Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
14. Native Words vs. Imported Words, and Aristotle's Examples of Act (Metaphysics IX)
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/014-native-words-vs-imported-words-and-aristotles-examples-of/

[0:10] The right word in philosophy, and it's very important to use the right word in philosophy. Okay. For my sake, but for your sake, for my sake but for your sake. Both for understanding what you're saying, but also for thinking. You don't think without words. Now, before you can understand what it means to use the right word, there's at least one distinction you should have in mind, and that is the distinction between the native word in a language like, take English, the native English word, and then the Greek or Latin imported word.

[1:05] And for the most part, I try to use the native English word rather than the imported Greek or Latin word. But there are exceptions to this, obviously.

[1:22] The basic reason for using the native English word is that it's more known to us; it's more familiar. I take an example. If you look in the basic works here of Aristotle, in chapter twelve there, say the Categories, what's the word used in that very important chapter for

[1:51] before and after? Prior and posterior? Yeah, prior and posterior. There are four senses in which one thing can be said to be prior to another. If you see the Brookhouse translation, you'll see the word before, and not the word what prior. And which word is more familiar to us? Yeah. Yeah. And then this fits in with other things in the language to illustrate this, like forenoon, afternoon, foresight.

[2:29] None of that is with prior, huh? Of course, you're very accustomed nowadays to hear people say, as individuals or as institutions, you have to establish your priorities, huh? And that's before it's become fashionable now, but it would be much more clear to say you're before, isn't it? And then, of course, if you want to think about what that means, it has more than one meaning of before.

[2:59] Because sometimes you might have to do what is before in the second sense, before you do what is after in the second sense. But other times, when things don't have that kind of order, you might try to do what is better before what is lesser. So that's just an example.

[3:28] You heard me object to the word metaphysics, huh? And it's not very clear what meaning that word conveys, huh? As you know, it comes from the Greek three Greek words run together, meta ta physica. But most people don't know what those words mean in Greek. They don't even know it comes from these words. When you put those words into native English, it means calling these fourteen books the fourteen books after the books in natural philosophy.

[4:09] When you see that's what the words really mean, why should that be the first way you name this work? You're naming it there from the, and most people don't understand why you're naming it that way if you do at all. But you're naming it from the place of these fourteen books in the order of learning. And why should these fourteen books in the order of learning come after the books in natural philosophy?

[4:37] We have to know what natural philosophy is, and you have to know what these fourteen books are about. That tale doesn't tell you anything about it. It's rather a strange way of of naming something, huh? So I prefer to call these fourteen books the fourteen books of what wisdom, which is a native English word. You say, well, I don't know what wisdom is. Yeah, but in the very proemium at the beginning of the first book, Aristotle

[5:09] tells you what wisdom is aiming at and the kind of knowledge it is, and you learn more about it as you go on. But that's where you have to begin, huh?

[5:19] So they say, as a rule, it's better to use the native English word than the imported Greek or Latin word, huh? Now there is a times when maybe you can't do that, huh? And the most obvious case, I suppose, would be when there is no word in English that has no native word that seems to have that meaning, huh? And so you take a word like, say, episteme in Greek.

[5:58] Which we translate into Latin "by scientia Well is there any word, any native English word, to translate this by? You can translate by the imported Latin word "science," which has certain problems, as you know. But is there any native English word? Knowledge. Well, knowledge is supposed to be the closest, but knowledge is a little more general, maybe, than "episteme" or "science." Now, sometimes I try to put into native English "episteme," and I usually use a phrase like "reasoned out understanding" or "reasoned out knowledge."

[6:43] But you can't always be using the whole phrase, and sometimes you go back to the Latin imported word "science," but as you know, it has some problems with it because of the meanings it's acquired in different meanings from the one that it had when it was used to translate "episteme."

[7:06] So that's one exception to maybe always using the native English word, which you don't have a word. Syllogism. I still use the imported Greek word syllogism.

[7:21] Occasionally, have someone trying to translate "reckoning" or "reasoning," you know, in some of these texts. But that's not really a correct translation of it. So that's one time where I will use the imported Greek or Latin word.

[7:39] Now another problem, and this is can go either way. As you know, as De Koninck said, every respectable word in philosophy is a word equivocal by reason. And one thing that has happened sometimes is that in Greek or Latin, a word has a very well-known meaning that's sensible, close to the senses, and it's carried over and carried over a number of times. And it's in the developed arts or sciences.

