Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
7. Reason and Will as Natures: Thomas's Two Solutions and the Man/Animal Analogy
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[0:00] Now, what do you think of all this? Well, I see, but there would seem to be a greater problem with the second solution than with the first. If reason is a nature, he said that, right? And the will is also a nature. What happens to the distinction between the natural ability and a rational one? Between nature and reason and nature will seems to collapse, right? Thomas

[0:33] explains the distinction in this reply to an objection in the De Veritate, question twenty two, article five, so answer six and not six. Moreover, what of necessity is determined to something is naturally determined to that. But the will is divided against natural desire; therefore, the will does not necessarily will something. Now Thomas says to the six, "It should be said." Now he's going to give you the solution.

[1:07] That the will is divided against natural desire, right? Cum praecisione sumptum That is, quod naturale tantum Now he gives you an example to help you understand this. Just as man is divided against that which is an animal only,

[1:36] it's not, however, divided against natural desire absolutely, but includes it just as man includes animal, right? Now, sometimes take the example of man and animal, right? Sometimes we divide man against the animals, right? Other times we say man is an animal, right? Okay. So, animal could be said of man, and of the animals that are divided against man, right?

[2:18] And how can what's the meaning of that, right? Well, when you divide animal against man, you're dividing against man, what is just an animal? I always go back to my mother. My mother heard me saying that man is an animal, and my mother said, "Well, I don't like, I don't like you saying that, Dwayne. that man is an animal." And I said, "Well, mother, I don't mean he's just an animal.

[2:49] He's an animal that has reason, Oh that's better," she said. Okay. You see, so the animal that is divided against man is what is just an animal, right?

[3:04] But the animal that man is is animal that is not just an animal, right? Okay. Now, we have a chance here to talk about name equivocal by reason, and the different kinds of names equivocal by reason. This involves one of them,

[3:28] because sometimes when you have a name said of two things with more or less the same meaning in mind, but one of those two things has, in addition to what is common to the two, something noteworthy, it gets a new name.

[3:51] And the other keeps the common name as its own, and then you divide one against the other. So that way of naming is involved here in naming these causes, nature, and reason, or nature and will. Thomas's solution might, you know, to the average philosopher thinker seem at first very arbitrary, right? But if you understand how common that way of naming is, and you see it in easier examples like man and animal, then it's not surprising, right, that we should name a cause nature that is nature only, and a cause that is a nature but not just a nature or has something very much in addition to this, right, by its own name, either reason in one case or will in that case.

[4:57] So Thomas is saying then, will is divided against natural desire, cum praecisione sumptum is cut off, but is just or only that, that is which is natural, tantum only natural. Just as man is divided against what is animal only,

[5:22] but it is not divided against natural desire absolutely, but includes it, just as man includes like animal. Do you see that? When reason is divided against nature, or will against nature, it is divided against what is nature only. And that's not clear when you read the text there, in the second thing, and therefore you could easily misunderstand it. Now another text that touches upon this is the De Veritate, question twenty-two, article five, park for

[6:05] this is too long to read here. Uh maybe we did a little bit. here. Um. In things that are ordered, huh? Is necessary that the first way be included in the second, and in the second to be found not only that which belongs to it according to its own reason, but what belongs to it according to the reason of the first.

[6:34] Just as to man he says it belongs not only to use reason, huh, which belongs to him according to his own difference, which is rational; he's a rational animal, but to use sense, right, to use his senses, or to use food, right, which belongs to him according to his genus, which is animal. or even living huh? and similarly, we see in sensible things. For since the sense of touch is, as it were, the foundation of the other senses, this is a beautiful comparison.

[7:10] In the organ of each sense is not only found the propriety what is proper to that sense, which it is the proper organ, but also the propriety of what touch. Just as the organ of the sense of sight not only senses white and black in so far as it is the organ of sight, but it also senses hot and cold, and is corrupted by their excellencies, according as it is the organ of touch.

[7:43] Now he says, nature and will, in this way, are ordered. That the will itself is a certain nature, right? Because everything that is found in things is a certain nature, as I say, a thing must be what it is before it can be anything else. That's its nature, and therefore, in the will, is necessary to find not only what is of the will, but also that which is of nature.

[8:21] This, however, pertains to each created nature that it be ordered by God to the good, naturally desiring that. Whence to the will itself there is a natural desire of the good suitable to it,

[8:37] but besides this, it has to desire according to its own determination, but not from necessity, which belongs to it in so far as it is a what will, right? Okay.

