Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
21. When Is a Thing Truly in Ability? Proximate Matter and 'One Step Away'
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/021-when-is-a-thing-truly-in-ability-proximate-matter-and-one/

[0:00] A little bit at the sixth reading here, and here Aristotle, as he says in the very first sentence, is going to try to determine when a thing is inability, and when not. These ought to be distinguished, yeah. Can I just ask one question before we go on? I think you said yesterday that I may be mistaken, but that Aristotle agrees with with Plato that the good is more universal than being.

[0:32] No, I didn't say that. I said that Dionysius speaks this way, and Thomas, to some extent, defends that way of speaking. And the way he defends it is by saying that, simply speaking, matter, say, ability of that sort, doesn't exist, because it doesn't actually exist, right? But ability is ordered to act, which is good, or ordered to form, which is good, and so good extends down to but matter, huh?

[1:06] Right. But the which the Platonists especially are inclined to say is not being, right? But Thomas sees Aristotle's distinctions there, but speaking that way of matter as as not being and as not being simply, right? And yet having this order to the good, and that makes it good. Then good seems to be more universal. But I'm not sure that Thomas wants to be too insistent upon that, huh?

[1:34] But he has great respect for Dionysius, and he tries to to make some sense out of what Dionysius is saying, huh? Okay. Because matter. I mean, you could say that. Nevertheless, matter does come under being in some way because it's being inability, right? So is good really more universal than than being? I don't think Thomas wants to maintain it too strictly, huh? But he wants to

[2:07] keep reverence for Dionysius, okay? If you knew if you knew he was not the disciple of Saint Paul, he might have had less reverence for him, but he still would have some reverence for him, huh? But but he speaks of his own what inferiority to Dionysius, huh? Even more than this inferiority to Aristotle. And is that what he's touching upon in 1806? I don't have that with me right now.

[2:38] But he doesn't. He talks about Dionysius. He'll bring that out because Dionysius will say that. Okay, let's look down to sixth sixth reading here.

[2:49] When is the thing inability, and when not? And that's what he's going to really be talking about in the first or the two parts of chapter seven, huh? And then in the second part, he's going to talk about. The denominative way of speaking of these things, which corresponds to what he says about when something really is an ability, and he's going to also, as a kind of footnote to that denominative way of speaking, where I say the table is not wood, but it's wooden.

[3:25] He's going to compare that with the denominative way of speaking with substance and accident, where you don't say that I am health, but I am healthy. You don't say I am color, but I am colored. You don't say I am

[3:44] music, but I am a musician. Okay, use a denominative thing, and why you use that with matter and accidents, kind of tells you something. Okay, but that's kind of a a thing in the way we speak that follows upon and corresponds the way to what he's going to say in the first part of the chapter or the or the reading about when something really is in ability to something.

[4:16] So he he raises the question first, and he and he indicates he doesn't think it's just any time that's an ability. Huh? For example, take in the old physical science, is Earth in ability man?

[4:39] Or does Earth have to become something else, which can be is able to become man? Say, well, he's hinting that that's that's that's so. Or is it more when the Earth has become a what seed? Huh?

[5:00] And maybe not even then. Okay. And you could say for Aristotle, and Thomas following him, that as you go from the seed to a man, there's a number of what generations. And so, in the last generation, that you have after the last generation, that you have something that is really able to what become a man and to receive the human soul. Okay.

[5:30] So now he takes the example there from the medical art, and Thomas explains what Aristotle is kind of using in a somewhat loose way the healing of the body by chance. Why does why does he use the word chance there? Outside the intention of the art. Yeah, yeah, but that's kind of kind of a loose use of the word chance because. Nature doesn't act by chance for health, but to the man who doesn't know the ways of nature and is using the medical art, and you're healed without the medical art, it's all you're healed by chance.

[6:18] It's kind of interesting because Aristotle, in in the second book of Natural hearing, he defends chance against the thinkers before him, and not against the thinkers who

[6:33] try to explain the universe, you know, by too much chance. But there are those who said the chance is just a name for ignorance, and now he seems to use chance here a little bit as as a name for what reflect our ignorance there, huh? Okay.