[8:17] It's used in one of its later meanings, and since we learned a lot of our things from the Greeks and the Latins, we borrow that Greek or Latin word in its later meanings.

[8:34] And then the English word does not get what extended. Well, now you've got a real problem, huh? Because if you use the imported word in one of its later senses, and that's what you find in English, then

[8:56] You're out of order. Your mind, you don't. Unless you go back, you know, learn the Greek or Latin and see what the first meaning was, and then follow it up. But just using the imported Greek word in the later meanings, you're starting with the after rather than the before in our knowledge.

[9:18] On the other hand, you can try to take the English word and what extend it, huh? But then maybe other people haven't extended it, so that makes that hard, right? Take example the word beginning, huh? Well, if you look at the six meanings of beginning in the in Greek or in Latin in the fifth book of wisdom, you can follow the order of them. But in English, we take over the let's say the Latin word for beginning in one of its later meanings.

[9:57] Give an example what I mean there. Someone might say that the definitions and the postulates and the axioms at the beginning of Book One of Euclid are the principles of geometry. Spelled P-L-E, right? This is basically the Latin word for beginning, huh? So we're more apt to say in English today the principles of geometry or some other science rather than the beginnings of geometry. But really, that's the Greek and Latin word extended to principle.

[10:35] And I mentioned how a student says to me purpose. what do you mean by first principles? So we we we could try to extend the word what beginnings, right? And I myself would be inclined to do so in this case and say that the definitions and the postulates and the axioms those are the beginnings of geometry. And it doesn't seem to be stretching us too much to extend the word that way.

[11:03] But you see that the word principle you you've lost the earlier meanings going back to the first meaning. So would we say, for example, in English, that a point is a principle of a line? Would you say that? No, you'd say a point is the what beginning of a line, huh? And that was the beginning meaning of archaic Greek or principium in Latin, the beginning of the line, the beginning of the table here.

[11:33] So if possible, right? I'd rather try to extend the English word than to use a Latin or or Greek imported word in its later meanings with the earlier meanings what lost. If you extend the English word, you're going to get but further, right? Okay.

[12:00] Your mind will be in order, huh? Now, of course, sometimes we use also the imported Greek or Latin word because of the tyranny of custom that we spoke about before, and that's some excuse, I suppose, for using it sometimes. But one should willingly be a slave to these things.

[12:28] Now, applying it to something that we just were talking about the last day or so, how do you translate dunamis, huh? Well, I don't think you could translate it by dynamo or dynamite or something of this sort. I don't think there's a Greek imported word from dunamis, that you could use.

[12:57] You could use the Latin imported word, which is potencia. So in Thomas' text, he'll use the word potencia, and we get the word potency from that, and I think to some extent you can use the word potency. It's kind of useful for us who are into Thomas all the time because we make the connection between potency and potencia, right? So it has a kind of an advantage.

[13:30] But I tend to prefer the word ability because it's more the native English word, and it also fits in better when you take the concrete word, which is able,

[13:45] and by itself or in these compounds, where we can speak of even the passive ability as something is burnable or breakable or freezable or see. But could you do that with the word potent, which would be the concrete word of potency? Huh? So, it won't make any sense to break a potent or something. I mean, you see, so so you can't make those connections, huh? And you remember how when I was talking about going from the first meaning in Greek and therefore an English word of ability, or its ability to act upon something, to move something else, right?

[14:32] And how when this gentleman was playing the piano before class, we saw his great ability. But at first sight, no one would would think of the piano as having any ability, would you? That's not the first meaning of ability. But yet, the piano keys seemed to give way to his fingers. They didn't get stuck, and so on. And therefore, you could say, even in English, that the piano is playable when it's in tune, is playable.

[15:02] And then you've got the concrete able. It obviously something is able by some ability. So you can see how the word ability could then be carried over even to the piano. Okay, but playable by this pianist over here. Okay, and you can see the connections there. You can make better connections with the native word. As they say there are some times when it seems you can't, use it, huh?

[15:33] Okay, sometimes we use both a bit, but that's just a law. Lesson in my use of words. The same way I prefer using the word road, talk about a road in our knowledge rather than a method in our knowledge. Huh? Method comes in the Greek word for road, but you've lost the original meaning of road. Of course, when you drive on the road from here to there, there's a whole bunch of locations, one after another, right?