[8:55] So he says, just as is the order of nature to will, so is the order of those things which the will naturally wills to those things of which it itself is determined or is determined by itself, and not from nature. And therefore, just as nature is the foundation of will, so the desirable that is naturally desired is the foundation beginning of other things desired.

[9:21] So he goes on to talk about that thing. Now. Now it may seem strange that an ability to do something in an unnatural way is also an ability naturally determined to do something. But we can see the reason for this, and we can see from things more known to us that this is so. The general reason is given in these words of Thomas from my favorite book, the Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3, Chapter 46.

[10:12] in every order, right? What is per se is before that which is per aliud. What is to itself is before what is through another, and it's what beginning, right? And the references are back to the eighth book of physics. Okay, now that to me seems to be almost an axiom, and that the through itself is before the through another, right? Okay.

[10:46] Of course, Plato was onto this, how important that becomes on every part of philosophy. Think about that. If the through itself is before the through another, can every statement be known to other statements?

[11:12] And be nothing known to itself, right? And if everything is desired for the sake of something else, and nothing is desired to itself, can anything be desired.

[11:25] And this reason is applied by Thomas in the continuation of a text used above in the Summa Theologiae. As Boethius says in the book about the two natures, and the philosopher in the fifth book of metaphysics, nature is said in many ways. For sometimes it is said to be the intrinsic principle of mobile things, and such a nature is either matter or material form, as is clear in the second book of physics.

[11:55] In another way, nature is said to be any substance or even quodlibet. We quoted that before, right? And according to this, that is said to be natural to a thing that belongs to it according to its very what substance or what it is, and this is what belongs to thing per se.

[12:17] In all things in which there are things that are not existing in per se, excuse me, in all things, those which do not belong per se are reduced into something that belongs to per se as to its what beginning or source. And therefore, it is necessary that in this way taking nature, always the beginning in those things which belong to a thing, must be natural, because the through itself must always be what.

[12:51] Before the to another right, and what belongs to its to its nature belongs to to itself. So it must always come first. And then Thomas says, and and this manifestly appears in the understanding. For the beginnings of intellectual understanding are naturally known, and likewise the beginning of voluntary motions must be something naturally known. It's based upon the idea that the to itself must come before the what to another right.

[13:26] So somebody says you know, every statement's got to be proven. Every statement's got to be known to other statements. huh? Which in a sense, when you end up, denying that the to another is preceded by the what to itself right. So you say Thomas is looking before and after as Shakespeare says you do use reason, but he's seeing it before and after here that that Mill or or Sartre do not see right.

[14:05] They don't see that the to itself comes before the to another right, and they don't see the connection between the to itself and the natural. And therefore, they don't see that reason, the will, must naturally know something or naturally will something, and that has to be the beginning and the source of what they know by discourse, okay, or what they know by willing something for the sake of something else, right?

[14:35] Okay. You're finding through another. It's not that the will or the reason is knowing something through something other than reason. No, we were saying that that the reason has to have a nature, right? And this nature, and through

[15:00] the nature of a thing, that something belongs to it per se or kata holou. And if you see that the to itself has to come before the to another right, then you say that what reason knows to itself, it has to know before the things it knows to another. And the things it knows to itself, it has to be said to know what naturally right. So it must know something naturally.

[15:29] Otherwise, it doesn't know anything to itself, and therefore it can't know anything to another. It doesn't know anything. You want the moderns to say in a sense, but it's no little thing to deny. Okay, and unless the will willed something to itself, it couldn't will anything at all. If everything was willed for the sake of something else. How could you begin to will anything? I will A for the sake of B, and B for the sake of C, and C for the sake of D.

[16:01] I can't will A until I first will B, and I can't will that until I willed C. I can't will C until I will D. And how can I begin to will? I can't. So there must be something that I will through itself, and not for the sake of something else. You couldn't define or make statements or syllogize unless you had something to start. Do we say those things are per se known?

[16:26] Do we mean they're known through themselves per se, or do we also mean per se? Well, t here is two different senses of through itself. I mean, sometimes through itself becomes a kind of grammatically imperfect way or possibly deceptive way of being a negation, right? Just like you could say that

[16:52] you know, when you say a statement is known through itself, you don't mean that statement is proven by itself, right? And so, you mean the statement is known not through another statement, right? But t here is another way in which you can take, say, in the case of the axioms, and say a statement is known through itself in a more positive way. That I know that a whole is more than a part, right?

