Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
19. Prior and Posterior: The Order of Thomas's Proofs, and Aristotle's Physics on Reason's Look Before and After
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/019-prior-and-posterior-the-order-of-thomass-proofs-and-aristotles/

[0:00] Matter in the Greek and the Latin, and why one might be better than the other. See, materia versus hule. Well, you know, my first impression would be like when I was doing the comparison of the two summas and the consideration of the five what attributes, right? I decided that I was not going to try to decide which was better, right? But I thought I had limited myself to not only see the differences between the two, but what you can see better in this order, what you can see better in that order, right?

[0:39] Without saying that one was simply better, right? Okay. And because the order is different, your middle terms can be different, huh? And and the thing that struck me as a natural philosopher when I teach, you know, natural philosophy and talk about talk about natural things in general, right? And I usually talk about it being useful for theology, you know, one of the things useful for. And I explain why it's more useful to to know the general for the via negativa than the particular.

[1:20] We've talked about that before. It's more useful to be able to negate the general than the particular. So you're closer to God when you say when you can show that God has no parts, and when you can show that God is not two atoms of hydrogen, one of oxygen. So, well, then when you get to the understanding of what changes in the first book of Natural Hearing, Aristotle shows in a very convincing way that what changes is always composed.

[1:52] Okay, so now you have firm in your mind what changes is composed. And then I tell the students now, in theology by other arguments, we show that God is not composed. Now, if you have these two thoughts in mind that everything that changes is composed and God is not composed, you've got what's called a syllogism in the second figure, right? And you can syllogize now that God what does not change, right?

[2:21] That to me I hope impresses, you know, one or two, okay? And it's a very clear example, you know, of this, huh? But in the Summa Theologiae, you show that God is simple before you show that he's what unchanging. So you can put those two together and syllogize that God is unchanging. But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you show that God is unchanging before you show that he's what simple.

[2:54] So you can't show that that's the thing I and it fits in very nicely, you know. In some way, that always impressed me with the Summa Theologiae. huh? Okay, but now is there something about the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Talking about motion first, huh? Well, because the arguments about motion are so strong and more fully developed there, you can see right away that God is unchanging, better and eternal.

[3:26] And then you can bring out as Summa Contra Gentiles does that God is pure act. There's a whole chapter devoted to that and so on. And it does not matter. Why in the Summa Theologiae where are you going to bring this out? See, it's kind of stuck in the first article, the simplicity of God, so they can use it there. You know, it's not as as as distinct.

[3:51] Now later on, you see other differences, and you see, let's say, that God in the Summa Theologiae you show that God is infinite before you show that He's one. Okay. Ah, well, now if God is infinite, could there be more than one God? No, you could you could syllogize from God being infinite to there being only one God. Because There can't be two infinities. There wouldn't be anything by which they would differ.

[4:20] Okay, but now in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you show that God is one. We can show he's infinite before we show that he's one. You can't reason that way then, can you? Right. Okay. But the thing that's striking here, and for especially for a Scotist is what the hell are you saying? God is infinite for because infinite refers to quantity, right? And of course, what you got to really see before you can understand infinity of God, that's got nothing to do with the quantitative infinity, huh?

[4:48] And so when Thomas begins in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the chapter on infinity of God, he has first of all to show in what way God is not infinite. See, and since he's shown before that God is not only simple and not doesn't have any parts, so He's not a infinite infinite in a continuous sense, he's also shown that God is only one, and therefore He's not infinite in the sense of discrete quantity either.

[5:17] You can't do that in Summa Theologiae because you don't even know He's one yet. You see, so he can completely get out of the student's mind that God is infinite in this quantitative sense, huh? You know how Aristotle, you know, always seems to use the word infinite for something imperfect, like in the third book and so on. But when he's reasoning against Parmenides and Melissus, and one guy says being is finite, and the guy says it's infinite, but Aristotle argues against it.

[5:46] But he says if it's finite or infinite, it's it's got quantity, and it's got quantity is not altogether one, right? So I mean Aristotle automatically, you know, you know, takes infinite that way. So you say, hey, there's a problem there, right? You know, if you're going to you Christians are going to use the word infinite, said of God, you know, or he's immense, immensus, immeasurable. You've got to be using the word infinite in a quite different way than we originally used it, huh?

[6:14] In quantitative terms, and so you can do a complete elimination of quantity, continuous and discrete because of the order in the summa. So you can do something in one order you can't do in the other, and vice versa. But I I would be presumptuous to say one is better than the other, and and and with my little big mind there to decide which was so, you know.

[6:44] So when you talk about hule and matter, right? Maybe my first inclination is to say, well, one might be better or have something that the other one doesn't have because the artificial, to some extent, is more known than the what actual, right? Huh? But getting the word matter from materia, excuse me, materia from mater, which even the cells will tell you that shows a connection between matter and nature better, huh?

[7:20] Of course, the first meaning of nature is matter, and then we apply it to form, although form is more is shown eventually to be more nature than matter. But you first see that matter is nature, huh? And and the word links the two together, huh? Because mater is both the source of the word nature in some sense of birth, and mater is also the source of the word materia, right?

[7:40] So you tie them together, and Mother Earth does it very well, right? So I see something in both, right? And I wouldn't want to simply say one is is better. Period, huh?