[6:52] But now, if in order to be healed, nature has to do many things. When are you able to be healed by nature? When are you able to be healed, for that matter, by by art?

[7:09] Well, when there's nothing more that has to be changed, right, or transformed, or altered before you can what heal the man. So as Thomas says, I think, I think more clearly in the commentary there,

[7:27] when you're only one step away, right, then you're strictly speaking able, right, to be healed, okay. This is the general principle he's saying here.

[7:42] Horas det tu men apud dianoiassa, entrikeia gignomena actu dumeantas, hotan bullis entas. When when wishes comes about, nothing outside preventing, huh? Or in the case, I suppose, of the nature in the thing being healed, when nothing within, right? Because you talk about nature as a cause within, are preventing this, huh?

[8:18] But Aristotle, I think, could have said a little more clearly. Thomas says there, he's saying when nature has done everything right, it has to be done before you can make the man healthy, right? And now it's immediate, right? Next step, then it's really inability. And the same way with art, I got to do this to you, and then that, and then that, and then I can make you healthy, right?

[8:47] Well, you're not able to be healthy by my art until these other things have been done. Then you're able to be healthy. huh? So Aristotle's saying that's the strict sense of being able, huh? Right. And to me, it seems like that in in in geometry. When am I able to learn a particular theorem of geometry? When am I able to to learn how to find the side of a square?

[9:18] equal to an oblong by recent delight. Well, if you recall that theorem, you have to know Proposition five in Book two, and you have to know the what Pythagorean theorem, right? See, so before you know those theorems that are used to prove it, right? You're not really able to know that theorem. You know how Euclid builds up, right? You might use A to prove B, and B to prove C, and C to prove D.

[9:56] Now, when are you able to know D? Strictly speaking, when you know C, then you're able to know D. When you just know A, you're not yet because you've got to first prove B, and even then you're not yet, right? Like he says, maybe the seed isn't yet man, right? You have to prove C, right? And now you're just what one step away, right? And now you're able to know D.

[10:24] Do you see the idea? That's the point he's making here. And then he takes the next example with the house. We have to do many things to the material, huh? So, are the trees out there and their house an ability? No, you got to chop down the tree, and you got to have the many these kind of boards and so on, right? And the clay has got to be made into bricks and so on, right?

[10:48] You see, so there are many things that have to be changed or transformed or done before you can really what make a house, huh? And only when the matter is one step away from the form of house is the matter able to be a what house? House, yeah. Is is this why St Thomas says that the the proportionate matter for the human soul is not the the early stages of?

[11:20] Yeah, yeah. Following Aristotle, right? He's saying that that in a way first you have something like a plant soul, right? But it's not a plant soul in the sense of a primitive one; it's something on the way. But then that has to be one replaced by the animal one, and then finally get the body. So it's only one step away from receiving the human soul, and then it's really capable of this, huh?

[11:50] Okay, I think it's even more clear that the idea he was saying there with the example I give from geometry, huh? Or again, the same example from from the the house that he has here, huh? There's nothing that what ought to be progenitive has to come about beforehand, right? Or to be taken away or to be changed, right? Then it's inability, a house.

[12:16] And likewise, he says, in all things, where the beginning of the generation is outside. I suppose all the things of art, because he talked about the medical art before, and and nature there. So the immature thing, it could be the thing, but imperfectly the thing. Say a child,

[12:38] it's it's already got the thing; it doesn't just have. Well, like, like suppose you have a newborn baby girl, huh? Is she able to be a mother? What would you say according to this text?

[12:50] No, because she has to be changed herself, right? Before she's proximate to being a mother, right? But once once those changes take place, and she's only one step away, right, from being a mother, then she's able to be a mother, right? Now she's able to be a mother. He's saying to be true of the little boy or something, right? He's not able to be a father, right?