[17:14] Not through other statements, but I know it through its parts, right? And so, in that sense, it's known through itself. So t here is two different meanings there, right? And you got to be careful in saying that, right? So Thomas is reasoning in a sense from what seems to be almost an axiom that the through itself must come before the through another, and then seeing the connection between what is through itself and the nature of the thing.

[17:44] What belongs to a thing to what it is belongs to it to itself. Of course, you know that from the Posterior Analytics anyway you know, we say it belongs to the triangle through itself, right? They have its interior angles, its two right angles. It belongs to triangle to what it is. Or to take the simple example there, when straight lines intersect, these angles must be equal, right?

[18:10] And they must be equal because the lines are straight, and therefore the line meeting them must make two right angles, equal to right angles, and vice versa for the other two, and subtract equal and get that. But

[18:29] what belongs to a thing, a reason of what it is, belongs to it to itself. Because you are nothing more than yourself, which you are.

[18:43] When you say per se, yeah, belongs to the reason per se. You say you are saying what what belongs to a thing because of what it is.

[18:54] Belongs to it, to itself, right? Okay. See, Thomas's solution here is to see the connection between through itself and nature, right? What a thing is, and then seeing that through itself has to come before through another, right? And therefore, reason and will

[19:19] couldn't know one thing through another or will one thing because of another unless they knew something through itself, right, not through another. Or will something to itself and not to something else. And if they know something to itself, they know it through what they are. Or they will something to itself, they will to what they are. It's their nature, right? When they know something, when they know something through themselves.

[19:54] Well, so when the reason knows something through itself, it it it must be something that naturally knows, okay? That knows because of what it is. And if the will naturally wills something, I mean, necessarily wills something, or wills something to itself, it must do so because of what it is. the will. So reason is looking before and after. Yeah, yeah. So there must be something for looking before and after.

[20:21] Yeah, but so there must be something of nature there in the reason and the will, otherwise they couldn't will or or or think it or know at all.

[20:35] It seems like you're changing the meaning of what the itself is. If you're if you want to identify, just connecting through itself and nature is what it is. That seems not what you're saying when you say you know a proposition through itself and some propositions through other propositions. We're not saying, I think, that you know some propositions through reason itself and others through something that's not the nature of reason.

[21:13] It seems like you're changing the bit that you're referring to in itself. I kind of see it. There's a kind of double sense there, yeah. But the reason would have to know something. Through

[21:55] being reason, in this case, wouldn't it? I mean, reason can't know the axioms. Through the axioms, has the ability to know the axioms. The axioms are not the ability to know them, right?

[22:52] So, if reason is the ability to know, right, there is an ability to know. Is it able to know the axioms through knowing something else? Then one is knowing them to themselves, right? It knows them through themself, but not through itself. Well, just a minute now. It is the ability to know. The axioms are not the ability to know the axioms. Okay, so if reason is able to know the axioms, right,

[23:35] the ability to know them must be itself, right? Without the help of knowing something else, by the things that are on, it knows through another, right? It's able to know those things only when it knows these things that come before, right? So, when I pick up Euclid, am I able to know the Pythagorean theorem?

[24:08] No, strictly speaking, we'll see they're on in the same part, the same book. Strictly speaking, I'm not able to know the Pythagorean theorem until I've gone through the first 46 theorems, and then, strictly speaking, I'm not able to know it, right? I'm not able to know it simply through my my reason. Unaided, right? But I'm able to know it by through my reason. Through my reason, knowing those other things, right?

[24:42] When you come back to the very first things that reason knows, is it knowing them through knowing something else? No, so it's knowing them only through its own ability to know, right? Yeah, and therefore it's knowing them to itself, right? And therefore it's knowing them to its nature.

[25:09] You see, this is difficult, right? I mean, we has really followed up, you know. John Stuart Mill, I need to take an example. I remember one time working that with somebody, student, you know. And if you read the essay, thing on liberty, he's defending liberty, and the chapter of the liberty of thought, right? He sees many of the reasons that Aristotle gives for dialectic. You know, they're not original with him, and so on.