[7:56] Maybe I would, you know, later on, but at first my impression is to say what's good about each. Because you can't really say what's better if you don't see what's good about each. Warren Murray's to say, you know, somebody really likes some form of fiction or some kind of fiction. You can't see what he finds good in it, you know, before he you you put it in its place, huh?

[8:27] What's the benefit of hule? Well, one thing is that it has a very concrete origin from human art. I I don't know the exact of it, but wood construction. I remember De Koninck talking about that. You know, it's almost like we call lumber. You know, the first means wood, and it was extent, and it was extended to matter because as we would use it, yeah, because it's that you know it's so easy to see that wood is what we use to make.

[8:55] statues and use. Yeah, yeah. Of course, if you look at Aristotle when he begins to talk about matter there, in the chapter in Matter Form moving in, he's examples take from artificial things. And so I start stopping and say, why does he take examples from artificial things rather than from natural things? Well, they're more known to us. You know, this is the matter of that. So that's the excellence, the Greek word.

[9:23] But you can say that there is something in the Latin word that you see the connection between matter and mother, and therefore matter and nature, and that's that's important to say. So that's that's using both. C'est

[9:52] tout. A row of words have run out there. Are we going to get say more about the sense in which act is prior to to potency? Well, see the third part, which will come until the day after tomorrow. The third part of the book is the order of. antichrist, as we said before, you have to see a distinction. Before you can see the what, before and after,

[10:29] yeah. You have to see that this is not that before you can see that this is before that, if it is. That's the way in which that's the middle ground for in vino veritas. You use as an example what? You make distinctions before you can order. Yeah. So I was thinking, you know, you said you have crazy blood as wine, and there's the silly idea of just men spilling their guts when they have, and that's kind of in the middle or somewhere.

[11:05] You've seen Kierkegaard's Symposium? It's kind of you know a little inspiration from Plato there because symposium means they're drinking together, right? Okay. But you know he sets it up a little bit differently. The Kierkegaard's one, it's got the subtitle being a Veritas, right? But it's a number of men who are going to go out to a nice country inn to have dinner together, right? And they're all going to give a speech about what a woman is or about woman, but no one's going to be allowed to give a speech about woman until they feel the influence of the wine in their veins and so on.

[11:46] You heard this one. Now each of the guys got to see woman from a different point of view, huh? One man is is a married man, right? Another man's a young student who doesn't know too much. Another one is a tailor who rules the world to women's fashions and so on. Another man is a professional seducer, right? Makes a distinction between bait and the hook and so on.

[12:18] So each of them sees woman from a different point of view, huh? And what's his name, Niels Bohr, right? Used to get the physicists to read this because it gave him idea of complementarity, huh? And you know how you look upon your mother or your sister differently than your wife and all this sort of stuff. So, but it's very cleverly written, you know, very very delightful thing to read.

[12:43] I guess Kierkegaard they say, wrote at least well, it takes to get you interested in this more serious stuff, but but is kind of interesting. And the things that stick in my mind is, you know, the one guy is talking and he says he says men have become poets to woman. He says men have become saints to woman. He goes on like this, you know. But was never to the woman they got, so the woman they didn't get.

[13:10] You know, Dante never got Beatrice, right? You know, or what's his name, Ignatius? You know, was in love with a beautiful woman, you know, and she died, you know, and you know, you know, those days the bodies weren't preserved too well, and you know, the horrible corruption of this, you know, this is not to turn a man from the world. So he says. there's always a woman he didn't get, but there's something you know, you know, you know, delightful about that, and Kierkegaard's old, you know, and happy and well to his life, But, you know it's an understanding, of things You know like a woman, you know, and, and, but they all see her from a different point of view, but the seducer, you know,

[13:47] you know, the thing he wants to say is that, that, like all the other men, he realizes how delightful they are, right, huh? But on the other hand, he realizes it's bait, huh? It's designed to get you, you know, and so he makes a distinction, right? So it's very cleverly done. And then, of course, the tailor, you know, he realizes you know what she, Funsie has a poor woman, you know, through clothes and so on.

[14:11] You know, they're always buying new clothes and all sorts of stuff, trying to make the fashion. So, he has a lot to say about them, you know. And then the married man's a more sensible view about things, but the students all, you know, in the air, but no sense any of us all about. But it's kind of cleverly written, But in the subtas, in vina veritas, right?

[14:29] Because you're not allowed to speak about women until you know you have experienced the mind. So, kind of kind of, I guess it goes back to Plato though, in vina veritas, huh? I mean, does it have any you know meaning beyond that of speaking your mind because of the loosening of the tongue? Does it have any more profound thing without going all the way to your breast, you know?

[14:50] Well, you can distinguish the sensitivity of men's palates via wine. Yeah, yeah. Tells the truth about the man's tongue. See the famous saying of Samuel Johnson that a man who doesn't think about what he eats, you know, is not apt to think about anything else. Yeah, That's exactly. right Similarly, a man who, doesn't think about what he drinks, you know, is not apt to think about anything else.

[15:15] So the one who can most distinguish wines is well disposed to be a philosopher. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Body, yeah. That's like a mark above me then, I guess. Or in real, above me.

[15:29] Yeah, Or it's a sign anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a kind of you know, they do a TAC, don't they, like the senior year or something? There, they have kind of, you know. See, I my idea of education, and I said, you know, there's a room you're invited to, right, and and you have dinner there, right, and you have nice food, but you also have wine served to dinner, huh?

