Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
16. Defining Motion by Act: Imperfect Abstraction and Two Kinds of Distinction
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/016-defining-motion-by-act-imperfect-abstraction-and-two-kinds/

[0:00] That's true. Yeah. And in the first book, you come to an understanding of matter and form, and that involves seeing, you know, matter and form in terms of ability and act. So you have act in that sense. Yeah. So, so you already get help there in seeing act and ability as something

[0:23] other than motion, right? And the ability for motion. And then, in a way, when you start to study motion, you see motion as something kind of in between ability and act at first.

[0:43] And then, as you know, the the middle is defined by the extremes. It's a mixture of them, huh? So then you have to find out in what way motion is a mixture of act and ability. That's you know other problems in defining it, right? But you've already, in a sense, in the first book, there separated act from motion, now because you see form is being act there.

[1:10] Although Aristotle does, you know, make reference there to the to the ninth book of wisdom, huh? So to that exact extent, the you know the the the the full universal understanding of act and ability is in the middle part of the ninth book, huh? So the wise man, you know, perfects you know natural, a reasoned out understanding in many ways to see perfects natural understanding, huh?

[1:44] Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. But the ninth book perfects your understanding of the definition of motion because it makes distinct in your mind the different senses. But perfection natural understanding too, because a lot of the objections to most of the objections to the axioms of being and non-being are based on motion, huh? Right. People are always, you know, getting into contradictions because they're not distinguishing well enough act and ability.

[2:17] Well, it's his private problems, yeah. So the definition of motion act has the sense of form, or it has. No, I'm just saying that I'm saying that you have the idea of motion as being act, but as Aristotle says in the De Anima, there, when he's giving the reason why, in terms of the end, why we have common sensibles. remember that? He says,

[2:59] "If I knew extension only by the eyes, I'd have a hard time separating extension from color. Color would seem to be essential to what the surface is. So we know the qualities that are in a quantity. But if I know surface without color, like right now, I'm knowing surface without color, right? I can separate surface from color. But if I knew surface only with this tactile quality that I have right here, I have a hard time maybe separating surface from that tactile quality, because I know here without tactile quality.

[3:42] So if things are never separated in your experience, Aristotle says it's very difficult, if not impossible, for reason to separate them. And so since the senses are ordered to understanding, eventually, right? We wouldn't be able to do Euclid unless we separated surface from color and surface from hardness and so on. And we couldn't do that unless we had the two different senses, huh? And this is the reason why it's so difficult to separate being from body or substance from body.

[4:20] And the great Greek philosophers before Aristotle said, whatever is must be somewhere. If isn't somewhere, doesn't exist, right? But to be somewhere, to be contained in a place, is really a property of bodies, natural bodies. So we can't separate the idea of being or substance from bodies unless we had some reason to think that there are some, you know, exposure to these substances are not bodies, huh?

[4:49] And of course, we don't have that as part of our experience. We can only what reason to it, like we do in the seventh and eighth books of Natural Hearing or the third book about the soul. And

[5:03] so we'd have to know in some way that there are what immaterial things, right? Before we'd separate being from material being, huh? So when the Greek philosophers said, whatever is must be somewhere, if isn't somewhere, doesn't exist. To be in place would be a property of being as being. That would be the science of being as being. Aristotle says that, you know, when he divides the opinions there in the second reading, the same way they spoke about what is.

[5:35] See, so you know, you know, wisdom is the science of being as being, and what belongs to being as being to be in place, to be in time, right? That would be being as being. We could never rise above that unless we had some. Awareness of there being what things that are material. Now, I've often thought myself, I'm a Catholic, and so I believe that there, you know, there's an immaterial God, and I believe there's angels.

[6:07] Even as a child, I did this, right? So it's probably easier for me as a believing Catholic to separate being and substance from body, right? Because I believe that there are these immaterial things, you see. But if I didn't have have the faith, and I had to go through the eight books of Natural Hearing, right? And even, you know, the great Charles De Koninck, you know, was a teacher of the eight books of Natural Hearing.

[6:36] But you'd spend a whole semester doing book one, whole semester doing book two, doing book four, two semesters, one on place and one on time, right? So either at that pace, right, where you're you're at least being exposed in some sense, right, to the whole book, it's going to take at least one semester for some books, and two semesters for some. So it's going to be how many years before you get to there, you know?