[16:11] And so you can see how the Greeks carried the word road over from the road you walk or ride on to the order in our mind, and so that you can be led from the sensible to the to the mind. I struck kind of you know by noticing Thomas's phrase, some books where he says, virtue is the road to happiness,

[16:39] and you could say I suppose advice is the road to misery. If I came in and told the students that in ethics class, we might sink in a bit, huh? This is all about, huh? Because it's so concrete, huh? Because it goes back to something sensible, the original meaning of road. So you see, not only the great Aristotle, but Plato before him, and you see Heraclitus and Parmenides, people.

[17:10] of this sort using the word road, huh? The Greek word hodos The road that originally? You walk upon or drive your carriage on or something?

[17:23] Do you think even in English the word soul has a problem because it's used? It's kind of restricted. It doesn't just mean that you mean. a plan? Yeah, but we don't have another word for than soul. One thing about the word soul is it's hard to find etymological dictionary, you know, an etymology for it. Why the Greek word psuche maybe has a reference to breath, huh? But we don't have another word but soul.

[17:53] And and the English word breath, of course, has not been extended to mean soul, So, we more or less, are forced to use the word soul. It's the only word we have. Spirit. Yeah, but spirit has a different meaning, really, And

[18:18] we only call the human soul a spirit in its higher powers, but but insofar as it's the act of the body, it's really more soul. They call it the soul. So let's look now at a. little. Philosophical excursion. Let's look at the middle part here, the ninth book, which is the fifth and the what sixth readings, huh? Which I notice the sixth and the seventh chapters, but we're going to follow the readings, Alexios.

[18:56] As Thomas says, there's a little prologue there, a little proemium, where he ties up, in a sense, what he's done with what he's going to do, and show you the order of it.

[19:12] So let's look at that first. Since one has spoken about the ability said according to motion, let us now determine about act. I would translate energeia. What energeia or what act is, and how it is, huh? What it is, dunaton. And he says the able or the possible at the same time will become clear dividing. That is not only said the possible or the able, what is able to move another, or what is able to be moved by another, either simply or in some way, like well or so on, but that it's used in other ways, huh?

[20:10] Used otherwise, and in ways that can be even found in immaterial things. On account of which he says, we have also gone through the ones we've discussed already, huh? Okay, so that's kind of the proemium there, right? Where he tells you what he's done already and what he's about to do, right? And you can see in that that he's also ascending from the less universal consideration of ability and act.

[20:48] Didn't talk about much there at all. To a more universal, right? A more complete one, huh? Now after that little proemium, Thomas divides it into two parts, the logical division, understandable division. And the first part, of course, is the rest of this fifth reading, where he's going to talk about what act is, huh? And then the second part, which will be in the sixth reading, which we may not get to today, he's going to talk about when something is in ability to being an act.

[21:31] Okay. Now, the consideration of act here in this fifth reading is divided into two parts, and in the first part, he's going to talk about what act is, and then the second part is going to talk about the distinction of acts one from another. So that's pretty easy to follow the order here.

[22:06] Now, in this first part, where he considers what act is, he's going to explain what act is by a number of examples. He's not going to explain what act is by a definition, as he had done for ability in the first part, and that might surprise you, the great definer, the great fowler of Socrates and Plato, for whom definition was extremely what important.

[22:45] And he's going to, in the second part of the first part here of this fifth reading, he's going to give the reason why he's making known what act is by examples by induction, as he'll say, and by seeing a what analogia, a proportion, a likeness of ratios, and he's not going to define act. Okay, we'll see him the reason he gives for that.

[23:19] So let's look now at the first of those parts where he's going to make known by examples and proportions and a kind of induction what act is. So it's kind of fun the way he begins. huh Energeia is right for the thing to pragma to huparchein, I guess, to exist, right, to be, not thus as when we say it is an ability. That's obviously not a definition, right?

[23:53] Okay, and then he gives in order here three examples, where you see in each example something that pertains to ability and something to act, and this is ability, this is act. You'll point out, and you'll start to see a little bit what act is.

[24:18] Now, do you see any significance in the three examples that he gives? Let's look at the three examples, and then we'll come back upon them a bit. We say, for example, that Hermes or Mercury, we'd say in the Roman mythology. We'd say that Hermes or Mercury is in the wood in ability before it's been what shaped by the great sculptor, right?