[13:16] According to this. Now, I mean, you say, can't you use some loose sense that a boy is able to be a father? Yeah, but not in the strictest or full sense. It's only when you're one step away, huh? And that corresponds to normal. Am I able to know that theorem without doing the theorems immediately preceding it? Right, that I used in in it. But

[13:46] when I don't know, you know, five in the Pythagorean theorem yet, can I know that 14 theorem in book two yet? Say. I mean, it seems that no one is able to be wise. Just one step away from being wise. Right, I see, and I'd have to, I'd have to go through these other proofs before I could be ready to prove this, right? You see, I remember the math professor, you know, sitting at the the faculty, you know, one of the dining rooms there, doing some kind of fitting, you know, and some stupid English professor asking, you know, what's that?

[14:17] You know, so he starts to explain this, and he has to explain something before, and it's something from that, something from that. In fact, he says, "Are you sorry you asked? " They just think that's completely lost, anyway.

[14:29] But I mean. So you're using as an example one particular theorem. How about you know to be wise, or you know, you're able to. If I don't, if I don't know natural philosophy, I'm not able to know Metaphysics Right. So, so strictly speaking, I'm I'm not sure it would be wise. Precisely, precisely, precisely. Or even happy, probably. Well, that's a further thing, yes. Yeah.

[15:04] Yeah. You're going to have to get that 14th theorem there in Book Two of Euclid down before you're going to be happy. Maybe not even then yet, huh? As Aristotle says. But in comparison to other things, you say, "Is a man able to be wise compared to an ape? " Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But but it would be certainly you know a loose sense of the word, huh?

[15:31] Yeah, he's able because he's able to change so that he's able. Yeah, yeah. So what if you said, "Is he able to become wise? " Yeah. Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't deny that in some loose sense, huh? You might say this, huh?

[15:55] But you know, strictly speaking, no, huh? See, you know how in colleges sometimes they have prerequisites, huh? You see, and so when I was in high school, there was a separate course. One was plane geometry, and you took that before you took the solid geometry, right? So here, here, this this student is registering, trying to register for solid geometry, and he hasn't had the plane geometry yet, right?

[16:21] Okay, and I would probably say to him, you know, you're not able to learn solid geometry before you know plane geometry. See, and I'm using a strict sense here,

[16:34] okay? So we usually speak loosely, is what you're saying. Well, we often do speak loosely. That's true. I mean, usually for the most part, our speech is loose then. I mean, usually we say, "He's able, " you know, "man's able to be happy and able to be wise. " We say that more often than, "No, I'm not even wise. " No, I'm not able to be happy.

[16:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But strictly speaking, huh? You're not able to be wise until you have the other things, huh? I see that. Yeah. What you're saying is we're speaking loosely for the most part. Well, when we speak about a boy can't be a father, we speak that way too. Yeah. We speak strongly, strictly speaking, sometimes too. Yeah. Because saying you know when they make a prerequisite, right?

[17:16] We you got to know this before you can know that, huh? Yeah. You can't know that without knowing that, right? Okay, so if you can't know that without knowing this, you're not yet able to know that. Can't know that unless you know this, but you don't know that, therefore you're not able to know that. In particular, we speak in the most loose sense.

[17:39] Yeah, but we we sometimes we speak like Aristotle, right? We don't we don't, but there is that loose sense which I'm not denying entirely. But this is he's talking about in the strict sense when you're capable of something, huh?

[17:59] That's when you're one step away. So are you ever one step away from wisdom? Be presumptuous to say, but no, there's many, there's many things in, in wisdom, right, huh? You see, so someone says, you know, what's wisdom aiming at? Say, well, it's aiming at knowing the first causes, huh? Okay, but are you able to know the first causes before you know act and ability? Say, okay, are you able to know the first causes before you know the kinds of causes there are?

[18:33] Right, so there are many things, you know, in wisdom, just like there are many things in geometry, and some things have to be known before other things, right? But it's only when you're ready and have everything you know, you need to know to know something that you're able to know it. Say, and so the next theorem in Euclid, if you if you've learned all the theorems before and not forgotten some of them, you know, you know the axioms and all that that stuff, then you know everything you need to know to be able to know the next theorem.