[7:05] And assuming that I'm capable of absorbing what is being taught here, right? You know. Coming to take my exam from De Koninck and on place, you know, he says, you know, what do you know about place, Dwayne? And I said, do you want me to start at the beginning? He says, yeah. You know, I think I can do that right now, but you know, he was here today and said, you know, Dwayne, I had to go back and you know, it's like like the TAC people in Euclid you know, it's it's you forgot that you know what what the order is, you know, and so on, but but

[7:45] I remember De Koninck coming coming down the hall there. De Koninck was probably short man, so if he stopped in front of you, you'd be looking down over him. So he stopped in the hall and looked up at me and he says, "Isn't this isn't this wonderful? " You know, you can see he was filled with wonder. He had more wonder than anybody in the whole class, and and he had been teaching the, you know, physics, so called, since the 1935, right?

[8:10] So I had him in 60 or something, you know, 5860, and he had more wonder than anybody else. Just marvelous thing to have a guy like that, you know, just in terms of seeing the importance of these things.

[8:29] He'd go through the text, you know, and explain things, and then he'd stop and make an excursion, you know, through the moderns and show all their difficulties, you know, and they had the same difficulties the Greeks had, you know, before Aristotle, you know, and they're falling back into the same same mistakes. It's kind of beautiful to see the way you do that, though. Socrates says right if I didn't listen to others then I'd make their same mistakes Well, I know when when I taught the the you take that that first lectio in the first book of natural hearing, and I had been over that over and over again in undergraduate, huh?

[9:06] And every time it was a commentary, I had proofread Thomas's commentary for Kasurik's translation, and so on, right? And anything I knew, I knew that, right? So I said to myself, now here's Deaconic lecturing on this, right? And suddenly it's just a professor's read the book before you. That's why he's a little bit ahead of you, you know. But anything I read and over again and thought about, this is it, you know.

[9:28] Now we see it through the illumination, you know. And sure enough, he illuminated me, right? Things I didn't see, you know. So I was two years at Laval there, and then my brother Mark called me on the phone and said, "You want to come out and teach for a little while at Saint Mary's? They need somebody." I said, "Okay." They give me give me a three year appointment out there, and then I'll go back and finish my doctorate after that, right?

[9:51] So, philosophy of nature was was a course I taught every semester, right, and more than one section because everybody was taking the course at those days. So for three years, at both semesters, I teach this thing, and you know, you teach something, you start to learn it better, right? So now I go back to Laval, and now I really know that. You know, I mean, not much, not even illuminate me, a man.

[10:16] Monsignor Dion is illuminating me upon this, right? Something all these years I I had never saw a very obvious difficulty, and you know, it's it's a very obvious difficulty, but I had never seen it, you know. And and and Dion has got the whole thing in the solution there, you know. And I guess when the Deconic and Dion were in Rome for the Vatican Council, they were curate for the Cardinal Quebec.

[10:40] Philosophy of nature was involved, and so on. I guess Monsignor, you'd point something out to Deaconic. And Deaconic, you know, was was a very a very humble man, right? And Deaconic says, "I've taught philosophy of nature, you know, for 30 years. How could I have missed that? " You know, but but he said, you know, every time he taught it, he saw something more in it, and that's.

[11:05] And Deaconic is at the end. I says, I says, "Do you think you've understood everything? " He says, "That's a sign you've understood nothing. " Because if you had understood something, you would realize you'd done you'd not understood everything. That's true, you know. I mean, you realize that these you know these guys are really great minds. Aristotle, My old teacher, Kasurik always quoted him. You know, compared to Aristotle, he says he had the brain of an angler.

[11:32] He's by far the the only you know reasonable guy in the department. You know, I mean, that's the head of the department. You know, all the rest of the guys were, you know, I won't say what they are, but they said we're not his equal, right? And but he's they would never say that, right?

[11:50] And he was, and Kasurik was a tough guy. He. He wouldn't, you know, you don't just he give up philosophy because people say, you know, you read Thomas, you are Catholic, and like that. And so, you know, it's got to be very reason for the, you know, tell me, you got to read Aristotle with a grain of salt, and insist upon that. And then he gave philosophy, and then he heard about Deconic and so okay, give this guy a chance, you know.