[24:48] But when it's been what shaped, then we say Mercury is there in act, huh? Okay. That's the first example, yes, huh? And in the whole is the what half, I guess, huh? Ah, that has been what taken away, right? Okay. Or imagine, for example, a circle here.

[25:21] If you have a circle, how do you get a semicircle? If you have a circle there, do you actually have a semicircle? No. No. Euclid has the theorem to find the center of a circle. Rather early in Book Three, if I recall. So you got to find the center, and then you take a point on the circumference and draw a straight line to the center and to the other side, and now you've made actual the what semicircle that was there only in ability before you divided, huh?

[25:54] That's the second example. I'm just making it a little more concrete, huh? And then the third one, huh? In the one epistemon, the one possessing, huh, the habit of episteme, huh?

[26:14] But not what thinking about these things, huh? I hope you've noticed some of the habit of geometry, huh? You see, but we're not today considering maybe that, huh? Except the one I just went to. But then you are in what ability, right? And then when you start to think about the theorem, like we're thinking a little bit about Euclid there, then you are what in act, huh?

[26:40] Okay. You see what he's doing, huh? In each of these examples, there's two things to be considered, right? And one is to the other as ability is to act, huh?

[26:57] So the the wood before it's been shaped into the statue of Mercury, right? Mercury's there only in what ability, right? And once it's been what shaped and he's actually there, then we can start to worship him, right? Okay. And in the second example, right?

[27:22] Take any quantity you want it, but I took a circle, right? There's a semicircle there only in ability, right? And when you draw the diameter, then You have the semicircle there, actually, or if you have a parallelogram, you have a triangle. Well, in ability you do, but when you draw the line from one diagonal to the other, or between one corner to the other, then you have what?

[27:53] Actually, two triangles, huh? Okay, you see the difference between ability and act. Or, I like to grab a poor unsuspecting TAC graduate and spring upon him some theorem that he's forgotten the proof of, and show that he's got to go back and study Euclid again. But sometimes, you know, when I spring this upon it, I'm surprised, and he comes out with the proof of the theorem. So he's going from ability, right, this habitual ability has, to actually considering again now why this is so.

[28:31] Do you see that? See how Aristotle's manifesting it, right? It's by a kind of induction, because as he'll say later on, induction is what from many particulars to something general, right? To one general, it's from the many to the one, and it's an induction where the particulars are ratios, huh? So what is the wood like to the finished statue? What is the man who possesses geometry who's not thinking about these things to actually thinking about them, right?

[29:03] What is the circle which has not been divided and doesn't have actually semicircles yet, to the one that's actually divided, huh? Okay. Now, Charles De Koninck said. One time when he was stopping on Aristotle's examples, I forget where it was, and he said, "If I was reading a modern Thomist, he says, I wouldn't bother to see any reason for the examples he gives. But when I read Aristotle or Thomas, I often what look to see a reason for the examples he has.

[29:41] You can see Thomas doing this. He's kind of a good guy to imitate, like when he's commenting on take the example we had the other day. When he's commenting on Aristotle's text there on the four kinds of causes, when Aristotle comes say to the third kind of cause, the the mover, he gives us an example, the the father and the advisor, and any significance significance in his choosing those two examples.

[30:16] Well, the two kinds of movers that are known to us in our ordinary experience, some things are made by what reason, and some things are made by what nature, and so father is an example from nature, and advisor of reason moving things.

[30:39] When he restates the four kinds of causes, exemplifies again, he exemplifies the mover by the seed, and the advisor again, and he adds the doctor. So the doctor and the advisor are, in a way, foresight and art, but both examples of reason being a mover or maker, and the seed is an example of nature huh? Being a maker. huh? So Thomas sees that significance, and he'll point it out to us, Thomas, huh?

[31:15] And so imitating Thomas and that and De Koninck and so on. Do you see any significance in the examples that Aristotle gives here, and any significance, maybe even in the order of them? Is he going from the more sensible to the less? Because first it has all the sensible qualities, and the second it's like geometry where you just have quantity. Yeah. And the last is in the mind.