[15:56] And you see if these people acquire a taste for wine, and if they don't, you know, I mean, beer drinking or something, right, you know, they're they're excluded, right? But now these guys who who know how to eat and and and appreciate the wine but don't drink the wine to excess or you know other things like that would throw them out. Suddenly,

[16:19] some night, you know, after they've mastered this and they're gentlemen at the table and wine connoisseurs, suddenly, the door at the other end there is opened after tonight. And they proceed into the next room, and lo and behold, the music of Mozart is there, and some beautiful paintings and so on. And there's another door beyond that, but it's it's locked. And so they go through another testing thing and see whether they think that Mozart is above all the masters and all the arts, and all the ages.

[16:54] And, Titian, you know, is the greatest portrait painter, and so on, huh? And and you see whether the people really appreciate these things, you know, enjoy them, but really appreciate these things. If they don't, you know, kick them back to the first room, right? Lock the door. That's as far as they're going to get. Well, then, if if you find this guy really does appreciate Mozart, he really does appreciate Titian and so on.

[17:20] Well, finally, some night after so many weeks, I don't know, the door beyond that is open. You know, you go in there. The beautiful bound editions of Homer and Shakespeare and Sophocles. And there's another door beyond that that's locked, right? And we'll see what they do in this room here, you know. Say, how the hell is this stuff? Well, back back back to Mozart and back to dinner.

[17:47] But if if they succeed in in acquiring a you know ravenous appetite for Shakespeare and Homer and Sophocles, the three greatest, and they really appreciate these things and they prove by it, well, then find the door is open beyond that, right? And there, there's beautiful editions of Euclid. Okay, and you start up through philosophy, right? And eventually, you have another door leading into wisdom, you know, and then finally a door leading into theology and so on.

[18:24] So sometimes, you know, we used to have a class in one place. We went to a place where the students would get snacked, and there'd be some lousy music playing. and they'd say, I don't think you want to teach philosophy." about it, but." There's a whole series that you have to go through. But it's interesting because the beginnings there are in desire. Yeah, in vino veritas, yeah, that's where you begin.

[18:52] But if a man can't appreciate, you know, seems to me appreciating wine is closer to the your animal nature than appreciating Mozart, right? But seems to me when you start to appreciate wine, you're, you know, I mean, you know, in moderation, but I mean, you know, really liking the thing and judging it, paying them, that you're kind of starting a little bit on the contemplative life, aren't you?

[19:16] But still in the line of food, really, huh? And and then music is is is there's still some interesting things about music there in the politics that music is is really very natural, and it's more natural really than drama. And so music should come next, you know. It's very important education, and then you lead them into fiction. And Aristotle says, "Man is by nature the most imitative of the animals, " and at first we learn by imitation, and it's natural to you know enjoy imitations and so on.

[19:54] So that they should, you know, like those things it seems before they like Euclid or something, you know, more intellectual, and you gradually lead them up, you know. It seems like children get music from the beginning before they can have wine. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[20:17] But the nurture makes a difference. But still, I mean, there's a way in which you can say wine is is you could get some people to like wine. I think that wouldn't like good music. You know, some experience of that, huh? But you know, could you get a? I suppose you could get something like music or not wine, but it's not something you know a little bit disordered there.

[20:46] Well, I think the love of good music is quasi-natural, right? It takes something for corrupting their mind. Yeah, yeah, just like just like I think it's it's kind of natural to like candy before you like music, you know. I mean, you know, seriously, anyway. Nothing wrong if someone just like candy, right? Didn't Bayhery

[21:11] like candy? Well, sometimes when people get older, they get coarser. Well, my brother Richard was over in Italy there for a year, and Christmas time years, my they they sent us you know a box of these chocolates with the real, not just artificial you know imitation taste, but the real liquor is in them, right? That was really something. That box, huh? Couldn't you couldn't get them in the United States?

[21:39] But they'd send some guy in They got through the censors And so they were really delicious, and we're going slowly at them, and you know Grand Marnier and this one and brandy and that one, wonderful. My friend Jim Franzak was a great drinker there. He came over to the house, and I said, "Jim, I said these are real things. " Oh, two couple of them.

[22:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, we were all pretty impressed with these things, you know. So I think I'll save a cup and bring them over to my senior dean. Yeah. What? Someone told me, no, no, no, he won't appreciate candy of any kind. so Nothing heck with him. But you know, once again, you could hold a lot of scotch, you know, these things, you know. But I think if you're used to drinking, then your probably your desire for candy diminishes.

[22:38] At least hard liquor, yeah. And I know Warren Murray was saying, you know, when he when he goes off the bottle, he starts to get this craving for candy, you know. Have a sack of candy in his suitcase. So I mean, I'm just going to do on living the reverse, you know. I mean, he's off the bottle, so he doesn't need the candy. But

[23:04] I've managed to combine the two in my life, you know. and hold on to both. At the monastery, it was maybe Christmas. Someone gave us a box of nice candy, and it said on the box something like, "Our candies will bring you happiness." Yeah, yeah. So most of us were saying, "Oh, how silly of us!" Yeah. One of the monks was wanting, He said, "They make me happy."