[25:35] But the one thing he won't admit that dialectic leads to any beginning of science, so he sees reason only as reason, right? He doesn't see reason as nature, so he understands the distinction between reason and and nature as something where one entirely excludes the other, right? Unlike the distinction between, say, man and animal, or in a way, like the distinction between two and three,

[26:12] because in a way there is a two in three. But three is not just two. Three is two plus one. So if you divide two into two and two plus one, which one gets a new name?

[26:34] Yeah, yeah, yeah, and three gets a new name because of that third one, right? Okay, but that that mean that three doesn't in some way include two.

[26:49] In a way, what John Stuart Mill, to take the example, he's seeing the distinction between nature and reason. Or nature and will, like the distinction between, let's say, virtue and vice, right?

[27:12] Is virtue a vice plus something, or is vice a virtue plus something, right? No, they really seem to be two different things, right? But now, Thomas is understanding the distinction between nature and reason, or nature and will, like the distinction between two and three. And you can't really deny that three, in a way, includes two, but because it's not just two, we don't call it two; we give it a new name, three.

[27:52] But when you distinguish between three and two, we shouldn't forget that. Three is divided against what is just two. Cum praecisione tantum sumptum Thomas says, right? You know, precisely cut off, right? But it's just two, only two, and and shouldn't forget that three is really two plus one, okay? And that's the kind of distinction that you have between nature and reason. Nature is just a nature, huh?

[28:26] But reason is not just a nature. Nature plus something. In the same case in the will, but even even what you know, you could say, huh? Well, how can there be a two and three? How can three include two when three is half of six and two is half of four and three is not, you know? And then you're taking what is proper to three, right? To be half of six, huh?

[29:01] And then you don't see that three is half of four, right? But still, there is a two in three. So you could easily misunderstand, given the brevity of Aristotle's words, there, that he's understanding the distinction the way Stuart and Mill and and Sartre and people like that are. And that's kind of the common opinion now, isn't it? I mean, philosophical circles, right? That reason never really knows anything.

[29:33] It's kind of an eternal thing, and it's less common to think about the will, but Sartre does. You see, and and they they seize upon what you might say is proper to reason, reason as reason, and forget reason as nature, right?

[30:00] In the same way, we might seize upon three as three is is not half a four, and therefore there can't be any two ness in three, right? Because two is half a four and three is not. See, see. Well, three as three is not half a four, but that is isn't contradicted by saying there's still a two included in three, right? Reason as reason is not determined ad unum.

[30:23] Will as will is not, right? But you shouldn't forget that in reason there's a nature, and reason is a nature, and that the will is a nature, right? But part of Thomas's way of showing this again is is by the fact that the as a before and after, right? That the two itself is before the two another, right? And you have to acquire the two another from the two itself, huh?

[30:52] And so really, the will, the reason put in function. In the way they do, by discourse and so on, and choice, right? Unless there is something that they naturally understood and something they naturally but will,

[31:10] and so you come back to to Shakespeare's definition, say of reason. Reason is the ability for a large discourse, looking before and after. And he says reason is the ability for discourse. He's defining reason as reason, right? He's not defining reason as a what nature, right? And you have to go back to the what with the anima, right, to begin with, anyway. The third book there to understand what belongs to reason as a nature.

[31:45] But even you know, when Aristotle is approaching that, you'll see in the text of the anima that he separates reason from, say, the imagination and from the senses, especially the imagination, which is the closest to reason. He separates it by separating reason as reason from imagination first, and reason as a nature is separate from imagination only later on. So it's less known, right? You know, when Aristotle argues that reason is not the imagination, the first thing he says, kind of simple in a way, he says that there is a freedom in imagining them.

[32:32] I can imagine terrorists out there about to come in shoot us up and so on, but I can't really think that there are terrorists out there. To think that there are terrorists out there, it had to have some reason to think there are terrorists out there, but I can imagine them without any reason at all, and I can, you know, imagine myself winning the million dollar what sweepstakes, huh?

[32:59] Without any reason to do so, but I can't really think that I won the million dollar sweepstakes. I don't even I know I didn't even buy a ticket. You see, so he's talking a little bit about reason insofar as it's what discursive and has a reason for what it thinks, and then he says, if I imagine a terrorist, I don't necessarily get scared, right? But if I thought there was a terrorist out there, I'd be I will be afraid, right?

[33:24] If I thought I'd win the sweepstakes, I'd be exhilarated, right? But imagining it, you know, makes me excited. So he's kind of dealing with reason as discursive, huh? Because that's more known to us.