[31:42] Yeah, some truth to that. Notice he doesn't give as an example here the act that is most known to us, which is what motion. Motion. He doesn't give that, right? As if he said enough about that already, huh? But he wants to see act here more universally than just motion, huh? And what act they were going to meet here? What you're already meeting in these examples, what act is it here, which is quite different from motion, very much different from motion.

[32:25] Form, yeah. And the first example here is that of what. Form, huh? Okay. So you've been thinking about act in terms of motion, and now you're seeing form as also act by this what proportion.

[32:45] Now the third example he gives will be closer to motion, huh? Because considering something seems to be a kind of activity and therefore more like motion, huh? He's going to distinguish between you know an act like understanding and an act like motion, but again, it's not an example of motion, but of what? What Thomas, for want of a word, calls an operation as opposed to motion, a kind of perfect activity as opposed to the imperfect act that that we learn motion is in the third book, huh?

[33:21] He gives that example third, the one from form first, because he wants to kind of jolt you from your limitation of thinking of act as what motion. He wants you to think that even form can be called act, huh? But then in the third example, he'll lead you back to something closer to motion, but something still different. It's still not an example of motion. It's going to be a little different from that.

[33:50] But what about the middle example now? What's the significance of the middle example? We said earlier just now when we exclude the possi kind of possibility in geometry, this is a geometrical example. There's part of the half and the whole circle. Yeah, yeah. So just knowing that before he kind of excluded that kind of possibility. Yeah. But notice here you're talking about ability and act, aren't you, in mathematics?

[34:30] Or that could be said in mathematics. Just taking quantities, say, and certainly my concrete example there of finding the semicircle, right? Making actual the semicircle by drawing the diameter, or making actual two triangles in a parallelogram by drawing the diagonal of the parallelogram, huh? So that even in mathematics there's ability and act, even though it's not matter. So you're kind of puzzled by that, but but but but he's showing how universally we can understand ability and act.

[35:08] Not only is motion an act, but form is an act, right? And not only matter and form in the ordinary sense, but this kind of imaginable matter, if you want to put it that way, intelligible matter they call it sometimes. But even in a more, you might say, somewhat immaterial science like geometry, there is ability and act too, and that's kind of striking. Reminded a little bit of Aristotle in the chapter twelve of the Categories, where he gives as the first meaning of before, as you know, before in time, right, which reduces before in motion, before in place.

[35:51] Then the second meaning of before is before in being. But rather than taking an example from the sensible world, which he could have done, he could have taken an example, say, of maybe bricks are before a brick wall. But the example he takes is a mathematical one. One is before what? Two, right? What significance of taking a mathematical example rather than a a sensible example? huh?

[36:21] It's it's more clearly the the second and not the first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's more clearly that, because if I take an example of bricks, say, before a brick wall, I say, well, you've got to make the brick first in time, you know, and then the brick comes before the brick wall in time, and you might, you know, not see as as a distinct meaning, huh? Sure, the brick might come before the brick wall in time, but it's also before it in being.

[36:50] It can be without that, and so sometimes they knock down a brick wall, and actually sell these bricks for people who want to buy them for, you know, make something more archaic or antique looking or something. And so maybe he chooses a mathematical example where you don't really have matter or motion to show what different is from the first meaning. And but here maybe a different purpose here, and this is to see the universality of ability and act.

[37:19] It's not just tied up with motion. It's not even tied up with material things like that statue is, but you find it even in what mathematics, right? Now, if you know the third book about the soul, the third example is also what

[37:45] example of my understanding, let's say the geometrical theorem, but that's entirely immaterial, isn't it? So you've gone from the example in the sensible world with sensible matter, matter in the ordinary sense, to a mathematical example, an example of an activity, understanding, which is not only different from motion, but as we learn in the third book about the soul, is not in a body. It doesn't even take an example of sensing of the way it could have done that.

[38:22] Okay. In the previous reading, there we we had the example of the senses there in the previous readings, and the senses, you know, seem to be to the early Greeks at least, a kind of alterations. Now, clearly, a different thing from motion, but understanding is more clearly so. So, do you see then an order among Aristotle's examples, as well as reason why they're chosen?

[38:54] To get your mind out of its limitation of thinking of act just in terms of motion, you're thinking of act now in terms of form, right? And not just a sensible form, but the mathematical form, and then you're thinking of operations. There might even be a material, so they are not motions in the strict sense.