[12:15] He goes up there. He was old at the time, you know, most of us. He went in to see Dicconic before the class began. He says, "If you teach philosophy the way it was taught to me down in the states, I'll get right up and leave your class." Dicconic says, "Fine, fine, you know." And and of course he became a very you know devoted student of Dicconic.

[12:34] I remember when Dicconic had to come down on on his, you know, Dicconic had twelve children, so he had to come down and make some money on these tours, and and Kasurik would you know arrange some of the talks and so on. I remember one of the talks there, and Dicconic was up on the stage there, and there was some problem with the microphone, you know. Kasurik jumped out of his seat, ran up on the steps, fixed the thing, ran down again.

[12:54] You can see this, you know. Just I respect you enough for that, and so we got through part of chapter of the fifth reading, huh? Okay. Now you had a question. You were asking about the general sense of act. Is there a general sense of act? We got to be very careful about that, see, because if there is a thought of act, right, abstracted from all these, right?

[13:29] Motion and form. Yeah, yeah, it would be extremely, imperfectly abstracted, huh? Because there is nothing here said equally or in exactly the same way. So is it an indistinct notion of it? It'd be imperfectly separate. That's the best way of saying it, right? Imperfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, you see, you got to be very careful about that, huh? You could say if there is one thought, it would be secundum quid, huh?

[14:03] Okay, so perfect. Secundum quid, one or? I say secundum. I'm talking secundum quid in the sense of imperfectly abstracted from, yeah, yeah, yeah. The mind couldn't have one thought that is what complete the perfect or distinct of act because of the because act isn't that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, as I remember in Robert's question it was in the definition of motion, the word act. Is it the imperfect?

[14:48] Well, it's got to be the common one. That's where the problem arises, you see. So it's got to be the one that's imperfect, abstracted from from all right. So that's part of the difficulty in understanding that definition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We, you see, you see Thomas explain this in words like say when he explains the definition of person, right? What's the definition of person? Individua substantia, rationalis naturae, right?

[15:14] Okay. And Thomas goes over that thing, you know. You see him do it word by word, right? Okay. Now, one objection is: what does the word "substance" mean there? Right. We go back to the categories of Aristotle, right? And Aristotle distinguishes between first substance and what? Second substance, right? And is that species? No, that's analogous, right? Okay. Okay. So now, what does the word "substantia" mean in the definition of person?

[15:54] If it means second substance, then the definition is false, right? Okay. If it means first substance, then individua is superfluous. Okay. So. What? How do you untie that knot? Well, what Thomas would say is going to have to be substance, right? Imperfectly understood, right? Common to first and second substance. Okay. And individua contracts it, right? To first substance, huh? Okay. But now, if you go back to the categories, you say, okay, Aristotle says the highest genera are substance, quantity, quality, etc.

[16:39] Right? Okay. Now, you say the highest genus is substance. Is that first substance or second substance? Well, in a way, it is, but it's going to be said of both first and second substance, right? Because you still say it of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if it's said of both, you know, you can say man is substance, right? You can say Socrates is substance, right? So it's said of both.

[17:08] There must be, in some way, a notion of substance common to first and second substance, huh? But that would be a very what? Imperfect. Common thought, right? Because it's not said equally. Because it's not said equally of them, right? Would be like a genus, huh?

[17:27] I think finally, you know, you you're reading some of those things, but I found a nice text of Thomas where he distinguishes four meanings of the word substance, right? And and all four meanings are found in the categories, huh?

[17:45] In the very first chapter, he speaks of the logos tes ousias and. That's one meaning of substance: what a thing is, right? And then you have those three meanings you were mentioning that come in the category of substance. You speak of first substance, second substance, and then substance somehow common to the two, right? Okay.

[18:06] Give us some common, vague, and perfect sense of all for all the words equivocal by reason. I don't know if he had it for all of them, but I mean, he certainly forced to see it in some of these cases. Yeah, yeah. The problem that the father's raising it, right? If if the only meaning you have of act, right, is either motion or form, then what does act mean in the definition of of motion, right?

[18:34] If it means form, then the definition is false. If it means motion, you're defining motion by itself, right? So you must, to some extent, separate as Aristotle says here in this reading, right? You must separate act, right, from both motion and form. Otherwise, you couldn't define, right? Even though it's going to have to be imperfectly what

[19:03] unified there. I don't see how act is taken the sense of form. The definition of motion would be false. Well, if you the definition of motion is the act of what is able, being so far as it's able to be, right? So what does the word act mean in the definition of motion? If it means motion, then you're saying motion is motion, which is no definition. It's true, but it's no definition.