[33:39] It's interesting, you know, the you know, like we're mentioning there when Aristotle is talking about how it's easy to know the truth, huh? You can't miss it entirely, you know. That's the first thing he says, right? What you might hit upon might not be what I hit upon, or somebody else hits upon, right? And then through the efforts of many, it's easy to get a certain amount, right?

[34:01] And then last, he says, "is it's like the proverbial door, who can miss it?" And then he's talking about, right? But perhaps is kind of less known, right?

[34:14] But certainly, you know, we, we name reason from what, or we name reasoning from reason, right? As if the discourse of reason is what is most known about it. As Shakespeare says, "Things in motion, sooner catch the eye Than what not stirs But understanding is a little harder to get at, right?

[34:36] Standing doesn't seem to be doing anything, right? Understanding just standing is standing around doing nothing, right? It's understanding. Reasoning, you're doing something; you're active, right? So it seems, to some extent at least, that reason as reason is more known to us than reason as a nature, right? And that's as far as these guys get to see reason as reason, right? Or the will as reason, and therefore Sartre insists that the will is completely free; it's not determined anything and that you're in bad faith or something, you know.

[35:11] If you think you you have to will happiness or something of this sort, so it's got very serious consequences. As I was saying, perhaps every mistake of our mind or reason comes at least in part from not understanding a distinction or from misunderstanding a distinction. And this distinction here is easily misunderstood and is in fact misunderstood by most, if not all, the modern philosophers. Certainly by those who have

[35:46] talked about these differences. Yeah, the key distinction being true itself, if you will. That key distinction being true itself, if you will. Well, yeah, I mean, but they're not. But they're misunderstanding. Well, that's true, true also, but they're not understanding distinction between nature and reason, right, or nature and will. You don't realize that it's like the distinction between man and animal. Thomas is very concrete there.

[36:14] But as I say, that also touches upon one of the most common ways of naming things and naming things equivocally by reason. We will come back to that. A few easier examples, by the way.

[36:39] So when it knows something through reason, reason, the name of reason, it's sometimes determined and sometimes not. Yeah, yeah, and it might seem like a kind of a contradiction there, right? If you said that this is a distinction where one completely excludes the other, right? Because if you have a demonstration, you know the conclusion. Yeah, you are not. It's not indeterminate, but that's still through reason, not.

[37:12] Well, in the case of demonstration, you go back. You have to resolve back to natural understanding. Yes, it's it's interesting when when Thomas gives the before and after the three virtues of looking reason. He puts natural understanding before reason, not understanding. He puts intellectus before scientia.

[37:37] Yeah, and and and reason not understanding depends upon natural understanding. But if you are not determined, then you don't resolve back to something determined. You are not determined until you resolve back to what is determined. It's only dialectical argument where you argue both ways. The beginnings are not. Yeah, and there you don't reach a determination there.

[38:04] Then you just keep in movement, right? But according to to Mill, that's all our reason can do, right? In other words, just being dogmatic or something, you know, or arbitrary, right? If you stop the constant movement, you know, of examining and re-examining, talking about, and if you never you never come to any resolution. You would

[38:34] say dialectic is more characteristic of reason than demonstration. Of reason as reason, yeah, yeah, yeah. And demonstration is possible only by resolving back to natural understanding. That's why Aristotle's books are actually entitled what? The Prior and the Posterior Analytics. And if you look at you know even at the first book of the of the, Prior Analytics, he talks about what, the generation of syllogisms, and then how you find syllogisms, and then how you resolve them back to their beginnings, right?

[39:10] In the same way in the Post Analytics, the other resolution. So, the culmination is when you return to the beginnings. When you proceed from the beginnings and draw conclusions, then you've got to turn around and come back to the beginnings.

[39:29] It's like when you get to the Pythagorean theorem, then you turn around and see what is that built upon, and that oh, and then all the way back to the whole is more than the part. Yeah, yeah, got it. Get down to proposition six there, and resolves in the whole is more than the part, right? This

[39:50] one shows it's proposition six. It says that if you have what equal angles, you have equal sides. If you don't have equal sides, you can cut off one equal to the lesser one on the greater one. And you cut it off, and then you draw a line to the corner. Now you've got two triangles with equal angles containing equal sides to equal triangles. How can the whole and the part be equal?