[39:26] Okay. Now, the second part of the year. The first part of the this reading after the premium. Now Aristotle is going to explain well why why does he define act? Of course, you're struck by the fact that in the first part was about ability. He defined ability. Now we're going to talk about act. Why does he define act? Well, as you know,

[39:56] if everything had to be defined or could be defined, would you ever be able to define anything? No. You know, you look at Euclid's definition of square, and you say, "Well, the definition of square is quadrilateral, right? " And before the definition of square, you have the definition of quadrilateral. And in the definition of quadrilateral, I suppose you had a rectilineal plane figure, and before the definition of quadrilateral is the definition of rectilineal plane figure, and in that you have the definition of plane figure, and in that the definition of figure.

[40:32] Well, if this went on forever, you would what? Have to define an infinity of things before you could define anything, but you couldn't even begin to define anything. So the question is, where does the buck stop? huh? Where do you

[40:52] come to an end? Resolution. Aristotle says it's act, and that act therefore cannot be defined. Not everything can be defined, but it can be made known in the way he's just made it known. It can be made known by induction, induction from what? Analogies, right? From proportions.

[41:16] So let's look at this a little bit. The text here. It is clear epitone kath' hekasta. It's clear in the particulars, right? By he says what? Induction. That's the Greek word for induction. Epagoge. It's almost the same etymologically as induction. What we wish to say. And one ought not to what? Seek a horon, a definition of everything, right?

[41:48] But in some cases, to what? Synoran to see together. I suppose he uses the word synoran Horan means to see, and sun together. The proportion, right? But to see a proportion, you've got to see what? The likeness of two ratios, huh? So you got to see together, synoran together, the two ratios and their what? Likeness, huh? Now we mentioned before how the the word analogy to make it a little sharper.

[42:19] The word analogy or analogous word is sometimes used to mean a name equivocal by what? Reason, huh? But if you use that word, you got to be very careful. Because you're naming something more general by something more particular, right? Because really the translation of analogon is proportional and in Euclid's sense, a likeness of ratios. And he's using the word in that sense right here. Analogia is the Greek word for proportion, a proportion the sense of a likeness of ratios.

[42:57] This is to that as that is to that. Okay, and now he's going to go back again and give again with some other examples which we examine before long.

[43:20] What are the proportions? What are the like ratios from which you can come to understand what act is? But I want to stop on this for a little bit here, because

[43:36] if you go to the modern philosophers, modern philosophy really gets going in the 17th century, although there's anticipations of it in the 14th and the 15th and the 16th centuries. But it's customary to divide the philosophers before Kant. who really messed things up for good at the end of the 18th century, last part. It's customary to divide the philosophers before Kant into two groups: the English empiricists and the continental rationalists.

[44:18] And you know those differences, I'm sure. And kind of the first of the famous rationalists is Descartes himself, and make a reference to him here. And one of the fairly early empiricists, not the first one, but one of the most influential ones, is John Locke. And I mention these two guys because they both think and are explicit about it that motion cannot be defined.

[44:51] And Descartes quotes some garbled version of the definition. Who understands those words? He says. And this shows we shouldn't try to define things that are known without definition. And Locke, you know, talks about simple ideas and composed ideas, and I guess motion is one of the simple ideas that can't be analyzed. So you might say in the two main kinds or divisions of the first philosophers in modern times, both are saying, right, when they talk about this, that motion cannot be defined.

[45:30] And that's, in other words, and they talk as if somehow maybe Aristotle didn't realize this, right? He thought he could go on defining forever, right? He just tries to define everything, huh? Of course, this is a very naive and stupid view of what Aristotle, because Aristotle, long before these guys were born, had already pointed out that not everything can be defined. Some things, in fact, must be known without definition.

[45:56] Just like analogously, huh? Some statements must be known, not to other statements by syllogism, but to themselves. The question is, where does the buck stop, right? When do you come? And neither one of them seems to be aware of the fact that Aristotle is saying it does stop somewhere, but he thinks it stops with act, where they think it stops with what motion. And as you know, if you studied the third book of of Natural Hearing,

[46:32] you know that it is possible to define what motion by act and by what ability, or by act and potency, if you want to use the Latin-derived word, huh? So it's not motion that this defining stops, but it's act itself. And Aristotle saw that where it stopped. But it's kind of a

[47:04] important criticism, it seems to me, of Descartes and of Locke, that they don't seem to be aware of this passage and even address the thing.