[23:29] Yeah. See, what's planning? When are we supposed to go? Probably after the term prayers. After the yeah, okay, okay. We're going to one at five o'clock, and it'll be after the five o'clock one, or what? Yeah. So what time would that be then? Some safe ways to go where the sisters are. Then you all ten to six. Something like that. Okay. I mean, she wants to be here at a certain time, so I want to I don't want to not be here in the time I missed my my time.

[24:07] Yeah. I know. So I mean, so what they they want. Um, when you see how important what he does there is, and how universally important it is, that's what convinced me that Shakespeare hit the nail on the head with his definition of, of, uh, reason, huh? There are a lot of things I could see about it, you know, but kind of just to me, the thing is I said, what?

[24:30] This is perfect, this is perfect, looking before and after, right? And when you see that, that's what Aristotle does, right? Oh, right, the whole laying out. Yeah, yeah, they look before and after, but in many different senses we'll see it before and after. Then you see how that's really the key to getting to the first cause, you know? That's why, as I say, I like the Summa Contra Gentiles in the 16th chapter, that it makes this very, what, explicit that God is pure act, you know, the six arguments there in that 16th chapter.

[25:01] Because you, this is what you see here, right? It's much closer, you know, more explicitly close to this. That convinced me that Shakespeare hit the nail on the head.

[25:16] With what? The definition of reason. So that third sense of before, of the prologue to the rest of the work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is- is he giving the best example or the most known example of order in speech when he does that? Well, he's giving examples taken from, uh, the discourse of reason, right? But the broad, in the broad sense, huh? But so like in English, if we said forward, right?

[25:43] Use the word forward, right? Yeah. Forward comes before the rest of the book, right? Mm-hmm. Even the word itself kind of, uh, tells you that you've got a sense of before there, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think there are many different kinds of order in speech. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it's like- Yeah, but I mean, that- that- that's one central sense there, see. I mean, usually I call the third sense, see, if you look at the text of Aristotle, he just used the word order there, and some guys say, you know, my students really say, well, the third sense is order.

[26:12] I said, no, no, order means before and after, so every sense is one of order, right? But Aristotle doesn't name that- that third sense, but from the examples, it's clear that he's taking the before and after of the discourse of reason, okay? Whether it be in the sciences or be in, in speeches or whatever it may be, right? But to the sense of before and after the discourse of reason, you would attach any before and after in our knowing.

[26:41] But he takes the reason, right? Because, um, uh, reason intrinsically in its knowing has a before and after. The sensing don't. You can say sensing comes before memory, right? Memory comes before understanding. But sensing itself, is there a before and after in my seeing you? Not explicitly, right? See, although you could say sensing comes before memory, but memory is something different from sensing, right? So you can see a before and after in our knowing, but in my reasoning from one thing to another, right, or in my considering this thing before I consider that thing, you see very much a before and after in the activity of reason itself.

[27:18] So he takes that as kind of the, the most known, right? Um, uh, before and after in our knowing, huh? It's only the specific example given as the proem or premium or I don't know. Yeah, yeah, again, again. Introduction, basically. Well, yeah, but, but, but the word proemium there, it's got the idea before, right? Paving the way. Okay, so really any Yeah. Thomas Yeah. these divisions and then Yeah.

[27:47] you know, showing order. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so many different kinds of orders. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know how many hundreds or whatever. Yeah. There's a lot of them. But, but what's common, what's common to all the examples in that particular reading, I mean, in that particular chapter, is, um, uh, that it's in the discourse of reason in some way, huh? Because some of it is taken more from, um, just look at this imperfect English stuff here.

[28:13] Um, some are taken, uh, more from rhetoric, but others are taken more from, um, uh, science, right? Uh, geometry here. Um... This is here. In the third place, the term prior, isn't that awful, is used with reference to any order. That, that well said, you know, to any order. He says, as in the case of science and of oratory, right? So he takes those two. A science and of oratory.

[28:45] For in sciences which use demonstration, there is that which is prior and that which is posterior in order. In geometry, the elements are prior to their propositions, huh? In reading and writing, the letters of the alphabet are prior to the syllables. Likewise, in the case of speeches, the exordium, which by probably the Greek word is, you know, proemium, is prior in order to the narrative, huh? So he takes examples from geometry, you know, is a particular science mentioned there first, and then the grammar, right?

[29:19] So these are the, these are two liberal arts, as you perhaps know, right? So he's taking among the sciences, one from the quadrivium and one from the trivium, right? And these are more known. This stuff is trivial, right? We all know it. And then he takes, what, speeches, which was rhetoric dominates the ancient world, right? And you know, you know how even these great guys like, what's his name, Augustine and Jerome, you know, was...

[29:49] Are you a Christian or a Ciceronian? Was that what Jerome was asked? So stand up and tell them what they're going to tell. And, and Augustine bewailed a little bit his vanity there in pursuing rhetoric, didn't he? You see? I mean, rhetoric seemed to be the thing to go with, and you read the great dialogues of Plato, huh? And all the Sophists, they had certain differences, you know, one guy did this, one guy did that, but they all, to some extent, taught the art of rhetoric, huh?

[30:16] So this is very prominent, huh? This was the, the, Aristotle calls this what? Parafuas, huh? Rhetoric, parafuas of logic and of political studies. But it is extremely powerful in ancient times because if I could get up and persuade the jury, I'd go scot free, you know? And or I could sue and get your money, you know, because I can get them to be on my side, right?