[19:32] If you if by act you mean form, then the definition is false because motion is not a form. Okay. Yeah, but that's not definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it can't be either motion or form. Therefore, it must be what's common to motion and form. And but that is only imperfectly abstracted, right? Because the imperfectly abstracted, we sometimes say it's secundum quid because secundum quid is taken from imperfection.

[20:05] But you have to admit that that there's something imperfectly abstracted there. Otherwise, there'd be no way to, as you say, to accept the definition of of motion. And you'd be in the same problem that I said the definition of of of person, yeah, yeah. Or give an example here. Take the word thing. The word thing is said of substance and of accident, right? Okay, and it's said of them equivocally by reason.

[20:36] And it's not said of them equally, right? Okay. So. There's two distinct notions of things, substance and accident, but there isn't some imperfect abstraction of thing from both of them, right? What would Thomas be doing in the Summa Contra Gentiles when he's explaining why God is not in the genus of substance? And what does this mean, right? And he gives a kind of definition of substance. Now, it's not a definition of a strict sense, because there's no genus, right?

[21:08] But he says substance is res cui to which conveniat, right? esse non in alio. Substance is a thing to which it belongs to be, not in another. Okay? Well, of course, in God, there's no distinction between being and what He is, so He can't be a substance in that sense, right? Okay. So now you say Thomas is making known what that substance is that God is not, right?

[21:42] And what is that substance that God is not? A res to which belongs, like slightly different right esse to be, non in alio, which, okay. Well, what does the word res mean in that speech, right? If it means accident, of course it's false, right? If it means substance, you're saying substance is substance. You're not telling me anything. So you must, at least imperfectly, right, abstract a thing from both what substance and accident, but it's so imperfect and confused, right,

[22:20] that we say it's it couldn't have quit, huh? But you still have to say that there is such a thought of. Okay. Can't get something from nothing, right? What do you mean by something there?

[22:39] Anything, right? Can't get anything from nothing. You think? So, in some sense, you've got the common meaning there of something, right? But it's rather vague.

[22:54] And so vague that see, it's a very imperfect thought in some sense, huh? But that's the way our mind goes from the imperfect to the confused to the distinctest, first of all, the thought is. That's really confused. I don't mean confused now in the sense of mistaken. I mean really confused. You know, you can't get much more confused than that. When you have thing common to substance and accident, huh?

[23:21] Or you have act, right? Properly confused. What? Properly confused. Well, I don't like. I mean, I guess you don't go around looking for this kind of confusion.

[23:35] No, but but but our mind is characterized by this, you know, by knowing things in a confused way, yeah, yeah, yeah. In both in both those examples, you're taking an example going from thing to substance and accident. Yeah. and from going from substance to primary and secondary. Yeah. When when you define, say, you're defining person, you you you're limiting the combination of substance to one of the meanings underneath it.

[24:02] Yeah. And when you're taking thing as substance, you're limiting thing to one of the things underneath. Yeah. Is that what you're doing in the definition of motion as well? You're taking act and limiting it to the the act. You have to be careful that because because if you're using the word act, they're already in the sense of motion. Yeah, that's. Then you're not. Then then you're you're circular.

[24:23] You're not defining at all. Then Descartes and and what's his name would be, Locke would be right, huh? Of course, that's true of all these cases, right? All the examples I gave, but but notice, huh? In saying that you cannot define motion, right? You can say that you are eliminating the first argument for the existence of God, right? Because you have to reason from the definition of motion to see that there is an unmoved mover.

[24:56] So, in making their great mistake, Descartes and Locke are really taking away our ability to prove that God is. At least, the most fundamental argument, huh? So it's no little mistake they're making, right? It's it's tremendous, terrible mistake, really. And of course, as Aristotle says, when he's about to define motion, since nature is defined by motion, we don't really know what nature is unless we know what motion is.

[25:25] So, you know, even going all the way to God, they're not really figuring that without knowledge of nature to begin with, right? But ultimately, they're making it impossible for us to come to know God by our natural reason. And so they're kind of you know clearing away knowledge of God so we can make room for all these other things that moderns want to replace God with. Of course, what the moderns replacing it with is is this knowledge that gives you power, right?