[47:16] I know sometimes when I'm leading into the definability, you might say of motion, there are things that might make a person besides this think that motion cannot be defined. But

[47:31] even if something were altogether simple, you can sometimes give something like a definition of it. If you can show there's some basis for the multiplicity, or at least duplicity, you need in a what definition, huh? Like someone might say, can you define a point, huh? Well,

[48:00] if a point is something of another, you can say what it is of that other. In which case, you have something more distinct than just one name. As Thomas explains, following Aristotle in the seventh book of Wisdom, Aristotle says a definition is never just one name. It's always a combination of names.

[48:30] Thomas says. Sometimes we can help somebody by giving them a synonym that's more known. And this example is very interesting. What is philosophy? He says wisdom. Sapientia. He doesn't say the word wisdom. It's sapientia. That's the synonym of philosophy.

[48:59] When I introduce students sometimes to philosophy, I tell them, and some of them know already, that the word philosopher means a lover of wisdom. And then I say, philosophy names the knowledge that a philosopher loves. What knowledge would that be? Well, they can put a couple of things together. There, it must be wisdom, right? But Thomas says that's not a definition of philosophy to say it's wisdom.

[49:29] That's a synonym, more or less, of philosophy. And it does help you maybe to know what it is, but not to know what it is by definition. A definition is always a logos, a speech, an oratio that has parts that signify something by themselves, at least two. So someone might say, well, a point has no parts whereby you could make known distinctly what it is. But if a point is something of another, if a point, for example, is the limit of a line,

[50:09] well, then to say what a point is, you've got to say what it is of what. And now you've got a duplicity there, right? That enables you to say something more distinctly than the word point. So to say that a point is the end of a line or the limit of a line makes known more what distinctly what a point is than the word point does. Okay.

[50:35] There's the other question about the negative definition, but leave that out, right? And so sometimes I say to the students, well, now is motion like a man or a dog that exists by itself, or is it like health, which is something of the body? I say, when you go bowling, is it the bowling that goes bowling down the line, or going down the line? When when there's a falling, is it the falling that falls?

[51:01] No. So motion is always a motion of something other than itself. It's not motion that's in motion, is it? When the stone falls, is it the falling that falls? When the ball goes rolling, is it the rolling that goes rolling down the the thing? So if motion is something of another, then there is a basis for the multiplicity of the parts of a definition. You can at least say what it is, of what.

[51:35] You see that? Just like we were saying that wisdom was the highest perfection of reason, well, that may not be a definition of wisdom, but something you know, it's speech that's more distinct than just the name. Okay.

[51:58] So I'm I'm kind of amazed with the modus operandi of the modern philosophers when they disagree with Aristotle, which they are, which is permissible, I suppose. But they disagree with Aristotle on something very basic, where the buck stops, right?

[52:21] Without recalling what Aristotle says and giving some reason why that isn't satisfactory or not, right? Um. Santayana, who taught philosophy at Harvard there for years, said, "Today we no longer bother to refute our predecessors; we just wave them goodbye." But I mean, you can't go forward that way in the life of the mind, really. Um, but that's shows fashion, right? When Aristotle, you know, disagrees with one of the great thinkers before him about something very important,

[53:02] he will recall what that thinker said and and why he thought it, huh? And then give some reason for saying he doesn't agree with it, and or some reason why he thinks the argument is not good, right? And seems to me that's the least you could do to go forward. Otherwise, you're not really going forward. You're just bye. nice, nice knowing, yeah. Superficially.

[53:29] But I'm struck by that. The same way, like we mentioned the other day, what? It's because they can't. They want to be. They want to go forward, but they can't disagree. Yeah, but I mean, the same thing about the confused and the distinct, huh? That's a very basic thing in our knowledge. Extremely basic. And and Descartes disagreeing with Aristotle about something extremely basic, and apart from saying you know who's true and who's who's you know mistaken about this, huh?

[53:59] He doesn't recall what Aristotle says. He doesn't recall the reasons Aristotle gives. He doesn't get any refutation of, you know. And when you look at Arist, you go back to Aristotle's way of manifesting, and the reason he gives is all very clear, very convincing to even the average guy, and. You know. My impression of the moderns I read them is that they seem to be men who don't even know what Aristotle has said.