[30:48] And I can go down to political assembly, you know, and get them to do what I want them to do. So rhetoric and geometry, and, uh, of course, rhetoric is also in the liberal arts, you know? So see that. Um,

[31:07] he's kind of contrasting there maybe the speeches with the more scientific arts, right? So it's very clear that there's a before and after in those things.

[31:20] If you- if- if you take, um, uh, Mark Antony's speech, right, you know, and see a certain order in the speech, huh, the way he moves the audience, huh? Yeah. So,

[31:37] you're struck by the order of these things, huh? You're struck by the order of geometry, aren't you? A lot of people say, that's the first example, of anything that that seemed to be orderly, right? Is that because the distinctions are so clear? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the order is very clear. Definitions before, you know, postulates, and then postulates and axioms before the theorems, and one theorem you got to see this before that, right?

[32:01] I mean, it's very clear, you know, that there's a before and after there, right? But it's all in our what? Knowing, huh? So geometry is the best example of that, huh? I remember my cousin Donald, who didn't have the advantage of Euclid, right? But he got into college and he took a logic course, and it was a good logic course, you know? And he got the three acts of reason and everything.

[32:27] And that's his first experience of order, he said. You know? I mean, it wasn't, but I mean, it was the first clear, you know? Well, of course, Euclid is even more appropriate, you know, to boys anyway, than logic, huh? Get the idea of, you know, this is a very orderly, rigorous thing, you know? You see?

[32:53] But then, you know, if you read a good, well-constructed speech, huh? Remember, remember his speech of Nixon there? What does he say? Uh... Understanding may not bring peace, he said, but misunderstanding could bring war. Kind of struck me that he said the opposites there, you know? But, uh...

[33:28] You know, when you see a speaker who is talking to a unfriendly audience, right? You see? And he wants to get across his message, but he's got to first what? Disarm them, yeah, and turn them around, right, huh? And, uh... What were the great Gorgias say, and Aristotle quotes him, you know, in the rhetoric? You should kill your opponent's seriousness with jesting, his jesting with seriousness. Yeah, that's an ancient trick.

[34:01] And the two examples I, I, I use are the one from, uh, Abraham Lincoln's speech. He's, he's in a debate with, uh, Douglas, and Douglas called, uh, him two-faced, you know? And, uh, Lincoln turned to the audience, he says, now I asked the audience, says, you know, if I had another face, would I wear this one?

[34:27] And the other example I took was the one, you know, with Reagan and Mondale Yeah, yeah, where Mondale was trying to make hay with uh, uh, the age, huh, that that that he was getting kind of, you know, over the hill, right? Uh, uh, and so, um, in one of the debates there, he said, uh, Regan said, I'm not going to make, you know, capital out of, uh, the age issue, he says, and take advantage of Mondale's youth and inexperience.

[34:59] Everybody laughed, and even Mondale had a laugh, and and and that finished it for Mondale. He could never come back and and challenge him, you know, in old age, you know, and of course, the very fact that you joke of his, you know, kind of excuses you from being old and, and out of it, you know, but that's just the way the joke was made, huh? So, so he killed Mondale's seriousness about that issue, uh, by his jesting, right?

[35:22] See? But I think what you see beautifully in his speeches where we have a antagonistic audience and you have to kind of turn them around. To some extent, Mark Anthony is talking to an audience that just heard Brutus, and they're all, you know, wonderful about Brutus, right? And they all agree with him, you know, and and they all think he's right, and that Caesar should have been, you know, and now he's he perhaps he's got to turn them around.

[35:45] So the order he does it is kind of marvelous in the speech. You're kind of struck by by the order of these things, huh? Um...

[35:58] If you ever heard Dirksen's speech there when he nominated Senator Taft, uh, that was a marvelous speech. Of course, he turns to Dewey, you know, remember it was you who led us down to defeat twice before, you know. Dewey's kind of smiling, you know, he's got his quote, you know.

[36:20] It ends up the speech, you know, I give you Mr. American, Mr. Integrity, Mr. Republican, my friend Bob Taft. The way he said it.

[36:35] Yeah. Aristotle actually gives the example there of what, of geometry and grammar. And you know how grammar, how I studied Greek grammar. This is very orderly, you know. I get the letters first, and you know, work your way up, and so you get a sense of order there. But it's an order in the discourse of reason. Well, you don't really have an order in my seeing you, or my tasting wine.

[37:07] There's no order there, is there? Notice what Shakespeare is saying on the definition when he says, "Reason is the ability for large discourse, looking before and after." He's saying that in the discourse of reason, reason is looking before and after. But that's also bringing out that a discourse of reason is necessary for it to see it before and after.

[38:00] See when when Shakespeare argues that man's chief good is more than the good of the beast, right? He's seeing it before and after, isn't he? Which is that man's chief good is better than the chief good of the beast. That's the fourth sentence of before, right? But he's seeing that by means of a discourse, right? If the chief good of man is no more than the chief good of the beast, then man is no more than a beast.

[38:33] But man is more than a beast, isn't he? Therefore, the chief good of man must be more than the chief good of the beast. So there's there's a discourse there, right? And even before that, in the discourse comes seeing that proportion, and then alternating the proportion, and then constructing the extended statement, and then syllogizing, and then ah, now I see that the chief good of man is before in the fourth sense of before the chief good.