[25:56] You know. But then, as I mentioned, I think we talked about last night there somewhere. Kant Kant sees, and I think there is some truth to what he's saying. He's seeing that in the physical sciences, we have to make in order to know. And and we'll come back to it again later on here in the third part. When Aristotle is talking about the necessity of making actual the things in geometry in order to understand.

[26:24] You know, in order to know the interior angles of a triangle, the two right angles, you got to extend the side, or else draw the parallel here, and you know. So you have to make something actual. Well, Kant will seize upon that, right? That this is you know everywhere you know anything, it's only by making. You see. And then and then Marx comes along and and agrees with that, huh?

[26:45] And this is the only in the turn you're accustomed again, right? Experimental science is the only real knowledge of the natural world that we're accustomed to, so it's the only one that there is. So if we know only by making, and Marx says we really only know what we make ourselves. But we're the beginning and the end of everything we make. Therefore, we can only see ourselves as the beginning and the end of anything we can know.

[27:11] Anything else is illusion, right? Therefore, we must see ourselves as as God, right? Huh? So sometimes Marx says we're not atheists we're God. And of course, Feuerbach you've read that perverse little work, huh? Did you read that, T. C.? Yeah. The Essence of Christianity. It was kind of funny because I was first teaching at Saint Mary's College, huh? In those days, they still had the you know they were much more strict about those things.

[27:37] And so when I submitted, I was going to maybe do something from that in the course on Marx is how. I was assigned to. They would send these things down to the bishop, right? And it has to get approved. Well, the guy, the the the register, you know, who handled these things, kind of performer, calls me in. You know, he says, "Let me show you what the bishop says.

[27:59] You have permission to use it, but you're responsible if anybody uses his faith. " I I I really you know was wasn't going to use the the whole thing. I didn't, you guys read the I was going to you know just a little bit of it, but you know what he says. The argument is basically that Christianity is a myth, but the truth behind the myth is not that God became man, but that man himself is God, right?

[28:21] And of course, Engels and Marx read this enthusiastically, but because the justification for this is that God is, you know, I am the Alpha and the Omega. Well, given what Marx has said, following Kant, man is the Alpha and Omega, so he's God, right? Yeah, you know. God is the reason. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the. Do you use the senses or kinds when we refer to the act as motion or form?

[28:57] Yeah, these are these are the. This is getting to the second part now. We're going to talk about this afternoon, but the probably the the first distinction, right, or the broadest distinction, right, of act is is motion or something like it, activity, you could call it, right, and then form, right? Okay, now in the reading we I have here this afternoon, and part of it is the Greek text is a little more complete than Thomas's text.

[29:29] By the way, you may have noticed that if you've compared the Greek text has some, you know, part which makes sense, but it's in addition to what the text Thomas has, right? So, Aristotle will distinguish between motion and what Thomas likes to call an operation, between walking home, let's say, and understanding what a triangle is. So, but but two kinds of acts under this first kind, activity or motion, right?

[29:57] Okay. And that can be done more completely than that. I'm not bringing some text of Thomas in, but okay. And then Aristotle doesn't do it here, but you could do it. Do it. You could distinguish between substantial form and accidental form, right? Okay. Okay. I'll bring a text of Thomas where he does a little bit. Okay. Um.

[30:21] So, you know the rule, huh? Two or three, right? The rule of two or three. You know, Everybody's kind of fanatic about that. Okay. So,

[30:32] a logical distinction is usually. An understandable distinction is usually, not always, into two or three, right? Okay. So here we distinguish into two at first, right? Motion in the broad sense, right? Any kind of activity and form, right? Okay, that's distinction into two. And then motion or activity will be distinction into ultimately into three. Aristotle doesn't make it that explicitly here, but you can see him starting to make the distinctions.

[31:09] Okay, that'd be into three. And distinction of form will be into two. Substantial and accidental form, right? So you end up with what five meanings, right?

[31:26] But not by one distinction, because that's not allowed. Even mine would break down, right? Yeah. And when Aristotle starts to talk about the distinction here, the first distinction you make is between form and motion, or form and activity, right? Form and doing, or you'll call it, right? And then he'll start. You see, in the texts we have, and maybe this isn't complete even, but it's more complete than Thomas's.