[54:27] It's like they've received some opinions from others, but they've never actually looked at the text carefully themselves. Yeah, yeah. Have to read these greater minds, as Thomas says, carefully, frequently, and with with reverence, with respect. Now,

[54:47] so Aristotle's explaining now He has not defined act, right? Act is what is known without definition, and is before all other what definitions, and even the definition of what motion.

[55:12] Okay. He doesn't give a reason though why a particular act can't be defined. A particular act? No, act itself. He says it can't, can't define everything, but. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how would you know act is that

[55:34] one of those things? But he doesn't. He doesn't. He doesn't try to manifest it here, no. Okay. Okay. But he is making known what it is by this induction, right, and by this analogy. Okay. Maybe by looking at induction, you see why you couldn't

[56:02] define it. Because when you see it, if you look at the induction until you see what he means, and then you see that you don't need

[56:18] something else to understand it. Whereas if you do that with motion, maybe you could be. If you don't see it, then of course it won't help you. But but if you tried to do that with motion and just said I understand it without anything else, he'd be uncomfortable, right? Something wouldn't be seen. Do you realize too soon? Well, that's part of it, but you know, another aspect of it is that, as I've been saying here, wisdom goes from the less universal to the more universal, huh?

[56:51] And this ninth book, in terms of being, in some ways, is even more universal than the distinction of being according to the figures of what predication, right? And this distinction of act and ability is even if you go back to the fifth book when Aristotle is talking about the senses, the word cause, and he'll talk about causes and ability, causes and act, right? And he'll talk about how causes and ability and effects and ability don't have to be together, but causes and act, and so on.

[57:29] So you see that this is as we're the most universal, huh? Okay. And yet of these two very universal things, as we'll see when we get in the third part, ability can be made known by act, because ability is for the sake of act, so on.

[57:50] But you can't make act known by what ability or define it. And being most universal. There's nothing more universal to use. Yeah, yeah. Because you need always something more universal. Yeah, yeah. Was something of a reason, huh? Satisfy you for the time being. Okay. Because you up here at the most universal, it's like you know you could say

[58:23] could thing or something say be defined. Or something, something you know. Without definition. We could distinguish between something and nothing. And the great Greek philosophers said you can't get something out of nothing. I think they knew what they meant, more or less, or somewhat. So we can distinguish between something and nothing, right? But can you define something?

[58:56] Okay. What if you said something like? See if you if you are if one's going to d if one's going to define something you'd have to use something to define it right. You can't define a thing by itself, right? So it's because the universality of something that you can't define. And

[59:24] for that matter, you know, you can say that a highest genus cannot be defined in a strict sense. Because a definition in strict senses of by genus and what species making differences. So what can be defined is only the species, huh? And incidentally, Thomas, you know, shows a care that he thinks and writes. He says, "You can only define species as such. You can't define a genus.

[59:59] " You say, Why John, What do you mean? Euclid defines quadrilateral, doesn't he? That's a genus. Yeah, but he's defining quadrilateral as a particular kind of what Rectilineal figure. So he's defining it as a species, even though it's a genus. So you can only define a species as such. Now some species are also genera, but you don't define them as genera, but as a species. And so if something is a genus but not a species, like the the ten highest genera that we learn about in in the great book of the categories, they cannot be defined in the strict sense.

[1:00:35] Because only a species can be defined, and they're not. But nevertheless, you might be able to say something, right? Some kind of speech, not just a name, you know, talking about the ten highest genera. But if he has something which is even more universal than them, right, or something which is most universal, how are you going to define that?

[1:01:00] What is the kind of speech when you say something like the good is being as desired, or something? Well, that's interesting because then you get the question now of the so-called transcendentals, and it might be that one transcendental is before the other in our knowledge, huh? So one

[1:01:27] could be defined as undivided being, right, huh? Okay, but you have to understand then the order among the transcendentals. But act and ability pertain to the first transcendental being, huh? So you can't even in that way, huh? Define at least act, huh? Being there really is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:01:56] So the reason is like the reason why you can't define something. You're going to define act when you have to have something actual to define it with,

[1:02:11] and then you'd be defining it by itself, right? May I rest my case now, Father? Does something import in the notion of concrete? What? Does something import the notion of concrete? Individuated.

[1:02:31] Even nothing is something in some way, right? Something in reason, huh? Something in reason. Okay, so we agreed then.