[19:10] You know, next theorem yet? No, but now you're able to know it, right? Okay, can see that? So if the guy wants to know Pythagorean theorem, he might say, I don't know, I haven't checked it out that equity, but you may have to know 46 theorems before you're able to know that. You see, most of them anyway, huh? You see, so this gives some insight into why you've been putting these things in

[19:37] the order you did. Is that word? You had you were saying that. No, I'm I'm saying that the Pythagorean theorem, you're not able to know it until you know a lot of other things. See, and what's kind of amazing about Euclid, even simple things like you know finding the side of a square, Euclid don't give an outline. It's kind of amazing how you can see you're able to know to know these things once you know some other things, right?

[20:00] But you have to know all those things you need to know before you can actually know that, huh? Okay, and it would seem to the average person, you know, maybe how could you ever know that?

[20:16] And it's not until you know a lot of other things that you're able to know that. So natural philosophy and mathematics would have this in common that you need to know a number of other things to know something else. Well, every reason out knowledge, right? You see. I mean, yeah. I mean, can you know? You know, somebody says, well, Aristotle's book called the Categories, and the Categories are about, let's say, genera; they're not species, right?

[20:40] Okay. Now you got to know a lot of things to know what they're genera, not species. But among them, you got to know what a genus is, what a species is. You got to know what what Porphyry teaches us, right? Incidentally, Porphyry is not saying anything that's not in Aristotle. The definitions of genus and so on, things he says about difference, they're all there in Aristotle. But he kind of brings them together in a nice way for us, huh?

[21:04] So he's done a lot for us. But he's talking about things. To a friend who's trying to understand the categories, and he says in the premium to the Isagoge that it's necessary to know what you know, genus, species, genus, different species, proprium accident are, you know, for the categories, and it's also useful for definition and division and so on, right? So until you really know that the teaching of the Porphyry there, you're not really able to learn the what categories, huh?

[21:41] Okay, but there's other things I don't know I think you know to know the categories too, besides what Porphyry says, but okay. Can you have wisdom imperfectly say at the end of the physics where you know there's no move movers, you know, something about the first cause? Well, I suppose you could. Yeah, you see, you know, there's a distinction we're going to be talking about. Here again, and it's a kind of distinction that's very common in philosophy, and it's a distinction between what is so simply and what is not so simply, but in somewhat imperfect way, yeah.

[22:17] And it's a kind of distinction that there is a common kind of mistake corresponding to. That's the second kind of mistake outside of words. The first kind of mistake outside of words that Aristotle talks about is the mistake from the accidental.

[22:40] Okay. You know, if you know there's a knock at the door over there, and I say to you, "Do you know who's there?" And you say, "No." Then we open the door, and it's your mother. I say, don't you even know your mother, you poor guy.

[23:02] That's an example of the fallacy of the accidental, huh? Now the second fallacy is the fallacy of mixing that comes from mixing up what is so simply in some way, huh? And so I always pick on a young lady in the class, and I say, "Do you know my brother Mark?" And she says, "No." I said, "Now everybody listen. You're going to contradict yourself." I said, "Do you know what a man is?

[23:27] Do you know what a brother is?" And she says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's where brother Mark is. So you do know him, right? See? Well, this is the second kind of mistake, huh? The mistake from mixing up what is so simply with in some imperfect way, huh? Because in some way, in knowing in knowing what a man is, what a brother is, in some way she knows every man and brother in the world, but not simply, huh?

[23:54] Now in the great dialogue, Meno, when Socrates has shown Mino doesn't know what what virtue is, and Socrates says, "I don't know either. Let's put our heads together and find out what it is." And Meno says, "Well, how can you go looking for what you don't know? See? And

[24:19] this is based upon the mistake of mixing up what is so simply and what is not so simply, because how you have to know in some way what you don't know in order to go looking for it, huh? But if you knew it simply without qualification, there'd be no need to go looking for it, huh? Some days I put it in kind of a concrete way for the student.