[31:53] You start to see the distinction between an activity like motion, walking home, an activity like understanding what a square is, right? Okay, or loving your wife. Okay, two different kinds of activities here. Okay, but actually, the more complete there'll be three, and Aristotle knows that too. But it's not played out perfectly. But we'll bring the text of Thomas where that's perfect. Yeah. Okay. So that that will be divided into three, and then the other one will be divided into two if you wanted to.

[32:28] Again, Aristotle doesn't explicitly distinguish substantial form and accidental form here, because it's been done somewhat in books seven and eight, do you know? But I'll bring in all the texts of Thomas, where he's very explicit about the distinction. So beautiful, beautiful text of Thomas. I was using it there in the anima too. It's a beautiful text. So then you end up with five what distinct kinds of act, but you don't arrive at these five by one distinction because human mind can't do that.

[33:03] So these. Not understandable. So you answer my question about these are kinds, not just the word. Well, now, now, now, now. I made this point the other day. Remember, I said

[33:18] the distinction of a word into its meanings is one kind of distinction. Distinction of kinds of things is another, right? Okay. And I said they're not the same kind of distinction, right? And I took the example of the great Euclid distinguishing the kinds of quadrilateral, right? Or if you want to be less than that, you you can distinguish the kinds of parallelogram, right? In case you got four or five, right?

[33:47] I take the example because there you have a distinction of kinds, but these are not distinctions of senses of the word quadrilateral, are they? The distinction because the word quadrilateral means exactly the same thing when instead of all five of them, right? Okay. The same way if you divide, if you distinguish between equilateral and isosceles and scalene triangle, right? That's a distinction of different kinds of triangle, but not of different senses of the word triangle, because it says exactly the same, right?

[34:19] Or if you distinguish between odd number and even number, two kinds of number, right? Or prime number and composite number, or perfect number and imperfect number, right? But these are not distinctions of senses or meanings of the word what number, right? Okay. But now I gave you some examples where the these two kinds of distinctions are found with the same what members, right? And the first example I gave you is a distinction of the four kinds of causes, right?

[34:54] In the first book of nat of of wisdom here, Aristotle is going through the opinions of his predecessors about the cause. He says he's doing so for for two birds, right? One is to prepare the way for an examination of whether they've arrived at the goal of wisdom, right? And he can therefore just simply learn wisdom, right? Or not. The other is to see, to test in a sense the distinction of the four kinds of causes, to see if they've touched upon any kind of cause in addition to those four, right?

[35:26] And there the emphasis is upon these are the only kinds of causes there are in the real world, okay? And as I mentioned, you know Thomas and other people, me a little bit, but Thomas, you know, gives sometimes a reason why they're why they're the four kinds, right? Okay. But all on that the emphasis is upon what the distinction of these four is a distinction of the kinds of causes there are, right?

[35:57] In the real world, okay. Now you get later on to the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle is distinguishing the senses of the words used most of all in wisdom, and in the axioms, right? But to some extent everywhere because they're so general these words, huh? And his great discovery is that all of these words are equivocal by reason, right? Okay. And among these words is found the word cause, and he makes many he sees many distinctions, but the first distinctions he sees are matter, form, mover, and end.

[36:33] So they've come together, right? Okay. You still have two kinds of distinction, but what's distinguished corresponds, right? It's the same thing. Okay. That's very important to see because if you don't, you can say, "Well, I understand that you distinguish meanings of words; you didn't get to my thing, you know." Right? See. And and but Aristotle, you know, the only understand Aristotle. Aristotle sees right that at this level of universality, right, the two what correspond, right?

[37:08] Okay. Then you get the second example, taken a major example again. You distinguish between substance, especially, and quantity, and quality relation. The first four, right? The last six are not so important, but the first four: substance, quantity, quality, relation. These four are the four kinds of things. Now there are in the real world. Okay. They really are out there. Substances. You are looking at one right now.

[37:37] Okay. And and I really do have a size, right? But that's really a kind of thing out there. Size is a thing, so. But yet, my size is not what I am. And then there are qualities, right? You know, I'm a grandfather, right? You're partly responsible for me being a grandfather. And I'm a father. I'm a husband, and so on, right? A son, right? A brother, okay.