[40:16] No, so I observe. So they must be equal. These two sides, which you resolve all the way back to the whole being more than the part. Euclid says no, greater. Lesser can't equal to the greater, right? That's the whole and the part. Because one triangle is obviously a part of the other, right? But they must be equal if the what? Equal sides containing an equal angle, right?

[40:40] So since the whole must be more than the part. Those angles, those size must be equal. So resolve all the way back. Proposition six. So sometimes says that when you divide reason against nature, you're using nature in the second sense of what the thing is, and you're making the division where reason is something not just nature. Then aren't you saying that reason as reason is more than what it is to be reason?

[41:24] When you say reason as reason, you're taking what is characteristic of reason is distinct from mere nature, right? But if nature, there means what it is. How can reason then be more than what it is? Well, it's not more than what it is, but it's more than what is just nature. It's not just a nature. If nature there means what it is, you're saying it's more than what it is to be just reason, because that's what reason is.

[41:57] Well, now you're forgetting that that that. But it has in addition it has to what it has per se, right? And by nature. Yes, it seems like there's just a there's no distinction. No, I mean th think of something simpler there. Think of two and three again, right? Okay, three as three is what half a six, let's say, right? That's one thing we say about three as three, right?

[42:29] Three as three is half a six, and so we say that reason as reason, right, is capable of opposites, right? Will as will is capable of opposites, right? I can will this or that, or will this or not will, right?

[42:50] But is there a two in three in some way? Yeah, yeah. But that two would be half of four, right? And so, to be half of four doesn't belong to three as three, right?

[43:16] Even though it it does in some way have something that is half of four, right? But doesn't belong to three as three. That's the way distinction is to be understood, I think.

[43:30] If you're distinguishing reason as reason, reason as nature, but nature means what it is, then reason as nature, reason as reason. That's what reason is. What do you mean by nature? Is there except reason? Well, you're thinking of what belongs to nature as nature, right? To be determined to one.

[43:56] So you look reason is an ability and it has three acts. So the third act is not determined as much as the first act. The first act is determined. You can't err about those things.

[44:15] So it seems to be more from nature that you know what something is. You can even think about what something is? for definition. There's certain first notions that you can't be mistaken about. They don't have definitions. When you say it's more from nature, what do you mean by nature?

[44:46] Reason's ability to abstract makes that just universal, like being or something. That's just one. That's the. It's using its first act, right? And it it's totally determined. It can't do something else. All three acts are very true. Yes. What I'm saying is that there's freedom in some of the acts, but not in others.

[45:33] That's true. Now, why would you restrict nature to just the first act? The nature of reason. What do you call that nature? Well, you you have the ability to put things together, but that they're put together in a determinate way is not. They aren't put together in a determinate way, right? So that can't be.

[46:11] I mean, that they're put and not put is determinate, but that you can do different ones—that's not determinate and therefore not from nature. It seems begging the question. Nature. Because you want to say that reason,

[46:37] reason, reason is not determinate to one. But it's still in nature. Well, it's determinate to one insofar as it has a nature, right? So those abilities are determinate in some way. So it's easiest to see in the first, but in the second, you have the same thing. You can either put things together or separate them, but in that case, there's freedom with regard to what you put together and separately.

[47:20] I mean, not in every statement. Some statements, right, you are forced to put together and not, right? And then in syllogisms, the same thing—you're putting together statements, but you're not forced in the syllogism at all to try and put together.

[47:50] No. No, when when Shakespeare defines reason as the ability for discourse, right, it's the first part of the definition there. What is he saying? He's saying reason is the ability to know one thing to know another thing. Okay.

[48:14] Um. Now, could reason have the ability to know one thing to another if it wasn't able to know something by itself or to itself? Okay.

[48:38] So reason is both of these abilities, but now are there two abilities, really, here. No, because it couldn't know one thing to another except by knowing those other things. So it's the same reason, right, that is able to know

[49:14] one thing to another, right, and that is able to know something by itself or through itself. Okay. Doesn't it do something more when it knows through the other?

[49:31] Well, there isn't a really good right now, right? Okay. How should you name that that ability? The reason has those, those. Let's say those two abilities. huh? What?

[50:02] Well, you know, the they'll come up later on this this this ability, this passive ability, right, for contraries, right? Okay. And say, is the ability, for example, of the butter to be hard, and the ability of the butter to be soft, the same ability? What would you say?