[39:03] And then you know later on, I did that to the students earlier in the course. But then when you read the Apology, in the Apology, Socrates says that he's been examining the Athenians, especially as to which goods in human life are better. He's been examining them. Are the goods of the body and exterior goods really better than the goods of the soul? And that's why the Athenians live, right?

[39:26] But in order to show that the goods of the soul are better than the goods of the body, and the goods of the body better than the outside goods, you have to reason that, and reasoning is a discourse, right? Okay. And of course, what I do before that, I show them that the end is always better than what is for the end. Okay. Well, then I show them that the inside goods are better than the outside goods.

[39:49] By an induction, whereby I show that the outside goods are for the sake of the inside goods. So I say, is your feet for the sake of your shoes, or your shoes for the sake of your feet? You for the sake of your books, or your books for the sake of you? And you for the sake of your clothes, or your clothes for the sake of you?

[40:09] I said, if you're for the sake of your clothes, I said you'd be one of those mannequins down in the department store downtown. So if the outside is for the sake of the inside, and the end is always better, then we award, as they say, the bronze prize to the outside goods. They're less than the goods of the body, right? The goods of the soul. And then you start to reason about which are better: the goods of the body, the goods of the soul.

[40:38] And then we go back to the agitation there, and you say, well, which are more godlike: the goods of the body, the goods of the soul? Everybody admits that the goods of the soul are more godlike, right? God is better than us, so they must be better than the goods of the body, right? Which are more beastlike? Like goods of the body, right? So if the beast is less than us, right, then then the goods of the soul must be what the more more human goods, right?

[41:03] They must be better than the goods of the body. So by a discourse, that is to say, by reasoning, right, we come to see a before and after. The goods of the soul are better than the goods of the body, and the goods of the body are better than the outside goods. The inside goods are better than the outside goods, and then among inside goods, goods of the soul are better than goods of the body.

[41:23] Or we reason from the end of man, right? The end of man involves the use of reason, and the goods of the soul are the goods that involve the use of reason. So it must be there that better goods are. But notice what you're doing there, huh? You're following Shakespeare, right? Reason is the ability for a discourse, looking before and after. You're looking before and after when you make this reasoning, and you come to see the before and after among human goods through the discourse called reasoning, and this is the reasoning that we use.

[41:56] So Shakespeare teaches you how to get there. I remember St. Thomas when he's talking about what what we mean by original justice. He says that the highest powers of men were subordinated to God, and the lower powers were subordinated to higher powers, and the things outside were subordinated to to us, our bodies. And then with the loss of original justice, that order was reversed, and that through the three theological virtue, through the three theological virtues, the the order is regained.

[42:29] Okay, we flossy don't know anything about that though. To have a flossy class. And then St. Augustine, when when that order is restored, then there's the tranquility of order, which results in peace, the peace that Christ came to give us.

[42:47] Does this say we philosophers don't know about that? That's the principle I try to inculcate: that the distinction. You know, we talked about here about distinction and how how people get into trouble because they don't understand the distinction. But the distinction between the higher and the lower always belongs to the higher. Yeah, and the order between the higher and the lower always belongs to the higher. But I like to show that kind of inductively, and so I always begin with the distinction between the senses and reason, or the distinction between the imagination and reason.

[43:30] Whom does that belong? Well, the senses and imagination are incapable of seeing the distinction, right? So it's very clear that it belongs to reason to distinguish between the senses and reason, as Aristotle does in the Dialectic, and also between the imagination and reason. And therefore, since you got to see the distinction, for you can see the order, right? Therefore, the order of the senses or the imagination and reason that their order in some way to reason only reason can decide that, right?

[44:06] Then, in other ways, places you can go, but one place I go is to the practical and the theoretical, right? And you say, well, the practical. You can see what Plato is trying to do mainly is to distinguish political philosophy from political rhetoric. But does it belong to political rhetoric or political philosophy to distinguish between the two?

[44:37] If you've been through Plato's dialogues, you kind of see that it belongs to political philosopher. And then to decide what the order of the two should be, you know how political rhetoric is really a tool of the statesman, huh And because sometimes he uses persuasion, sometimes he uses force. So the military art and the rhetorical art, one the art of force, you know, the art of persuasion are both tools of political philosopher, but he has to distinguish his art from theirs, right?

[45:08] And he has to say what's the order? Well, these are the tools I use. Right? Some people I'm going to persuade. Terrorists I'm going to destroy. How they can persuade them? But you know, but okay. Then you go into the looking sciences, and you say the distinction between mathematical philosophy and natural philosophy belongs to which one?

[45:33] Natural. Yeah. Yeah. And and natural philosophy is also the criterion of the use of mathematics in studying natural things. So the order of the two. Then the distinction of wisdom from natural philosophy, as well as from mathematics, belongs to whom? To the wise man, huh? And then it belongs to him also to see that wisdom is metaphysica, the order of natural philosophy to this.

[46:01] But now, when you come to first wisdomness into first philosophy and revealed theology, to whom does belong to to distinguish between them? Well, revealed theology is sharing God's knowledge, and it belongs to it to distinguish between the two and show the order between them. So when when the modern philosophers were exposed to Christian theology in some way, but they rejected it, right? Could they any more distinguish between the two?

