little different thing there, but anyway, might confuse the issue a bit. but that's okay. The Objection says: Moreover, nature is determined to one, but the will has itself to opposites. Therefore, the will wills nothing naturally. Thomas says: To the third, it should be said that there always responds or corresponds to nature something one, but proportional to nature.

[1:00:07] To nature in general, it responds something one in genus. To nature in species, something one in species. To individual nature, something one individual. Since, therefore, the will is a certain immaterial power, just as the understanding, that responds to it or corresponds to it naturally something one common, namely the good, just as to the understanding something one common, namely true or being or what it is. But under good in general, there are many particular goods contained.

[1:00:43] Right? To none of which the will is determined. So that's a little another sideshow there that's kind of interesting though, right? He's saying that every nature is determined to something one, but different natures to different kinds of one. And an immaterial nature like the reason of the will are determined to something what very universal, right? That makes sense, right? I mean, like you say that the eye is determined to the color, the ear to sound, but the reason is not determined to color or sound.

[1:01:17] It transcends them. It's it's open to all being, right? But being in general corresponds to reason, right? Good in general to the will, right? But under that, there are many particular goods, right? Okay, that's you know a little thing on the side there that brings out you know gives you a little room there, right? Okay, but but not you know full room because you run into happiness and misery and boom, you know you can't you know you know will one and not the other.