[24:42] There, I say, the student asks a question. Does he know what he's looking for? He knows what he's looking for. He doesn't need to ask the question, right? He doesn't know what he's looking for. How can I help him? You know, he doesn't know what he's looking for himself, huh? Well then, you see Socrates trying to reply to Meno says I've heard you know that you know the soul preexisted and maybe picked up knowledge before it was in the body and maybe we can recall these things and that's the way we can get them and Meno says well that's interesting but any evidence for this and so it takes it takes a slave boy of Meno and Meno testifies the slave boy has never studied

[25:26] geometry but Socrates in asking him questions out of the answers of slave boy comes the way to double a square and Socrates says well he he now came out of what he said not what I said so he must have known this already he must have picked up this knowledge before he was in the thing well Socrates making the same kind of mistake that that that Meno made it's not exactly in the same matter but he's saying that because the way to double a square comes out of what the slave boy knows then the slave boy must have already known it huh you know yourself in geometry coming to a new theorem do you know it well you can come to know it by putting

[26:08] together what you know already so you have the ability to know it but is that to actually know it so Socrates is saying the slave boy actually knew it he just recalling it and in fact was simply but able to know it huh so he's making the same kind of mistake you know now you wonder whether Plato knows what he's doing I assume he does somewhat know what he's doing huh but he gives Meno exemplifies Meno making the mistake of from mixing up what is so simply and what is not so simply and then Socrates trying to apply to this and making the same kind of mistake and this is as I tell the students it's it's you know you're making this mistake every day

[26:52] of your life huh because you're you're doing something bad because it's good in some way or you're not doing something good like because it's bad in some way right so you're making that mistake all the time in your daily life

[27:08] and so that mistake of Socrates in that dialogue there corresponds to not distinguishing act and ability well that's because to be an act is to be simply right see so you know sometimes when you're explaining this in class you know you say to the student now if you leave this room you will cease to be and that sounds like a threat huh and he brings me to to court and and the professor says all I meant was that if he left the room he'd cease to be in the room well nobody would understand that by your saying that see so you see the distinction there between to be simply and to be only in some way huh When you came into this room today, did

[28:01] you come to be? No, you came to be in this room. You didn't come to be. So t here is distinction there between being simply right and being in some way like in this room. I know what you're going to say next. Right. Words.

[28:20] No, you could apply it. You could apply it like Aristotle is going to be showing here. I like this here. When you distinguish being into substance and accident, substance is being simply, and accident is being only in some respect, huh? And when you distinguish being into act and ability, act is being simply, and ability is only being in some respect, huh? So that kind of distinction is a kind of distinction that is being seen in the distinction, the two main distinctions of being, huh?

[28:57] As a kind of distinction that's going to come up in the next reading, which we'll be doing this afternoon, in the seventh reading, right? And it's the key to one of the key distinctions in arriving at the first cause. huh Are we going to do seven? Yeah, we'll, we'll do seven this afternoon because we've got to get something out of this guy, he's got to go away tomorrow.

[29:23] So I am generously and and enthusiastically. Well, but you know, t here is an exception to to every rule, right? We used the lunch as the break between the second and the third part, huh? Okay. After I mean, you know, continuous is infinitely divisible, right?

[29:47] Yeah. It's always disturbing me. Yeah. yeah But we'll see, you know, in the seventh reading that the those who think that the first cause is matter, and most people think the first cause is matter, they are mistaken. But what kind of mistake are they making? Well, the kind of mistake they're making is a mistake of simply and not simply from mixing up the two. As I said here many times, the every mistake seems to come at least in part from not seeing a distinction or from misunderstanding a distinction.

[30:29] We were talking the other day about a very difficult distinction there between nature and reason and will, right? And how the moderns misunderstand that distinction, and they completely cut off the two one from the other, right? Okay, they don't see that distinction is like that between man and animal, huh? Or between two and three. It's not as if one doesn't somewhat contain what the other has, right?

[30:54] But it's not just that, but something more. So that's a subtle thing to see, but. That's a distinction that's that's absolutely essential to understanding that. But this other thing, there are certain kinds of distinctions that are so common that they're found in every part of philosophy. And the distinction of simply and not simply is a distinction found in every part of philosophy. And also, it corresponds to a kind of mistake studied in the Sophistical Refutations.