[38:08] So these are these are what? That's not what I am What am I? I'm a man. So these are different kinds of things in the real world, right? Some things are substances. Some are quantities. Some are qualities, and some are relations. Those are the basic kinds of things are in the world, right? But now they also correspond to what? A distinction of meanings of being, right? Or a distinction of meanings of things.

[38:43] According to the figures of predication, as he did, right? Okay. So the distinction of substance, quantity, quality, relation is both, right? In a way, a distinction of meanings of the word "thing," because these are not things equally, are they? Are in exactly the same way, huh? You and I are two things, but you and your shape, for example, are not two things in the same way that you and I are two things, are they?

[39:13] Are we? You see, so the word "thing" is not being said in exactly the same way of you and your shape, huh? You see. So this is a distinction of meanings of the word "thing," at the same time as it's a distinction of the kinds of things that really are in the world. It was Aristotle who saw that they they went together, that's absolutely remarkable that he saw that, right?

[39:40] But these dimwits or nitwits that see only a part of the truth, right? You know, and what did the great Empedocles says? You know, men see a part of the truth, and they boast of having seen the whole, right? You know. So they seen that Aristotle was distinguishing the senses of word. Maybe they seen that I don't know. Some of them seen that, and I seen it all.

[40:04] That's all we doing. That's all we doing. I seen everything now. No, no, no, no. They're they're, you know, But Empedocles says what they boast of having seen the whole, and shows you the influence of what, of pride, right? Aristotle talks about too, huh?

[40:26] You know, he talks about like when he's in the rhetoric there, and he's saying you know that some men think that rhetoric is political philosophy, political wisdom, right? Either because of lack of paideia, he says, or because of boastfulness, you know. Right? They want, you know, because I I can persuade the crowd or something, you know. Therefore, I'm politically wise, you know.

[40:53] Okay. Was oh, it's just interesting because it's in here about act. This is a distinction of different kinds of act. And we're going to meet now in a second. You know, we're more well, we've seen a little bit already, but we'll see it. You know, a distinction of of two kinds of act, and then one of these kinds of acts can be distinction of three kinds of acts, and so on.

[41:17] But it's both a distinction of especially the first one, distinction of motion and form, is both a distinction of kinds of act, right? And a distinction of senses of act or meanings of the word act. It's like being in cause. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, this running together, you see, takes place at the most universal aspects. See, now if you go down, say, like in the categories, when you go down, let's say from substance to say, let's say, body and spirit, or you know, especially get down to body, living body and non-living body, or animal and plant.

[42:00] Well, if you divide living body into animal and plant, that's not two meanings of living body, you know. You see, and if you divide animal into dog and cat, that's not two meanings of animal, right? So you start to go down, right, away from the more universal. Then a distinction of of things tends to be not a distinction of senses of a word, right? You get more universality as you go down, right?

[42:30] Say. And that's the reason why Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics says you should define the species before the genus. It sounds illogical, right? But if you try to define the very universal, you tend to to get into equivocations, and and it's the most common way we're deceived. So,

[42:50] when I define tragedy, I don't define tragedy. I define Shakespearean tragedy. You know, because that's I'm more sure that I'm dealing with one thing there. You know, to define. Then, if I try to define tragedy, it all across the spectrum there of everything anybody calls tragedy.

[43:11] You know. Did you say again? So, with the cause being an example, with the cause, how you show that the senses and acts are both of those four means. That was metaphor moving in. What? Yeah. Well, again, you need a a discourse, right? You need experience before you begin to realize these aren't really causes in exactly the same sense. And of course, you can see this even as a teacher.

[43:40] You know, where I will say, you know, what's the cause of the table? Well, you probably you probably want to say just the carpenter, right? You know, they want to say that the wood is the cause of the table, right? See, because because the maker, the carpenter, is so much more responsible in some way, it seems. It takes a while to see that the wood is used in that way.

[43:59] Yeah, yeah. But obviously, they're very different. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you say, you know, you know, the shape of the of the chair is the cause of the chair. What do you mean? Shape to make the chair? See, but just thinking of one sense of of cause, see. What do you mean, sitting is a cause of the chair? Can sit down until the chair was already made.

[44:26] How can something De Koninck would say you know? It's a very strange cause, sitting, huh? Because it doesn't exist until after the thing is is there. So how could what doesn't exist be a cause of what exists? You know. See, that's why it's it's at least known that the cause is is the last one.