[50:26] Okay, but they define somewhat different, aren't they? Okay, one is defined by hard, one by soft, right? But if they were in reality two different abilities, and the butter could become hard and become soft at the same time, just like the ability to walk and the ability to talk are two different abilities, so you can walk and talk at the same time if you're adept, right? You see.

[50:58] But now, is the ability to know one thing to another, right, and the ability to know something by itself or through itself, are they two abilities, like the ability to talk and the ability to walk? Are they two abilities, like the ability to be hard and the ability to be soft?

[51:26] It's more like the second. Yeah, it's not. It's not. There's still differences between them. The second, right? But it's like that, right? Okay. Now.

[51:48] You see a distinction then between reason as it's able to do these two things. You see some kind of distinction then, nevertheless, though, right? Okay.

[51:58] And so, reason in so far as it's able to know something through itself is spoken of as reason as a nature. Thomas is speaking in that way. Reason, as it's able to know one thing to another, is spoken of as what? Reason as reason, right? Okay.

[52:26] Do you object to that way of speaking or not? Now, now, now, why is it appropriate to speak of reason as it's able to know something through itself, right? That it's reason as a nature.

[52:45] Yeah, probably it's a determined to one, and because it's through itself and so on, right? The connection between through itself and nature. What? Well, it. I understand, dear.

[53:10] Well, you're talking about the same reason in both cases, right? But in so far as reason is able to know some things without discourse, right? Thomas would speak of that as reason as a nature. But in so far as reason is able to know one thing to another, we speak of that as reason as reason, right? In the same way, in so far as the will necessarily wills some things, right, like happiness, we speak of the will as a what?

[53:52] Nature, right? And in so far as the will is open to opposites and able to choose, right? It's called will as will, right? So, in a way, to define the will, as let's say, the will is the ability to choose.

[54:15] It's a little bit like defining reason as the ability for discourse, huh? So, you're defining reason as reason, right? Or you're defining in the other case the will as will, right?

[54:35] But you could also speak of the will as a nature in so far as it is not able to choose, right? In so far as it by In natural necessity, chooses happiness and cannot choose to be what miserable, right? And as reason cannot what not assent to some things, right? But naturally assents to them. We speak of that as reason as a nature, right?

[55:08] But then, if you go back and say, "But what about the ways of naming these abilities that you distinguish in there, right? " And you call one ability

[55:18] nature or natural, and the other ability rational, right? Okay. Well, then it seems you've got to understand this one way of naming things. That when something is common to two things, but that's all that one of them has, right? And the other has something in addition that's noteworthy, right? Then one of them keeps the common name as its own, and the other gets a new name.

[55:55] So, in the categories, Aristotle will sometimes divide habit against disposition, and sometimes he'll say habit is a disposition, a firm disposition, right? So, disposition can be said of disposition and habit,

[56:17] and habit adds something noteworthy that you're disposed in a firm and stable way. And so, that kind of a disposition that has a firmness and stability gets a new name, and that's habit. And those dispositions that don't have anything noteworthy

[56:42] like that keep the name what disposition, right? So, in one sense, habit is a disposition; in other sense, it is what not. I mentioned the other example there from the the anima. I mean, from the Nicomachean Ethics. That in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle will divide episteme against sophia; they're not the same. Virtue of reason. But then, in the book on wisdom, he'll call wisdom a episteme. It's the episteme of being as being.

[57:16] It's the reasoned understanding of being as being. So, unless he's contradicting himself, the word episteme has become, to some extent, equivocal by reason. And you could say that episteme is said of geometry and natural philosophy and wisdom, or first philosophy, and. Sometimes wisdom gets a new name. Episteme means a knowledge of things through their causes, but wisdom is a knowledge of all things through the first causes.

[57:55] So it is something noteworthy in addition to being just a knowledge of things through causes. So it gets a new name, Sophia, and all the other reason understanding keeps the name reason understanding or episteme, right? So you find many examples of that in naming. And we gave the example of animal and man before, right?

[58:22] And sometimes, you know, if you go into the nursery to buy a plant, or you may go there to buy a tree, right? So you're dividing tree against plant, and yet in some sense a tree is a plant. So plant is said of plant and of what tree, and tree gets a new name, and the little ones keep the name plant, as they add nothing significant. You see the same thing, you know, when they go around saying, you know, you should treat the girl like a person, not as a thing, you know.