[46:35] Huh? They couldn't, and so you get this confusion, right? So what the heck is this philosopher Feuerbach talking about the Incarnation? You know, you can't distinguish, you know, where things belong. So you get chaos, but they're kind of up the creek now. You see, nothing can do because they can't make the distinction because they've rejected the very knowledge that make the distinction. And the other one I take is is

[47:08] knowledge in words and statements, and knowledge and mathematical symbols and equations. The distinction between the two, who should make it? Man who's here speaking well. Yeah, yeah. Because I say, can you write an equation that tells you what an equation is, or make a symbol that tells you what a symbol is? No, but you can in words talk about what the words are and what the statement is, and so on.

[47:39] So the one doesn't even know itself; it can't know itself. And it's kind of interesting, huh? That science doesn't even know itself or can't know itself, and so the distinction then belongs to the knowledge in words, in statements, which kind of shows that this is spiritual knowledge too, huh? Do they say? Do they usually say it was Saint Thomas that was the first one to really clearly distinguish between philosophy and theology, revealed truth and actually known truth?

[48:15] But but he does he does it in theology, so he didn't do it in philosophy. Does it ever belong to the the higher to distinguish the the two beneath it rather than one distinguishing one? But that seems like metaphysics more would distinguish mathematics, natural science, and wisdom. Yeah, we see. If you look at what Aristotle does in the second book of the Physics, natural hearing, he doesn't distinguish all three.

[48:46] He distinguishes just natural philosophy and mathematics, right? His natural philosophy would be wisdom. There was no other thing beyond it, so it distinguishes between itself and mathematics, but not between itself and what wisdom. Then you then you get to the sixth book of here, Aristotle distinguishes wisdom from natural philosophy and from mathematics as well as from the rest of it, and then you see how carefully Aristotle rates them.

[49:16] Now Thomas, in his own proemium, say to the Physics, he might distinguish all three, but then he's kind of standing back now as a wise man, I'm looking at the whole picture, but

[49:29] but Aristotle won't do that, right, in the Physics, huh? Or the other one, you know, that beautiful thing in Plato there, where he says, and that you know, he's excluding the poets from the city, right? But then in his second thought, there in his tenth book, he says he will allow the poets, huh? If they can defend themselves, but they must defend themselves by reason, not by poetry.

[50:01] And well, the poet's way of speaking for excellence is as a metaphor, but can you by metaphors say what a metaphor is? No, you want to see what a metaphor is, you have to speak non-metaphorically, and you know when when or even in general when you talk about figures of speech, which is appropriate for the poet to use, when Thomas explains what a figure, what is it is it to speak figuratively?

[50:33] What does that mean? And Thomas explains that it means that the meaning of the speaker is not the meaning of his words. Well, it's kind of strange, right?

[50:49] But the meaning of his words has some connection with his meaning, huh? And you know, Thomas, well, he's contrasting metaphor and irony in his commentary in Saint Paul's epistles because Saint Paul uses irony, right? And he says, well, in case of metaphor, the connection between what his words mean and what he means is one of what likeness, huh?

[51:23] So when I say you're a rat, I don't really think you're a rat, but just something like that, kind of disgusting, you know? So, and but the example I always gives the students, you know, if I come here on the weekend, I find you drunk under the table, and I say. What a fine example of an assumption, college student. You know what I mean? My my words don't say what I mean.

[51:48] I don't think he's a fine. But here, here the connection is one of of the opposites, huh? So irony is based upon opposites, and you can't by irony or metaphor explain what I've just done, right? I've spoken non metaphorically. I give examples, but say what I'm doing, right? You know, I'm saying when I say what a fine example of an assumption, college student, I'm not saying what I mean, say.

[52:16] But what I mean, you know, how you know it? Because the opposite way of saying. Of course, you know the more common is you know we say like, "gee, you're a nice guy," you know, but you just like mean to me. I see you're nice,

[52:32] and everybody knows he doesn't mean that, huh? I was watching a James Bond movie or something like that. and he knocks the guy over in the bathtub, right, and grabs the right arm and executes the guy. You know, I heard somebody say, "Nice guy, nice guy." The theater behind me, you know, but we always thought he's not a nice guy when he does that sort of stuff.

[52:50] But so so the the the poet can, you know. That's interesting about about Shakespeare though in in in Hamlet, huh? In Hamlet, he he both says metaphorically, and then non metaphorically, non figuratively, what a play is, huh? So he says a play is a mirror, right? Well, that's a metaphor. But to speak non metaphorically would be to see as a likeness or an imitation, as he says, also.

[53:26] And then he says he's talking about the actor there and a dream of passion, right, huh? You know all these tears and so on. He's got real reasons to be, and so so he speaks metaphorically as a dream, but then sometimes he speaks properly and says it's a work of the imagination, huh? So that Shakespeare does both, huh? Kind of strange guy that Shakespeare, you know. I was talking to somebody right there who was with me this morning about you know Shakespeare is so useful in philosophy.

[54:03] He's more useful than anybody else. I mean, among poets, right? Shakespeare's plays and his poems. Is that the purpose of Shakespeare's plays? You see, you know, some some might argue, now how can it be so useful? If that's not the purpose, right? And and my counter example was that of the wooden chair, right? Because I use the wooden chair to exemplify the four kinds of causes, and it's very I find very useful to do this.