[44:45] It's interesting that the English word for cause, ground, suggests you know, in some ways, matter is most known as cause. Something to be sent from Mother Earth is first thought about the cause. Shakespeare talks about Mother Earth, right? Common Mother, thou who is womb immeasurable, and infinite breast steams and feeds all. Mother Earth is the source of all things.

[45:15] But it's very close to that word for cause, ground. Mother Earth is like ground. But then you know it's very close to what material because you get the word materia, from mater, huh? Right? and that's the cause Aristotle begins with matter, huh? But shows you how superior the English language is, right? That word for cause suggests ground, Mother Earth, and matter is the first cause, huh? Mother Earth is is important too for what nature, right?

[45:47] Because the word nature really comes from birth and from the mother more than from the man, huh? It's the mother in his birth, huh? So Mother Earth, she's a very important girl, not not the way these crazy feminist thing, but in the you know in the idea of Mother Earth is confused the idea of matter, ground, nature, you see, and the rest of philosophy is just sorting out everything that's involved in Mother Earth.

[46:19] She's very close to the to ground, right? Which is the word for cause. The word materia, as you know in Latin, comes from mater, and then nature comes from the mother, right? So I mean, Mother Earth, she's Hesiod's Mother Earth. I mean, Hesiod is comes up in the fourth book on place to remember Hesiod is quoted there. Aristotle stops starts with Hesiod there, so we can start from Mother Earth and go a long way.

[46:52] Could you say that the difference between the the Greek and Latin words for for matter is that the Latin is rooted more in nature, whereas the Greeks are trying to connect it with artifacts, hule from wood, which is sculpted into statues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kind of just talk about that. The origin of Greek word hule, you know, which is some other language you're talking, yeah, yeah.

[47:14] So, cause of being an act, are there other words in which you, when you distinguish them, you say the distinction and see the distinction at the same time? Well, yeah, two kinds of distinction seem to come together with the same the same things are being distinguished, right? Okay, when you distinguish, let's put this way: If I'm asking your exam two and a half at the end of the school. Yeah.

[47:44] No, but suppose I ask you in an exam here, or I just ask you, period, the distinction of matter form mover and end, right? Is that a distinction of four meanings of the word cause, or is that a distinction of the kinds of causes that are in reality? They might seem to be alternatives, right?

[48:09] Well, if I ask you that question about quadrilateral, you'd say that's not a distinction of senses of the word quadrilateral of kinds of quadrilateral. But in this case, what would you say? Yes. You'd. Say both. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's kind of amazing thing, right? That those two kinds of distinctions should what come together in a way, right? But if you understand that the most universal, if you have some experience of the most universal, you kind of see why that takes place, right?

[48:42] The confusion that we're talking about before at the level of most universal. If that common thought that there is of these things was not so confused, you wouldn't have to. you wouldn't have a correspondence of two distinctions, would you? I guess that's nice, clear, like quadrilateral. I really see that clearly, right? That's a real clear idea in my head. you know, or triangle. I get really a clear idea there, right?

[49:06] Right. So it's. So not distinguishing different senses or triangle, when I distinguish kinds, but at the other end, up at the most universal, there you have these two kinds of distinction coming together. So it's because our mind starts out not knowing anything, so its first knowings are very indistinct and universal, and then later. Yeah, our mind. You might say, if our mind goes from the confused to distinct, which Aristotle shows, I think very well in the beginning of the Physics, then as you say, working your way back to the Big Bang, you expect the starting point to be what most confused, right?

[49:53] But you don't. You don't realize in the beginning that your starting point is confused. No, you don't. You don't. And then later, when you have more distinct knowledge, you reflect back on the definitions, for example, that we were doing with that. And one thing you know, as a professor, right, it's kind of fun to see, you know,

[50:12] when you make distinctions in class, right, that are hard to understand, and most distinctions are hard to understand. The students will invariably say that's confusing, which I say is like the sin against the Holy Spirit, right? Because the very way of getting out of confusion is a distinction, right? So you know, if distinction makes you confused, you're never going to get out of confusion, right? You know.

[50:38] And I say, this is not confusing. That means. You are confused. What you are recognizing when you can't understand the distinction is that, well, I am confused. Yes, I can't quite grasp this distinction. Right? Distinction is not confusing. Distinction is the