[58:58] Person is not a thing, they'll say, but yet in some sense the person must be a thing because they are something, right? And I saw the bumper sticker in parish parking lot there. You know, the best things in life are not things. Well, apparent contradiction, there, paradoxical statement, but they're obviously thinking that the word "thing" has two meanings, right? So the best things in life are persons, but they're not things.

[59:30] So this is a very common thing, and we do it in daily life all the time. I say to the students, "How many fingers do I have?" And they say five. How many fingers do I have? Four fingers and a thumb. This one gets a new name because something sets it off from the other four. The opposable thumb, as they thought, right? So in one sense the thumb is a finger, and in other sense you divide it against the fingers.

[59:59] So you find this again and again. So you shouldn't be surprised, right? And that this way of naming then is used in naming nature and reason and will.

[1:00:14] But then, in some other sense of the word, you might say reason is a nature, and the will is a nature. But because it has something noteworthy in addition to what nature is, this idea of being determined to something one because of what you are, right? Is there something in addition to that, right? The ability to know other things than what it naturally knows, right? Or the ability to will other things for the sake of what you naturally will.

[1:00:47] Then they get a new name, reason and will, and what is just nature, right? Keeps the name nature as its own, and now it's in that sense that you're using the word nature when you divide nature against reason and will in the second reading here. But it's not—uh it's not cheating to say that reason, understood as reason in itself, and also the ability,

[1:01:24] like nature, that's the problem—the nature of reason, just like nature. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just as I say that there is in man this animal nature, right? And so when I distinguish man against the animals, it's not to deny that man is in some sense an animal, right? And to distinguish three against two is not to deny that there isn't three and two. It's the nature of things.

[1:01:51] reason it's both three Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because reason is—is—I mean, nature in the sense of what a thing is is something one, right? And so you think it belongs to a thing because of its being a nature to be in some way one and to be determined to one. And if that's all it is, well let it keep the name nature as its own. But if something is what has something in addition to that, right?

[1:02:28] We might give it a new name, and that's the way we name reason and what will. It's because the form makes a thing to be what it is. In the case of fire, that it can only do one thing, but in the case of the mind, it doesn't make it to be what it is, but makes it to know. So you have different forms.

[1:02:52] I mean, if if reason couldn't know one thing to another, right? If reason only knew things naturally, right? It'd be kind of like the senses, then

[1:03:09] they just kind of naturally know. But reason has something in addition to that, namely discourse, that it can know one thing to another thing that it knows. It's not simply the ability to have many different forms simultaneously. Well, you don't sense simultaneously. We

[1:03:30] could bring it in there, but that was kind of a sideshow to the main problem here, right? I call it kind of a sideshow, but you know, but but another side to the issue, right? But make the more basic point. Is something that how are you naming these classes, right? You distinguish nature and reason, or nature and will. How are you naming these classes, right? So there is a common sense of nature that's true of fire and of reason, and then there is another sense of nature that's

[1:04:06] only true of fire. Yeah, yeah. I say you have to understand this way of naming things, right? Yes. And how are you naming things when you distinguish man and animal? Are you naming things when you when you distinguish disposition and habit, right? So the more general sense would be the what it is, and the more particular sense would be it's determined to one. No, no. Nature is always determined to one, right?

[1:04:39] And in so far as reason is determined to one, then it's a kind of nature, right? But because it can know something else to what it naturally knows,

[1:04:54] and then it can, you know, make mistakes, and it can, you know, sometimes see, you know, reasons going opposite directions and so on. Then you see it has something noteworthy, right? In addition to what it has naturally, and

[1:05:17] so it gets a new name because of that, huh? But you have to understand the kind of naming this is, huh? Doesn't fire get a new name as well? No. Well, you say someone's an animal and you name him a beast. That's a new name, right? Animal. No, I say I say, what's the difference between if you divide, say, animal into man and beast, right? Rational, irrational.

[1:05:47] Well, there is no equivocation here at all, yet is there? Okay. But sometimes, instead of calling the irrational animal a beast, we call them an animal, right? Right, but that sense of animal is not the same as the animal you divide originally, right? Okay, now this is one kind of or one way that a name becomes equivocal by reason. Right. So what I was asking is, nature does it become equivocal by reason in the same way when it's applied universally to reason and?

[1:06:21] Well, then let's come back. Then let me go a little bit into the distinction of name equivocal by reason, huh? Because we.