[31:29] But the kind of mistakes that are studied there are ones that can be made anywhere. Same as some kinds of mistakes that you might make that are only in this one science. But there are certain common kinds of mistakes, like the mistake from mixing up the senses of a word, mistake from mixing up the as such with the accidental, which we were talking about the other day there, because

[31:54] when I was criticizing my friend there, Karl Marx, right? Marx is saying that making is a perfecting of the maker, right? And that's how man is going to get his ultimate perfection. But he's in a sense making the mistake of the accidental, which, as Aristotle says, deceives even the wise. Even even the great Plato himself was deceived by this kind of mistake. And it's accidental, you see, that the maker is perfected by his making it.

[32:30] And so he's trying to make the accidental as such. Caphalto, that's a terrible mistake. Plato, you know, if you go back to the first book of Natural Hearing, when Aristotle's attacking Plato there at the end for mixing up matter and lack of form, he's making the mistake of the accidental. So even as great a mind as Plato is deceived by this kind of mistake. And you find many examples in modern philosophers all over the place, you know, besides Marx, huh?

[33:12] But next to the the fallacy of the accident is the mistake from mixing up what is so simply with what is not so simply, and that mistake is being made all the time. But you got me off there a little bit. You asked about wisdom, right? You got to be careful about that distinction. Distinction, because if you talk about the wisdom of man and the wisdom of God, right?

[33:37] There's a distinction between the two, and one kind of distinction there's between the two is that God is wise simply, man is not wise simply, but only in some way, right? And that's most easily seen from the six attribute. I mean, the first of the six attributes of the wise man, right? The first attribute of the wise man is he knows all. The first attribute of the wise man is he knows all things.

[34:06] Aristotle says, well, he can't know all things in particular, which would be to know them simply, right? But in some way he knows all things because he knows universals, which are said of all things. But that's to know all things, like this girl knowing my brother, huh? You see, that's not to know my brother simply, huh? And so, if to be wise is to know all things, then only God is wise simply, and man is only wise in some qualified way, right?

[34:37] Okay. But if you're talking just within the sphere of human knowledge, right? Huh? And you compare first philosophy here with, let's say, natural philosophy. Well, natural philosophy is a wisdom about natural things. It's not wisdom simply, right? Political philosophy is wisdom about human things. So I'm qualifying it, right? First philosophy is wisdom simply and without qualification. But there you're just speaking within the genus of what human knowledge, right?

[35:17] Huh? You see, because first philosophy here is wisdom about all things, right? Natural philosophy is wisdom in a qualified sense. It's just about natural things. Political philosophy is wisdom about political things. So if you call them wisdom, they're wisdom. say couldn't have quibbled. This is wisdom simply, huh?

[35:48] But see, there you're comparing those two, and you're making a distinction within the genus of what human knowledge, right? Huh? Of all the episteme, of all the forms of reason out, understanding reason out, knowledge. This is wisdom simply. The rest are wisdom only in a qualified sense. Okay. But if you're comparing this with God's wisdom, then that's wisdom simply, and this is only wisdom in some very qualified way, huh?

[36:19] Okay. That's the way Socrates speaks too, right? Huh? I mean, how can I be the wisest man in Greece? I don't know very much, right? But compared to other men, I do. I don't know, and so on, right? So he seemed to be. Wise in some qualified sense, but certainly not in the way God is wise, right? So, you know, that's kind of subtle the way it's going there, right?

[36:44] So you can see that this this is wisdom simply, if you're comparing it with what all other kinds of philosophy, right? But if you compare this wisdom here with God's wisdom, that's wisdom simply, and this is wisdom in some way. Do you see that? You can see that you have to be very careful with those things, huh? So the angel's sort of in between because we don't know the particulars, but he knows them as they come into existence, whereas God knows them even before.

[37:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, that's things that were obvious here to compare our wisdom with God's, right? You know, and it's very clear when Aristotle talks about the wise man knowing all things that he doesn't know all things simply without qualification, but only in some way, in some qualified way, because he knows what is said of all things, because he knows in some way the first causes of all things, right?

[37:43] He doesn't know them simply without qualification like God does. But if you compare this with the other parts of philosophy, this is wisdom simply without qualification, and they are only wisdom in a qualified way, not wisdom simply. Okay.