[54:32] It's so useful that must have been the reason why they made chairs, right? Well, obviously this is not the case, huh? They made chairs for people to sit on, right? They didn't make chairs so that purpose could exemplify the four kinds of causes, did they? Yet, yet it's extremely useful for that purpose. And so, even Shakespeare's plays were not written for that purpose. You might expect them to be being what something closer to the mind, being a likeness, imitation, would be even more useful, right?

[55:06] But, but you know, so I won't claim that he wrote them for that purpose. He wrote them to make a living, as far as I know. You know, but but why should something he wrote to make a living have been to be so useful, right? Shakespeare's a strange guy, you know, strange guy. He's wiser than any of the moderns. But, was he married? Had a family, or is he just?

[55:32] No, he had to support the family. That's part of the problem. That's why he wrote so many plays so fast. Yeah, I mean, well, his immediate end is to entertain, right? You see, when Aristotle defines tragedy. What does he define it by? The good of reason, or the good of the imagination, or the good of the emotions? How does he define it? Yeah, he doesn't speak of a catharsis of reason, like like Socrates does, right?

[56:09] Socrates calls his method a catharsis of reason. No, he defines it by the catharsis of emotions. So he defines tragedy by the good of the emotions. So that's the primary end on the good of the emotions. And you could say the good of the imagination, it aims at more than the good of reason. But it also aims to entertain, doesn't it? That's two ends. Well, yeah, but that's the first thing.

[56:39] If you look at at the order of the play, right, which is the plot, right. You know, it's not like the order of syllogism, which is order to making known a statement. You see, the order of the plot there is to move the emotions in certain way.

[56:57] Well, it's it's a form of imitation. I know, but I mean but I mean even though Aristotle says that the play is a likeness, right? And therefore it has a reference to the mind, obviously, right? No, I just meant that man takes delight in imitation. Yeah, he does. He does. Yeah, and is sort of knowing that that's true, right? So you present an imitation to delight. Yeah, and Aristotle goes so far as to say that at first we learn by imitation, right?

[57:21] And say, okay, then he's making the likeness so we can learn. But if that's what he thinks, right? Then he should define, right? The tragedy is a likeness to make known some baba, you know. Shakespeare Othello is a likeness to make known the danger of jealousy or something, you know. But if that was so, then you'd have to define it by its end. You know, when Aristotle defines demonstration.

[57:51] it's defined as a syllogism, making us know the cause and that of which is the cause, cannot be otherwise. So it's defined by the good of reason, right? He doesn't define tragedy by the good of reason. He defines it by catharsis of pity and fear. I define. Isn't that like the species of the genus, though? What. In other words, comedy is a is an imitation that gives pleasure and and affects different emotions.

[58:19] Yeah, comedy is a catharsis of joy and of mirth and hope and and and and and purges what melancholy, right? So comedy is for the good of the emotions. Music's the good emotions, huh? Right, brother Mark and I. Brother Mark and I. Well, that's not... Music is similar, though. I mean, it's good. It has a moral effect, but it's not the only end of music, right? It needs to be beautiful.

[58:48] Yeah, but the good music is ordered primarily to the good of the emotions. Yeah. Sacred music, I mean, church music, not maybe secular music. Just like the language of Shakespeare is beautiful. Yeah. But but it's ordered towards the good. Yeah. Isn't it more ordered to the delight of hearing? Well, I would say that secondly, see, just like I say about fiction, I say the primary good, the fiction's aim primarily the good of the emotions.

[59:20] That's why it's defined by the good of the emotions, huh? But it aims at the good of the imagination more than the good of reason. The good of reason would be in third place, huh? Yeah, I wasn't talking about reason at all. And in the case of music, you'd say the the chief good, or the end of the music is is the good of the emotions, and then next the good of the ear, right?

[59:47] Least of all the good of reason. Why that order. Huh? Why not the other way. Why is your first emotions? Well, I mean, the fact that you hear the music, right, and through hearing it influences your emotions, doesn't mean that the hearing is the end. That makes more the the emotions, you know.

[1:00:10] Just like you know, somebody says you rat, he's getting at your emotions, isn't he? Through your ears. So, if we took another example, eating the primary end is health, and secondarily might be the pleasure or social company, something like that. It unites the people who eat together. Well, I mean, if you define eating right, you define it by the good of the body, right? Preserving the body and so on, right?

[1:00:39] So what you are saying is now, and I say it's true that eating lends itself very much to socializing, right? And in social events, a lot of times has some kind of to eat or drink around, right? You know, but still, but still, you wouldn't define eating by by by. No, you wouldn't. You'd say that's secondary, right? The one is is first, and the other follows. It's interesting when Shakespeare talks about the whole project of his life at the end of his last speech.

[1:01:11] He says, "But release me from my bands with the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours, my sails must fill, or else my project fails, which was to please. Yeah.

[1:01:26] To please your emotions, please your imagination. Not primarily trying to please your reason, huh? Oh, I see what you are saying. Yeah. But you said I mean, the pleasure you see the pleasure. When Aristotle talks about the pleasure in tragedy and how people shouldn't seek the pleasure of comedy and tragedy, right? But the pleasure there is one that's tied up with the emotions, primarily. It does also please the imagination.

[1:01:57] Pleasure and good aren't the same, though, right? You don't get John Stuart Mill. Pleasure and good are the same. I mean, it's the emotions and imagination, secondarily, maybe, or something. But is it the good of them or the pleasure of them?